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Comment by fleddr | Hacker News Reader

The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure, whilst not knowing a damn thing about it.

First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country. We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles.

Public transport is rarely faster, not even in the most idyllic example that you give where you go from big city to big city. The thing you conveniently forget to consider is that nobody lives near the station of city A and then also works very closely to the station of city B. It almost always includes additional travel towards A and from B. Cycling, trams, buses, multiple stops in both directions. It adds up.

To illustrate how absurdly slow public transport can be, a personal example. I used to live directly behind a train station in a mid-sized city. Doesn't get much better than that, right?

Let's explore the commute to work, some 60km away...

I have to get up early and be there some 10 mins before departure to secure somewhat of a reasonable spot. Next, I'm on route to the first big city station. This route is slow, it stops 5 times along the way as everybody needs to connect to a big hub to get where they need to be.

I arrive at the hub, where there's a 20 minute connection wait to take the train to the big city destination. This route is longer but fast, no stops along the way.

I get out and have a 10 minute connection wait for the bus to take me to the place closest to work, after which there's a 5-10 minute work.

Total commute time: 2.5 hours single way. To move 60km. And that's living behind a train station and working at one of the countries' largest employers.

What works really well in the Netherlands is living within a cycling radius from work, every other option sucks.

View on HN

>First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country...On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles.

Anyone visiting a Dutch city can see what a distortion this comment is. The sheer volume of bike traffic on largely safe infrastructure is phenomenal. Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock. Life may be good for Dutch drivers, but only because so many others leave their cars at home.

How is that a distortion? It seems like you’re violently agreeing with the parent that many people bike to work but far, far fewer than the majority (which is essentially what the American anti-car rhetoric suggests).

> Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock.

There are 10 million employed Dutch (Statista) of whom 65% drive (Statista), so an additional half a million would be a 10% traffic increase, which is probably not “gridlock”, but in any case I don’t see how this refutes the original claim that Netherlands is a car country.

I think the problem is that American anti-car rhetoric doesn't speak with one voice. There are people who know what they're talking about, who are mostly saying "If we follow some of the Dutch practices, we can get a city where people can get to a local destination by bike safely. But we should also take note that even in the Netherlands, the need to engineer roads for bike safety is something they continually forget". But there's others who say "The US is a hell-hole, Americans are evil and dumb, cars are evil, they will destroy the earth, we must all copy the enlightened Europeans who are good and wise people".

It is like that for so many reform proposals. Heterodox economists (MMT or gold standard or anything really) will say "we ought to consider this evidence in making our economic decisions", and their acolytes on forums like this will say "If we adopt this reform, we will be able to solve all our problems, but it's just corruption and self-interested politicians who stop us". Voting system reform people say "The US is screwed by FPTP, if we adopted proportional representation we will depolarise and have a nice consensual politics", but people who study the politics of countries that use proportional representation don't really indicate that (I think in this case there are some political scientists who get close, but only by circularly defining perfection in politics as exhibiting the consequences of proportional representation).

I agree that it’s hard to represent groups accurately, but I don’t think your “person who knows what they’re talking about” falls reasonably within bounds of anyone’s “anti-car” definition. For one, it’s not actually an anti-car argument, it’s a pro-cycling argument and lots of Americans favor safer cycling without getting anywhere near anti-car. Moreover, every identifiably anti-car community I’m aware of (e.g., r/fuckcars) has a tone that is more akin to your “Americans are evil” example—are there identifiably anti-car communities that embody your former example?

I don't know of any such communities online, but in real world local politics the first example is more common. People who support things like bike lanes, bus lanes, and light rail don't describe themselves as "anti-car", but their opponents call them that among less polite names, so I'd argue it's the more mainstream definition of anti-car.

Yeah, I think we're talking about different groups. I'm talking about people who self-identify as "anti-car". I've never heard of anyone who uses "anti-car" as a derogatory term for others, but I wouldn't be surprised if they exist somewhere. Personally, it seems unreasonable to me to define "anti-car" as "supports other modes of transit"; "anti-car" by my definition (which I think is the main definition) requires emphatic opposition to cars.

> ...but only by circularly defining perfection in politics as exhibiting the consequences of proportional representation

Oh, I love "logic" like that. Another common example is: "the free market is the best economic system because the perfect allocation of goods in society is how the market does it."

You need fine-grained statistics. It certainly isn't true that 65% of the people living or working in big dense Dutch cities like Amsterdam drive to work. That statistic more reflects how much the population of the Netherlands is spread out as a whole, not concentrated in its biggest cities as is more common in many other European countries.

Do you mean Statistica or Statista?

Statista. I’m on mobile and autocorrect is getting me. I edited my post, thanks for the correction.

