> Cars aren't individual choices.
But they are.
There are number of individualized transport options.
And yet, year after year people really, really like cars.
But they are.
There are number of individualized transport options.
And yet, year after year people really, really like cars.
That is not actually true. In almost all of the US, as well as in most of europe (outside of large urban centers with good public transport) there is no viable alternative to cars.
The netherlands is one of the few places where avoiding cars is an actual option, elsewhere it requires heavy compromission, and imposes significant restrictions on various life choices. If giving up cars means giving up living or having to seriously compromise on your ability to achieve things, it’s as much a choice as “cake or death”.
I’ve lived without owning a car for 20-odd years (with the odd rental / borrowing), it’s only an option because I’m a very non-social person and don’t have children (so my need to move around day-to-day are extremely limited), and I’ve selected my living locations largely around the ability to not have a car, which would leave about 90% of the area unlivable if everybody made the same choices, because there simply is not enough car-free infrastructure for that to be anywhere near a universal option.
Well, there I agree. Mopeds, motorcycles, electric bikes...alternatives, but not viable for most people.
Maybe in Eastern Europe or something but most of Western Europe has no such problem, especially in the North.
> The netherlands is one of the few places where avoiding cars is an actual option, elsewhere it requires heavy compromission, and imposes significant restrictions on various life choices.
Not even close to true in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany or even poor ass Portugal.
I'm not sure how you got to these conclusions. Maybe you're underestimating just how bad the US as a European is or maybe you've never lived in Europe.
I'm in Norway. It's absolutely a car society, and unless you live in a dense population center living carless is unfeasible.
I can get
- to work (bike or bus + train + 1km walk),
- to the shop (walk or bike),
- to many of my friends (walk or bike),
- to the town center (bus or bike)
quite comfortably alone, and I think at least except winter most (by number) of my trips is car free.
But good look getting 5 kids somewhere where there isn't a bus line (soccer, ice hockey, activities, church, in-laws house, frinds across town, fishing).
I could also cycle in theory; however my home is 88 meters over sea level and my work in 100+ on another hill. Did I also mention it rains a lot? Some people like the challenge and do it anyway (but virtually none does that every day). I can't be arsed to sweat out on my way to the office though.
And yes that's before you get to having kids. Or living outside a city: then you have a bus on one route going maybe 2-4 times a day.
TBF electric bicycles help a lot with the latter, and the usual “there’s no bad weather only bad clothing” norwegian saying definitely applies.
But that’s assuming the infrastructure matches, cycling in the rain when well-equipped is one thing, cycling in the rain dodging cars and getting sprayed is quite an other.
As I mentioned there are people doing that anyway, but even the hardcore cyclist types are doing it only a few days in a month.
A bit further out, cars are close to vital, unless you specifically optimise for public transport when choosing your home and work locations, and accept major restrictions around social and hobby activities.
Imo many people in germany have still to realize that it's not feasible to make big bucks in the city while hiding from the fruits of their labour in the countryside.
It’s absolutely true in Belgium (and france), of which I have first-hand experience.
Despite the overall populations density, the public transport network outside of cities is patchy at best and tends towards low frequency: outside of school transport hours buses might only run every 2 or 3 hours, or not at all. Some lines don’t even run outside of school days.
The general assumption is that adults have a car and don’t rely — let alone depend — on public transports.
> I'm not sure how you got to these conclusions.
By having lived them? They’re not conclusions, they’re observations or having lived for years without a car (by choice).
> Maybe you're underestimating just how bad the US as a European is or maybe you've never lived in Europe.
Or maybe you’re way over-estimating how good Europe is? Just because the US is bottom barrel garbage-tier does not mean rural europe is any good.
Definitely not. No, I think what we have here in these comments is, on the one hand, a bunch of spoiled people complaining about great service (which I find very typical in Europe) and differing definitions of what's efficient and expected. In 20 years, I've never had a problem, but I also don't expect to be able to get to every single cow-milking farm by foot. If you live in way out in the woods, then you need need a car, but not if you live in most villages. For rarer buses, plan ahead. It's all possible and comfortable. In the US, it's literally not possible under any circumstances for most places.
The truth is that replacing private car ownership for people living in countryside in many countries would require large government spending to operate lines that are not commercially viable.
They are. Except for building highways. Gas subsidies. Gas stockpiling for security purposes. Road Maintenance. Signage. And then there's the opportunity cost of the space lost to parking.
Those above choices? Well they're collective and everyone has to pay for them, because without raising taxes they are much too expensive to fund privately. So even if you ride a bicycle to the train to work everyday, you still get to pay for the construction and maintenance of the highway that driving commuters drive their cars on that you can't ride your bicycle, or any smaller motorcycle, on.
No need to even go that far. Just building so many roads (which are inimical to anything but cars by definition), stroads and parking space requirements: when 60% if a commercial lot has to be parking you reduce commercial density by 2/3rds, and increase the difficulty of alternate modes if transport because it becomes significantly more difficult to make rounds without a car.
And that’s if you can even reach the place to start with. The latest “not just bikes” video has a demo of a short walk through a houston suburb (where the author originally needed to go 800m to buy replacement luggage), and it’s terrifying.
Meanwhile business offices in Houston continue to be aggressively air-conditioned, filled with people wearing full suits and ties, in blind imitation of European culture.
People die in european heatwaves because they're not used to the heat and don't have the right habits, and the homes are not set up to handle them: AC is relatively rare (especially whole-house AC), homes are not set up for airflow, and almost none have ceiling fans. Unshaded southern / south-western windows are also rather common, as usually the goal has been to get the sun and heat in, not keep them out (in fact in the last few decades the building codes have drastically increased the required window surface).
Which of course doesn't mean you should follow a central or northern european set up for a city like Houston, you should rather look at southern-europe, or SEA. But overall it's probably going to look like favouring shade, greenery, and airflow.