Driving has lost its cool for young Americans
grist.org
grist.org
Meanwhile, my driving connection to my office is I-290, the Ike, one of the most congested highways in the US.
I'm pretty optimally situated to take advantage of public transit.
And yet a commute on the blue line, in addition to being much less pleasant than the freeway (the trains at peak time are packed) takes roughly an hour. Even in rush hour, driving to the office is so much faster it makes a meaningful difference in my morning logistics. After hours, the train still carves an hour out of my life, and the drive is practically like teleportation.
I've done the blue line for months at a time (car trouble, &c) and I don't mind it and I'm happy I have the option, but there's a litany of car unpleasantness on this thread, and I want to contribute an honest counterpoint.
A bike is also a small fraction of the cost of a car, and great for pretty much everything if you live in a city. I'm moving to SF in a few months and I'll only take a job within a few miles of where I'll be living (SOMA area) because I'd like to commute via bike year-round (and ideally telecommute at least some of the time.)
Really, with how much "work from outside the office" tech we have, it's crazy to me that millions of Americans are risking their lives every day /just to get to work/. Can we stop this unnecessary, costly, dangerous, polluting madness please?
Its no big deal. The usual response is to ignore them and generally they will go away (unless you are up very late at night). Nothing too different from ignoring the beggars coming up to you during a traffic stop. I am not sure why the OTP is making an issue out of it.
The variance is also typically less; I've gotten stuck in 2-hour commutes home due to a freeway accident much more often than I've been waylaid for over an hour by a train delays, though that probably varies based on the freeway and transit system.
I don't doubt that public transit is the worse choice for you, but I wanted to comment on an attitude this line reminds me of. People expect that public transportation will, when it "works," be better than having their own vehicle. If driving to a destination is faster and more pleasant, then the system has failed.
In general, there are two problems with this. First, the system was not designed for your trip - your car is. You car will (almost) always be better than any general purpose transport system. The measure of a transport system is how many places you can get to in an acceptable time frame with acceptable reliability. Obviously, as reliability increases and the time frame shrinks, the system improves. Think about the cost of your vehicle (both up front and continuing) and multiply that by the population of your city. We pay quite a lot for the quality afforded by a private vehicle.
Second, I think that many people judge trips from a point of view that's heavily conditioned by experiences in private vehicles. I like taking the subway to work because it lets me read for 25-30 minutes. I like it because I don't have to pay attention and can safely think about other things while I'm traveling. Many people aren't used to the different texture of traveling with a crowd of strangers, and I think that effects their assessments of the overall system.
I want to avoid giving the impression that I'm arguing against public transit, even in my case. Public transit is by far the more cost-effective option, even if you factor the cost of my time. It's also more responsible, and less error-prone.
What I was responding to was a series of comments along the lines of "cars suck, I can't imagine why anybody uses them". Well, I use them to save a couple hours of my day every day. I have a 12 year old whose middle school bus doesn't come by until 8.30; if I took the train, I'd get in to work every day at 10:00AM.
I guess I was trying to point out the differences in philosophy between private ownership and a public system - your post seemed agreeable enough that I wouldn't incite an argument :).
P.S. Everyone who voted the parent comment up is a lazy bastard. Get off your fat arses and walk once in a while.
- In many situations, even with good public transit available, you're going to want to own a car.
- If you do own a car, it's a sunk cost.
- The cost is substantial.
- Due to a substantial sunk cost, you might as well get your money's worth, and drive. (i.e., Loss aversion)
So basically, I am stuck driving because I can't "not have a car" and if I'm going to pay into having a car, I might as well realize the benefits of owning one.
Taking it a step further, unless I can live in an area with good enough transit sufficient to not own a car at all, I'm better off economically in the suburbs, where rent is cheaper.
Or... I could put a card in my wallet. I could tap my wallet on a turnstile[1], a gate slides open, a train arrives every 5 minutes or so, and I ride anywhere in the city for a flat rate. This seems a lot "cooler" than dealing with maintaining my own personal transport pod.
[1] in Boston, in New York you still have to take it out and swipe.
Now you know how many people feel about their computers...