> There are 10 million employed Dutch (Statistica) of whom 65% drive

People don't just commute to work. Millions of Dutch students commute to school and I expect a large majority of those will bike.

The original poster claimed that car usage is the norm in the Netherlands, which implies that anything else is outside the norm, or unusual. This is obviously incorrectly.

There are various other posts in this thread that also give statistics, and the number of car vs bike journeys is not so far apart.

In a country that famously has more bikes then people, the idea that if half the bike journeys converted to cars there would only be a ten percent increase in traffic is quite clearly ridiculous. Especially within cities bikes carry volumes of people that would overwhelm roads if those people used space-inefficient cars.

> The original poster claimed that car usage is the norm in the Netherlands, which implies that anything else is outside the norm, or unusual

This isn't a reasonable interpretation. "the norm" only implies that it's the majority mode of transportation (in contrast with the anti-car rhetoric). This implies that other modes are not the majority, but it does not imply that those other modes are particularly rare.

> In a country that famously has more bikes then people, the idea that if half the bike journeys converted to cars there would only be a ten percent increase in traffic is quite clearly ridiculous.

I mean, I showed my math--feel free to point out where I erred, but just stating "it's quite clearly ridiculous" is like putting your fingers in your ears and shouting, "I can't hear you".

> The sheer volume of bike traffic on largely safe infrastructure is phenomenal. Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock.

Having visited Amsterdam by chance after missing a flight to London due to NYC gridlock traffic, this was one of my first thoughts on arrival.

Generalising from the centre of a city to the whole country is a distortion. Last time i was in the Netherlands, i arrived in Amsterdam, then went out to the countryside, somewhere near Dedemsvaart. I looked at doing the trip by public transport, but it would have taken forever. Instead, we rented a car and drove there, along wide, fast, busy roads. The Netherlands is indeed a heavily motorised country.

Dutch cycling infrastructure is close to ubiquitous, extending practically the length and breadth of the country. The idea that bikes are used only in city centres is another distortion. But of course the bike tends to be used for shorter, local trips.

Your (roughly 130 km) journey would have been less fast had those people making their shorter distance journeys by bike got into their cars instead.

You'll find plenty of people cycling in Dedemsvaart itself though. Nobody is claiming cars don't have their place. It just shouldn't be the default mode - or even worse, the only viable option - for every single trip.

>>Anyone visiting a Dutch city can see what a distortion this comment is.

Your parent comment is saying the same thing. Stay inside the city, close enough to your office that you can reach it by a bicycle. Of course in that case you could say the rent you would be pay would be equally higher. Plus not every one can afford to do that(given school availability, and your spouse office has to be close by too).

On a net basis, its again the same thing. You just pay for your time with higher rents.

What fraction of Netherlands lives in a city vs the rural areas?

Even in the most urbanised part of the country most people still drive for most distances over ~5km. If you have to get from one side of Rotterdam to the other side a car is much faster than a bike or public transportation.

Rotterdam is much more car-friendly than Amsterdam.

Not Just Bikes: "Rotterdam: the City Rebuilt for Cars": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ovt1EMULY

> Anyone visiting a Dutch city can see what a distortion this comment is. The sheer volume of bike traffic on largely safe infrastructure is phenomenal. Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock. Life may be good for Dutch drivers, but only because so many others leave their cars at home.

I was actually considering making the same point, but sarcastically: "B b but, when I was a tourist visiting the walkable tourist areas Amsterdam where tourists go, I didn't passively observe any locals needing a car!"

It's a mistake to think tourist/visitor experiences give you a good idea what it's like to live anywhere.

That assumes that the tourists and visitors confine themselves to the major tourist areas. If you bother to cycle outside the major tourist areas of the Netherlands, whether to minor cities or villages, you'll still notice many people cycling for local journeys.

The mistake is people used to car dependence being unable to imagine any alternative, thus refusing to believe that it can be true.

> That assumes that the tourists and visitors confine themselves to the major tourist areas.

Which is a valid default assumption, unless it's made clear the speaker didn't do that.

Especially in this case, where you have an actual Dutch person who lives in the actual Netherlands getting told they were wrong by someone who cites visitor experiences.

Cycling is ubiquitous in the Netherlands though. Even in small towns. The only place where it's not convenient is if you're living out in the fields in say Flevoland.

