Hacker News Reader

Comment by DickingAround | Hacker News Reader

This is kind of silly. It's nice to imagine a world where people don't need cars. But most/all european cities, many of which we laid out before cars, still have cars.

We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week? You're not going to bicycle them to the store and all that food home again in the mountains. Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 miles away? You're not going to settle for 30MPH when you could be doing 70MPH to get there. The reasons for cars are endless. That's why we have them.

(BTW, I pretty much only bike in my city. But it's pretty obvious why people have cars.)

View on HN

“Got 4 young kids...”

Seems like lots of responses from able-bodied individuals without kids, elderly parents or other dependants who are able to get around on scooters or bikes in any weather and have little tolerance for those who might not be able or willing to do the same.

I live in Orange County, Ca. and bike most places most days. My wife and I share a car and we walk many places. Interestingly, even getting to the Home Depot which is only 3.7 miles away takes 20 minutes, is a bit hair raising, and I can only get small items. My last job was about 6 miles away, took 40 minutes to bike and I only did it once because it was unsafe.

But I know we’re living a charmed life. My next door neighbor is recovering from cancer treatment. If he makes it to his physical therapy appointment, it’s a good day. I’m not going to tell him to “get better equipment” or that people bike in Amsterdam so he should to. Believe me he’d love to be biking again.

It doesn’t mean our cities cant move in a more walking/biking friendly direction. I’d love to have more safe places. But have some compassion for people who aren't as lucky as you.

"Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 miles away?"

Yes, you want to use a car in this case. But, in the life I imagine, I would rent a car. I dislike driving intensely, but I can see use-cases in which cars are necessary. However, Americans have been largely forced into car ownership, despite the expense and hassle of owning one. A reduction in car ownership coupled with more pedestrian-friendly community designs is more my goal than making cars extinct. I would like my household to go from two to one vehicle.

If you have to rent a car to go hiking, you aren't going to hike very often.

And why is that?

Dont pretend like its normal to go through the hassle and expense of car rental just to do a routine activity

Are you thinking of full on rental like Enterprise or car sharing like Zipcar? Zipcar is pretty dang easy and it's what car-free people think when you absolutely need a car for a trip.

Thats more or less prohibitively expensive, because your hiking location would be outside of parking zone most likely, thus you're on the clock the whole time. Not my idea of a relaxing experience. Looks like zipcar is even station bound which makes it worse. You have to get yourself and all the stuff to the station somehow and then take it back from there again when you are done.

> Thats more or less prohibitively expensive, because your hiking location would be outside of parking zone most likely, thus you're on the clock the whole time. Not my idea of a relaxing experience.

An extra hour or two doesn't make a lot of difference when you're already booking for a weekend. Of course if you get stuck on a mountain overnight or something then you'd have a penalty charge, but frankly that would be the least of your worries in that case (and it would still be a problem if you had your own car but were worried about e.g. missing a day of work).

Of course hiring a car for a weekend costs a couple of hundred quid, but realistically you're going to do that what, ten times a year at most? You'd end up paying more in fuel, insurance and deprecation on a private car.

> Looks like zipcar is even station bound which makes it worse. You have to get yourself and all the stuff to the station somehow and then take it back from there again when you are done.

The "station" is around the corner at most. Walk 5-10 minutes, collect the zipcar, drive it to your building and load up, and then the same in reverse when you get back.

> Of course hiring a car for a weekend costs a couple of hundred quid, but realistically you're going to do that what, ten times a year at most?

Nice. The “at most” is an interesting rhetorical (and grossly dishonest) trick you used there.

Go on then: how many times did you actually go hiking over the weekend in the last 365 days? In my experience people greatly overestimate how much time they're actually going to be able to spend on their hobby; they plan things out with the idea that they're going to spend every weekend doing xyz, but life gets in the way.

Hiking? Once or twice. Then again I’m more of a watercraft and skiing person as the season dictates.

Anecdotal experience from NYC here:

Owning a cheap car is way less expensive than renting a ZipCar. My car's only cost beyond gas was insurance. And my insurance was cheaper than renting a ZipCar for one weekend.

Obviously it depends on the car you own, but ZipCar's here can certainly be more expensive and more inconvenient than owning.

When I looked at it in London, the monthly charge for a parking space in my building alone would've cost about 6 weekends' ZipCar rental. I could've rented a cheap garage further out and bought a cheap beater, but at the point where I'm walking further and driving a less reliable car (and likely less safe in a collision) the ZipCar ends up more convenient.

Do you park for free on the street?

When we visit Brooklyn we usually get free street parking.

> Of course if you get stuck on a mountain overnight

This is often my end goal when I go hiking

Yeah I was thinking of enterprise. Its just weird some people think you can survive the suburbs without a car.

