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Comment by lbsnake7 | Hacker News Reader

There is a future that exists where cars aren’t allowed in major cities. Something similar to Amsterdam where people and bikes have right of way, and cars are the least preferred mode of travel. Obviously there are situations where you need motorized transport (emergencies, moving day, people with disabilities, businesses etc) but these can be serviced by autonomous vehicles run by the city. All vehicle infrastructure (roadways, parking) would be cut dramatically. Autonomous busses that pick up and drop you off exactly where you need would be the preferred mode of transport but you could even have personalized autonomous cars that people can rent for more privacy. But these would be slow moving vehicles swerving in and out of people and bike traffic, all connected to a central hub.

Only problem is with 2 feet of snow on the ground, no one will bike or walk and the demand for these vehicles would greatly strain the system. Not sure how you would account for it.

View on HN

If only New York had a series of underground tubes connecting different parts of the cities. We could put trains in those tubes!

It does sound kinda wild when you put it that way. Propose that today and I'd be like "what the HN delusions is this?"

Not necessarily. E.g. Hyperloop.

What do you mean not necessarily. Hyperloop sounds like a complete and utter fantasy. Closely followed by tunnels in LA where cars drive themselves actually.

Yes, who would get into a vehicle when the outside air pressure is below 5 PSI. I mean if the seals broke you could die, and for what to save on fuel costs. What’s next flying through the air in a flying brick instead of the naturally buoyant dirigible, just imagine what happens if the engine cuts out… It’s madness, madness I say!

to save on fuel cost but spend a lot of money running pumps to keep a tube near vacuum ? these people are insane... just like building a tunnel to drive a car back and forth and pretend like its some new innovation, if only they knew of trains and trains that move underground in tunnels.

Commercial jet aircraft fly at 30,000 feet ~4psi to save on fuel which also translates to higher speeds, which was the joke. Hyperloop was supposed to be lower at ~0.1 psi mostly to allow for higher speeds.

As to the effort to maintain a low vacuum, that has relatively minimal associated energy costs assuming the track is reasonably air tight.

do you know how hard it is so keep vacuum? let alone massive tubes ? imagine just the temperature differences on day to night cycle and the overall length

just look at the energy cost and how much a pump can do in a reasonable time period vs the volume of a large distance tube.

Let's string wires on poles down every street in the nation and use them to put a device in every home that allows anyone in the world to ring a loud bell at any hour, day or night.

I was thinking about how crazy this is before realising it's true.

Still sounds partly crazy to me (German). All those lines on poles in the US, I think the only lines here that are above ground are these super high voltage long distance power lines, anything else is underground (and safe from weather etc.)

Geology is one reason. Many major urban areas in the western US have a layer of caliche under the surface. Digging through 1m+ of natural concrete makes underground lines even more hideously expensive than they would otherwise be.

pathetic. the real money is if we blanket the planet in radio from high towers and poles, create thousands of types of mostly-incompatible portable wallet-sized devices that provide this ring-a-loud-bell functionality, make them requisite for daily life so everyone must purchase one to the tune of hundreds of dollars per year and keep it on their person, and then create an automated system that randomly rings every device multiple times per day trying to steal money. oh also they spy on everyone constantly and deliver incredibly volatile cognitohazards if you so much as look at them.

and we'll move on from this when we develop cheap brain implants that are even worse

Yeah stop with this Boring Company crazy talk! /s

Do you have any idea how much that would cost?!

Are you referring to the steam pipes?

What is this? An underground metro for ANTS!?! It needs to be at least twice as large!!

If we're unlucky we'll get the worst of both worlds and they'll build tons of tunnels for cars only.

If that insanely stupid shit catches on, it will be the moment I decide to buy a missile silo or a lighthouse and become a full blown hermit.

Can I find one on Zillow? :P

I could live with this. Imagine that every street had a car tunnel under it; it means the space that's taken up by streets today could just be a pleasant park. There would be benches. Kids would be playing catch in them. Instead of loud honking because traffic moving slowly, there would be sunflowers and tall grass everywhere. I'll take it!

