An Ode to Driving in America
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
The vastness of North America certainly has it's own charm and driving the vast distances can put you in a very relaxed, calm, meditative state, which is very different than say, slowly winding your way through the narrow dirt roads Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. But they're both great and a great way to really understand a place.
When you're dealing with something on the scale of North America, it's hard to imagine going without. As a Canadian, there are places here that mass transit can never dream of taking me. Am I to never go to these places?
Clearly a functional public And private transport infrastructure are both useful to everyone who also leaves their domicile.
Having too many cars also starts to encroach on other peoples freedoms via noise pollution, smog, less open space, etc.
Also, keep in mind we are talking about something that kills and injures a large number of people a year.
One curious point is that, in a neighboring state, the fine is extremely small. However, insurance companies are treating such citations as a similar risk to having a DWI/DUI citation; construction workers and other drivers are already having a hard time getting hired because their record of having been pulled over for usinga phone makes them too expensive for employers to insure for company vehicles.
Insurers have a strong financial incentive to have "mass market" infractions that don't really tell you anything about someone's risk in the highest category in any state that uses a points system because the points system provides a "we're all gonna charge these people more" pact with the other insurers and they can get the actual violation data they use for risk assessment in other ways (usually straight from the DMV's api).
I'm not defending phone usage but I think anyone with an IQ above freezing can see that the average instance of it (which around here is people texting at red lights) is not as big of a risk indicator as a DUI citation.
The system being insurance, parking tickets, revenue grabbing speeding tickets and tolls, fluctuating gas prices, frivolous lawsuits, fender benders and body shops, and so on. People behave at their worst given the psychological distance that their metal box provides them. Not to mention just having to drive the damn thing when you could spend your time focused on something else!
The one big exception that I see is - dun dun dun - global pandemic time. Temporarily, I appreciate the barrier between myself and my fellow citizen. But I just went out and rented a cheap one, and will rid myself of it once the risk of contagion subsides.
However, one good thing about the U.S. that is true of few other places, is the ability to go on super long road trips, seeing tons of the countryside, and getting far away from other people. This is truly a benefit and a joy.
However, it also comprises 5% of the driving that I wind up doing, the other 95% being shitty commutes and errands fees and tolls and road rage. And finding parking! No need to find parking when using public transit.
You could even gasp rent a car at a stop if you want to go further out into the wilderness for a bit. Or bicycles. Or horses. Or hang-gliders.
The places you should only be able to get to with mass transport are city centers, where cars are an incredibly dangerous polluting menace.
Here's the other side of the coin: You are missing "freedom from". The stress of driving in traffic. The stress of Those Other Drivers. Parking: finding, paying for, &c. Gas prices. Vehicle maintenance.
Those awesome places one can't get to without a car? This is partly why the car rental business exists; it's not just for Business-Person Just Off The Tarmac.
Different people have different lifestyles, especially when in living in different places.
I've begun advocating for more focused road trips. Go to one place. Stay there. Find things to do. Camp, hike, run, bike, etc. The popular "let's hit as many places as we can" mode results in never really experiencing any of the places you visit.
Speaking of cruising, my second complaint is how most don't use cruise control. It's painfully obvious, because the other cars slow down significantly when going up the hill and accelerate downhill. I see the same cars passing me, downhill, then ending up behind me uphill. It's so annoyingly unnecessary. If your car doesn't have adaptive CC, that means you have to turn on/off the CC frequently. The traffic ends up stretching and compressing like a rubber band. It doesn't have to be that bad - just use cruise control.
To contrast this experience, I had the pleasure of driving in Portugal (from Porto to Sagres). They have by far the most respectful drivers I've ever seen anywhere (and I drove in Western and Eastern Europe, Middle East and North America). Good job Portugal, the rest of the world's drivers could learn a thing or two from you.
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If you want the best highway fuel efficiency, programming a cruise control to slow down uphill and go a bit faster downhill is the right way to go. How much faster or slower depends on the engine and current weight of the automobile, which is why the three examples were so wildly different.
my car has a standard transmission so cruise control isn't super useful in this situation anyway, as I tend to change gears a lot.
Kinda related to what the author says in the article, there's just something about hitting the road, either alone or with a friend, playing some classic rock, and just driving (whether or not there's a destination) that gives me space to think and is soothing. Not sure why or if anyone else has the same experience.
I've found moderate exercise has a more lasting effect.
When city land becomes valuable enough that people in parking lots don't generate more wealth than they would if there wasn't a parking lot, the parking lots get sold and buildings are put there instead.
And yes most cities I've been to tend not to charge for parking at night or on the weekends.
I'm not one from whom to take advice on the subject, though. I think roads are for driving and parking on them is perverse and I refuse to live anywhere crowded enough to have a bus system.
I think this is the point that occasionally is forgotten in these conversations. It is not just that the infrastructure forces behavior ( in US, in most areas it does ), but the convenience factor makes it a very hard proposition to just ban cars from cities ( in a way similar to France's ).
But it is hard to argue against convenience and established routines. People do not like change.
In other cases, a business benefits from having customers park at neighboring businesses. If parking is provided, it will be taken by customers of other businesses.
I think the last thing the United States needs is more people glorifying the horrendous car culture that has been built up in this country.
But seriously. You cannot ignore the the importance that cars have played in America. Ya ya ya, cars are terrible, Europe is better but also much smaller. I am definitely looking to the future and hope we design smarter cities but we cannot ignore the past. None of the options you listed are part of Americana imo.
To the contrary, commuter rail transit systems, primarily streetcars, were very much a feature of American cities from Cincinnati to San Francisco in the period from the late 1800s through the mid-century. Ignoring them is, as you yourself say, ignoring the past.
And we not just talking gas tax, billions has been stolen from the general fund to prop up the highway trust fund: https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/budget-explainer-highway-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XyRdJr4LSc
FYI, the reason that song means something is because this is the train line that Abraham Lincoln signed legislation to create and has been running daily service almost uninterrupted since the end of the Civil War.
The Kingston Trio - M.T.A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Jw_v3F_Q0
Now, the Illinois Central was a land grant railroad, but it received the land grants in 1850, under President Fillmore, not under Lincoln.