Being 50 or older and having even the slightest health problem will teach you why cars are good. My own mother is 70 and is starting to have knee issues; cars are the only way for her to even survive. A lot of ebikes and scooters aren't even able to support a weight limit over 200-250 pounds, limiting cargo usage. Many struggle to go up hills.
And we aren't even getting into things like how bicycles and scooters are much easier to steal or steal from, or how unsafe walking can be at certain times of the day especially if you are a woman. Or having to ride a bus next to someone who smells like shit and is possibly deranged.
Cars are freedom and power. There is way too much idolizing a sort of serf mindset here; have nothing, do what government tells you, be part of a crowd dependent on others to sustain you.
As far as I am concerned, I ride buses and trains and almost never cycle, and I don’t have a car. The cases you mention here would be solved much more rationally and efficiently by generalising home deliveries (with electric trucks). You don’t need to dimension your car for the furniture you need to carry around once every 5 years. You can just rent a van for a day then.
> Cars are freedom and power.
...which come at a cost that too few people realise, and which our children will have to pay.
> There is way too much idolizing a sort of serf mindset here; have nothing, do what government tells you, be part of a crowd dependent on others to sustain you.
Now I have some ideological issues with this.
Most governments I know encourage people to buy cars because it stimulates the economy and keeps some factories running, and some mates among money. Governments in general follow, not lead, these efforts.
You already are part of a crowd and could not survive on your own. You are dependent on thousands of people you will never meet for the most insignificant of your daily activities. To paraphrase, there is way to much idolising a sort of tough survivor mindset around. The tough guy living in a forest with his gun (which he built? From ore he mined?) is a mirage. If society collapses, tough guys will die just as well as others. There has to be a middle ground, where one can be wise enough to enjoy the freedom that living in society provides without being entirely controlled by totalitarians.
Do you have kids?
It is true that a car is often very useful when you have children. But then, a family can have a small city car instead of two SUVs.
I am not against the concept of cars, I actually love driving a good one. But I despair when I see the growing popularity of SUVs, and sedans getting larger and larger.
The reality is that car ownership isn't necessary for many people - having access to a car is enough.
I can walk, bike, or bus most of the time, and then when I have a load of frozen food or furniture to bring home, I can rent or hail a car. And yeah, if I move to a rural area or I get bad knees, I'll buy a car.
I respect your opinion but disagree wholeheartedly. When I drive [in the city or suburbs] I feel like my attention is enslaved to the road, to the traffic lights, to the stop signs, etc.
When I'm walking, or even biking, around the city I have so much more freedom to drink in my surroundings and live in the moment. I can literally stop to smell the flowers.
Don't get me wrong, cars have uses that are uniquely difficult to solve without one. As you mention, hauling heavy cargo, transporting the mobility-challenged, and shielding from bad weather, are just a few examples.
But as someone who is not hauling heavy cargo, is not mobility-challenged, and isn't particularly afraid of a little bad weather (and well I tend to not go anywhere during a blizzard anyways), I quite prefer to walk or bike or take a train or take a bus, rather than be a slave to the road.
He's also looking to buy an electric bicycle, because he's anticipating the day when he won't be allowed to drive anymore. He also wants to be able to follow my mom on bike, or me and my siblings, or his grandkids. His car is getting expensive and less and less useful since he's been buying his groceries online (yes, even in a rural town).
You have lots of dependencies, the government and the car industry has just naturalized them and largely guaranteed them to you. That's why you see non-drivers as serfs. And that's why we see drivers as entitled.
ideally there would be no need to get to the bus stop - if most of your needs could be satisfied within walking distance.
The parent was specifically talking about walking rather than taking public transit. Boston has a particularly dense core and yes, so long as you confine yourself to the original Boston core (North End, Beacon Hill, Financial District, maybe add the Back Bay), you don't really need to use public transit. But I'm probably not going to walk from there to Harvard Square in Cambridge, Symphony Hall, or even the Seaport on a regular basis although I could.
https://www.smartcitylab.com/blog/governance-finance/paris-1...
Even in normal times, 99% of my transit usage is for leisure rather than necessity.
What's the percentage of the world population living in dense urban areas where temperatures drop to -30 ?
This is the map of areas classified as Köppen Humid Continental. It covers almost all of the populated areas of Canada and the northern United States, as well as parts of Europe and Korea, northern Japan and northern China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#/med...
Most northern US geographies experience at least a few days of -30°C (-22°F) weather every winter (even coastal places like NYC -- I remember it was freezing in lower Manhattan ca Feb 2016). However it's not as bad as it looks, as these temperatures are wind-chill temperatures and usually occur in the wee hours of the morning.
If anything, owning a car in the winter is a massive pain as driving is riskier, involves daily drive-thru shovelling and regular de-icing that gets irritating rather fast. Biking does get quite difficult for longer trips, but people still use bikes (owned or rental city bikes) for short distance trips to the grocery stores within 10 minute distances.
I recognize that this only works in dense enough cities. But, if the city is dense enough to have good public transportation in the summer, then it is dense enough for public transportation to be sufficient over the winter.