Can America Go Car-Free? Gen Z Hopes So | Hacker News Reader

Can America Go Car-Free? Gen Z Hopes So

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20 pointsnoobermin75 comments

I wish this scenario wasn’t driven essentially by shrinking wages, though I agree with the general sentiment.

Car culture in the US is hardly justifiable by means other than convenience. Riding a massive SUV to work, alone, sometimes for a couple hours every day, is a testament to how the concept of suburbs has thoroughly failed society as a whole.

People compare the comfort of being alone and stuck in traffic, to the horrors of sharing a space with strangers, who are perhaps even homeless, while failing to recognize that any shortcomings in public transportation are derived from their very own strong desire of not using it.

I had this colleague back in Spain, who would do what we all thought it was a crazy thing: she would commute almost three hours a day by train. Each leg was ~100Km, and in between her home and the city was a whole lot of nothing but very small towns and some disperse houses up in the mountains. She didn’t mind it - she would just take long naps or read or work on her laptop. And, apparently, she wasn’t the only one doing it, it was a popular service among people who would rather not live in the noisy city they work at.

When I moved to the US, her way of life did not seem that crazy anymore, at least not compared to people driving for hours every day, on ~50mi commutes. There wasn’t really any reason why the US couldn’t have this, either, as an equivalent train service could easily connect relatively close metropolitan areas, and achieve the same results. Compared to these hours long traffic jams, with most cars carrying only one person, it didn’t seem crazy at all.

>Car culture in the US is hardly justifiable by means other than convenience

Ah yes. The “convenience” of driving 30 minutes to the nearest city, compared to walking for 8 hours.

You could also take the bus.

Sad that public transportation in the US is the first victim of car culture.

My home growing up was two miles from the nearest neighbor.

There weren't - and aren't - a lot of buses.

That's why I said that public transportation is a victim of car culture.

The fact that there weren't buses from or to your neighborhood is a symptom of car abuse, not the cause.

It doesn't sound like they lived in a neighborhood at all, but some deeply rural area, if the nearest neighbor was two miles away.

Lmao what bus???

Its not going to be profitable to drive from where I am to where the cities are, because we are that rural. Just like horses were for most of our history, cars are a requirement for human civilization.

Get over it.

Pretty much every other first world country has some form of public transportation in rural areas.

Also, public services do not need to be profitable. That’s the whole point.

You can drive 30 minutes over 12 miles from Falls Church to Union Station, or take the Metro in 14 minutes. comparing cars to walking is not an apt comparison.

I’m sorry, but a metro will never be connecting me to my local city, so that is not an apt comparison.

I don’t know what’s wrong with so many people, who seem to think some magical public transport will pop up everywhere to cater to everyone, but it’s unrealistic at best.

At least give us places to seek refuge from motordom! You shouldn't need to move to Utrecht or a tiny area near Phoenix to live in a place where you can let go of your child's hand without abject terror.

(see www.culdesac.com, www.bloommerwede.nl)

I think major high densities cities such as SF & Chicago would benefit from banning cars, but outside of those places it makes little sense.

There’s a whole bunch of people who live in dense cities who have seemingly forgotten about the rest of the country and are totally delusional on this issue.

“We don’t even need EVs! We should decarbonize by just building trains!”

What planet are these people on?

I love walkable cities and towns and I think we should build more urban real estate like this. I also think we should in fact build more transit where density makes it make sense.

There is absolutely zero chance that the suburbs or rural living are going away. There are also thousands of small to medium sized towns that while they could be made more walkable are too small for trains and people need to get between them. The amount of rail you’d have to build to connect all these and the number of trains you’d have to run would be astronomical. You’d have to run lots of empty trains to make sure there was continuous service too. People are not going to wait 6 hours in the country to go to the next town over.

> I love walkable cities and towns and I think we should build more urban real estate like this. I also think we should in fact build more transit where density makes it make sense.

