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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

This is a terrible strategy, it never got anyone anywhere. It's the result of a sort of bleeding heart learned helplessness. It's the attitude of people who have lost the ability to be confrontational in pursuit of goals.

Take smoking as an example. How did we reduce smoking? (arguably one of the most successful public health campaigns in recent history). Did we stop being anti-smoking and instead promoted something else? No! We banned smokers from bars, we told people that smoking sucked, we plastered ugly pictures of black lungs on boxes and we taxed the crap out of smokers.

Ironically, the big change is often easier than the small one. Cars are the problem, point it out. Haggling about bike lanes is a colossal waste of time. We need to completely revamp how we commute and how we life, communicate that clearly, and point out whoever stands in the way.

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The difference is that people actually need to get around, and not in the "addicted to nicotine" kind of way either.

Being anti smoking worked because there was no need for a replacement, but we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something, some other mode of transportation. Until that other mode exists, and is workable in the specific area, being anti-car doesn't make sense..

>replacing them with something

(costing hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars and 2-20 years to build)

NYC has the highest transit use of any city in the US and they would still have to nearly double capacity to get rid of cars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_...

Easy, get rid of cars. Makes room for more busses.

Can’t work, it has to be the other way around or there is no transition path: first convert a subset of car infrastructure to make alternatives more approachable / desirable, then iterate on that to reduce the space given to cars further.

That is essentially what the netherlands have been doing for decades.

Well, the first step IMO is to eliminate single family zoning in favour of mixed use zoning and legalize middle housing, that should cut down the need for cars substantially in most North American cities. Then anyone who still needs a car can be inconvenienced by stricter regulations.

Sure i was kinda assuming that anyway, but it’s nowhere near sufficient as demonstrated by… pretty much everywhere outside of NA.

This is one of those things that would meet the criteria of the article. Don't fight traffic, create opportunities for people to open stores and restaurants inside housing development.

There's a well known effect, called induced demand, where building more roads cause traffic to increase. Doing the reverse will decrease traffic, then transit won't have to scale up nearly as much as we might assume.

> Being anti smoking worked

Really? About 30% of adults still smoke where I live, and all the teens and 20-somethings use vape pens. What's the definition of "worked" in this context?

It's down to 14% in the UK, falling from 45% in the seventies.

In the US, 14% of adults smoke. In California it’s under 12%. Among households with an income above $100k it’s 7% [0].

If you belong to a certain demographic that is prevalent in this forum (upper middle class in California), the above is pretty much true. I can’t think of any person I regularly interact with who smokes.

Globally, it’s a matter of time.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adul...

I looked up the official rate where I live (18.1%), but I find it hard to believe, since virtually everyone I know smokes, at least casually. And the few who don't smoke, vape.

Why do you care? Everyone knows the risks by now. It's never going away. You should find better things to do with your time than trying to control other people's behavior.

Also, I'm originally from Cali and I make over $100k a year, but I'm hardly a unicorn since all my California friends bum cigarettes from me whenever I see them, even though they all "quit" years ago. California is just a miserable habitat where you can't enjoy a beer and a smoke at the same time unless you belong to a private club. And they all lie on the surveys.

Why do I care? I grew up in Portugal with asthma at a time when indoor smoking was allowed and prevalent.

The progress in the past few decades has been amazing for my quality of life and that of all other people (specially children with smoking parents) who were regularly subjected to 2nd hand smoke from a young age through no fault of their own.

EDIT: also it’s unclear to me how you got the message that I was “trying to control other people’s behavior” from my first comment

I'm fine with bars banning smoking based on the owner's preference, but I think there is value in having places where people can congregate to smoke and drink, and I don't believe some people who don't like it have the right to ban other people from doing it everywhere. This is also in response to the other post above who said it had negative social and economic impacts. We pay extremely high taxes on tobacco to more than cover those costs. I personally don't smoke around children. But nothing is enough for some crusaders who want to prevent me from enjoying tobacco. It's the same impulse as people who want to ban alcohol or marijuana. Adults should have the right to do as they please so long as it isn't hurting others, and no, smelling diffused secondhand smoke outdoors is not giving you cancer any more than the exhaust from the cars or the fallout from Fukushima.

> smelling diffused secondhand smoke outdoors is not giving you cancer any more than the exhaust from the cars

Bad analogy (or, rather, reasonable analogy, but it's not making the point you're trying to make). And smoking's a bigger concern for asthmatics; have you taken that into account?

> and I don't believe some people who don't like it have the right to ban other people from doing it everywhere

If you can smoke without polluting everybody's air, then sure, go ahead. Otherwise, please don't.

Can you fart without polluting everybody's air? If so I'm sure I can light a cigarette. But to paraphrase Kansas... everyone's a fart in the wind

> Can you fart without polluting everybody's air?