It would basically remove cars from cities, without actually removing cars from cities. Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

They started building this kind of thing around London Walk after the war - rather than more tunnels the cars are at ground level and the walkways above. Best seen at the Barbican and in a newer flavour around JP Morgan’s new office nearby.

And how would people get in and out of the tunnels?

I think we just repurpose storm drains for that. Always bring a ladder with you in the trunk of the car!

(I'm kidding. Chicago has a mildly extensive two level street system, and there are just doors in the "basements" of buildings that open up to the subterranean streets. I always thought it was neat, but was also afraid to walk around on the lower level. Also, the top level wasn't parks, it was just more car lanes.)

You can blame Robert Moses for that. Everyone that lives in NYC or NJ (or LI) should "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro and you will be blown away.

He despised public transportation (because he never learned to drive, he always had a driver) .He actively designed bridges (over highways) to be purposely low so that the highways could not have bus lanes. When he was building the highways and bridges, he knew that the solution was to combine them with subway lines to reduce traffic congestion but refused to because he was so arrogant and power hungry. His solution was always to widen existing highways or build more highways, and public transportation ridership went from very high in the 1920s to very low in the 1950s/60s.

He did build a lot of stuff, but you could argue that NYC in 2021 is a worse place because of it -- and you really could argue that if you had grandparents (or great-grandparents) that were evicted by his housing policies or construction projects.

While that's all interesting, unless Robert Moses was directing essentially every American city's development it's more than just his preferences that were at work.

I'm not all the way through the book, but I believe this is basically the point. Once Moses' "success" in NY became known, everywhere else in the US started to copy his approach. So he really did have a national influence.

I think it is a combination of Moses success being copied and then Eisenhower's Highway funding encouraging roads over subways

> He actively designed bridges (over highways) to be purposely low so that the highways could not have bus lanes.

That was to keep black New Yorkers from a white beach in, I think, Brooklyn, according to the story I saw.

Yes, that is correct. He purposely designed the highways, parks, and beaches so anyone that could not afford a car could not use them.

The future you cite is also our past. In the 1930s most large urban cities had plenty of non-car transportation options, including electric-powered or cable-pulled streetcars, overhead-powered electric as well as gas-powered buses, trams, light rail, underground subways (since early 1900s in NYC), and hackneys of all sorts in the US and Europe and many other places around the world. In fact, it was the spread of gas-powered buses that killed much of the electric-powered streetcars in large cities in the US in the 1950s. With the growth of suburbs and loss of streetcars, the growth of cars in city centers grew unchecked as did air pollution and smog.

I know you like the film roger rabbit, but that's not why trams died.

It's not the entire reason but it's actually a key part of it [0]. Hey Roger Rabbit isn't entirely fiction but all the good parts are :)

[0] https://www.planetizen.com/node/76622

> It's not the entire reason but it's actually a key part of it [0].

I don't see that in your reference. It's a full-on debunking of the claim that it was a conspiracy.

From the above referenced article:

"For the record, there was a conspiracy according to the 1949 U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in UNITED STATES v. NATIONAL CITY LINES, Inc., et al. "

and more to the point it actually says it up top in the title part of the article: "Yes, there was a conspiracy led by General Motors to replace streetcars with their buses in the 1930s."

I know it was somewhat mingled with the other points in the article, but it was confirmed in a Supreme Court ruling that there was indeed a conspiracy by the National City Lines and others to buy up streetcar lines and close down operations. What the article says is that despite the conspiracy, the industry was already in decline, with the streetcar companies acquired because many were in bankruptcy. And as such, the decline can't be solely and specifically blamed on the conspiracy, which is a matter of trial case law at this point. What the conspiracy did was simply accelerate a process that might have been inevitable. This is why I'm saying (and Roger Rabbit) that it played a part, even if not the central part.

I see, so there was a conspiracy, but it didn't matter.