For the curious: - AdBlock+, because public Wi-Fi is slow and I don't like using more bandwidth than necessary - NoScript in "allow global" mode (still catches some XSS and other nastiness) - RequestPolicy (like noscript but for cross-site requests; also great for only looking at text as most big sites now host CSS/JS/images on a CDN) - Priv3 (blocks most opt-in social media integration while still letting it function if you want) - Ghostery (blocks tracking cookies/pixels/other methods) - Certificate Patrol (alerts you to any changes to SSL certs on sites -- it's surprising how often many sites change SSL up. Protects you from spoofing if you pay attention) - HTTPS Everywhere - MAFIAAFire (Gee! No Evil! to un-filter Google autocomplete, Pirate Bay Dancing, and Redirector to circumvent Department of Homeland Security DNS hijacking) - Header Spy because I do lots of debugging web apps and it lets me quickly robtex a server. - Wappalyzer to see what CMS or common software the site is running on
I'm pretty tinfoil'd up and still paranoid.
You may want to check out: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy - BetterPrivacy, if you haven't taken care of it's features in other ways.
On the other hand, when I visit a city with public transit it usually makes me very uncomfortable. Is the station open when I need to go? Do I need tokens or a card? Will the vending machine take credit cards? Will I just miss barely the train and be late to my meeting? Will the train be late because some dude got stuck in the door (this happened to me in London)? Is that shady looking fellow at the other end of the car going to mug or knife me? What if the engineer is texting, misses a crucial signal and plows into the back of a stopped train?
Each mode of transit has its plusses and minuses. Public transit is great if it's convenient, quick and safe. Cars also have a cost as well as the article illustrates.
For me, I like the flexibility and feeling of control I have from having a car. And, frankly, I like driving. :)
Your paranoia can be lumped into two categories -- minor inconveniences to you or threats with a very very low probability of happening.
I'm not trying to dismiss your paranoia. I completely sympathize that the shady looking fellow can make anyone afraid, and the only "cure" is habituation and rationalization. And you can't habituate if you're not a regular transit user.
On the other hand, one of the major problems with driving is habituation. If you're not paying attention, it's quite easy to kill a family of four. But people do it so often without having a problem that they let themselves get distracted. That's when accidents happen.
Driver training really needs to be more like the firearms training I received as a kid. Loaded firearms can be easily handled safely, but you always have to remember that they are deadly weapons and treat them with care and attention. A multi-ton vehicle moving at velocities well in excess of those evolution trained us to deal with is also a deadly weapon. Safe when used properly by yourself and everyone else on the roads, but always a deadly weapon.
Driving is a responsibility, just like owning a firearm or having root on all your company's servers. With great power comes great responsibility.
However, many of the items the parent mentioned, short of having an accident, are not even concerns for me and I would classify as minor inconveniences. Running out of gas is a minor inconvenience. A flat tire is a minor inconvenience (assuming you know how to change a flat, and even more minor if you don't). The others, again short of an accident, are things that are not likely to happen assuming you are aware of your surroundings. Don't park where you aren't supposed to. Don't leave valuables in plain sight - pretty much the same precautions you would take on public transit to avoid becoming a victim of crime.
I don't want to seem as though I'm opposed to public transit. I think it's great where it works and, if it were an option where I lived, I would probably use it when it made sense to. I was thinking about this last night and I've noticed I tend to use it more on the west coast than on the east coast. I actually like TriMet in Portland, and I've used Caltrain, VTA and BART when I'm in the Bay Area with little to no issues. But I would probably avoid the subway in NYC again and MARTA in Atlanta was one of the more terrifying experiences I've ever had as far as feeling unsafe.
The thing is, a large percentage of the population of the US lives in areas that have no public transit at all. Articles heralding the death of the car (like the link) tend to focus on cities, and suburban areas near them, that have adequate public transit while completely ignoring the remaining segments of the population that live in areas where public transit is not, and probably never will be, a viable option. For these areas there are simply no other options other than cars.
But now I'm a city boy, and glad to live in an area with viable public transit. Let someone else do the driving -- I'll read or entertain my kids.
"The decline in driving by younger Americans is fed by many factors: the high cost of gas and insurance at a time of economic insecurity; tighter restrictions on teen drivers in many states; and roads that are more congested than ever, making driving less fun than ever."