Nope, but I adjust my diet to minimise the impact of my farting, and it pollutes the air much less. Plus, my farts aren't responsible for respiratory illnesses.

> Adults should have the right to do as they please so long as it isn't hurting others

Business owners don't get to decide that for their staff, is why it's banned in businesses too.

You don't pay taxes to cover the health effects you have on other people.

So make the staff sign a contract and give them hazard pay. It's no worse than working in a popcorn factory.

Making people who need work sign a contract which might result in them getting cancer is not something that society has generally deemed ethical.

FYI - the harmful stuff in popcorn has been identified and removed too, because we don't let popcorn workers sign up to die either.

Not every workplace has to be made ideal for every person seeking a job. Just because you might not want to work at a deep fryer doesn't mean we should ban fried food. If you're a vegan, don't work at a steakhouse. If you're opposed to sex, you don't have to work in the sex industry, but that's no reason why we should ban it or drive sex workers into the underground economy. The same is true for places where people want to smoke.

Also - it's only unethical if you don't know what you're signing up for. The whole point of disclosure and hazard pay is to let adults choose whether to do something dangerous. Humans can decide if they want to do something or not. This whole idea that no one has a choice and everyone is a victim of circumstances is ridiculous (not to mention lazy, whiny, and ultimately futile).

> Just because you might not want to work at a deep fryer doesn't mean we should ban fried food.

AFAIK deep fryers don't give you cancer just by working around them.

> This whole idea that no one has a choice

People on low incomes with families to feed don't. Hope that helps you have some empathy.

We, as a society, have chosen their health over your smoking.

> value in having places where people can congregate to smoke and drink

Call them home. Why do you think other people should be subject to the dangerous conditions you're imposing on them? Not just patrons but also workers.

I worked for a couple years in a coffeehouse that allowed illegal smoking after 9pm. I smoked. The owner smoked. Cops came in on their midnight break and smoked. You wouldn't have gone there, let alone worked there, if you didn't smoke. So tell me, why should that be illegal? So you can go there and everyone else has to go home?

Once the city cracked down on it, a few mothers with babies showed up for awhile to show that they really had always wanted to go there. Then it was empty and it went out of business. So why can't you stand the idea of a place existing where you wouldn't want to go, but other people might want to go? I don't go to orgies or to burning man, but I don't feel the need to shut them down.

I care because 1. I don’t want to get cancer or damage my health as a result of smokers‘ poor life choices, 2. smokers diseases costs everyone a ton of money (universal healthcare or not, the premiums have to at least cover the costs), 3. there are many children who get to breath their parents second hand smoke who will develop health problems later or even a nicotine addiction as a result of their parents‘ poor life choices.

It’s not just a matter of life and let live. One smoker on a terrasse or park ruins it for the 20 others who don’t smoke but get to breathe in the stench and the carcinogens.

Smoking directly affects non-smokers; either secondhand smoke wafting in the direction of non-smokers, or discarded cigarette butts littered about. I remember being a child riding into town with my aunt and uncle who smoked in the car with the windows up and not being able to articulate that I couldn't breathe. Smoking should not exist.

Some time ago I spoke with a Norwegian, who told me that smoking is socially perceived as negative, to the point that it may happen that somebody ends a date because they find that the other person smokes.

They've told it's been due to successfull campaigning against smoking. I'm very surprised, but if it this is accurate, it shows that a cultural shift is possible.

Let's say you're not smoking. Wouldn't you end a date with a smoking person? Because as I see it smoking is a big deal if you're looking for a partner for more than one night.

And I'm personally not exactly anti-smoking person since I can smoke hookah few times a year. But I still can't imagine being together with a person that smoke daily. I can only imagine how bad this can be for a person who actually hate the smell.

I am in my mid 30s now, and even 15 years ago in big US coastal cities I grew up and worked in, smoking was very rare amongst my peers in the white collar office workforce, and absolutely a reason to not date someone.

I can smell cigarette smoke on people’s clothes and the tar lingers and sticks to the walls, so I would not even want them in my house.

Vaping and marijuana do not have the lingering smell problem though, probably because there is no tar or whatever else causes the odors to stick.

> What's the definition of "worked" in this context?

Back in the 80s you couldn't go out to anywhere (bars, pubs, restaurants, music clubs, pool houses, etc) without coming back with every piece of clothing stinking to smoke. The percentage of people smoking in public was so high that there was no way to avoid this, other than stay home.

Today (and for the last ~20 years or so) I haven't smelled cigarette smoke in ages and haven't seen anyone anywhere smoking. Public smoking has completely disappeared (California here). I see cigarettes are still for sale in convenience stores so someone must be buying them, but I guess they all smoke at home only now. So the anti-smoking campaign has worked exceedingly well.