This is a fantastic little video on this topic if you're interested in digging further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnFVBfhpprU. And a bit more from 60 minutes that makes a stronger point about the conspiracy and who was really motivated to make freeways and highways a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WORIrHpC8M

Oh, I love that channel but hadn't seen that video. Thanks!

> "For the record, there was a conspiracy according to the 1949 U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in UNITED STATES v. NATIONAL CITY LINES, Inc., et al. "

That conspiracy was a conspiracy to monopolize bus operations, not a conspiracy to replace streetcars with buses. The streetcars themselves were replaced largely because the streetcar companies had already failed and were bankrupt, and the lower maintenance costs of buses vis-a-vis streetcars made them a better route to maintaining public transit.

My mind goes to the healthcare staff who still have to report to their facility for 7:30 in the morning no matter the weather.

There has been a lot of social change since the 1930s. Back then, nurses were seen as subservient and likely lived in residence attached to a hospital. Reporting for duty was not an issue on bad weather days.

No one will live apart from their family in this day and age without appropriate compensation, like the way nurses do working for FHNIB nursing stations up north.

> Only problem is with 2 feet of snow on the ground, no one will bike or walk

In the absence of systems for snow removal, most people wouldn't be driving in 2 feet of snow either (yes, some do it, but some people drive in all sorts of reckless circumstances).

The cities in the intersection of "viable to thrive without a car" and "get a lot of snow" mostly do a good job of dealing with the latter to preserve the former. They usually clear snow quickly on the thoroughfares, sidewalks and bike lanes and have other solutions (tunnels, non-road transit, etc) for managing the more difficult journeys.

I'd say from knowing people who live in boston and chicago the answer is actually mostly not. Especially in boston snowstorms are typically catastrophic and shut down life until they are cleared out which might be quite a long time.

I live in Boston, and would not describe snowstorms as catastrophes that you just wait out. The plows are out right away, and only every few years is there a blizzard bad enough that they'll require people to stay home.

I wonder how much this is going to change now that so many people have figured out that they can work from home at least part of the time. First it starts with snowstorms, then maybe we'll see less traffic on rainy days...

I suspect this is a reflection of availability bias; the only snowstorms you hear about from the people you know in Boston are the ones that are catastrophic and shut down life (which do happen occasionally, but the same could be said of hurricanes in Florida).

Strong disagree - Boston & Cambridge are exceptionally effective at returning life to normal within hours on a snowy day.

Many sidewalks are quickly scooped up by paid workers too.

Northern cities often have snow on the ground and roads during commutes, enough that you need a transportation system that addresses it.

Also, it's cold. Dry or not, people don't want to bike in the cold. And finally, many people are not fit physically for such travel, including the elderly, sick, etc.

This NotJustBikes video covers this subject nicely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Watching his channel has reinforced the dramatically negative impact American transportation policy has had on urban life.

2 feet of snow on the ground is rare, and I honestly believe that people's worries about walking and biking in the snow are more reflective of a lack of familiarity than any genuine unpleasantness.

Nordic countries manage strong bike cultures, too, and don't let winter get in the way of that. I have family in a mountain town in Colorado, and there, the only people using cars to get around town are the tourists, even in winter. This is also how all of America was, not too long ago. My great-grandmother did own a car, but opted instead to ride and walk, year-round, basically until the day she had to move into an old folks' home. Her family's first car was a Model T, and she just never did get in the habit of avoiding the outdoors.

Long story short, it's amazing what human bodies can be comfortable with, if only you give them the chance.

Had a friend that rode into school on 23rd Street all the way from Williamsburg Brooklyn. Only snow would stop this guy. Cold or rain couldn't. I thought he was nuts because I would have easily taken the train instead.

I cycle around London no matter the weather. During the "beast from the East" a few years ago, I found the biggest problem was that any snow sitting on top of our painted white lines seemed to harden. This would mean I'd hit them like they're a kerb and fall off my bike.

Grip issues aside, cycling in the snow isn't too bad provided you have decent gloves.