You can. Just not American suburbs, apparently.

Depends on the density and transit available. There are some American suburbs of big cities where you can live with no car, but not many.

Also depends on the availability of sidewalks. Some suburbs are designed without them.

The parent of this thread explicitly states:

>Note that I'm only asking about city travel, not intercity transportation.

I don't know why these conversations always seem to descend into talking about the suburbs. Urban environments can (and should) reduce car traffic inside them. Talk about leaving the city to go hiking and suburban living (designed specifically around personal car ownership) are not what we're talking about here.

Car rental doesn't mean going to your local car rental shop. It more often means using a car share service like ZipCar, Modo, or others, and it's so convenient that I often use it despite owning a vehicle.

This isn't true, talk to folks in downtown Seattle. Anecdotally, I have a group of 5 that rents a car to go hiking about every other weekend. Splitting $70 between 5 people twice a month beats buying a car by... a lot. Know tons of others that do this.

On the subject of Seattle, there are county transit busses which go to some trailheads: https://trailheaddirect.org/

Depends how painful you make it to rent a car. If you're talking about a traditional auto rental where there is a half hour of filling out paperwork and doing checks with obtuse and baffling fees and gas options and everything then yes, that's an impediment.

A future where you have an Uber-like app where you summon an autonomous car that takes you to your destination for a nominal fee then who needs to own a car?

> A future where you have an Uber-like app where you summon an autonomous car that takes you to your destination for a nominal fee then who needs to own a car?

People which have items in their car that cannot be taken into the places they have to go, such as workplaces. Many people might not have that problem, but it is a problem.

I live in one of those european cities. We have at least six companies offering small electric scooters, even more for bicycles, pedelecs, larger electric scooter, cars, trucks everything. They litter the streets can be rented on a whim with your smartphone, totally hassle free. I used at least four different of these company in the last four days. BUT I still own a car, scooter and my own bicycles because it is super expensive if you use it regularly. Usually 1 Euro up front and then at least 20 cent per minute depending on the ride maybe even more. We have public transport but its depressing and annoying and also expensive. I usually go everywhere with my own bike but its broken down atm. I absolutely love driving and its basically the only way to get away from the city on the cheap! All those fancy new mobility solutions are only good for moving within the city and if you have a well paying job. I don't ever want to miss the freedom of leaving all of this expensive busy crap behind with my own car. Its all an addition but not a replacement.

And its true that if you have to rent you don't go hiking often because the money ticks away even while you are parked outside the zone (which would be the case for hiking) so you are always stressed out about hurrying. Also you always have to decide, do I want to/can I spend 50 Euros today just to go hiking? Or you know you could use your own car. Yes it also costs money but its way less and more spread out.

>Also you always have to decide, do I want to/can I spend 50 Euros today just to go hiking? Or you know you could use your own car. Yes it also costs money but its way less and more spread out.

That sounds like someone with very stupid money management. Unfortunately, this is probably the norm.

You're surely spending many hundreds of dollars/Euros per month to own and operate a private vehicle: loan, fuel, insurance, maintenance, repairs. If you go hiking every single weekend, that's 200 Euros (according to you), which still should be cheaper than owning a car. Most likely, you're not going to rent a car every weekend. So it should be pretty obvious that you'll come out way ahead if you sell your car and just rent a car for those occasional weekend hiking trips.

>I live in one of those european cities. ... We have public transport but its depressing and annoying and also expensive.

What city is that? The German cities I've visited had very inexpensive public transit, especially if you got multi-day (or longer) passes, which anyone living there probably would.

Cars in Europe are as a rule not bought on credit.

Well in that case you're losing potential interest on that money, and also (much more significantly) depreciation.

The last time I got any interest worth mentioning on money was more than a decade ago. Yes, assets depreciate, cars more than most. So don't buy new, buy second hand.

>The last time I got any interest worth mentioning on money was more than a decade ago.

What's "worth mentioning"? My bank gives me about 2% on savings; it's not huge but it's certainly enough to switch banks over. If you're not making any interest in a bank, you're at the wrong bank.

By my calculation, my car (including running costs) comes down to about 300 eur/month assuming I keep it for 5 years and get at least 1000 eur back when I sell or scrap it. (Reality: I'll probably get more out of it, or keep it longer)

Rentals start at around 28eur/day, so if I rented one every weekend (saturday+sunday), that'd be 224 eur plus fuel. Hardly cheaper.

Of course I don't travel every weekend, but when I do, it's more likely to be friday+saturday+sunday, and I do make week-long trips (and longer) a few times a year so it balances out, more or less.