I wish it was as successful in Europe. People here smoke so much and almost anywhere. it’s banned indoors though, but smoking in a playground or while holding your baby in the other arm is perfectly fine and socially acceptable.

This was definitely still the case in at least Vienna and Berlin as late as the '00s and early '10s (lived in vienna 2005-2012 and in Berlin 2013-current).

It's better now but not to the point that I haven't smelled cigarette smoke or haven't seen people smoking!

> About 30% of adults still smoke where I live

Where is that? In some places it's dropped precipitously since measures have been taken. The UK, USA, New Zealand and Australia have adult smoking figures of 13-14%. Continental Europe seems to have much higher rates, with the exception of Sweden, and the rest of the world still seems to have it pretty bad.

> all the teens and 20-somethings use vape pens

Which isn't smoking... It's not ideal, but it's not anywhere near as bad.

Sweden's lower rate can be explained by snus. Too bad that the rest of Europe bans sales of this product, which unlike cigarette smoke does not cause harm to anyone else but the user.

> we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something

This isn't really true though.

Firstly just as "banning smoking" hasn't really meant banning smoking—people still smoke—being anti-car doesn't mean eliminating car ownership.

In a pro-car world, if I'm a developer building a shopping centre one of my primary considerations is parking. Immediately I need maybe over triple the area of land to build, or significant increase in investment if I'm going underground. Both of these options limit me severely in where I can build: I'll go for an area with cheaper land value, and larger land areas available. Access is further down my list of concerns.

In an anti-car world, I build my shopping centre where people live. Many can walk there. There's a greater array of existing public transport already servicing it (and density means such services are likely to be improved w/out the need for lobbying). Some cycle there. Proximity means visits are more likely to be shorter & more frequent: this increases turnover of parking spaces for the much-smaller number of people who do still need to drive.

There are countless other similar examples of problems that solve themselves when car infrastructure is removed from the equation. Yes we need other solutions in some cases, but just removing cars is enough of a "solution" in itself in many cases.

What people don't realise about cars is that car infrastructure already causes so many problems we've just internalised and accepted as norms. An anti-car approach benefits from those problems being solved implicitly.

While you largely have a point, I think you're perhaps a little too optimistic about the big picture, especially when factoring in timelines.

Simply saying no to cars doesn't solve the problem of transporting goods of any kind, e.g. a family load of food shopping for the week, furniture or building materials when doing a house renovation.

And while covid has nudged employment towards a more decentralised model, some countries (the US comes to mind, especially in rural areas or AFAIK cities like LA) don't really have a public transport alternative, for instance.

>family load of food shopping for the week

I think that shopping for the week is a result of car ownership, not the other way. I grew up in a family without a car and buying fresh stuff from the local shop everyday was normal. I think I developed the habit of weekly shopping when I turned 25 and started more demanding job. In case of furniture/moving - that's something that could be done be services. Etc.

I think you're perhaps being slightly too absolutist about what opposing cars would mean: we will always need cars. We just don't need them for 90%+ of current personal journeys.

Even if we were wildly successful in opposing cars & reversing much of the car-focused infrastructure we have in place, many would still use cars for large weekly shops, furniture & building material movement... But:

- building materials is hardly "personal" & unlikely to be a regular need for most households. Car rental or professional builders' work vehicles fill most of the needs here.

- same goes for a lot of furniture movements: shop delivery services or moving company vehicles

- less road infrastructure and more localised urban planning drastically reduce the time-cost of low-volume grocery shopping. Couple that with the moves we're already seeing toward online grocery delivery and you get a massive reduction in the need for large weekly car-journey shopping

We'll always need cars: opposing isn't eliminating completely, it's just eliminating unnecessary use.

> opposing isn't eliminating completely, it's just eliminating unnecessary use.

Some opposing is for eliminating it completely on a long enough timescale. We've gotten extremely bad at talking about longterm goals and longterm outcomes in politics. If I say "Ban cars. Reforest Parking Lots." as my political slogan the opposition comes out in droves acting like I said "if elected King-Mayor with magic powers to actually enact legislation on day one, I will sign into law a ban on all cars and no one can legally drive them and everyone will be stuck with no transit options, good day" whether that is what I believe and whether or not any of them realize that "Reforest Parking Lots" is an ecologically slow process and don't expect that to happen overnight.