Yeah, also when raining - I generally just try to avoid painted lines to bike on.

It's even worse here in SF with our metal thingies in the road.

How do you avoid skidding into traffic (or into something else)?

You can get winter tires for bikes. We use studded ones on our cargo bike, and I think that those tires might actually give it more stopping power on ice than regular tires give it on dry pavement.

For my regular old townie, I don't bother. I just pay attention to conditions and slow down when I need to slow down. Ice can be a bit tricky to deal with at low speeds, but one nice trick about bikes is that you can very quickly convert yourself from a bipod to a tripod.

If the weather's really bad and the roads aren't clear, it's a good day to just stay home. IMO cars should be doing the same thing, though. I think that our culture has perhaps become so workaholic that it even overrules common sense.

Thanks. Is there a particular kind of stud or tire? Also, is it both wheels? For obvious reasons, it would be much more convenient if it was only the front wheel.

> Nordic countries manage strong bike cultures, too, and don't let winter get in the way of that.

So how do they ride safely in the snow? Skidding on a bike, especially in traffic, can be catastrophic.

I've noticed more an more "environmental" or "green" type politicans and activists seem to be very anti-progress? Has anyone else noticed this?

For example, automated cars would allow you to park your car outside of the city, but still have car driving to get places. Get's criticized. Would allow for larger capital investments in cars (batteries etc). Just removing parking alone would free up so much space for either more efficient car transport or additional options (yes, bikes).

Auto cars increase sharing opportunities as well. Reducing car ownership.

Smaller / safer nuclear power research would be near totally CO2 emission free - but big fights against that or even exploring it - while talking about how serious climate change is?

Carbon sequestration, storage, capture, ideas to drive global cooling - all shot down.

I've come to think we may end up with a rich group of folks able / willing to invest in stuff creating a sort of second tier society (ie, clean water, air and temp control for them - the rest of us suffering).

This path of emissions reductions can't be the only option worth exploring, even while we pursue it, start thinking of other ideas!

How are automated cars and parking outside the city related?

You can park your car outside the city, and use public transport, no self driving technology is required.

It's not that that they are against progress, they are against shiny new things that don't make sense.

Our need is less cars on the road. Not automated cars available per person in anytime of day. at most this will solve parking, but not congestion.

An autonomous car can drop you off at the train stop and then go to the parking lot. That's the same mileage as driving to the parking lot and then walking to the train stop but makes the commute far less soul crushing so more people can/will choose it.

I don't think most people's resistance to using public transport is a two minute walk between the parking lot and the station entrance.

This is where green folks aren't paying attention to what folks want.

Go ahead and ban straws (put in the trash in the restaurant) while letting tons of plastic blow into the ocean from street litter.

Some folks don't want to be on public transit, including liberals and definitely liberal elites (ie, COVID / crime / dirt / safety / whatever).

There is no middle ground on the green / left. We all have to cram into public transit (I took it for a while, the bus would skip my stop if full, NO ONE took action on the clearly crazy idiots disrupting the ride forcing the bus to stop etc). Ideas like robotaxies are fought. Why? I don't get it.

I'm also convinced many liberals / green folks are either very wealthy or don't live in tougher areas. It seems to be -> you take the bus, while I fly my private jet to talk about climate somewhere.

Weirdly, it's going to be the ruthless capitlists, google, uber (ugh!), tesla (run by a bit of maniac) who are moving us forward.

Little support locally. Ie, do a lane on highway dedicated for auto-drive truck trains and cars etc.

"the bus would skip my stop if full"

Minor, but the problem here is that the bus is full, not that it skips your stop. If there's no room on the bus, there's nothing it can do, so it might as well move faster.

We should not be allowing buses to reach capacity, but this calls for more investment in public transit, not less.

The issue with public transit is that

a) its often out of my control in terms of options to fix it

b) some things (violence) seem to have become accepted.

c) there are a ton of (very) entrenched special interests which make touching any element of this difficult.

