Hacker News Reader

Comment by kasey_junk | Hacker News Reader

That is a fairly normal and commonly solved problem all over the United States. Lots and lots of people who can't afford to own cars deal with this and worst as a matter of course.

Making life easier for people who choose to not own cars, has positive impact for those who can't own cars (and not to even begin on reducing the negative externalities).

For the record, I own a car but also frequently hauled a baby stroller and a diaper bag to the metro train (though only for one kid). The secret was to have a stroller that was geared for walking not the SUV sized strollers so popular with the SUV set.

View on HN

>Making life easier for people who choose to not own cars, has positive impact for those who can't own cars (and not to even begin on reducing the negative externalities).

And people who drive cars. Because less congestion if there are half as many cars on the road.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way, because congestion tends to be the limiting factor for demand for car trips thanks to a very low perceived marginal cost. So as soon as congestion reduces somewhat, that extra capacity suddenly makes it more attractive for the marginal driver to take a marginal trip, and traffic increases (but not quite all the way back up to its original level).

Not if more people forego the car entirely. The marginal trip costs are high if you don't have a car. Even if you could rent one cheaply over the weekend, it's more marginal cost than if you have it in your garage.

A lot of European cities with good public transport and narrow medieval roads still have less traffic than American cities with 4 lane roads.

I did specify being close to the city being a factor in how doable it is to go without a car. And even then, there are limiting factors that make car ownership worthwhile. Things like: 1. Monthly Costo/BJs run (with family in tow) 2. Visiting family that's over an hour away and not along any rail/bus line. 3. You live in a pretty remote area.

Essentially, I'm saying that there are life choices and/or criteria met that makes lack of car ownership feasible. But since so many Americans live in the suburbs without easy access to public transportation, car ownership just makes the best sense for some people.

> But since so many Americans live in the suburbs without easy access to public transportation, car ownership just makes the best sense for some people.

And I doubt many folks would have a problem with that, except for the fact that car transportation is by far the most heavily subsidized lifestyles around without even factoring environment or societal external costs. Add suburbs to that and the people living the worst possible lifestyle for the environment are being bailed out by the rest of the country who does not live like that.

That's my major problem with car culture in the US. It's basically welfare for the wealthiest of Americans.

Yeah i wasn’t disagreeing with the not stupid part.

Was disagreeing with the difficulty part. It’s not hard to prioritize living a car limited life. In particular I find the “schlepping kids” argument uncompelling because the stuff you schlepp grows to the ease of schlepping. Lots of people with no choice handle this as the easiest part of their day.

If anything my argument is that we should make it more stupid to own a car.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com