This lack of an ability to sell long term vision, because so many are willfully and obtusely taking the shortest term views on the world, on bumper stickers and in political slogans is just crippling to so many of our political narratives right now. It's especially crippling in our ability to truly compromise on a lot of issues. Instead of starting from a long term vision of "We believe we should ban cars because that could lead to a better society at some point in the future" we have to do all of this leg work to start with a "pre-compromise" of our vision, the smaller/simpler "pragmatic" option we think will "sell" to the public such as "let's build shops closer to people's homes" (which is great, but doesn't address the root problem it addresses a symptom/co-factor), and in so doing opponents don't have to meet us in the true middle ("well, let's not ban cars just yet, but what if we…") and instead arrive at an even weaker compromise of the compromise ("well moving shops closer to people's homes is an admirable goal, but it's a free market so let's just lazily incentivize that with tax write-offs and see if they take the bait" doesn't get us any closer to "let's get people to drive less", it's still a good idea, but it's definitely not anywhere on the radar of "meet me halfway on banning cars here").

We, humanity, will always need cars. But we, as individuals, one-per-person, shouldn't. Having a car should be looked at the same way that we look at someone who says they have a horse, a jet, a tank, a yacht, a rocketship. Bemusement at that person's life choices. How ridiculous and ostentatious a life they must lead. Offended by the level of waste from a single person. (Privately, envious of their wealth.)

Like, why don't I have my own personal jet? There's the tiny detail of the cost (O($50mm) new, O($3mm) used, plus fuel and on-going maintenance. Unless you learn to fly yourself, the pilot/crew is an additional, non-trivial, ongoing expense.), but that aside, we don't see it as something remotely normal, and it's a disgusting waste. The necessary cultural shift involves moving all cars, but especially large truck/SUVs, into that same category.

That's the shift that's going to take generations, and only with monumental, concerted effort to rebuild our entire infrastructure along side it before that's even remotely possible. We can't even manage to spend the money to maintain our current infrastructure properly, so it looks impossible from where I'm standing. (But that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.)(Electric self-driving cars don't change the calculus here, either.)

Most major US cities did not start out as car centric locations (even the south and west), but we made them all so within the span of 100 years. Doesn't seem unreasonable it could be undone as quickly

If you don't have car centric living then the way you buy groceries changes, for example. You don't load up on weekly groceries. You buy smaller amounts every few days on your way back from work. For one thing, grocery stores, etc. now locate themselves near public transport, as opposed to a 20-30 minute drive away from the closest place anyone lives.

And when it comes to moving furniture, etc. you rent a car. Or even better, since you don't have to buy a single car to use over many years to justify its expense, when you want to move furniture you can rent a van. When you want to take your kids for a camping adventure requiring offroading you can rent an AWD. If you need to go a 100 miles all on proper roads you can rent an EV and save on gas.

This is not as easy as YOU imagine.

It's at the level of deciding: "Hey, silicon is just like carbon so let's replace carbon in everything: living things, etc. with silicon!"

There are myriad of details that can't be ignored but always get brushed aside in ideological fervor and the network of interconnected things that gets disrupted will "fight back" because it's already in the lowest energy state - it's already optimal and the new big thing is not and will not be.

> The difference is that people actually need to get around

This is really context-dependent. Some cities/countries do have efficient enough public transport, and/or they're flat enough to make bikes usable.

In such contexts, using a bike is a realistic choice (like mine). This goes even for families with children (in some countries, parents who don't want to depend on cars use cargo bikes).

I know that in some countries/cultures, people will use the car even to avoid a 5 minutes walk (I know it for a fact; I'm familiar with that), with the result of massive traffic and pollution.

Mass traffic isn't really the result of a 5-minute drive to McDonald's. It's the result of people only being able to afford single-family houses 1-2 hours away from their workplaces, and either having no commuter trains to get them there, or having city jobs that require driving in a car. For instance, in LA a lot of Uber drivers commute in from an hour away. Contractors, roofers, plumbers, all commute in. People who live in the city may actually get to work by biking or walking, but they aren't the vast majority stuck in traffic on the highways in and out every day. The problem really is the sprawling nature of the economy which necessitates spending hours in a car, not that people are so lazy they can't walk for five minutes.

> It's the result of people only being able to afford single-family houses 1-2 hours away from their workplaces

Idk how this works in the USA but shurely if you can afford a single family house you could easily rent an apartment near to where you actually work?

To quickly disabuse you of that notion: it absolutely does not work like that.

In the US, workers in the service industry in large cities generally can't afford rent within walking or biking distance of where they work. In most cities public transit to and from the outlying areas is slow and bad simply because of the size. The greater LA metro area is about 3/4 the size of the Netherlands, and many people need to commute all the way across it every day.

Contractors who need space for tools and equipment and make $100-200k per year can't live in an apartment with their kids and can't afford houses in the city. A family of four making $100k/year could barely get a small 2 bedroom apartment in near-ish suburbs and they would still need multiple vehicles for work. Once you get 90 minutes from the city center, you can afford a 3-bedroom house and two cars. It's the only rational choice. But once you're out there, you need a car even to get to the nearest train station.