It seems you're assuming that majority of the people live in the city or would love in a city? Many people, me included, do not want to live in a city, at least not in an American city. What a city boasts to offer are not relevant to my life: bars, shops, boutique stores, fancy restaurants, active social circles, loud parties, fashion shows, you name it. All those activities are just either too noisy or too crowded. On the other hand, there's not enough outdoor activities in a city. Things are so small in a city too. I want to stay in a spacious coffee shop talking to my friends without raising my voice. I want to have a huge gym instead of those crammed multi-floor ones in a city. I want to have a house that has large enough backyard and front yard and quiet streets for my kids to play around. I want to be able to play drum on my front yard and my neighbors won't hear a thing (I'm exaggerating but you get the idea). I want to be able to hop on a vehicle to ski in a place no more than 30 minutes away from my home whenever I want to. And I certainly don't want to take a bus for grocery shopping for a family of 6. The only thing in a city that I miss is those amazing huge libraries. God I enjoy spending my whole day there.

And if I can afford such life without a car, I'm all for it. But I don't know how.

That is not a car country.

São Paulo has more car than population, and has so many cars that their area summed is bigger than the area of all streets in the city.

It is so many cars that sometimes walking 1 hour to your workplace is faster than a car route where you can spend 2, 3 hours to go to a neighborhood next to yours during rush hour.

So many cars that the city became also the city with most helicopters, because as ludicrously expensive they are, for people that need to reach their workplace really fast (CEO, firemen, medics...) helicopters are good idea.

Situation got so bad that the government wants to heavily restrict the use of helicopters because private helicopters were causing literally airborne traffic jams along the normal traffic jam, blocking public services like police from moving to emergency sites.

EDIT: indeed I was talking about adults, forgot to make it clear. Still the percentage of cars to people in Brazil tends to be high. It is one of the reasons car companies love Brazil. There are historical reasons for that. Mostly politics related.

Does São Paulo have more cars than people even if you include children? Surely there must also be an underclass of very poor or homeless people who do not own cars. What accounts for the fact that there are more cars than people? Is it common for a household of four (mother, father, son, daughter) to own five or six cars?

I don't know Brazil, but based on what I know of the US I wouldn't be surprised. A couple will often own 3 cars, 2 daily drivers and one for some other odd task (truck, or the sports car) that is used as a backup. It will be one car per kid of driving age, though most kids are not old enough to drive. Then there are work cars, which for tax/legal reasons can't be used for personal trips so those who have them will also have a personal car for non-work trips. There are people who keep a car at their vacation house. Rental cars also add a fair number of cars. Plus collectors who have a dozen cars that they only drive to shows. It all adds up.

Ok, but in the US there are forty five million fewer registered vehicles than there are people, even after accounting for all the factors you listed.

There are 286 million registered vehicles for a population of 331 million people.

And the US is the wealthiest nation in the world.

The more important metric is that there are only 238 million licensed drivers in the US.

So if every single licensed driver went for a drive, they could invite all 26 million licensed Canadians to come down and use a spare car, and still have 22 million registered cars left over.

No, São Paulo doesn't have more cars than people. I don't know where the parent got their data. I'll stand corrected if shown data supporting it, but the numbers I found were more like 7 cars for ever 10 inhabitants, and I don't even know if children taken into account. I lived in São Paulo for many years, and I sold my car before I moved there. Living downtown, one is better off without one. However, more cars than inhabitants seems and exaggeration.

Edit: Did some quick checking. According to the national institute of statistics, São Paulo's fleet is about 8.8 million (this includes over 1 million motorcycles, plus all the busses, tractors, trucks, etc. Regular cars are 6 million). Population is 12.3 million.

We have an office in São Paulo which I visited, so I'm familiar with it. It's a ridiculous city. It's so complicated that even people working in the office regularly get lost in the city. A true concrete jungle. We were in a 3 hour traffic jam just to go to a place for lunch.

You forgot to mention the rodízio. Depending on the final digit of your car plate, there's one day of the week in which it is forbidden from being used in the rush hour within the central part of that huge city.

If that is your standard for being a 'car country'. What is your standard for being a 'public transport country' or 'train country'?

That’s not a car country, that’s a traffic country.

I just checked the Detran and IBGE's numbers. There aren't more cars than people in São Paulo. It's a traffic hell, for sure, but still less cars than people.

> We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million.

Yeah, but we have 23 million bikes.

It's true that our public transport has been neglected. The privatisation of the 1990s was a bad idea in my opinion, and public transport should be run for the public good, not for profit. Like roads, it's part of the nation's infrastructure. And better public transport means less people on the road, which means less traffic jams, which will also mean better travel times for people who really do need cars.

The number of bike trips and car trips aren't that far apart (25% and 32%). Public transport still lags way behind at 3%.

All of that is true but it doesn’t seem to refute the parent’s claim that the American anti-car rhetoric envisions a nation where cycling and taking public transit to work is the norm because the Dutch have figured out how to make cycling and public transit faster than driving.

It doesn't refute it because I think it's a mischaracterization of what "anti-car" or bike/transit/pedestrians advocates are typically asking for

What I and many other advocates in the US want is for anything besides cars to be even considered in public infrastructure and urban design. Living without access to a car is near impossible in lots of US cities.