Owning a car means I don't worry about making reservations, fetching and returning the vehicle, etc. It's always near the door, and I can go on a whim if a sudden need comes up, like it did just today.

> Owning a car means I don't worry about making reservations, fetching and returning the vehicle, etc. It's always near the door, and I can go on a whim if a sudden need comes up, like it did just today.

But it does mean you worry about parking, scheduled and unplanned repairs, car wash, etc.

I think there's still an untapped marker for on-demand car hire like Zipcar and similar.

Don't forget registration and inspection every 2 years (could be more or less depending on the place you live).

Good point, I forgot that too. Here in my state, yearly inspection is a bit of a PITA but pretty cheap, but there's a "car tax" ("personal property tax") that's usually hundreds or even into the thousands per year for newer cars. Other states have something similar but they call it a "registration fee".

It's once a year here, for cars as old as mine. It's not a big deal though; it takes less than an hour and you can usually go without even having a reservation. Costs less than one tank of gas.

I mean personally I go on day-hikes relatively regularly and I just catch the train to my starting point. I appreciate that isn't always possible though.

> However, Americans have been largely forced into car ownership, despite the expense and hassle of owning one.

Indeed, car ownership is a big part of most household budgets in the US. There's the initial cost (in the $25K to $35K range now), insurance, repairs & maintenance - cars are huge money sinks. So much capital tied up in cars. A few years back I estimated that there were 3000 cars in our tech company parking lot which represents $75Million in capital (at $25K each) that's sitting idle about 95% of the time. The combination of public transit, on-demand self-driving cars, better city design, telecommuting could allow us to redirect that capital more productively.

> in the $25K to $35K range now

Why are you buying a new car? You can get a very decent car for $8K. And if you did buy a new one, you don't have repairs and maintenance expenses.

> The combination of public transit, on-demand self-driving cars, better city design, telecommuting could allow us to redirect that capital more productively.

Doubtful. Public transit usually takes 3 times as long, so you are wasting human time in exchange for capital (there's a reason people buy cars - it's not because they want to waste money). Self-driving cars will never happen, and city design can't help all that much.

From your list, only telecommuting can help, but only if you do it full time.

(Also your dollar estimate assumes all new cars, which is far from accurate.)

"Options for people who don't want/need to have a car" is very different than "maybe no one should have a car". Cars are pretty necessary if you have kids in most of the US, for example. While there's an argument that much of the US was designed in a way that forces this necessity, the reality is that the road system in US exists, the US is gigantic, and mobility within the US is generally considered desirable.

It's good to encourage cities to find ways for residents to get around without cars, if only because it can increase social mobility by increasing options for people who can't afford one. But pretty much all of the evidence I've seen suggests that Americans very much choose to have a car once they can afford one, and that is very much rooted in the fact that they're phenomenally useful.

> Cars are pretty necessary if you have kids in most of the US, for example.

Yet, there is a significant portion of the US population that can not afford a car, and the next level to afford to maintain a car, or afford to adequately insure a car.

And yes, it hurts economic mobility https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-inco...

If you read to the second paragraph of my comment, I acknowledge exactly that and agree that increasing non-car transportation options can be a good thing at the same time as cars being a pretty necessary (or at least substantially life-improving) technology.

In earlier times, there were hiking clubs (which might provide transport or car-pool coordination), or transit to recreational areas.

Denizens of the Greater Smoke Area today might care to cozy up 'round the fire with a tale of the Crookedest Railroad in the World.

http://www.friendsofmttam.org/railroad/crookedest-railroad.h...

I think we just need to have more flexible options that don't require owning a car. When I lived in Vancouver I didn't own a car. I got around using transit, biking, or walking most of the time. I was also a member of a local car coop. If I needed a vehicle for a short trip or to run an errand I could rent one in one hour increments. I appreciated the flexibility of being able to rent a truck for an hour or two to haul some furniture or rent a car for a day or two for a short trip.

We all have cars because cars are incredibly useful; Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week?

This only work that way because that's how your life is structured, not that it is a law of nature.

If you live near a grocery store, you wouldn't have to buy enough grocery to last you a week. You can just buy what you need.

And then go back to the grocery store every day. What a waste of time. You can also wash your laundry but hand. The reality is we have these appliances (including cars) because they increase our personal efficiency quite a bit.

Going to the grocery store ever? What a waste of time when you can order groceries.

Those personal appliance have very real cost, especially in term of how much space it takes up on the roads and the amount of parking lots allocated. All of these increased the distance you have to walk to get somewhere and increased congestion.

I saw traffic in Sagion, Vietnam. Believe me, cars stick out like sore thumb compared to motorcycles and bikes, and if everyone uses car, traffic would basically grind to a halt.

