Sometimes I dream of towns where cars (+ noisy scooters and moto) would be banned 🍵
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
13 points (100.0% liked)
Fuck Cars
9655 readers
27 users here now
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
-
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
-
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
-
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
-
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
-
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
-
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
-
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Try walking on calm streets when no cars are around, it feels very liberating.
Or maybe don't if you live in the USA.
Modern cities don’t suck. Many pieces of architecture is a new miracle of engeneering, almost every street is a masterpiece of planning and organisation, …
Furthermore studies claim that people in cities are much happier than on the country side. So maybe a bit complaining about car noise is not that mentionable.
Nobody is criticizing architecture of buildings, but there is no way "every street is a masterpiece of planning". The only reason it could ever be considered as good is because they managed to direct traffic at all with how many cars there are. They wouldn't have to spend so much money and expert civil engineering of roads if there weren't so many cars to deal with in the first place. Being so good at managing car traffic is not actually a positive. It's just a less worse negative.
People in cities aren't going to be happy because of cars and road traffic management. If this claim is true at all it would be because people like being near people. There are social things to do where people gather. Personally, I am much happier on the outskirts of a city to get farther away from the chaos, but close enough to go there if I want.
Ideally there would be no cars in a city other than emergency vehicles and anyone going to a city with a car has to park outside of it and then take public transport inside of it.
Nobody is criticizing architecture of buildings, but there is no way "every street is a masterpiece of planning". The only reason it could ever be considered as good is because they managed to direct traffic at all with how many cars there are.
Roads must be heavily engineered, to carry heavy loads. They are true wonders of what engineering can do. And we cannot do without these roads. They are needed for the military, Police, Ambulance, Firefighters, Trucks transporting goods, and public transport in many other forms. Bike lanes are part of them as well.
They wouldn't have to spend so much money and expert civil engineering of roads if there weren't so many cars to deal with in the first place. Being so good at managing car traffic is not actually a positive. It's just a less worse negative.
Car infrastructure is still easier to maintain than rail. This is due to infrastructure costs. Road costs less than rail (rail also need additional infrastructure such as extremely expensive subway stations and tunnels. Quite unexpected to most people, this rail infrastructure is much harder to maintain. Water pumps for subway systems, air systems included, structural inspections, and rail above ground needs repeated checking as well. Especially high speed train rails are sensitive to temperatures. In the summer they can get too hot to maintain high speeds. They need to be replaced much more frequent than asphalt streets,… There are good reasons, why car infrastructure is preferred by city planners. The versatility is unmatched.
People in cities aren't going to be happy because of cars and road traffic management. If this claim is true at all it would be because people like being near people. There are social things to do where people gather. Personally, I am much happier on the outskirts of a city to get farther away from the chaos, but close enough to go there if I want.
people are happier in cities at least that’s what studies claim. I myself also prefer the countryside.
Ideally there would be no cars in a city other than emergency vehicles and anyone going to a city with a car has to park outside of it and then take public transport inside of it.
No. Individual transport cannot be given up. It is the latest step in mobility development. And the only way is the way forward. Backwards thinking is for the naive idealists.
The future are electric vehicles that can drive autonomously. All cars would be parked on big, strategically well placed, huge parking houses. Whenever someone needs a car, the car drives to the person that requested it and brings the person to its destination. That is the future we are eventually heading towards to. And nothing will stop it. Billions were already invested into this goal, Mercedes and Tesla leading the way in autonomous driving.
Those investments I’ve already paved the way and there is nothing we could even do to stop it.
All necessary vehicles can be accommodated in pedestrianised areas when needed, as they already are in many places around the world.
Car infrastructure comes with many extra external costs, such as increased heathcare costs due to pollution, increased travel due to the extra space needed between everything, etc
Individual transport is great when it respects the world around it. A bike doesn't need so many resources, nor does it take up so much space or cause harm to those around it.
Autonomous electric vehicles don't go far enough with fixing the existing problems. Sharing helps but you still don't need to take all that mass along with you on your commute, and there isn't space to have everyone else in a city doing the same every morning.
You see, progress comes with cost. But car infrastructure is so popular, because it is relatively cheap. It’s an economic problem, that has proven that the current situation is the most effective we currently have.
And in the end, some people want to drive cars in cities. Even people that live in cities want to do so.
So as the systems continues to work as it does, one has to expect, that the majority thinks the way I do. And that’s what we usually call swarm intelligence.
It's cheap because it's subsidised. Car users don't pay all of the costs. And it's popular because places are designed for it to be the most convenient option. When you design places that aren't for driving, people will use other modes.
It's cheap because it's subsidised. Car users don't pay all of the costs.
I already answered someone else about this topic. So I will mostly copy my comment:
“The subsidisation argument is one that occurs quite often. I can only speak about the situation in my country, Germany. Since every citizen is dependant on car infrastructure, due to their dependance on Trucks transporting goods into the supermarkets, Police service, Ambulances,… and especially they are in need for this infrastructure, because it is used to build the houses people live in and it is used to maintain these houses.
So everyone in my country is somewhat paying for car infrastructure, totally independent from their use of it for private transport, because they are indirectly in need of it. This is what is commonly called subsidisation for car infrastructure, because the use of the capital is often not directly declared by the government.
Now car owners, that drive, have to pay an additional automobile tax, because as it is with all cars, they slowly wear out the road and repairs need to be paid. Due to their additional use of the roads, they have to pay additional for damages and repairs. “
And it's popular because places are designed for it to be the most convenient option. When you design places that aren't for driving, people will use other modes.
Yes and no. In Germany we have many options, but cars are still an important and often chosen mode of transport. The infrastructure for other kind of transports exist. But they do not manage to compete with the flexibility of a car.
And I will paste another part of a comment to someone else:
“A modern city is welcoming to the new. This also includes scooters, bike sharing, car sharing, EV, and so on. And addressing the point of a stronger economy, I highly doubt that economic strength is dependant on 30 meters of rail, 10 Meters of Asphalt or whatever. “