But I'd add that cars used to be cool, and right now there aren't any cars I seriously want to drive. My dad and his brothers could afford muscle cars and they loved driving them, it was cool as hell. I can't relate to that at all.
I understand that not everyone likes working on their own cars. I don't enjoy gardening. It's a diversion, a hobby for me. Like anything else, it's not "scary" once you start to understand it. It's just a machine, and in particular the older Mercedes are very overbuilt, designed to be repairable, and are generally easy to work on.
http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/
I'd love to create a modern electric conversion of a 2cv, but while I don't hate cars, I don't want to become that much of a car guy.
They have not only muscle cars, as you mention, but hacked together roadsters, freaky modded VWs bugs, tuned Hondas, lowered El Caminos, and raised 4WDs. Not to mention the motorcycles.
The idea of moving to Copenhagen and pedaling a bicycle to the tram stop does not seem to have seized their imagination in quite the same way that Vin Diesel has. ;-)
Nowdays we are all too aware of environmental impact of cars, so the whole concept beyond basic utilitarian use is a whole lot less appealing.
Why is America so far behind in a developed transit and public infrastructure?
It is only in the last 10-15 years that serious efforts are being made to rebuild the inner system rail ways system. In the face of public apathy (and sometimes outright opposition) as well as interests depended heavily in highway transportation, it is been slow going.
One of America's greatest problems is the lack of any development into great city infrastructure. Our American society lacks the idea of planning for the future since post WWII, and only focuses on the 'now'. Where are the great cities in America? NYC, Boston, DC, maybe San Fran, rather a few for a country as large as ours, with a population of 300 million.
We need to start thinking about our infrastructure more. And thinking of the future, with integrated design through out our public systems.
Seattle, one of our greatest cities, is all the way down at #23, meaning you have to disqualify almost 20 other bigger cities to add it-and-only-it to that list. Sure, I'm no fan of Houston, and that list includes Detroit, but dismissing Austin? San Diego? Philly?
Come on.
I'm talking about well designed cities. San Diego is awesome, but it's kind of an urban sprawl, not well planned. But any infrastructure would be great in that climate, right? Cool laid back culture in San Diego, but how would the city's deign, aesthetic, beauty, and public infrastructure hold up on an international level? Maybe really well, but it could be so much better. (And don't get me wrong, I love SD, and their beaches)
Austin is really cool, but again, is also a classic example of a good city gone wrong with suburbs. Many American developers, and American's just don't understand the purpose of a grid system. In Austin there is 'downtown', but where are the people living there. Downtown in Austin seems to merely represent the 'soul' of the city, while the majority of the 'residents' live in poorly planned suburbs with 1.5 Walmarts, and 3 starbucks for every 5 miles you drive in your SUV. So Austin is not a great city in my book, because of it's poor surrounding suburb infrastructure, and 'fo' downtown. Austin downtown acts more of an amusement park, than an actual great city.
But that does not mean Austin is not 'great', it's just not a 'great city' on an international scale, in terms of public infrastructure and the such. But relative to other American cities, it's cool, but it's be strangled by the surrounding suburbs.
I live in Atlanta, actual Atlanta, not a suburb. And it's an example of a city infrastructure gone horribly wrong. Little public design going on in Atlanta, which is a shame, because there is so much potential, like many American cities. I think Georgia needs to rethink how we tax, residential tax makes no sense to me. Living in another area from where you work, is a strange concept. I think we should take away the tax incentives for living in the suburbs, as I find them morally wrong in the first place.
The same can be said about driving. I read a few months ago that all 50 states now receive more in highway funding than they pay out in user fees/taxes.
Once the massive externalities of private motor and road subsidies are accounted for, private motor is much more expensive per km/mi travelled than public transport (and obviously orders of magnitude more than bike)
In Sydney, AU for example driving costs $0.86/passengerKm while trains are only $0.48 (http://melbourneurbanist.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/glazebr...)
