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Comment by sho | Hacker News Reader

I think that many asian cities have the right approach here. Treat cars as a luxury good in a space-challenged context and tax them heavily, while making sure to provide a world class public transport system so as to guarantee no-one actually needs a car.

While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfront cost but good luck getting a car park for less than $500/m - and you'll have to prove you have one to register the car. Adds up to about the same amount.

I live 100m from a train station with 2 lines, automated trains come every 3-4 minutes, 8 minutes to my workplace. Bike share outside my door. 3 supermarkets and hundreds of shops within walking distance. If absolutely necessary, there's Uber or grab. You don't need a car here. It's a luxury for the rich, and that's pretty much as it should be IMO.

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> Treat cars as a luxury good

It's subtly different. The core idea is that car ownership has externalities and the implementation of solving these externalities is to limit absolute numbers and let the market decide what use to make of the quota. Luxury ownership is just one of many uses competing. Uber recently pushed prices up a bit [1] as it bought itself a rental fleet for its subsidiary Lion City Rentals; the ROI on these cars is worth more to Uber than what a citizen is prepared to pay to own a car.

A parallel might be real estate. Yes, you could run a warehouse in Wall Street, but even if you get the permits from the local planning association, you'll be outbid by the investment banks. There is even an example of "luxury" Wall Street real estate in the form of 23 Wall Street [2] which was "purposely designed to be only four stories tall" whilst surrounded by skyscrapers.

It is worth noting that the Singapore government actively works to reduce demand for cars, by increasing the quality and extent of public transport, making it accessible to all, and regulating the taxi and delivery industries carefully to enable them to be cheap and easily available. A COE-type scheme introduced in a city without high quality alternatives (such as Sydney or Los Angeles) would cause the immediate fall of the government responsible and a policy reversal from the newly elected replacement.

[1] http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/uber-bids-co...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Wall_Street aka the "House of Morgan"

> A COE-type scheme introduced in a city without high quality alternatives (such as Sydney or Los Angeles) would cause the immediate fall of the government

Well of course. It's a huge undertaking which would have to be executed over a generation, which probably requires a level of bipartisan political maturity and commitment that NSW can't muster (talking about Sydney). It could certainly be done though, maybe not with a COE system but by some other method of gradually pushing people out of their cars and into an expanding public transport network.

I guess describing everything they could do would take a book, but a good first step would be getting rid of the ridiculous helmet laws so at least people could ride to the station if they want to, and provide japanese-style mass bike parking there. Then just slowly start increasing the tax on cars, petrol, parking and tolls while absolutely pouring money into infrastructure (not roads), stopping any further urban sprawl, and systematically rezoning towards higher density and walkability. In 25 years you could achieve a lot.

I agree though, not going to happen anytime soon. Things will have to get worse before they can get better.

People will resist giving up cars in areas with crappy weather, but I could see this working in many US cities west/south currently choked with traffic.

And people will claim crappy weather as an excuse almost completely independent of weather. The closest things to cities without any bad weather would have to be San Diego and Los Angeles, and the legions of cars there are just as endless as elsewhere.

The issue is that this only really works with small towns that are extremely densely populated. This falls short for much of the US whose towns are extremely spread out and sparsely populated.

How can you say that for a city like Tokyo?

Yes, the US has a problem with sprawling cities and suburbs, driving is part of the culture but it's a myth that it only works for small cities, one that I've seen repeated here and on reddit far too many times.

I was incorrect about Tokyo being small, but it is quite densely populated (>15k people/sq.mi. at 893 miles in sq area, hence a good candidate for pub trans) and in most examples of pub trans, the bigger its coverage area, the more expensive it becomes to maintain (and to use for its customers).

Also, the “problem” of sprawling cities isn’t a problem for everyone. There’s no way in hell that I’ll move back to a cramped rat race of a city like NYC, and I am sure I’m not alone in feeling this way.

Not the OP but I guess his main argument was the part about densely populated vs sparsely populated towns/cities.

> a luxury for the rich

Parents of children under 12 should also be given a pass.

(Unless outsourcing the population is a deliberate tactic, of course.)

I used to live on the east coast and saw kids riding the subway all the time. It's no different than taking them into a store.

A bonus of public transport is that you can let your kids do whatever once they hit 13. There's always a few awkward years where they can basically care for themselves but can't drive.

Today's parents are way too paranoid. My mom grew up in the country and back then all the kids were driving by 12 even in town. I think modern age limits are more about making sure you can get charges to stick in court than a safety issue

It depends.

I used to walk to school alone when I was little. When I was a little older I walked my younger brother to his school, then I walked to mine. My parents didn't need a car to do that for us.

However all of us used a car to go shopping once a week. A four people family buys an incredible amount of stuff. Sometimes I walked with my mother to small shops to buy fresh food during the week.

We also walked to health care centers. Everything was in a 20, maybe 30 minutes range.

If cities are planned to place homes close to important locations there is little need for cars.

If I had kids under 12, I'd be all about grocery delivery. In my town you can order groceries online and delivery is about 5 bucks if your purchase is over $50 - not taskrabbit or anything, but the store's own delivery service. I'd go that way in a minute over stuffing kids into shoes and clothes and an SUV for something that should be a 30 minute job.