> Being anti smoking worked because there was no need for a replacement

Assuming it is true, is vaping a part of "smoking", among other replacements such as nicotine gums and whatnot?

I read a couple of books on addiction. All of them say that you do need to find a replacement, a healthier one.

> there was no need for a replacement

Spoken like someone who's never smoked!

That's not a valid comparison. Mobility and transportation is a necessity for a functioning society. Your food doesn't make it onto the table without being transported there. Are you going to fetch the eggs out at the farm on foot? No, seriously, I am asking you a direct question: how are you going to transport food if you are not going to use any cars or trucks anywhere along the process?

Cigarettes are not a necessity for a functioning society.

Stick also doesn't work as well as carrot. You could tax fuel to discourage "unwanted behavior", but it doesn't have the consequences you want. It drives up prices, which affects the population unevenly.

I can afford at least one doubling in fuel price without it affecting me. Perhaps even two. Do you think the guy who has to drive 2 hours to work from the middle of nowhere to work in an Amazon fulfilment center can afford this?

Electric cars becoming a viable option for more people is a positive change. That's how we solve problems: by creating better alternatives. And if they do not emerge easily: help these industries along by providing them tax breaks and help.

I live in a country that has some of the highest gas prices in the world. High taxation of gas did _nothing_ to reduce the use of cars. It might have made the needle shiver a bit, but it didn't move it. I also happen to live in the country that has the most electric cars per capita. Electric has 70% market share among new cars sold. In 20 years, you will not even be able to buy a new gas powered car here.

That's change. That's the all-important break between hydrocarbons and land-based transport. That's the hard part.

This didn't happen due to gas tax or any other disincentives. It _ONLY_ happened by providing a better alternative. By cutting tax on electric cars so the market could reach the critical point where electric is viable. Now that we're there, we can slowly start to roll off the tax cuts as prices on electric vehicles drop.

It is tempting to piss on the things you don't like. But just being against things and not providing viable alternatives is not a plan. It is also not a plan to have vague dreams of things you cannot execute on. (If you think this constitutes a plan, ask the Chinese about "the great leap forward" or the Russians why the Soviet industry didn't become the envy of the world).

It doesn't create any lasting change. Lasting change comes from providing people with better alternatives and the enthusiastic participation of the masses.

Mobility and transport by car aren't necessary for a functioning society. Trains, buses, bicycles and walking can build a perfectly functional society. It'd be disruptive, certainly.

Smoking was taking a group of people and telling that they can't do something they want to do. Banning cars would be similar. People don't really seem to be honest about how arbitrary the anti-smoking campaign is. I'd much rather people smoked than drank.

I'd like to see you transport your mattress or ikea shelf via public transport.

Cars are a luxury that people have gotten used to, and to remove it is to remove quality of life.

You don't have to get rid of ALL cars. computer cars would be 99% enough. People somehow manage to get by without car in countries like Netherlands, and till have they furniture moved around when they move.

You are being dishonest here by implying people in the Netherlands do not have cars. Since you chose to make a claim without presenting any numbers I'll do it for you.

The Netherlands has about 499 motor vehicles per 1000 people. That's about 38% fewer cars per capita than the US, but it still in the top 30 countries in the world and it is about 12% lower than the european average.

Your statement is, at best, grossly misleading.

The comment is neither dishonest nor misleading. It is a fact that many people living in dense areas live a normal live without owning a car. GP was just responding to the problem of transporting large objects without owning a car and correctly stating that there is some amount of people getting by without car in the Netherlands. The solution is of course to just rent a transportation car for a few hours when you need it.

I live in a high density area (Berlin) myself with 1.4 Million cars on 3.6 Million cars. Obviously living in Berlin without a car is possible without much hassle for lots of people. Claiming that doesn't mean that nobody in Berlin needs a car. But because most of the 3.6 Million Berliners manage to move and transport furniture sometimes, we can conclude that they definitely do not need it to transport their Ikea purchase.

The implication was that the Netherlands exemplified a country with a remarkably low number of cars per capita. The numbers do not support this assertion regardless of what GP might "feel".

It is true that most urban dwellers do not need a car. But that point can be made without trying to amplify it with false assertions.

Of the 3.6M people living in Berlin how many are under 18? How many are couples that need only 1 car?

i think youre to picky. i will simplify for you: there are people who move their belongings without owning a car. there are services for that. so car is really optional thing in above. montioned usecase.

tell me a moving/delivery service which is available on demand, and can have it move where i want, when i want, at any time i want, and available to me 24/7, without prior notice. Because that's what a car is - you have the ability to move on demand. It's a step above rentals, because for rentals, you will have the possibility of not getting a car, or an unsuitable one.

Ikea deliver.