Options like auto-cars put control in users hands, who can self organize if they want to car share etc.

It's already possible to self organize car sharing, with a spiffy app, insurance rating systems and . But keeping the car in good shape and checking it, as well as the risk on non-availability (which might get better with a self-driving car, but no one wants to wait for the car to driver 30 minutes back) now make it an unattractive option compared to commercial car sharing.

At least here in the Region of Stuttgart, Germany b) and c) mostly don't apply (and I'm pretty certain they don't in most other parts of europe) and most issues with public transit here (limited core capacity leading to overcrowding, higher prices) similarly apply to cars and automated cars (with congestion and usually higher cost of ownership than public transit time cards) and can't be solved there either by an individual. The unique issues not common to other modes of transport are bad service in some parts, depending on the route a long duration compared to car travel and an aging infrastructure leading to a few issues (but due to be replaced in the near future™).

Most of those stem partially from chronic underinvestment with some rail connections closed in the 50s still not being reactivated. But unless a car isn't needed for the daily commute (due to public transit or more home office or active transportation) it's hard to imagine car sharing or self driving cars helping a lot.

I lived in Europe for a number of years. At least then, transit was great and I used it extensively. In San Francisco at least, for policy reasons, transit is pretty grim.

I witnessed a guy getting beat up for stopping a tourist scam. Interestingly, after they grabbed his shoes and he chased them HE was arrested.

I saw an old women be spit on (huge spit) while sitting in the handicap seat.

What's very unique in San Francisco, passengers know that if they get involved and a claim of excessive force, racial etc factors come in - they may have a career ending consequences or liability. AS a result, again, no one will help you. It's really amazing watching TOTALLY brazen theft from stores, from cars, folks getting harassed while on transit. No one will step in. I wouldn't be surprised if someone was dying that folks might step over them or around them, it's that socialized.

This may have changed in the EU, but when I was there it just wasn't comparable at all. The US model for transit has soured me a bit on transit. At some point you need to make it so it serves the 95% that want a safe ride, perhaps doing on call pickup transits for those struggling with mental health / drug and other issues who still need to get places?

Bottom line though - I'd encourage govt to create safe options people WANT to use vs focusing on banning things (out here major efforts to get uber banned so taxi cartels could take over again with their "broken" credit card meters, unreliable pickups, failures to service areas etc).

Where do you ride public transit? I use it regularly. I've never seen violence, there is plenty of public input, and for specific needs, the personnel generally are helpful.

A full bus sounds like a great problem to have. Imagine if every single person in that bus decided to take a 4 seater car to their destination instead.

Also, full buses provide funding for a second bus, more routes, and more frequent pickups.

Could you back up some of these claims? Skip the stereotypes.

> it's going to be the ruthless capitlists, google, uber (ugh!), tesla (run by a bit of maniac) who are moving us forward.

They haven't done a great job of it yet, but when people spread these claims, the 'ruthless capitalists' sure benefit.

There's various factions amongst environmentalists, personally I'm very pro nuclear energy , carbon capture and self driving tech (to use outside Cities ideally) . But in some cases low tech solutions are actually better, for example walkable / bike able cities with good transit are amazing for quality of life and the environment.

> Has anyone else noticed this?

That has been popular criticism going back at least to the 70s. Sometimes it is even true.

Much more often, "anti-progress" is pretty meaningless code for "attacks things I like".

I mean, make no mistake, there are all sorts of bad ideas in environmental circles, including some outright fascists. But nut-picking weirdos to brand anyone involved in environmental policy circles is just nasty propaganda, no different than calling all capitalists slavers.

This is most politicians. They have to say one thing to get the votes from individual citizens but they have to actually do something else to get the money they need from the corporations and special interest groups that they need to actually campaign and travel and do all the other things that they seem to be able to do on a 170k salary. Politicians live like rich people but only get a middle class salary. To make up the difference they vote in a manner that will get their PAC's funded. Most of the time all politicians have to do is not do anything. Status quote means special interests are happy and money keeps flowing. End of the day this works well for the politicians, citizens don't care what they actually do as long as they have the correct letter next to their name, just what they say.

