What do you mean “no means of escape?”
There are trains, buses, taxis, bikes, rental cars etc.
To me owning a car seems much more miserable!
There are trains, buses, taxis, bikes, rental cars etc.
To me owning a car seems much more miserable!
That doesn’t mean they are the best vehicle to offer that freedom and electric vehicles will definitely be an improvement over ICE vehicles but in my experience as soon as you’re outside of major metropolitan cities public transport options fall apart and are often incredibly inconvenient compared to owning a car.
Maybe the solution would be to build better public transport systems outside of major cities but to do that requires funding and local governments (in the UK at least) seem to be chronically underfunded so I doubt that it will become a reality anytime soon.
The solution might be full self-driving cars, but we're far from it yet.
Well you are free not to own it. Nobody's forcing you.
Actually my main mean of transportation in Toronto is bicycle myself (well I work from home for the last 20 years anyways).
I also own car (van actually) and it gives me great and hassle free degree of freedom. If I am in a mood and I often am I can jump in and in few hours be in complete wilderness swimming in some godforsaken lake. Or if I need to grab some heavy stuff and bring it somewhere which happens rather often. And I do not need to arrange / wait for anything. Just get in and go.
So no. Screw that dense car free living. To each their own.
Ironically it probably would take up less space than the infrastructure build for cars.
But this is the point made by the OP, essentially for the convenience to jump into your car a couple of times a year and drive to the wilderness without having to walk or take a means of public transport, you require cities to be build around those cars. The issue is you don't directly see the cost associated with it, because you're used to it. The thing is, if you actually had to pay for that convenience (because if we would not have to build the car infrastructure cities could be much cheaper) directly there clearly would be a point where you would say it is not worth it.
I like to think of it as moving away from a datacenter to cloud based solutions. You don't need to buy all that capacity ahead of time anymore just for those short bursts.
Sorry but I do not live to make sacrifices for the "benefit of everyone". I already left one country because of that. It was called USSR. And the first thing I did as soon as I could - got myself a car and traveled all over the places on my own.
My small software development company does not use cloud either. Self host and rented dedicated servers. Orders of magnitude cheaper that that cloud. I prefer to feed myself rather then keep filling pockets of FAANG and the likes.
Where? I live in Toronto and I certainly do not feel that I am forced to have a car.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17914504
Yeah, that sounds a welcoming place.