In your imagination this is true. In real life it is not. Sure, in theory it is possible to imagine a world where powered personal transportation doesn't exist. It might even be possible in a limited sense (for instance in densely populated, well funded cities it should be eminently possible. But not everyone lives in a well funded, densely populated city).

If you want to have adult conversations with people who feel you are taking the subject seriously, you must acknowledge reality and the non-trivial delta between it and what you suggest.

And I am serious about the "adult" part. By pretending you "know" your utopian view is possible, you expect other people to take you seriously despite not having made any effort to show your math. That's pretty disrespectful to other people. It also shows you learned nothing from past history where utopian political fantasies coupled with power ended up costing tens of millions of lives.

Most people do live in large densely populated cities. That is the thing about large areas with high population density - it means there are a lot of people there.

> you must acknowledge ... the non-trivial delta between it and what you suggest.

Yeah, it would be radical change. People aren't give up their cars by choice. But people didn't give up smoking because of their personal health concerns.

If the argument is to get rid of cars then I'm with the thread ancestor - it is better to be direct about what you want. A cars-lite future is not only possible, it is reasonable and even likely. Electric cars are not cheap and it seems optimistic to say that the grid will support them any time soon. Maybe hydrogen will work out, but these alternatives are all fundamentally uncertain technologies.

Somewhere north of 4Bn people live in cities. The vast majority of which are nowhere near the utopia hinted at. Perhaps somewhere on the order of 100-200M people live in sufficiently dense and modern cities that are even capable of envisioning a path towards zero powered personal transportation.

In addition, roughly 4Bn people who do not live in cities. Densely populated and well funded or otherwise. So no, even if we are to consider only the first half of the population, your assertion does not hold in any meaningful sense.

If the goal is to get rid of powered personal transport then it begs the question "why?". Is this really a useful goal? What problem are we really trying to solve? For half the human population it makes very little sense, which means that adopting it as a sort of universal solution to all problems is a bit silly.

I can recommend reading Hans Rosling's "Factfulness" for some perspective. Because the book talks a lot about perspective and why most people in the richest part of the world tend to have a very hard time understanding what it means to be in the various wealth segments. In particular it bears thinking about what access to efficient transport means in terms of quality of life.

First you need to understand the numbers, then you need to focus on solutions. And then change can happen. The thread ancestor makes no effort to even look in this direction.

> ...it begs the question "why?"...

If roads were only for arterial traffic flows that would enable very high density areas without roads or parking, where people could walk to all the places they want to get to. It'd be cheaper for everyone, probably have better health outcomes and be a bit more communal. Plus safer for children because they can't be run over. Just look at how much space is wasted leaving it empty for light amounts of traffic.

And I'll also add that you are the only one who wants this to be utopian. It is transport policy. That is pretty mundane, mostly practical details and not all that exciting. The goal here would be maybe increase urban density by 20%-40%, and there are trade offs to the benefits. If you think that is a utopia then I admire how achievable your goals are.

> I can recommend reading Hans Rosling's "Factfulness"...

In which you will discover that most people can't even afford cars and nevertheless the globe keeps spinning.

> In which you will discover that most people can't even afford cars and nevertheless the globe keeps spinning.

Then I think you have to read the book again and pay attention to what happens when people move between the bottom 3 tiers. He also spends some time describing the "view from above" problem that we experience.

I think you missed the entire point of the book. Solutions have to provide a plan for the majority of human kind. Not just the top few percent. Especially since the bottom two tiers are moving really rapidly.

I've been hearing about the climate crisis since I was a kid in the 80s. I was also taught that an adult is someone who takes responsibility for their actions. So I've had my whole life to set my life up in a carbon conscious way. What have all the other uhh, 'adults' been doing this whole time?

>In real life it is not.

My grandparents never owned a car along with most of their generation.

Having to drive 2 hours to work from middle of nowhere does not sound like good base for functioning, SUSTAINABLE society. You want to live in the middle of nowhere, you have to factor in the costs of your choice.

Off the top of your head, can you think of some reasons why people might end up living some distance from where they work?

They bought a house or apartment and can't sell it or rent it out fast enough when they had to take a new job?

Or perhaps they simply cannot afford to live where they work or earn a living wage where they live?

Millions of people have decided that it sucks less than the alternatives so IDK what to tell you. Sustainable or not, until something better comes along society is just gonna keep doing it.

« Are you going to fetch the eggs out at the farm on foot? » (France) We used to, when I was a kid. But more and more gigantic supermarkets put the little farms out of business and now we can’t anymore.

So, to answer your question: yes. (Maybe on a bike though, it’s faster and I enjoy it more than walking)

OK, now go through the rest of your shopping needs and tally up the amount of time you are going to spend fetching these items. And no cheating by buying anything that had to be transported by truck or long haul.