> I've noticed more an more "environmental" or "green" type politicans and activists seem to be very anti-progress?

"Anti-progress" is a very loaded term. What one person views as progression, another may view as regression. Just labeling any opposition as "anti-progress" eliminates the nuance of any actual criticisms. For example:

> Carbon sequestration, storage, capture, ideas to drive global cooling - all shot down.

These aren't shut down because environmentalists just hate the inherent idea of technological countermeasures to global warming. Those ideas are fantastic... if they work. Most environmental activists would rather focus on things that we know will help (reducing energy usage, increasing green energy production), instead of gambling on undeveloped and unproven technology.

> For example, automated cars would allow you to park your car outside of the city, but still have car driving to get places.

People aren't limited by available parking anymore, more cars will just drive idly, increasing the traffic issue which leads to non-bus lane busses being more undesirable and active transport on streets (primarily bikes) being more annoying and thus undesirable. Also increases emissions (particulates from tires and brakes even when using electrical propulsion) and power usage.

> Auto cars increase sharing opportunities as well. Reducing car ownership.

Current Auto cars with a human element (called uber) increases greenhouse gas emissions and displaces public as well as active transport (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c01641), exactly the opposite of what was hoped for. (much less air pollutants tho due to less cold starts, but electrification is probably gonna make that a non-issue)

I don't see how auto cars very much increase car sharing opportunities in cities compared to traditional sharing. For common commuter-type transit auto cars bring very little improvement compared to regular car ownership (since everyone needs a car at the same time). Automated cars have some potential for helping with climate change as a small part of the solution, but very much as infill and not a primary mode of transportation. Probably will make congestion worse though and decrease average people in cars much below 1. (there are also other issues when considering a mostly automated car pool, such as rampant jaywalking due to automated safety stops and the reaction to such a thing)

> Smaller / safer nuclear power research would be near totally CO2 emission free

A more wide spread adoption of a new working design now would take > 20 years and the western world is currently having very tough luck while building new nuclear reactors. It's probably not going to help much with climate change, especially considering that alternate technologies such as wind and solar are in a great position and probably (together with storage solutions) will get better much faster than nuclear. Another hard part is that nuclear power is expensive (due to the needed security, probably no matter what since fission is hard) which stems not from the fuel. Thus it makes little sense to use nuclear as a complement to renewables as peaker plants, as opposed to e.g. gas plants which are ideal and might (hopefully) be converted to use non-fossil fuels in the future (but power-to-gas based stuff).

> Carbon sequestration, storage, capture, ideas to drive global cooling

The first three are (afaict) very much received as a positive, but as a measure of last resort due to cost and energy intensity and not as a replacement to moving away from carbon emissions as possible. They're most likely needed no matter what to archive 1.5°. The last one sounds like a bit science fiction, so probably not a really workable idea (especially due to the potential risks).

The issue is that solutions need to be implemented in a large scale in the next ~10 years which is really not enough time to scale up a newly invented technology, both in the transportation sector (due to long replacement cycles), manufacturing sector (also long replacement times as well as uncertainty) and other infrastructure.

Most governments are still funding research in many things that will probably not make sense for solving climate change (e.g. fusion) and if something unexpectedly works much better and can be implemented much faster than can be expected now we can still use it.

(This is getting a bit long, but...)

To further illustrate the point: Most parts of the solution that get propagated and are getting implemented were already commercialized 10 years ago. Transit, electric cars, wind turbines, heat pumps, PV. Most stuff that wasn't isn't ready to get used on a large scale now.

And for most issues we have working commercial solutions either needing to be utilized on a larger scale (mobility, energy production, heating and some production) or in the pipeline and almost certainly succeeding (energy storage with power-to-gas or other methods, hydrogen for steel and airplanes and similar stuff, concrete). The only issue is doing it, which seems to be the hard part.