The default is to design around the car, if bikes or pedestrians are mentioned it's tacked on as an afterthought.

An example I had just last night was my US city presented their first phase of the "bike master plan". Essentially the engineers told us they didn't want to maintain protected bike infrastructure or interfere with traffic. About half of the "improvements" they listed out were "sharrows", bike symbols painted in the travel lane. The other half were striped bike lanes with no protection from vehicles.

And this is in a city that's inherited some bike/ped/transit friendliness by the nature of it being built pre-war.

Good luck in the exurban sprawl, South and Sunbelt - you'll be lucky to even have a sidewalk, nevermind a bike lane on the 8 lane road. The car is default in the US.

Not Just Bikes on youtube (strongly recommended) loves to point out that Netherland is not just better for bikes, but also for cars, exactly because so many people travel by bike, leaving the road available for those who really do need a car. And the roads here are far better maintained than in any of our neighbouring countries.

For some trips, cycling or public transport really is faster than driving, but for others obviously not. The most important thing is that all three are viable options. Forcing everybody into only one of those three will hurt everybody.

Isn't the hype more about the relative difference (I don't think most people are claiming NL is a utopia)? The amount of miles driven per capita in the US is twice as much as that of the NL. The percent of trips on bike is 25% in the NL vs 2% in the US. About half of all trips made in the NL are on bike, transit or walking. The other half of trips are made with cars. If the US suddenly had half the amount of driving per capita that it does now that would mean dramatic lifestyle differences on average.

Japan seems to have the least driving per capita of any wealthy nation (at least from the data I see), so maybe people should be using that as an example more, but I think a lot of people in the US really appreciate the physical protection that people on bikes often get in the NL (even if it isn't everywhere). It sends a different message about priorities.

In the US, even if you don't want to drive, that is often your only choice for most trips, whereas in the NL you can drive if you want, but it is easier to find an alternative. That is a 'car-oriented' mindset versus 'multi-modal transit' mindset. However, I am sure that the NL could still make many changes to reduce car ownership if it really wanted to.

https://internationalcomparisons.org/environmental/transport...

> Isn't the hype more about the relative difference (I don't think most people are claiming NL is a utopia)?

We're talking specifically about self-designated "anti-car" people. I doubt there are any surveys, so we're all just conjecturing, but the rhetoric I see definitely holds NL and Europe generally up as a car-less utopia. For example, the first post on r/anticar is titled "cities built for people rather than cars are so beautiful" and it shows an idyllic picture of a German street. https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticar/comments/mp6t4p/cities_buil...

> The amount of miles driven per capita in the US is twice as much as that of the NL. The percent of trips on bike is 25% in the NL vs 2% in the US. About half of all trips made in the NL are on bike, transit or walking. The other half of trips are made with cars.

I don't see how this is relevant? I don't think anyone in this thread disputes that cycling is more prevalent in NL versus US, and none of this refutes the toplevel claim that NL is a car country nor supports the anti-car rhetoric which suggests that NL is a car-free utopia. Like many "non-anti-car" Americans, I would like to see American transit become more multi-modal, but that's not what we're debating at present.

> However, I am sure that the NL could still make many changes to reduce car ownership if it really wanted to.

Sure (the obvious/extreme example is banning cars by legislation), but this seems circular, because we're implicitly interested in why doesn't the NL public want fewer cars (on the contrary, car ownership was increasing as of 2016)? Like in the US we can plausibly argue that Americans haven't experienced the Dutch cycling/pubtransit system and thus doesn't know what they're missing out on, but that's a much harder argument to make about the Dutch. :)

> > We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million.

> Yeah, but we have 23 million bikes.

> (...)

> The number of bike trips and car trips aren't that far apart (25% and 32%).

Wow, that's a good point. But, is the number of bike trips compared to car trips growing, shrinking, or staying the same?

I think the question that anyone that rejects cars would ask is "why do you choose to live 60km from your work?".

Because his partner works 60km in the opposite direction?

I think you're missing the point... If you reject car ownership and the associated commute etc, you structure your life around that. You get a job and a house that are compatible with that philosophy. As a couple, neither of you would have a job that requires you to commute such distances.

Couldn't think of a better argument for why most people do not reject cars. Restricting your employment options to a small, say cyclable area around where you live can be extremely limiting for your employment opportunities, especially if you have a partner that also works. Especially considering the point another commenter said that oftentimes central business districts where the best jobs are can be prohibitively expensive for housing.

I'm not one to discount the cost of a long commute, and I'm hopeful that more remote and flexible work options will make it so people have less time commuting. But people like to own cars because in most cases they can be incredibly useful, and ignoring that fact won't help people transition off them.