If motorists had to pay the true cost of the service, everyone would be riding bikes.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that the nation faces a $2.2 trillion infrastructure backlog. One of every eight bridges is "structurally deficient," and 85 percent of public transit systems are struggling to carry the growing number of riders. As ASCE President Blaine D. Leonard puts it, "We are still driving on Eisenhower's roads and sending our kids to Roosevelt's schools."
http://www.governing.com/columns/potomac-chronicle/The-Loomi...
We also have one half of our two-party democracy steadfastly against public transit. Despite the fact that trains and rail were a central theme in their cultural touchstone, Atlas Shrugged.
Why did President George W. Bush try to zero out Amtrak funding in 2005? Why is the conservative Republican Study Committee suggesting that we do so now? Why does George Will think "the real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism"?
"You need to distinguish between Republicans and conservatives and libertarians when you look at this," says William Lind, the director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation. "It's the libertarians who push this crap."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
I like the Acela, a lot, and I disagree philosophically with the GOP's take on public infrastructure, but I think it's a bad idea to pretend that they don't have a valid point regarding Amtrak.
I think they have a valid point even if you narrow the whole thing down to the Acela. I do not have a hard time believing that the Northeast Rail Corridor is less cost-effective than air.
I'm pretty sure they have a valid point when you consider Amtrak nationwide.
I do not think that their point is dispositive. The Acela can be inefficient and still worth retaining and (as I've argued elsewhere here) extended.
But I object to the notion that they have no valid argument at all.
Do you think that toll roads wouldn't go bankrupt, if not for the gas tax subsidy that they receive? It's a false equivalence because one subsidy is directly authorized by congress and is a political football that each side uses for fundraising, while the other (the gas tax) can't be used as a political football because voters would revolt.
Also, The jury is still out on your basic assertation that Amtrak is not cost effective.
David C. of the blog GreaterGreaterWashington published a classic in this genre late last month. "When indirect subsidies are considered, Amtrak's total subsidy comes out to a little less than 44¢ ppm," he argues. "Motoring's subsidy rises up to almost 45¢ ppm."
First - part of living in a society is paying for things that others use that you may not, but which improves society for all.
Second - I live in Philadelphia and rarely use roads, and yet my tax dollars to the government of Pennsylvania are used, in combination with gas tax proceeds, to repair roads that others drive on, and that I don't directly benefit from. That's the price of living in a society, and I support it.
Also, unlike most of Amtrak, you benefit directly from Penn's roads even when you don't use them yourself; for instance, virtually everything you eat is brought to you over them.
Lots of root vegetables and drastically higher food prices.
Secondly, go read the actual source cited by that Economist blog post. It's another blog post:
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/12208/funding-amtra...
The cost breakdown in this blog post is ad hoc, and the biggest "wins" for Amtrak come from parking and "resource consumption".
Parking is taxed, not directly subsidized. The blog post dips into studies that (rightly) excoriate free parking, and scales the external cost of free parking across all parking, thus conflating the total cost of driving with the subsidized cost of driving.
For "resource consumption", the blogger found a study that attributed the entire cost of our military presence in the gulf to oil prices, simply averaging the military budget across oil prices per barrel.
This just isn't credible.
I am not anti-Amtrak, but I am anti-oversimplified-arguments and anti-demonizing-viewpoints. A counterpoint from Cato, which I also do not buy outright:
Yes - I'm quite aware of the original source, I went and found the Economist piece after finding the GreaterGreatWashington post, because I felt it added more interesting reading and discussion.
For "resource consumption", the blogger found a study that attributed the entire cost of our military presence in the gulf to oil prices, simply averaging the military budget across oil prices per barrel.
We are there as part of the Carter Doctrine, which states that our security depends on access to cheap oil. This is not just dug up by a pro-Amtrak blog post to make a point. This is a stated national policy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine
I am not anti-Amtrak, but I am anti-oversimplified-arguments and anti-demonizing-viewpoints. A counterpoint from Cato, which I also do not buy outright
Agreed. My hat goes off to you for the Cato link, even though they drive me up the wall.
Bonus link "Help Passenger Rail by Privatizing Amtrak - Cato Institute" - http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa419.pdf
Why am I paying for Amtrak? Outside a very small area on the east coast, it's useless. Either expand it into a true national rail system or get rid of it.
