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Comment by timerol | Hacker News Reader

This is commonly believed but untrue. A certain volume of vehicles will drastically slow a road, regardless of how well people drive. Unless by "drove in a way that focused on keeping traffic flowing" you mean "wait in the on-ramp merge lane until rush hour ends".

A corollary of the above fact is that autonomous cars won't save us. They might make traffic better by about 20%, but induced demand allows us to predict that speeds during rush hour won't actually get better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

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Cars are truly one of the mistakes the human civilization latched on to. With fossil fuels going out of fashion, cars need to go too. We do not need car not even battery powered car. Maybe one car per 100 people is what should be okay for emergency purposes.

Thankfully this extremist position is going to remain an unimportant minority for the rest of my lifetime.

That kind of extremist minorities are far too often found working in journalism, so-called science (rather academic activism), politics etc. ... So I'm not too optimistic about these trends.

Why? So that people can be forced to live in cramped cities, constantly share their space with rude, smelly, or violent strangers, and suffer the loss of freedom that necessarily entails?

Not all of us are so enthralled with the rest of us. At some point in the last decade, I went from wanting to be constantly surrounded by others (youthful insecurity) to having my own life, doing my own thing, and not wanting to deal with other people’s bs.

The very wealthy can have a similar experience living in a city, but for everyone else, it means loss of independence and freedom. Plenty of people accept those tradeoffs, but please don’t shove it down the the rest of our throats.

I can walk 10 minutes to get on a train that gets me many places in the city, 5 minutes in a different direction to get on multiple buses to go places the trains don't. No need to worry about parking.

Need something from the grocery store? 5 minute walk. Need something late at night? Store's still open, still a 5 minute walk. Need food late at night? I have the freedom of choice.

I feel no loss of independence by having city life all around me. If anything, living in a city has greatly improved my freedom. I don't need a car to get most places, I can do a variety of art and culture virtually every day of the week.

If I wanted to do large woodcrafts, access a tool library, access a laser cutter or a 3d printer, there's a maker's co-op about a 15 minute walk from my place with far more tools than I'd ever be able to amass even in a suburban house.

You may not prefer city life, but in no way does it represent a lack of independence or freedom.

I live in a city right now, and sure, the grocery store is right there, but it’s also very expensive and has a tiny selection. I can get all of the same foods for much less in the suburbs and much more conveniently than carrying several heavy bags for multiple blocks.

Anyhow, I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to want to live in a city. I’m saying there are also good reasons not to want to, and I’m reacting to the suggestion that the means to do so be abolished.

Getting in a car and driving a couple of miles through stop signs, traffic lights, winding suburban boulevards, and cul-de-sacs is more convenient than a five minute walk to the store? Or, if you're really in a rural area, getting in the car and driving for 30 minutes to get to the nearest small grocery store, as opposed to a five minute walk?

That is a statement I do not understand at all.

(I've lived in suburbia, and rural America too, both in rich rural American and poor rural America. All of them are horrible for day-to-day living compared to anywhere I've ever lived in a city.)

This is terribly inconsiderate of people with disabilities.

This argument keeps popping up, and it's a waste of thought. We'd OBVIOUSLY have cars or other kinds of provisions for disabled people! Do you actually think anti-car people are actually that stupid or inconsiderate?

EDIT: BuT WHaT abOuT DeLiVeRiEs?

> Do you actually think anti-car people are actually that stupid or inconsiderate?

Yes, I see a lot of abelism on NUMTOTs and the like. And I already get a ton of vitriol because my disability isn't very visible.

NUMTOTs?

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jul/05/meet-the-numt...

Yes, I do, because of hateful comments such as yours towards cars.

> Do you actually think anti-car people are actually that stupid or inconsiderate?

Yes, I do. I hope it is not shocking for you that people are treating you based on how you behave?

"We should make cities walkable and transport efficient and there are more efficient options than individual car travel" - probably someone smart and considerate.

"Cars were mistake from the beginning!!! Ban all death machines!!!!eleventy" - probably someone stupid and/or inconsiderate.

Maybe it's not your objective, but comments like this would be a lot more convincing if they were accompanied by a proposal for replacing cars and especially a steel man of the pro-car position.

Is it untrue? For example, traffic waves cause traffic jams. Traffic waves could be avoided, or significantly lessened, if people left more room while driving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave

That only applies up to a certain density of vehicles. Due to differences in acceleration and deceleration of cars, trucks, other types of vehicles, and inclines and declines, after the number of vehicles surpasses the maximum capacity at a certain speed, the will have to slow down and speed up and slow down and speed, and there is no choice but to sit through until you get to a piece of the road that isn't congested.

My point is there is no solution fixing traffic jams in most cities or rush hours. If you've been to a poorer country with lax traffic law enforcement, you will see the extreme end of the situation play out where you can pretty much model all the vehicles as a fluid as they slowly ease by each other with whatever space they can find.

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