But that's precisely the point. Many people (and arguably the young people in the OP), value life over "employment opportunities". That's the philosophy behind why many of us reject cars in our daily lives. Those hours of commuting I don't have to do I spend with my children. Equally, the commuting I do do is free exercise.

>Restricting your employment options to a small, say cyclable area around where you live can be extremely limiting for your employment opportunities

You're missing the forest for the trees. If you live in a mid-sized city in the Netherlands and want to limit yourself to a 1 hour commute by public transit, there are just as many, if not more opportunities than if you live in a mid sized city in the US like Richmond because the Netherlands is that much denser, and transit optimizes for commercial centers. The difference that in the Netherlands, you still have the option of commuting by car, whereas, in the US you'd have to move.

And you're missing the point that these types of jobs are in or around the big cities, where people cannot afford housing. Well, maybe 5% can, the rest of us will commute.

That only holds true when your basic needs to survive are met such that you're able to entertain a philosophy such as "reject car ownership". I suspect most people are going to abandon such a philosophy as soon as "putting food on the table" is no longer possible.

Conflicting ideas such as these crop up all the time. For instance, "commuting in a car is dead time, at least I can read/work on the train". A reasonable position at face value, but entirely useless to the person who finishes work at 17:00 and must pick the kids up from school at 17:30. The 30 mins car ride may be "dead time", but the 60 mins by public transport obviously doesn't work for them.

I would guess that the "rejecting car ownership" types probably have this as a subset of a broader philosophy where they've somewhat rejected wealth in favour of something else, or already have the economic freedom to make such a choice.

Yes absolutely it's about choices. I would argue the debate is more worthwhile than that because it's good to think in terms of "what would be ideal" so that as a society we can plan for that. Too often, such public debate become bogged down with a view that those that oppose car usage as part of a daily routine are fundamentally opposed to car usage. In fact, typically we can see a better world and want it for everyone. Since improving things for drivers generally necessarily makes things worse for everyone that isn't in a car, the practicalities of reducing car usage are actually a reduction in existing privilege (which people will always fight tooth and nail).

It's true you often need a car but it shouldn't be the case. Cars are terribly inefficienct way to get around. They are more expensive and slower (once there are enough of them) than alternatives. The anti-car sentiment is about changing the infrastructure so the cheaper/greener and faster alternatives get a chance.

Public transport is one alternative but I think small personal transport devices are more promising.

“Rejecting car ownership” types will probably live walking distance to schools. This doesn’t even have to mean living in a city centre somewhere, if anything schools are the one thing in America designed for local people as opposed being designed for cars.

It's generally better to live close to one person's workplace than right in between the two.

Why?

So only one person instead of two has to suffer through a dreadful commute, you need only one car instead of two, one parent works close to where the kids go to school, etc. If you live in the middle, everything is far away for everybody.

That doesn't mean it's not viable to live in the middle, but I think these are some pretty good arguments why it's often preferable to live close to at least one partner's workplace. Obviously it's not going to work for everybody, but if you're thinking about where to buy your house, this may be worth taking into consideration.

Would you volunteer to have twice the dreadful commute for the benefit of your partner, or do you see yourself being the beneficiary of this configuration?

My wife and I seem to disagree who is the beneficiary of this configuration. She seems to like driving. And she likes that I live close to home.

Modern advice is to move jobs every 2-3 years. You want to move house every 2-3 years? Move the kids schools every 2-3 years?

I've moved between jobs every 1-2 years for the past 10. I've never been more than an hour away (and that was one job that was particularly far away). In most cases, because we have a good public transit system, I'm within 10-15 minutes by subway or 30/40 minutes walking. I don't even consider it too much. Never moved house.

Perhaps because real estate/rent is simply too expensive anywhere closer.

Whenever I've heard people make that argument, what they actually mean is "The huge house I want to live in I can afford if I spend an hour a day in the car, oh and people that live in the cities should not make it harder for me to pursue such a path by restricting car usage. Externalities be damned, won't someone think of my being unable to afford a 5 bedroom house with a big garden in the city".

>> Perhaps because real estate/rent is simply too expensive anywhere closer.

> Whenever I've heard people make that argument, what they actually mean is "The huge house I want to live in I can afford if I spend an hour a day in the car...."

Or it's because it would require 3x-6x their income to afford to live anyplace closer. A major factor of employee shortages is exactly that. There are no homes within 50 mi (often much further) of that job that can be afforded with those wages.

We live 45mi out from a (until recently, inexpensive) US metro area and we require 4 incomes to cover basic expenses.

It is both the desire to not live in an apartment, but rather have a detached single family house with a garage and backyard, and also a desire to live away from people below your socioeconomic level and near people at or above your socioeconomic level (referred to as “good schools”).