Second, for its core purpose --- not moving people from home to vacation, but for moving products between manufacturing centers, ports, and consumers --- the US has a powerful and reasonably effective rail infrastructure. Read Buffett's shareholder note after buying Burlington Northern.
Third, if (say) 80-90% of public transit is commuter transit, keep in mind that most US major metros have tolerably effective public transit, and many (NYC, Chicago, DC, &c) have extremely good public transit.
While you think about that remember also that the real estate bubble and artificially low commuter costs (cheap gas, &c) distorted public transit in our metro areas by encouraging the development of exurb suburbs that can't cost-effectively be addressed by rail. It's possible that within the next 20 years, they won't be cost-effective for cars either, and that problem will self-correct as housing values in exurbs plummet and families move back into the public transit rings around the cities.
Put differently, because maybe that point seems banal ("suburbs bad!"), consider that in complaining about transit, we may effectively be complaining that it is hard to link a city with what should be a corn field in the middle of nowhere. Well, yeah?
Then read everything everyone else writes about long distance high speed rail.
I'd love to have it. People made fun of STL->CHI high speed rail, hoping instead for coast-to-coast or Chicago->Detroit->Cleveland->NYC, but STL->CHI would link two major metros and allow companies to expand between the cities; for instance, it would allow us to hire out of STL and serve STL companies as house accounts.
But the flip side of high-speed rail is that it's simply not cost-competitive over the distances we're dealing with, especially once you factor the cost of deploying it, which is spectacular. Just look at the problems California had with secure rights of way.
It's easy for Europe to have effective rail, because Europe is comparatively tiny; the distance from Berlin to Rome is just a little more than twice the distance the Acela runs; Acela's got nowhere to go north of Boston, and extending it to Atlanta would make Acela longer than Berlin-Rome.
>>But the flip side of high-speed rail is that it's simply not cost-competitive over the distances we're dealing with, especially once you factor the cost of deploying it, which is spectacular. Just look at the problems California had with secure rights of way.
The longer we wait, the more expensive it will become. I say we should act now and swift. Instead of bailing out failing financial systems, we should have solely put that money to our infrastructure. That would have put deserving people to real work. Imagine how much harder it will become in another 20 years, and this is the future of America we are talking about.
Also, I believe cities ordinances should start outlawing the development of the traditional suburb. It should not be legal for these developers to build suburbs with out having a library, hospital, and school in walking distance. Having grown up in a suburb, and traveled the world a bit, I want nothing to do with suburbs. The reason why many in our government likes suburbs is because it encourages consumerism. Some have even argued that the reason why we solely have an almost auto based public transit system is because of auto lobbyist in congress during the 20th century. Although of course there have been many other social economic factors as well, such as 'white flight', as you touched upon.
Counties can, but it'd be suicidal, because the people it would push out of the county are the wealthiest and most important part of the tax base.
Cities can tax suburbs by imposing commuter costs, but that tactic is in tension with the city's need to keep businesses, which will move out of the city if it penalizes the workforce.
I think parking is generally too cheap, and tolls are generally to low. But apart from that, I think the "white flight" stag hunt will eventually be counteracted by a "suburban decay" stag hunt that'll contract populations back into the cities.
The only thing I can see that would prevent that would be cost-effective personal transportation (say, hydrogen fuel cell), which would be a vindication of the suburbs.
If you already marvel at there being an interstate into Alberta, marvel even more at the Transcanada Highway :D.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspi...
* NYC
* LA
* Chicago
* DC
* Houston
* Dallas
* Philly
* SF
* Boston
* Atlanta
Most of these cities have effective public transit. LA is the notable exception (and the one the "auto lobby" narrative seems to pick out).
I am surprised that Atlanta is on the list. In terms of public transit, it is not only abysmal, it seems that the current GA legislature is going out of their way to kill it.
Canada is in a similar situation, only more so. Lots of land, not many people living on it. Just as in the U.S., you find public transit in large, dense cities like Toronto, not so much in the smaller and more rural areas. Same with Russia -- good subways in Moscow, etc. by all reports, but you aren't going to find subways or buses in the middle of Siberia.
