But we need to understand. There are cases where the car is a must. Unavoidable. Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological disease or some other disability.
I tick all of those boxes and never had a car.
I live in the city, walking and using public transit. Toddlers love to walk and to be carried in the stroller.
Cars from the suburbs are a constant inconvenience for us living in inner cities: they are a danger to pedestrians and cyclists alike, they make our streets noisy and our air polluted.
If people liked the suburbs so much, they would stay there. But no, they want the convenience and services of the city while shoving the externalities of their lifestyle onto other people.
The inner cities are also places were the suburbs people come to work and play. So space in underground parkings or other accomodations is expected. Imagine if the sububs people decided to say to you (inner) city people that you are not allowed to go to their green parks and recreation areas because you are "shoving externalities of your (city) lifestyle to them".
Jesus.
Regarding green spaces, they easily coexist in dense walkable neighborhoods.
I hear such outrageous arguments all the time by inner city dwellers. Just because they own or rent a microscopic appartment in a condo, they think they own the city and all must abide to their lifestyle.
Amsterdam has slowly tried to move cars out of the city center over the past couple decades. Residents can still get a parking permit, but parking space has been reduced to make more space for people, and visitors had better park their car at the edge of the city and take public transport into the city center. Or just come by train.
No, they are tax-payers, they should be allowed to come with whatever vehicle they want. I agree that cheap public transportation should be offered, but also parking spaces for those who cannot come with public transportation.
I support them, though. I'm a tax payer too, and I live here, and I like the fact that this city is a lot nicer now.
And there are parking spaces. Lots of them. At the edge of the city. With fast public transport to the center, and if you combine the two, the parking is incredibly cheap. It's a win for everybody. I have no idea where your weird entitlement comes from.
Im sorry for the snark but your comment seems out of touch and elitist.
So perhaps with this new context you can rethink where my comment was coming from.
There's different ways of living a life, and the current trend shouldn't be seen as car demonization. I see it more as a new generation seeing the current US car-centric society and pushing for a better (for the life they want to live) alternative.
>Good public transit is unfortunately the exception in many places and not the rule.
Then let's make it better! :-)
>” Then let's make it better! :-)”
Why respond with such condescension? And, why follow it up with such a hollow and glib call to action?
This is a fixable problem. The biggest issue is...
> Cars are still needed in many use cases.
... the people who say this and, as a result, block any attempt to improve public transit whatsoever. Even worse, some are apt to frame it a "war on cars" because they're spending money on transportation that's not going to cars.
Those trips might be east to the small city. Or west to the mid-sized down. There's a bus in those directions, about once every 2 hours, last one at 6pm so useless for evening activities, or commuting further on the train. It's just gone past my front door now, it's rare to see more than 2 or 3 passengers on board other than at college time.
My options for going further - to London or Manchester 1) bus to the station, train to london, tube across london, then return on tube, train, and get a taxi back from the station 2) drive to the station in the morning, park, drive back in the evening (last train arrives about midnight) 3) drive the entire journey, under 3 hours so about the same amount of time
Same if I go to Manchester and Birmingham, but the drive is about half the time of public transport.
They might be south towards the big village. Or north to another big town. There's no bus services there.
Now you might say "just put on more public transport". My wife drives to work at a hospital 25 miles away. I suspect you could meet the entire daily demand from my village in that direction with a single minibus. The route doesn't pass any other major settlements, it's south-west down the lanes. How frequently would a bus need to run to be useful? Every hour? How early would it start? How late would it run? How many people would it take on each journey, and how much would it cost to run? How much pollution would it cause? What benefits would there be?
Public transport doesn't work below a certain density. If you want to depopulate the country and put everyone in tower blocks in the city - leaving the country for the rich - then just be honest about it.
I don't want to do this. But the fact that you immediately go to the suggestion that I do is emblematic of the "war-on-cars" mentality. Just so much as mention wanting to improve public transit and you get a screed that concludes that I'm an evil person with ulterior motives.
No, public transit doesn't work everywhere. I'm not going to even try to pretend that it does. And consequently, I'm not going to attempt to propose it in places where it doesn't work. So why do the "war-on-car" people so vehemently oppose public transit when its proposed in the places where it very obviously works?
Bud, nobody is taking the car away from those kinds of use cases. It's very clear for most people that cars are necessary in those situations, and that's fine. What we're demonising is the car as the only way to go about getting from A to B. If you watch some of the urban planning videos on the topic, or lurk the r/f*cars subreddit you'll quickly see that most people also* want to make the driving experience better! And by better they don't mean to build one more lane, but sensible infrastructure that makes sense for everybody, not just the cars. The whole point is about inclusion: why isn't using a car unavoidable?
Fact of the matter is the following: not everyone lives near a fantastic commuting infrastructure, let alone can physically achieve moving from A to B against the elements or their other problems.
If you had business in a different city that's a few hours distance, and you miss the last bus of the day, you'll need to wait at least 6-8 hours to be able to get the first bus or train of the next day.
In this case you can probably still find a taxi, but then we're back to the car situation.
(EDIT: Of course the problem would also be solved if you could get a bus or train any time of the day.)
Kids need to be able to explore independently! Thank you for understanding this.
Cars have reasons to exists and a no-car future is neither likely nor desirable; but today they are overused as an inefficient but easy solution.
But other than that, you are wrong again. The most common neurological disabilities actually affect motor and sensitivity. Are people are allowed to drive.
Here in Switzerland I see people biking with toddlers AND heavy groceries all the time. And the landscape and weather are definitely challenging.
I have a neighbor who drives her 3 small kids around on a bicycle (one in the rear child seat, two in a trailer). In her defence it's an e-bike.