If Americans were okay with living in Tokyo sized abodes, then there would be sufficient density for sufficient housing and job opportunities to exist in a region that could support sufficient public transit.

There’s plenty of detached houses in Tokyo (even in the 23 wards) and they cost 1/4 of what they cost in a major American city. Tokyo is denser than any American city but less dense than Paris, and greater Tokyo, which is even cheaper for housing, still has great transit/no need for a car for most people and has a density of only 1000/km^2. Also available in Tokyo is small apartments for single people. A minimum wage worker there will live in a small apartment, yes, but can survive without 5 roommates in a moldy basement suite.

Americans would be okay living in “Tokyo sized abodes” if they knew what that actually meant and didn’t assume all of Tokyo looks like Shibuya. One thing I’ll grant is that garages are rare, because they count as finished space for property tax purposes.

Tokyo is actually a great example of what a city without car-centric planning and free parking everywhere can be like and a perfect example of a “15 minute city”. It’s not only about transit, but what transit and walkability encourages. I lived there for 6 years in a very residential neighborhood, but I was still within 10 minutes walking of virtually any daily necessity, 5 or so grocery stores, dozens if not hundreds of restaurants, 3 public baths, one of which was a legit onsen, a few furniture stores, and even 2 aquarium shops. I’m trying to think of a counter example and I can only think of one thing that wasn’t a ten minute walk away: a movie theatre, although there were multiple within a 15 minute train ride.

Tokyo style abodes are illegal in a huge part of many urban areas.

Given the choice between a some of the shitty living situations I dealt with while living in the US, and an affordable, compact efficient apartment. I'll take the latter

Humans have always been that way. Adam Smith observed in his "wealth of the nations" that once someone has enough to eat and other basics, increases in income are mostly used to make their house better (mostly meaning larger). If your plan for bettering the world doesn't account for this, then you have lost.

That might have been the case a decade ago, but with the uptick in real estate prices it's not even that any more.

I have friends who bought an apartment in a small town next to the city where the jobs are because they didn't have the credit score for anything closer to work.

This is the reality (and realty) people in the market for living space are currently facing.

Because I can't afford to move to the city where I work.

Because even if I could, work is unstable, I can't keep moving.

Because I have a girlfriend, any move closer to work is further away for her.

Because my family and friends are here, and I need to take care of my parents.

Because most people don't have the luxury of choosing those things.

- I don't have any meaningful control over where I'm allowed to work

- I don't have any meaningful control over where my spouse is allowed to work

- I only have a tiny amount of control over where I'm allowed to live (most of it prices us out, despite being above-average income)

- even if I do exercise some control, it can be changed or stripped from me by others at any time. (You may get laid off and have to find a new office. Or your office may move away from you -- when you are hired, the office might only have been 12 miles away, but later they moved the office so it's now 25 miles away)

- You may not always be allowed to move in response to those changes (you might not be able to afford to move your whole house every two years, when job situations for you/your spouse change. And if you have kids, doing this super disrupts any chance they may have at a social life via school)

- You may not even be allowed to change home or school locations. (Divorced people exist, shared-custody children exist and are in some places, the most common form of parenting in 2023, you might not be allowed to relocate your kids schools ever)

A lot of anti-transportation "15 minute city" idealists like to handwave away how incredibly complicated it is, to magically get your entire life to line up such that you don't ever have to travel medium-sized distances. That is an extreme luxury that most people will never have.

The 15 minute city isn't one you never leave, it is one where basic tasks of life are within 15 minutes. Most people will leave it for work, but they will stop and play within 15 minutes of home.

Otherwise you are spot on. If your company moves offices within the same city's MSA they assume you can get there. If they move office to a different city they will pay to move you.

> Most people will leave it for work, but they will stop and play within 15 minutes of home.

Even that assumes you don't have relatively specific hobbies. Which I guess is true for many people, but it's highly unlikely that (for example) my preferred martial arts instructor and my preferred dance instructor are going to be within 15 minutes of where I live.

And of course, your girlfriend/boyfriend, if you don't live together.

What are you getting at? Are you incapable of nuance? It was already stated that a 15 minute city isn't a place you never leave, it's a place where you can meet your daily needs within 15 minutes. If you want to go to a specific martial arts instructor, then yes, you probably have to leave. But if you just want a place to work out, that will be around. If you want to go to a specific grocer, you will probably have to leave, but there will be a place where you can get your milk and veggies within 15 minutes. If you meet someone from outside your neighborhood, you'll have to visit them, but if you spend more time in your neighborhood, you'll likely make stronger bonds there.

> What are you getting at? Are you incapable of nuance?

Your rudeness aside, what I'm getting at is that I'll likely have to leave once or twice a day even not accounting for work. I live in a European city and get everywhere by car BTW.