I'm assuming you have a job. This provides you a basis for calculating the cost of having to spend more of your time bicycling these errands.

For my grandmother, maintaining the house, washing, running errands and cooking was more than a full time job. Meaning, she worked more than a 12 hour day and her daughter had to help her. This meant they couldn't have a job outside the household. Nor did they have much free time.

My wife has a full time job, which essentially doubles our income. The amount of time spent on baseline "errands" is approximately 2 hours per week in total (shared between the two of us). I spend on average 1-1.5 hours per day in the kitchen cooking.

The rest of the time is either income-generating work or it is spare time.

Are you willing to give up much of your spare time and cut back on your income?

I don’t own a car, don’t even have a licence. I bike everywhere. Yes I have a job.

Very few of the people on this forum are advocating for a complete removal of vehicles from society! Cars and trucks have a purpose and we should always use them when it’s the best choice for hauling goods. But we overuse cars because our infrastructure is designed for cars, causing a negative feedback loop.

Cars and private car ownership are not a problem. Cars using fossil fuels, and unnecessary private car traffic in large cities are. Electric vehicles solve the first problem, better public transport the second.

For the vast majority of people living in the countryside car ownership is a necessity, at least as long as city dwellers aren't willing to pay for government public transport to rural areas.

Thus, being anti-car is idiotic since cons of cars outweigh the pros only in certain contexts.

Electric cars still generate a massive amount of pollution. Brake pads and tire wear in particular are large sources for every type of car.

Tire wear yes, brake pads no. I drive a Leaf and use the friction brakes so infrequently that they get sticky if I don’t switch to neutral and do a hard stop now and then. Regen braking is amazing.

> at least as long as city dwellers aren't willing to pay for government public transport to rural areas

Why can't the rural population pay for that themselves? If each of them can afford a car shurely they could collectively fund public transport themselves?

Public transportation is more expensive for rural areas than urban areas because they are more spread out. At some point it becomes impractical, either because the service is unreliable/slow by necessity or because it's not practical for a bus to drive 10 extra miles down the road to get service to everybody.

On another note, I'm still waiting for the hardcore anti-car people (the ones who want to ban car ownership and think rural people don't need cars, which I recognize are a loud minority) to tell me how I'm supposed to go public land deer hunting without a car/truck.

The USA has a very poor public transport infrastructure, it's very difficult to live without a car, and in some areas it's plain impossible. Build the infrastructure first, then we can talk about reducing the number of cars.

That's somewhat putting the cart before the horse. In high-density areas, the existence of cars & car-supporting infrastructure are active barriers to public transport improvement.

If there's any genuine desire for improvement in public transport in the US, a holistic approach has to be on the table. Anything else is just an excuse not to bother.

If people are encouraged to dump their net worth into vehicles then we will never solve the problem due to the fact that most people engage in sunk cost fallacy with their purchases, especially large ones.

It's impossible to build the infrastructure without taking away space from cars and/or drastically changing zoning.

I think it's important to emphasize that, in the US, it's not "some" areas that are just plain impossible to live in without driving; it's the overwhelming majority.

Time and time again I see Europeans and even some people who live in the US (but who have only lived in Cities) who completely underestimate the magnitude of this.

> Cars are the problem, point it out.

Umm, no. In my case, cars are not the problem. They're the result. My city lacks decent and efficient transport from my home to places I go (office, university, etc.), and the lack of transportation is valid for many people, so we get cars.

If the same transportation infrastructure present in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm or London was present in my city, I'd just take the options and maximize my walk too. I may again have a car for trips, etc. but, it'd be used much less certainly.

So, I dislike the traffic, pollution, noise, parking problems and all, and I want to be a part of the solution, OTOH I have to live, have to show up for work, have to go to shopping and take all that stuff home.

> My city lacks decent and efficient transport from my home to places I go

Because cars.

Yes, cars are also the result. It’s a self-sustaining cycle that takes active intervention that appears suboptimal in short-term analysis to break out of.

> Because cars.

Again nope, much more complicated than that. My city is not flat. It's the opposite. Also bad city planning, wrong population projections and, wrong prioritization of city investments play a big role too.

We're late in building underground. Some of the most populated parts of the city has great elevation changes, so underground is not feasible, etc. etc.

You have not specified where your city is, but if it’s in the US then

> Also bad city planning, wrong population projections and, wrong prioritization of city investments play a big role too.

These are usually the consequence of a car-centric culture when it’s not racism (it’s commonly both, with the car centric culture and the racism making an alliance in the 40s and 50s).

The US destroyed many neighbourhoods and city centers to make room for cars and car infrastructures (e.g. huge through highways).