That's largely how it looks e.g. in Hamburg and around Hamburg. Inside of Hamburg, some people own cars for transportation or family reasons, but many people inside of Hamburg don't own cars and rent transportation as necessary, since they don't even need it often.

Once you get out of Hamburg into the more rural and village-y germany, cars and bicycles are becoming much more necessary, because the next store could easily be a 20 minute car drive away. This tends to be worse in the US.

However, if people need to get into Hamburg, many people tend to drive to a subway station nearby of the collector subways, park there and use transit to get into Hamburg, because the traffic can be a nightmare. It's by no means perfect, since getting up from south of the Elbe is still a bit of a hassle with the public transit, but it works.

In my book, that's the most useful approach to take.

I'm in a small village and use the car exactly once a week for driving groceries around, otherwise the important local points are perfectly reachable by jumping in the bus. Also I'll drive once a month for some longer trip: bigger shopping, or leisure, or even job related. For these I can't use (bulk items) or don't need (too many switches) public transportation. For those about to get to Hamburg I think the next step (also applicable here in Switzerland) could be syncing a bit better between highway exits and parkings and public transportation between these and the city center - currently usable but definitely not ideal.

I don’t think anyone serious expects existing suburbs to be torn down in a generation, the argument that car-free folks make is that we should stop forcing new growth to sprawl outside cities by:

1. Not limiting density in cities through red tape (parking requirements, multi-year review processes, etc.)

2. Not forcing urbanites to subsidize suburbanite’s lifestyles, which are more expensive[1]

The train argument I typically see is that it should be cheaper to take the train between city pairs in the northeast (NYC-Boston, NYC-DC) than it is to fly, which it currently often is not.

There are also a lot of ways the status quo is subtly baked into the system. e.g. employers can offer employees pre-tax money to pay for parking to commute, but if they ride a bikeshare to work and the employer pays for it, it’s a taxable benefit.

1: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...

I agree with most of this. Maybe the problem is with how people write about the issue coupled with the modern social media driven need to edgelord it. I often see this stuff in the form of “fuck cars” type opinions that sound clueless and one sided. Of course the pro-car counter also ends up sounding clueless and one sided.

I’ve spent much of my life in dense cities and currently live in suburb (with an EV). There are things I like and dislike about both settings, and I don’t really want either to disappear. In the US we could definitely use more walkable towns and I totally support zoning reform. I also think some suburbs could be retrofitted into walkable town designs over time and I’d be down with this.

I like cars and don't want to ride trains or buses. I prefer the freedom and isolation of driving my own large car. I'm willing to spend less on other things than to let go of my car.

When cars are illegal, I'll stop driving, so if you want that to happen you should try writing to your representative.

That’s great. Then you should keep enjoying your car. I just hope you don’t stop people from trying to enjoy a subway by supporting politicians that are anti-train.

Same goes for HSR. You can drive or fly between cities if you want, just don’t try to stop HSR development please. Lots of people want it.

I'd never do that, I'm not against subways and buses at all. Let's then ensure that the city pays for that through city taxes (sales, property) and bus/subway tickets, instead of the Federal or State governments.

And let’s pay for all highways via tolls. No subsidies, right?

I don't own a car but I use to think it is worth paying for roads since I benefit from postal services, busses and stuff being delivered to stores.

But I have no idea how road consumption is distributed. (they don't last forever)

I could in theory just as easily pay for that though the normal channels. It can just be included in the price of goods.

Parking spaces consume a very expensive amount of space in cities. If someone hardly ever drives their car(s) sould they have to pay the same?

I'm not a fan of capitalism but if you want such a system to work it should be allowed to scale prices with cost? It would have to be regulated to avoid driving up the prices to what people can afford.

Bicycles and pedestrians use roads too. Billing everyone doesn't seem very challenging. Many highly used areas could really use maintenance and cleaning.

I honestly have no idea which products and services would get more expensive but the benefits and cost are distributed weirdly.