Two things are required for a regional or national train service to be useful enough that it can be self-sustaining: population density and local public transportation. Local public transportation also requires population density to be effective; someone considering taking a train to Tallahassee FL might decide to drive instead after looking up the bus schedules online. Busses run about once an hour during the hours people normally commute to day jobs and do not go to many useful locations, like the airport.
Germany has a population of about 80 million people. Germany is smaller than Montana. The US as a whole has 26 times the land area but less than 4 times the population.
There are useful train services in population-dense areas of the US such as the SF bay area and the NYC/northern New Jersey region. The population density of these areas is such that it's often easier to travel by train, subway and bus than by car.
The same is not true of Billings, MT, the largest city in a state bigger than Germany. The population of Billings is about 100,000, and the closest city in the state with a population over 10,000 is Bozeman, about 150 miles away. The population of the whole state is about the same as the city I live in, Jacksonville FL, and that city can barely sustain a barely useful bus system.
If the US is to have a decent nationwide public transportation system, it needs about a billion more people. I'm not sure we actually want that.
Yuck. I hope our relationship with the car changes.
Self driving cars. Cars-as-a-service. Improved public transit. Bike-friendly cities. Remote work. Etc. I'll be watching with interest.
When "driving a car" means turning a key and then pointing it in the right direction, it's no surprise the experience has lost its luster. If your life is about constantly being online, then I see the article's point—public transit is your best option. If you enjoy driving, then get a car that's fun to drive.
Unfortunately the appeal of manuals is lost on most Americans.
If I end up having kids, they won't have their own cars until they are proficient with a stick.
Dual-clutch automatic for me.
I love driving a good sports car with a manual transmission. I'm the minority, not you.
I have my fingers crossed for the new Subaru model. We're starting to run out of options.
An interesting analogy that I thought of at the time was manual memory management. Stalling the car felt an awful lot like throwing a seg fault. I haven't followed the analogy very far so it might break down, but it's certainly true that in the right hands (race car drivers, kernel programmers?), C and stick shifts can be wielded with devastating effect.
I never actually finished learning to drive though, as I live in NYC now, so YMMV (literally).
It is something you pick up after a couple of hours of driving and becomes second nature.
That said, I would prefer automatic, especially in traffic jams. Unfortunately it is not always an option when driving a company car.
I took my car to Grease Monkey to get the oil changed and I had to drive it into and out of the bay, because no worker there knew how to drive a stick.
It also very much saddens me that when it's time to get a new car, I may be forced to not get a stick because so many models simply don't come in a manual now.
The other very cheap and very fast option is a used street bike, since all of those have manuals.
Supposedly, automatics incur a few percent more gas usage. And gas is really expensive here.
A stick is also only more fuel efficient if you're always in the right gear. It's much more natural to drive aggressively when driving a stick, so I suspect that many drivers negate any fuel efficiency savings.
To me, a stick shift doesn't give a feeling of control. It gives a feeling of subservience. I have to do more busy work to accomplish the same tasks. I must appease the car gods by choosing the appropriate gears and releasing the clutch properly, lest they stall me.
As an analogy, I would not code in assembly unless I needed its performance or flexibility. But some people, such as one of the hosts of 'Security Now!', like to do everything in assembly.
As a young adult myself I'd love to own a car, but it's almost impossible to have enough capital to pay for insurance, maintenance, petrol, the auto, and my student loans. I'd be digging myself into a financial ditch I wouldn't be able to get out for over 20 years.
Sprawl sucks.
But I didn't take my car with me to university. Instead, I use the thrice-daily Piedmont train to get back and forth from Raleigh and home every couple of weeks, and while I'm in Raleigh I either walk or ride the bus to get around. And now that I'm at home on Christmas break, I have realized how much of a bother driving really is. Sure, you can just get up and go whenever and wherever you want, but you have to deal with traffic, buy gas, pay for maintenance on your car... It's a pain even in High Point (a small city of only about 100,000), and I have no doubt that it would be even more of a pain in Raleigh, to say nothing of Charlotte, Atlanta, or New York.
Now that I can drive, I still have no interest in a car. Mind you, I live in London, where driving a car is very expensive; just congestion charges and parking alone would make it more expensive than public transport, never mind fuel costs, insurance and depreciation.
