Here's hoping that the high gas prices will finally encourage people to consider that cars aren't the only way to travel!
Alas, that will never happen in the US, but one can dream.
Alas, that will never happen in the US, but one can dream.
It’s more likely to entrench them, along with build popular support for slashing a lot of climate regulations. Humans don’t like fast change. Trying to force it usually backfires.
And that, there, is the problem. Everywhere in the US is designed, often in legally-enforceable ways, to ensure that cars are prioritized over everything else.
The chicken-egg explanation is a normal consequence of not having anticipated the consequences when urban planning for car travel got going in the 50s. Unfortunate as it may be, but it's catch-22 that can be broken out of.
The unwillingness to break out of it, is because of the fetishization of car technology. This is a completely pathetic for adults to do, and is this toddler-mindset which is the biggest impediment to meaningful change today.
Careful tossing that first stone. This is Hacker News. Surely most people here have made some technology purchasing choices moreso for coolness than for practicality. Cars are simply one particular sort of technology.
We don't have transit for a number of reasons, one is that everything would have to be torn up and rebuilt for high speed rail. Two we have a much lower trust society than places like Europe and Japan. Three it's just so unprofitable and people dislike it so much it never gets funding.
Gas would have to become ludicrously expensive in order for me to make the choice to forfeit so much of my day to commuting. It would be ideal if the city I live in expands the light rail system but that's a decades long process.
Private automobiles aren't a bugfix on urban planning, as someone posted to Mastodon recently, they're the determining cause of sprawl patterns. Personal vehicles, cheap fuel, and high-quality uncongested roads cheapen distance and through the Jevons Paradox increase the amount of space used.
https://mastodon.social/@CarlMuckenhoupt/108465959449696924
Light rail works great ... in reasonably dense urban environments and downtowns. If you have to walk only a few blocks to and from your boarding and disembarking points, they're great. Multi-link travel with transfers and delays is abysmal.
LRT also benefits heavily from dedicated rights of way, no roadway contention from other vehicles, traffic signals optimisation, and the rest.
And a single LRV can replace 40 -- 150+ vehicles on the road, depending on fill capacity.
High gas / diesel prices mean your cost of goods is going to keep going up because cities don't produce anything they consume. Just because this is acceptable to most people on this board's income doesn't mean its a good thing in any way.
What did we do instead? Occupied countries with nothing to show for it, engaged in futile trade wars and allowed financial speculation in everything we produce.
It is something like a factor 1.5 to get to my parents and over 2 to my grandparents, much more if they can't pick me up and I have to walk the last 3 miles[0] from the bus stop. I don't know what the multiplier is to my brother, but it is likely to be quite high.
[0]: it can be done, it just takes quite some time.
Here's hoping gas prices will fall rapidly so the less fortunate among us can afford to heat their homes next winter.
Here's hoping gas prices will fall rapidly so that the less fortunate among us can afford the rapid rising food prices that are the result of energy costs.
And personally I don't want to be stuck in a bus, train etc. with a bunch of strangers. I prefer the freedom of my personal vehicle.
Oregon is larger than the United Kingdom.
Texas is larger than France.
Alaska is larger than all of Western Europe.
People live in New York City. It's in the US. Those people tend to drive a lot less than those living in, say, Los Angeles—who also unambiguously live in the US. Why?
Yes. Except that I'm not "suggesting" it. I'm stating it as a fact.
Note that "Europe" is also defined by an "arbitrarily-chosen border".
> I prefer the freedom of my personal vehicle.
You're not at odds with each other, allowing multiple methods of transit doesn't encroach on your freedom to drive a car.