That would be okay with me if we could actually get to this level of granularity. Same thing for the streets used by public transportation? Subways alone won't work everywhere, so we'll need buses, and these will need highways too and pay for them in the fare.

I think most governments decided that it's not practical to get to this level of granularity, instead trying to get the cost closer to the user. For instance, having vehicle licensing and gas taxes paying for streets and highways in general based on usage statistics. For electric vehicles, governments are studying approaches like charging by mile driven using tracking devices (has its own problems).

But in my earlier proposal, getting the costs closer to the user would mean for trains and subways to pay for their own tracks and energy, and buses to pay for their streets and highways through licensing and gas (and for special bus lanes directly through tickets)

That's fine, but only if you agree that the current market failure should be fixed and all the negative externalities of personal car driving should be internalized. The society must cease subsidizing unsustainable means of transport.

Let's do it and while at it also remove externalities for the alternative modes of transportation - including removing the subsides for trains/buses in American cities.

why? those modes of transportation are far more efficient, and the economic benefits are obvious?

How about we just make the subsidies equitable? Let’s start with removing all free, on street parking and charge market rates. You want to store your private car on the street? That will be $1,000/month please.

That makes no sense. They are subsidized exactly because the cost to society is vastly lower than having even more people drive their own cars. Every single person who takes the bus or train rather than adding one more car to the roads is making the society a favor. The point is not to make transportation purely market-driven – the market cannot efficiently solve that problem due to infrastructure being a) really expensive and b) a natural monopoly – the point is to balance the social and ecological costs of transport with the demand for mobility.

Even in the cities that are touted as most walkable, cars have access to almost all destinations. It may be more expensive to own a vehicle, but it’s not impossible. Feel free to keep driving, but you can reduce congestion for yourself by supporting high quality transit and walkable initiatives, because they will encourage more people to choose those modes of travel.

I think that’s perfectly reasonable and fine for 99% of the US.

For certain extremely central streets in places like NYC, there’s no realistic amount of money that you could pay that would outweigh the benefits of closing those streets during the day and turning them into mini parks.

Similarly, on other streets in the same kinds of dense cities, it makes a ton more sense to turn the outmost parts of streets into dedicated bike lines over using it for parking, even paid parking.

But in general, at least for me personally, I’m not trying to tell you to stop driving altogether.

The notion of "I want mine and screw everyone else" ignores the part of the problem that's 'socialized' - all the infrastructure that's necessary to support you and your car. You're not really arguing that you should be able to drive your car. You're arguing that you should be able to drive your car and that society should pay to maintain all the roads, bridges, tunnels, parking lots, etc that you rely on.

Owning a car is a fundamentally socialist dream (like most things that require public infrastructure really). I can absolutely assure you that you won't be able to afford to drive if a lot of other people decide to stop. Maintaining roads, building new ones, making sure bridges don't fall down, etc is really expensive.

It’s not fundamentally socialist or capitalist. Driving a car assumes that there are people paid to do jobs that support it. From drilling oil, to making breaks and tires, and supporting the vehicles, to paving roads and building bridges. Roads and bridges can be privatized, and there are plenty of privately owned roads in the USA.

The real issue with cars imho isn’t the support. The real problem to me is the highway system encouraging sprawl, which then forces many to own a vehicle whether or not they want really one.

But don't their taxes and other associated costs (road, vehicle registration, fuel, etc.) pay that?

Do you know what else is expensive? Travelling long distances and crossing bodies of water with more cargo than can reasonably be carried, without a vehicle and somewhere to drive it.

They said the same thing about millennials. https://www.npr.org/2013/08/21/209579037/why-millennials-are...

Only for them to be the biggest purchaser of pickup trucks. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/10/millennials-overtake-boomers...

Every generation says they are going to do it different. Then they get hit in the head with reality.