Cars spread pollution in many mysterious ways, take the tires for example" According to a 2017 study, about 550 tons of airborne particles from tires are produced annually. Further a study released in July pointed to tires and brake pads as the source of about 550,000 tons of ocean microplastic emissions annually.5 Oct 2020 - Microplastic pollution has polluted the entire planet, from Arctic snow and Alpine soils to the deepest oceans. The particles can harbour toxic chemicals and harmful microbes and are known to harm some marine creatures. People are also known to consume them via food and water, and to breathe them, But the impact on human health is not yet known.

Earlier work suggested microplastic particles could be blown across the world, but the new study is the first to quantify the effect. The scientists concentrated on fine tyre and brake dust as there is better data on how these are produced than tiny microplastics from other sources, such as plastic bottles and packaging.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyre...

> about 550 tons of airborne particles from tires are produced annually...

So busses, semis, trucks and other rubber tired vehicles are also a no go.

> tires and brake pads as the source of about 550,000 tons of ocean microplastic emissions annually.5 Oct 2020

This adds other wheeled vehicles which use friction based braking into the equation.

I intentionally exaggerate the tone of my comment, but it shows a much bigger problem: All kinds of transportation has some serious impact on the environment. So just taking ICEs or cars out of the equation doesn't solve the problems magically.

We need a much bigger vision and a set of solutions which addresses these problems.

Except in cases where the transportation is highly specialized and optimized (e.g. a pipeline) you are going to have a hell of a time finding an example of human activity where the minimum environmental impact is not on the order of mass * distance.

OTOH, environmental impact, regardless of its distance to humans, never stays isolated to the place where it's happening.

It always affects distant places, human population or not.

I live in Philadelphia, often times when the roads are in need of repair (read: all the time) parts of the subsurface get revealed. Often time there are old trolley tracks, that are still in the ground, which were simply paved over for a road and cars.

Cities were recreated over the course of the last 100 years to support car travel over any other means.

> We need to completely revamp how we commute...

Very interesting. What's this glorious post-car future you're PROposing? Please say more.

Maybe where you live.

Where I live, cars are a necessity. The planet belongs to all of us, rural people don't make that much pollution.

So I'm fine with car-bashing where it's not needed for decent living. Where cars are needed, they should be left alone or else we're legislating a lower standard of living for peer residents.

This is just a case of false equivalency. Smoking and car-usage are completely different phenomena and the one should not be used make judgements about the other.

You're going to have to do more than that to convince me & others why car usage is that bad, sorry.

Had there been more money to invest in vaping, it is likely more people would have stopped smoking earlier.

So I am not sure I get your point.

[delete]

Being inoffensive and avoiding confrontation aren't the same thing. You can politely engage with people who don't see eye to eye with you. It's done pretty often on HN.

If you delete your reply to this, I will try to delete mine and maybe the whole thing can disappear.

Agreed, I recognized this after a few seconds of more thought. Tried to delete my comment but it wasn't possible, since it looks like your reply caught me before I could!

All you got out of that anti-smoking campaign was empty bars and a dearth of social life. You can take your babies to a bar now, where no one wants to go be around your babies. I'll never understand some peoples' quest to infantilize the adult population just so they can claim victory.

In places you don't go, and don't know, and obviously aren't invited to, everyone still smokes.

Seriously curious, where do you live where you can take a baby to a bar? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

You can take a baby into most pubs in Britain.

Smokers rarely consider how their choices force the rest of us to deal with them. My partner shouldn't have to carry an inhaler, but public smoking forces her to. There shouldn't have been epidemics of children with diseases caused by secondhand exposure, but smoking made sure it happened. I have no problem with smokers lighting up in private airtight boxes, but don't force the waste products into everyone else's lungs by smoking in public.

Airtight boxes is punitive, which is what typical puritans enjoy imposing on any sort of pleasurable activity. Open air is sufficient for your comfort. You can move away down the street. Don't forget your inhaler, you'll need it as you walk past thousands of vehicles idling in traffic.

I didn't say the issue was necessarily on the street. My partner gets frustrated that she can't open the windows, because street smoke on evenings wafts straight into our living room and gives her coughing fits. Is your suggestion that we should never open the windows in our own house?

I have no idea where you live, but there are nuisances everywhere. I can't control what people do right outside my house, so I don't open my windows during certain hours. If it wasn't that, it would be loud noises or lawn mowers or burning leaves. Put a no smoking sign in front of your house. Open a different window. Get an air purifier. Move to the country. Your solution to ban everyone and anyone from doing something outside an "airtight box" is quite similar to the impossible demand that everyone permanently wear a mask after covid; it's not going to happen, and trying to control other people's behavior will only lead to aggravation.

You can (and pretty much always have been able to) take your babies to any pub in the UK and it's not exactly like pubs are unpopular as a result.

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