Don't assume most people will leave it for work. Oxford, England intends to charge people who drive across a 15 minute zone boundary more than a few times a week. https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-w...

> I don't have any meaningful control over where I'm allowed to work

And that's exactly why remote work should be the norm (for the professions where it is at all possible)

The average in the Netherlands is 20 kilometers if anyone is wondering.

I think public transport is pretty good if you live in the Den Haag-Rotterdam-Amsterdam area. Which in America would be considered a single metro area. Something like 5 million people.

Ebikes also tend to change the equation. I live 37km from where I work. By bike its 1hr20 when its not too windy. By ebike its 1hr flat (ok, its a speed pedalec, requires a license). By car its 45 min. By train its 1hr10. Despite having the means to own a car I sold it a few years ago and never looked back. I rent one every few weeks I need one.

I lived 5 miles away from my downtown office in Chicago. My apartment was 5 minutes from the train and my office was 1 minute on the other side. There were no connections, so this is an ideal public transit situation. It still took 40+ minutes each way versus 20 minutes by car during rush hour or ~10-15 outside of rush hour.

This is the third largest US city and one with comparably few major thoroughfares (compared to many other large US cities). It seems that it’s just really hard for public transit to beat cars at any distance.

Moreover, lots of people are constrained on where they can work and live. I think a lot of the anti-car rhetoric in America seems to assume everyone is a healthy, childless, young urban professional who aspires to live in the densest habitat he can find, and this is a very unrealistic portrait of Americans.

In truth, an environment built for people over cars is better for everyone. Including those that can't drive (which is all children, and many with disabilities) or can't afford to drive. Your case sounds like a perfect situation where a bike with proper cycling infrastructure would be the best option.

Not really. Chicago is pretty damn cold in the winter and hot in the summer and very wet in between. Of course, a Sufficiently Committed Cyclist can and will cope, but that's an unrealistic expectation for the majority of the population. Moreover, my example was an idyllic case for public transit (or as idyllic as it gets in the US). Most places are far less dense than Chicago and traveling by car is easier.

To be clear though, I would like to see more walkable places, and while "people over cars" is hopelessly vague and verging on ideology, I probably agree with some of what people envision when they make this statement. I think it would be great if our urban and semiurban environments had more, smaller shops and more safe infrastructure for bikes and cars. More separation of fast moving car traffic from side streets. Etc. But we have a loooong way to go before bikes or public transit are more practical than cars, and as others have pointed out even the most bike-friendly countries in the world still have high (and growing) rates of car ownership.

Cars are undeniably handy for all but some people in the densest environments, but we still need to take care not to overfit to cars.

My guy, nobody thinks the Netherlands is a perfect beacon of transit, but you just can't understand what it's like living in the US. Even if you live in a large metro, unless it's NYC or you live and work in the right parts of Chicago, public transit just isn't even an option--unless an hour and a half commute on a bus is worth it to you.

Let's compare your commute to work to a commute in the US:

>I have to get up early and be there some 10 mins before departure to secure somewhat of a reasonable spot. In the US, you have to be there at least 30 minutes early, because the parking lot will be absolutely packed, and the busses don't run on time, so it might get there too soon.

>Next, I'm on route to the first big city station. We don't even have this in the US. You would have had to already be in the city to get on the bus.

>This route is slow, it stops 5 times along the way as everybody needs to connect to a big hub to get where they need to be. In the US, this route stops the same five times, but also gets stuck in rush hour traffic, because we rarely have dedicated transit lanes.

I arrive at the hub, where there's a 20 minute connection wait to take the train to the big city destination. The connection in the US would be at least 30 minutes, if you're lucky it will be scheduled at 20 during rush hour, but the bus is probably late. Also, again, it's not going into the city, you were already there, you just need to get on a different route.

>I get out and have a 10 minute connection wait for the bus to take me to the place closest to work, after which there's a 5-10 minute work.

If you have to make another connection outside the hub, you're probably waiting at least 45 minutes, in addition to the bus being late. The closest bus stop to where you work is another 30 minute walk away, along a 45 mph highway with no bike lanes and a sidewalk that just randomly ends occasionally.

>Total commute time: 2.5 hours single way. To move 60km. And that's living behind a train station and working at one of the countries' largest employers.

In the US, this was actually entire hypothetical. The route just doesn't actually exist.

Hope this helps you see why we place NL on a pedestal. We know it's not perfect, but it's so much better than what we have. Unless you live in an incredibly small portion of the country, it's just not an option.

>In the US, this was actually entire hypothetical. The route just doesn't actually exist.