> Only problem is with 2 feet of snow on the ground, no one will bike or walk and the demand for these vehicles would greatly strain the system. Not sure how you would account for it.

Cities like Copenhagen perfectly demonstrate that people are still willing to bike even under harsh weathers. The main think you'd have to ensure in order to keep the use high during winter is to keep the cycling lanes safe by removing the snow within a reasonable time.

In NYC they can't even remove the garbage, let alone the snow.

> Cities like Copenhagen perfectly demonstrate that people are still willing to bike even under harsh weathers. The main think you'd have to ensure in order to keep the use high during winter is to keep the cycling lanes safe by removing the snow within a reasonable time.

Is that the only solution to biking after a snowfall? I've wondered what they do.

An alternative to not allowing cars at all is simply eliminating on street parking.

At least in NYC.

Get rid of on street parking and traffic will plummet. More importantly, a LOT of space will open up.

This is probably true of most American downtowns.

> Only problem is with 2 feet of snow on the ground, no one will bike or walk

The Scandinavian big cities beg to differ.

The difference is European cities were established long before cars were a thing, so it's going to be a lot easier for them to go back to that model. American cities were all built around cars being the fundamental mode of transportation.

Thats just not true of NYC, Boston, DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and basically every other east coast city

> European cities were established long before cars were a thing

The small, touristy, beautiful medieval cores of many famous European cities are like this.

The vast oceans of newer construction surrounding this core were made in just as much of a car-centric way as in the U.S.

Here is the touristy area of Prague:

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0841727,14.4275766,3a,75y,13...

Here is what a normal street in Prague looks like, outside the tourist area: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0563622,14.5390901,3a,75y,56...

Here is a touristy part of Rome:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9058174,12.4832519,3a,75y,32...

Normal street in Rome:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.915433,12.5445313,3a,75y,189...

This is such a poor excuse. What you mentioned may apply to the comparatively small historic city centers of European city centers, but most certainly not to the decades of new construction during the car time. In fact, many city centers have been specifically re-worked to better accommodate cars as the primary mean of transport.

Just look at pictures of Amsterdam in the 1970s [1], long before it became such a bike centric city. It is perfectly possible to do that in other European cities as well as American, especially given the increasing support for such measures.

[1] https://twitter.com/radentscheid_s/status/104577226157429964...

In better managed cities, keeping sidewalks and bike lanes free of snow to the point it doesn't bother anyone is not difficult. It doesn't work in NYC, for example, because of, you guessed it, cars...specifically parked cars.

Cars can't drive in 2 feet of snow either. And if you say what about plows? Plows apply to bike lanes and roads - which ideally would be bike / bus / vans only.

This may be unrealistic in our life time. I have 2 kids, 1 toddler and 1 newborn, i can't imagine biking, using public transportation or anything similar when going to doctor, grocery shopping, etc.

I feel you. Father of 3 here. My two year old always just runs as far as fast as he can pretty much whenever he gets a chance. Won't stay in the stroller either. Putting him in a carseat is much easier. Just went on a flight the other day with the kids and chasing him around the airport wasn't easy, although in the end it was somewhat manageable.

Car travel with kids is way easier compared to other methods.

We took the kids to Paris a while back and carting the stroller up and down the stairs to the metro was a huge pain.

Perhaps your child runs when he gets the chance because he doesn't have enough chances with all the time spent strapped in a car seat or a stroller?

You clearly have no kids

That's because so much of the US is built around suburban sprawl and is incredibly hostile to anyone not in a car.

I'd recommend the youtube channel "Not Just Bikes", a guy who moved from Canada to the Netherlands. It's perfectly normal over there to do everything you said is unrealistic.

Imagine not having to chaperone your kids around until they're old enough to drive. In much of the US, this is unthinkable, and it takes a large mental toll on parents, but in the Netherlands, it's not uncommon for elementary schoolers to bike to and from school, friends houses, even riding public transit on their own.