With the way we use cars in America, it's very inefficient.

Nah, the suburban life was a strange fashion that took hold for a few decades but never really made sense, and thus it's now in decline as people return to the city cores. For the older generation owning a car was a status symbol, but the younger generation doesn't care.

Check back with us in 30 years. I bet suburbs will still be hugely popular in the US.

That trend lasted about 10 seconds: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/29/millennials-are-fleeing-big-...

I like living in the city. My wife and I did it with our daughter until she was 5. But the problem with American cities isn’t cars. It’s that they offer no solutions for parents who aren’t rich. (And almost everyone ends up becoming a parent at some point.) Schools, family centric activities, transportation, affordable housing. You need a million dollars to buy a house in a good school district in many major US cities (if one even exists). There’s not much in the way of other kids around. (Babies, maybe, but how often do you see 10 year olds in NYC that aren’t tourists?)

So, that CNBC article summarizes an article in WSJ that cites 27,000 people leaving some of the largest cities in the US. The problem is that the changes in each city are actually much smaller than the margin of error for the data that WSJ uses (I think it was ACS 5-year estimates).

This post goes into more detail on why that narrative is most likely noise: http://cityobservatory.org/no-youth_exodus_signal-noise/

Edit: 27k is approximately 0.25% of all 25-34 year olds living in cities with pops over 500k (which is what WSJ reported on). Not an exodus at all and it's really a bit of a nonsense narrative that WSJ has been pushing hard.

People are still moving to the suburbs. They're growing at rates comparable to the city core.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/05/25/early-d...

If you've got 4 kids all under 4yo, you're kind of screwed no matter what vehicle you drive. For biking, you'd probably be looking at a Bakfiets with electric assist plus a trailer.

Presuming we've sufficiently eliminated car traffic and the roads are safe for kids, it's also likely that at least one of those kids can bike themselves to the store with you.

4 kids will fit easily in a minivan or large SUV. Lots of families manage that.

4 kids will fit after everyone has been dressed, got their shoes on, got their shoes on again, been lifted/chased into the car/bike. That's what I meant by "screwed". The choice of vehicle doesn't really matter.

Once they're older, kids can bike themselves or walk. Families also manage that.

I've heard of one car-free mother that moved seven kids around by bike on a daily basis.

If memory serves, she got a shout-out in this book: https://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2862141030

That's pretty cool.

Funny enough, I saw a mother of 4 biking today in Boston. It was raining and 50F/10C outside. She had a bakfiets with 3 onboard and a kid pedaling behind her. I don't think they were going grocery shopping though.

How do you find a place within easy transit distance of your work, your spouse’s work, a grocery store, your kids’ school or daycare, your kids’ activities, and your kids’ friends’ houses? How do middle class people do all that in a country where cities have made it illegal to build new housing?

Used to be when I lived in a semi-civilised place that the grocers was a half block from my tram stop and three blocks from the house.

Trolley carts.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Easy-Wheels-Mini-Shopping-Cart-i...

When I lived in DC I was across the street from a grocery store and kiddy corner from my wife’s work. I was on the other side of town from my daughter’s preschool, and my office was between my daughter’s preschool and my house. (Dropping her off via transit would’ve taken an hour and a half easily.)

> Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week?

In the meantime, not having a vehicle for errands is real life for ~20% of the population, and if you add safely (maintained vehicle) or responsibly (insured, with a valid license, no warrants), this number quickly approaches 50% of the population.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-inco...

And then you bring up hiking, which ~15% of the U.S. population participates in anyway (and it's at its height)

> Got 4 young kids and you need to get groceries for the week?

Most people living today don't, and never will have 4 young kids. We don't need to optimize the world for the most extreme outliers, at the expense of everyone else.

> Live in the city and want to go hiking 20 miles away?

No reason trains can't solve this. When I lived in NYC there was plenty of hiking off the NJ transit. Popular hiking destinations here in the PNW have huge problems with traffic that would be helped greatly by building rail lines to them.

Why create new rail lines when driverless cars can take you anywhere?

Does nothing about the traffic problem, massively wasteful of electricity and other resources that will have to go into replacing every single car.

There is a throughput issue. Driverless cars with 4 people a car in a lane (or a bus lane) will do ~6000/people/hour if you are optimistic. A train 'lane' will on the other hand will do 32'000/people/hour. Non-bus lanes do 1500/hour, so a train is equivalent to a 21 lane highway, one way. [0]

I think driverless cars are a great adapter / collector last mile technology for suburbs to go to the train station, but if somewhere has traffic problems now, it will have traffic problems with driverless cars too. After a certain point you need to put in trains.

[0] https://www.theurbanist.org/2016/05/26/the-supply-and-demand...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com