Drag your butt over to Google maps and punch in a route from Lowell, Leominster, Worcester or Taunton Massachusetts (outlying cities in the Boston area people many commute in from) to any portion of the Boston area just inside I95 but not downtown and eyeball the times.

The route exists in the US and the times are in line with his estimates.

Oh boy, you found one outlier! That negates my entire argument!

I live about a 7 minute drive from the North Leominster commuter rail. I'm about 90 minutes door to door to Boston/Cambridge depending upon where I'm going--which is better than driving at rush hour.

That said, it's only useful for commuting. There are far too few trains after evening rush hour to use it if attending an evening event.

My guy, dude...I didn't contradict the idea that the Netherlands has superior transit options compared to the US. I was giving push-back against the idea that the Dutch situation is utopian as if some kind of paradise. It isn't.

The Netherlands ranks 36th on the list of cars per capita [0]. This is higher than I thought it would be but it's still quite a ways away from the countries I would consider to be car-centric like the US and Canada (ranked 6th and 8th, respectively).

I also found this plot interesting relating vehicles and GDP [1], though the data seems outdated compared to the first link.

I'd also guess, though I can't find the data, that the US is one the highest cars per capita rates in its cities. Outside of NYC and Chicago, there is a real lack of public transport infrastructure in most US cities.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... [1]

> The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure

No, you are confusing the Netherlands an a whole with cities like Amsterdam.

People refer to the latter as an example of walkable cities.

This is a pretty unusual situation, where you presumably live in the sticks and commute to the city, or vice versa? In the cities, particularly Amsterdam, cars are not the favored option. In Amsterdam 38% of travel is by bike, Zwolle is 46%. Across the whole country the averages break down at 45% by car, 36% by bike, and 11% by transit. That is to say, a very slight majority prefers modes other than a car across the country as a whole, and within cities the difference is presumably more significant. These figures, even in their most conservative interpretation, are wildly different from the United States, where travel by bike is a rounding error and the public transit options are abysmal.

Well it seems you're criticizing Americans' rosy view of Dutch public infrastructure without realizing how absurd the US is in terms of infrastructure. I challenge you to visit the US and not use a car at all. In many cities you wouldn't even be able to get out of the airport. Yet Schiphol has a massive station underneath it with trains that can take you, not only to Amsterdam, but to virtually any city and even small town in the country.

Not just in the county, but to other countries, which thanks to Shengen, means it's viable to live in one country and work in another. High speed rail ftw.

> Let's explore the commute to work, some 60km away...

Well. There's your problem.

The idea of travelling 60km to work is a very modern phenomenon. Like a lot of people you've built your life around car travel. It's hard to get back from that.

Traveling 60km, even in traffic near me, would take like 45 minutes by car.

It's a bit of a long commute by US norms (I think average is 20mi, 32km) but not too crazy compared to what some people do.

Well said. The pro-EU narrative hypes up everything in the EU or Europe zone ignoring data. For e.g., US rail infra is more than that of Netherlands per capita:

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Ra...

Usage (totals):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...

It's similar in Singapore which arguably, because of its size has amazing public transport. But what do a lot of people do if they can afford it? Buy a car, especially if you want to live away from the city center and have kids.

They even pay the $100,000 fee for a 10 year permit to have a car, on top of 100% import tax. That's close to $175,000 just to own some tiny 3-cylinder car for 10 years.

I spent a month in Singapore in 2015, staying at an apartment in Haugong, 10km from my office.

Public transport took an hour to get to the office. A taxi was 20 minutes. I'd agree public transport isn't great by a long way. Riding a bike if I lived there permanently might have been better, even with the 32 degree heat.

Singapore was literally rebuilt for cars very much like America. It's not because cars are better, and even so drivers are miserable here they rank low on waze's rankings of happy drivers, with Netherlands much further up the pack. All new developments (HDB as well) are even more car centric. If you can drive, you are afforded privilege in some respects, and so that's why people do it.

Also, "live away from the city center and have kids" ignores that still 89% of people in singapore don't own cars, and no, 89% of people in sg do not "live near the city center" or "don't have kids."

You kinda prove my point. 11% own cars because thats the government cap (no more cars allowed), but even middle class people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands for the benefits of driving.

And to say Singapore was built for cars is kinda funny. It has one of the best public transit systems in the world.

When you make it incredibly expensive to own a car, few people own cars. Who would have guessed?

I wonder what car ownership would look like if there was no fee and taxes were much lower?

Maybe wonder how it would look like if car owners actually paid for the cost (environmental, killing pedestrians and cyclists, huge areas of valuable land dedicated to parking, cost of road maintenance). Cars are the most subsidized mean of transportation, no wonder there are so many of them.

You missed the point entirely.

It's incredibly expensive to owns cars and people still pay.

That tells you how valuable they find owning a car.

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