In much of the US, your kids can be taken by social services for this, even if it was perfectly safe for them to do so. And even if it's legal to let your kids be fairly independent, it doesn't matter when you have to fight to get them back (very much "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride").

It's depressing just how far we've fallen under the guise of "protect the children".

> it's not uncommon for elementary schoolers to bike to and from school, friends houses, even riding public transit on their own.

I did all of these things when I was in elementary school in the late 70's, and biking without a helmet no less. Hours and hours with no adult supervision, biking all over town.

I even went to an theme park with my sister, without parents when we were 9 and 11 - took multiple buses to get there about an hour from my house. We got lost on the way home and didn't know which bus to get on. Somebody helped us and we were fine.

Can you imagine the outrage nowadays if such a thing took place.

No, that's incorrect I live in Orange county by far one of the best places for bikes and pedestrians and again I can tell you I won't use public transportation.

It's definitely possible; if you talk to parents who live in cities they'll generally be happy to describe how they do it.

(Raised two kids from 0 to 5y and 7y without a car. Started splitting a car about 6 months ago when we had a third child. Lots of walking, double decker stroller, bus, subway, and bike trailer.)

Many things are possible, but I might not like doing them. It's totally fine for someone to not want cars and not use them. But it's too far to say nobody should be using them, no matter what. Not implying you said that (I know you just commented on the "unrealistic" part), but just referring to the general theme here.

I personally love driving. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to drive cars and even now, I enjoy the feeling of driving a car. One can argue about whether it's the best mode of transport, etc. but for me (and many like me), it's a pleasure of life.

Let's try to stop people from carrying assault weapons before we move to cars?

Cars directly kill 3x the amount of people by firearm homicide (in the US), along with an alarming increase in pedestrian deaths. Not saying we should ban cars everywhere or anything like that, but the status quo is not good enough.

I could have been more clear. The comparison to firearms was more to say it's really hard to stop people from doing things they like and want to do, even if they come at a cost to society. At least cars add to productivity and quality of life, while firearms don't (imo).

> it's too far to say nobody should be using them, no matter what. Not implying you said that (I know you just commented on the "unrealistic" part), but just referring to the general theme here.

What comments express that "general theme"? Is it possible that's a preconceived notion?

I was referring to "... cars aren’t allowed in major cities". In general, I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that some proponents of self-driving cars think human drivers are terrible and need to be taken off the roads.

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant that people with environmental concerns were saying it, which I rarely see. Yes, agreed, self-driving proponents do say it with some frequency.

Big brother / Tesla / Waymo will do your driving, will do it better than you. Just sit back.

I personally love shooting sports. Since I was a kid, I always wanted to participate in shooting sports and even now, I enjoy the feeling of making a great shot. One can argue about whether it's the best mode of entertainment, etc. but for me (and many like me), it's a pleasure of life.

Let's try to stop people from operating heavy machinery which kills many multiples of people before we move to guns?

Note: I am personally pro individual car and gun ownership, just wanting to show you an alternate take on your statement. Personally I'm way more likely to die because of an incompetent driver than someone shooting me, so if I really wanted to reduce the risk of harm coming to me I'd prefer if we made it way more difficult to operate a car in public.

I have two kids and can't imagine forcing them into a car seat at least twice a day. Our walks around our neighborhood are some of our best time together. On the way to school they get exercise, run into friends, and build their autonomy by leading. We walk to the doctor. We walk to the grocery store. Find yourself a built environment that frees you from the shackles of a car.

If you can banish cars from cities to the extent you have described, there's not much incentive at that point to try and automate away the drivers. They wouldn't be randos any more, they'd be professionals, and it's going to be a while before automation catches up to the best drivers on the road.

Toronto solved this for the core with an underground mall

snow day :)

I dislike public transport purely because I don’t want to travel with all those people around me.

I don’t really see how making the vehicles autonomous helps? We could have that future now with normal vehicles if we just disallow them. We don’t need the technocracy to do it.

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