But scooters in the city: that's another game altogether, almost literally. In the UK, filtering / lane splitting is legal, and nowhere is it as gleefully taken advantage of as in London. Getting from A to B is such a joy I frequently go out into the evening rush hour (I work from home) merely to entertain myself, cutting through the traffic.
Two wheels: no congestion charge, much better fuel consumption, significantly cheaper insurance, parking is cheap or usually free outside of Westminster, and the weather is almost always mild. It's very hard to beat. And overall, the cost is less than public transportation if you're not living in central London (where you'll take the hit in rent prices or living circumstances instead).
There are maybe a couple of activities that I still cannot do without a car, such as getting tons of groceries (say, going to Costco), transporting anything heavy, and doing road trips. Something like ZipCar already addresses most of those.
Also, I always feel bad for driving, it feels lazy from both a physical exertion standpoint (I live in a highly urbanized area, it's not like I have miles of cornfields to cross), and burning gas does nobody a favor.
Can't wait for some sort of personal automated pods to be developed.
However, what isn't and what certainly isn't cool is if I had to spend a half an hour on the road, driving to/from work each day. Going to the office, I just take the tram if weather doesn't suit cycling. I'd never move to a place where I'd need a car to go to work or do my chores. A few times a year I end up driving in rush hour traffic and each time just enforces that opinion of mine.
I think that as soon as the car becomes a commodity, it loses much of its appeal.
For me, it's still somewhat of a luxury: I could do without it. I keep a car because I love to go on long trips driving myself, instead of taking the train or bus. And I love to occasionally drive to some place where I have chores to do but I can't easily reach by public transit, such as shops and spare parts stores in industrial zones, or picking somebody up in downtown or airport. Or just drive to go swim in a neighbouring city where I know they have an especially nice pool. I clock maybe 15,000km per year doing that. And there are weeks I don't start my car once.
But then again, I don't text much either. I don't even always take my mobile phone with me when I go out. So, go figure.
I have driven since I was 16. Over 20 years later, I still enjoy it. What I don't like? Commuting. Unfortunately, if one wants to rely on public transit in Silicon Valley, you will either make compromises in time or cost of living (or location to live). Bay Area roads and freeways are pretty bad. Thankfully, for me, I commute off hours twice a week and am at home other times.
Back to the joy of driving though -- the road trip is quintiscential Americana. The open road, radio blasting, and just letting the miles go by. If one can get out of the major metro areas (or vacation time traffic routes), you can just go...Highway 395 from the Canadian border, down through the high desert and into the Sierras; or getting out during the low season and driving down the Pacific Coast Highway; or taking it a bit slower and experiencing the gold country with Highway 49 and Highway 20...I could go on...
Unfortunately, this enjoyment means getting away from people, density, and traffic...
I can't even imagine the thought process that would even consider this question.
Then it's a matter of readjusting said driver's priorities.
My first car in college a '69 Mustang fastback is by far the most exciting ride I've ever had.
http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/4/282/941/3820297...
Cars under $50K today are mostly boring. Most of my younger friends see cars as transportation and nothing more.
I too lament that fact, but there are a few non-boring cars under $30k. The Subaru WRX, Mazda Miata and (soon) the Toyota GT-86/Subaru BRZ strike me as not boring, but it seems to me that the market for these cars has shrunk. People actually seem to want boring cars now.
I am way more excited about bikes than I am about fancy cars. Nice bikes are within the financial reach of almost anyone, and cycling skill makes a big difference because you can actually push yourself and your machine to the limits in the city.
Save the sports cars for the track.
But really it is pointless to compare the US to Denmark. Does New Jersey have a population density comparable to Denmark's? New Jersey north of the Raritan, even?
Seriously, though, I think there are just a lot of things competing for people's attention, young or otherwise. There are many activities you can do at home / online nowadays, and these naturally displace some activities that would have involved driving somewhere.
I am young, and I love motoring. I guess I am out of touch. But, I suppose it wouldn't be the first time.
Though there is one major problem encroaching on my enjoyment- the decline of the sports car. The number of true-blue sports cars coming out of car makers is steadily declining. I can only pray it does not grow worse in the future.