I've heard (in some places) in Mexico you can have groceries delivered to you from Walmart[0]. I was told about it, but after finding that article it seems a Walmart owned business, mind you this article is from 2014, and I heard about this in 2007 ~ 2008 from someone who was living in Mexico at the time. It is very interesting to see businesses other than food places deliver goods.

http://www.theretailingmanagement.com/?p=317

Yeah, delivery for the packaged stuff and walking/biking for the fresh groceries is nice. A problem with delivery, besides price, is that some stores still require a large time window. Being stuck at home from 9h-13h every Saturday would suck.

In Japan kids as young as five take the train to school alone. There's even a show called My First Errand about this:

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/why-are-littl...

What exactly is it about children under the age of 12 that requires a car?

I'm a father of two boys (8 and 5 yo) and we live in a small village (Ober-Erlenbach) next to a sattelite city (Bad Homburg) close to a big city (Frankfurt). We could not get along without a car (actually we own two cars).

The younger child goes to a kindergarten on the opposite end of Bad Homburg. That's 40 minutes with the bus one direction. No, there was no option of a kindergarten closer to our house. There was no option at all, you just take it where you get place.

The younger child has an illness and we have to bring him to a therapy at least once a week. That's in a hospital in another sattelite city on the opposite end of Frankfurt. Two hours with bus one direction.

The older child has allergy treatment in another hospital in Frankfurt. One and a quater an hour with public transport.

And these are just a few examples.

Without a car my wife would probably have to stay home just to manage children.

To answer your question - children introduce spatial responsibilities we you can't typically efficiently manage without a car.

I don't see how that's unique to children, all sorts of life situations require spacial responsibilities. I could write the same thing about my own medical appointments and I don't have children whereas my grandparents had ten (10) children and never owned a car in their lives.

The original thought was "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury." You're describing a situation where the first criteria was not met so the second, of course, won't follow. So your situation doesn't apply and it doesn't take away from the original idea.

I have replied to "What exactly is it about children under the age of 12 that requires a car?", I did not say it is unique to children. But children is a big factor. We did not really needed a car before we had children. Now we need two cars.

"Everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury" is a nice thought, no objections.

So how about we'll talk about "owning a car ... should be considered a luxury" first when "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily" is implemented? Because it's pretty far from my reality.

Had a quick look at the map and it seems Ober-Erlenbach to other other side of Bad Homburg is only 10km. That's not even a half hour cycle for an adult.

It also looks like Ober-Erlenbach and Nieder-Erlenbach are the only two villages and twos around Frankfurt that don't have a train station to Frankfurt.

Almost every reason I've ever seen given for needing a car have to do with deciding to live somewhere with terrible public transport or lack of public infrastructure nearby.

You're right. That said, ideally the government could work to reduce those exceptional needs, like having more kindergartens or providing transport for medical care.

...which is what some government's do through the provision of an environment in which people can afford to own cars.

The argument that there are currently great reasons for automotive mobility isn't affected by the notion that a set of imagined circumstances could enable people to stop being reliant on cars in the future.

Yes, I fully agree, that's why I started my post with "you're right".

The goverment could do all those things but the reality is, if you don't live in a city and/or have kids, you need a car, period.

Why is it necessary to have car if you have kids? It's quite possible to get around with kids, if the city is built for it.

Not every city is built for it. And not everybody lives in a city built for it. I live in a village 25km away from Frankfurt, there is no way you could get around here without a car.

Oh absolutely, I should have worded that more clearly. What I meant was, that metropolitan areas should aim to make it possible to get around with kids, instead of having to make tax exceptions for people with kids.

What suprizes me is that you ask "why is it necessary to have car if you have kids?" and when I answer why you switch to theoritizing about how the world should be.

So either we discuss the reality where the next available pediatrician is in the next city (1h with two busses, imagine this trip with a sick child on your hands).

Or we discuss the fantasy world of "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily". But then stop asking, what is it about children that you need a car.

Kids can walk, when not young enough for a trolley. My 5-year old just cycled 4km with me this weekend.

Kids can not only walk, but walk alone too. I was going to elementary school on my own when I was 7. So did my classmates. I used to cycle all around by the age of 10.

It sucks that today youngsters are treated as dumb. Even though the world is getting safer and safer.

Relevant - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-young-children-solo-co...

My 5yo goes to a kindergarten which is 7km away. I'm sure he'll be delighted to walk that distance. Five days a week.

Have you considered a bike with a second seat? I'm honestly just curious, not criticizing your choice.

That would be ca. 30 minutes cycling one direction, then another 20 minutes to the train station where I need to catch my train. 50% of the route on country roads where overtaking trucks are great funs. With a lot of rainy days from October till April and a few days of snow in winter months.

So no, I did not consider biking with a second seat. It is completely unrealistic.

Thanks for indulging my curiosity :)

Yeah, cycling near trucks is terrible, I wouldn't do it either.

And definitely not with a child.

For sure.

My 5 year old did a 25km tour on her bike this summer. Kids are very different, in both directions.

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