The advertisement tech always improves :)

An observation like that needs to account for the fact that Millennials with over 70 million people in the US are now the largest American demographic, period. More interesting would be if there's an attitude shift compared to former generations at the same point in life, otherwise you're just noticing that Millennials are now the largest group of people with income

A cohort-based study found that we do drive (marginally) less: https://qz.com/2109753/us-millennials-drive-less-than-older-...

I don’t remember anyone saying millenials would drive less, just that we wouldn’t be able to afford a car if we kept eating so much avocado toast. I was born in 89 and learning to drive was still a huge coming-of-age among my peers.

We're similar ages and I absolutely agree that the personal automobile played a huge role in my personal and social development.

But then I discovered bicycles and something clicked in my brain with active transport and how fun it is and how healthy it makes me feel.

Then I got hit by a drunk driver on my bike and since then I'm a subscriber of the "fuck cars" beliefs.

> But then I discovered bicycles and something clicked in my brain with active transport and how fun it is and how healthy it makes me feel.

Same! I don’t own a car and biking is my preferred means of transit.

Gen Z is in crippling debt and can't afford cars. Hmm how can we make this sound better...

exactly! they're also leading the vanguard of elites pushing back against home ownership!

They don't want to work, too.

I can understand it. Where would a want for work come from? Either the prospect of increased prosperity (which is becoming ever more difficult to achieve unless you start out prosperous through inheritance, or are able to make it in one of the few high-paying industries), or the prospect of a job that is meaningful (which is becoming ever more difficult in a world of gigworking, AI starting to remove creative elements of labor, unchecked bureaucracy both in governments and just as much inside corporations, and so on and so forth).

If I were to find themselves in a situation where the salary can just about make ends meet and there is no realistic prospect for them to move into a high-impact or high-paying line of work, then I would not be overly enthusiastic about doing anything above the necessary minimum at work, either.

I see where you're going with this. Gen Z hates home ownership! You've done a great job making this world for your children and grand children!

I don't think car free is practical, but I do believe that we can achieve master ploy, Ment of small, highly efficient, electric vehicles.

"... Studies show that riding trains tends to be 20–30 times safer than driving, and riding buses is as much as 60 times as safe..."

Just better hope you aren't in there with crazy homeless/drug addicts

It's almost like there's more than one problem to be solved in American society. People being in that state is an indictment of the US mental health system [0] and the terrible inequality forcing them on the streets [1], not an endorsement of cars, a selfish band-aid that exacerbates the bigger issues.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1035561/mental-hospital-...

[1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716220981864

We can thank Reagan for repealing the MHSA

You should see the public transportation outside US! It's terrible how they are nice and convenient spaces. Must be all the communism.

Normal countries don't have these issues (to the same extent atleast).

By "normal", do you mean the most affluent Western European nations with heavily-developed public transit systems? Cuz that's exceptional, not normal.

"Car ownership in America is on the rise. Only 8.3% of households did not have a vehicle in 2021, a 5.7% decrease from 2017, when 8.8% of households did not have a vehicle. Most households (91.7%) had at least one vehicle in 2021, up from 91.2% in 2017."

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/car-ownership-s...

Seems like we're headed in the opposite direction to be honest.

Nope.

poor people have always been at the forefront of anti-consumerism!

Meh.

There's no reason for car free. Cars are a very useful tool.

The problem is being a slave to the tool. Every promoter of alternative designs assumes we need to destroy almost every car.

Good luck.

> Every promoter of alternative designs assumes we need to destroy almost every car.

I have never seen anyone promote this, and I run in a very heavy "fuck cars" circle. I have, however, seen a lot of people think that we promote this, and I don't know why.

Example: someone proposes a new bike lane. Pushback will invariably come in the form of “how are people who can’t bike supposed to use this?” But they can still drive, all we’ve done is add an option.

Because cars have been at the center of US (at least) urban plan planning for decades, and when you stop privileging one thing vs others, sometimes people perceive that as an attack on the no-longer-privileged thing.

This same situation happens with more than just cars.

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