Comment by the_gipsy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by the_gipsy | Hacker News Reader

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> Make public transit better, that is how you get people out of cars and happy.

This is fantasy, you cannot snap your fingers and make this happen, nor are the people in charge incompetent. Never has a city "simply" made PT better at a pace that allowed for significant car reduction without making car users unhappy. Again, car users will always complain, unless the PT takes them less time to commute, which is physically impossible to accommodate for all car users.

> That is elitist "fuck you I got mine" mentality.

No, car users have the "fuck you I got mine" mentality: they have a short commute because they are rich enough to pay for car space in the city, and want a perpetual right to this.

> Rich people in city centers able to afford expensive houses will make it harder for poor people in the affordable neighbouring cities to move around and get to work.

Rich people live in the outskirts in big houses, but want to able to steamroll with their car right into the city center, regardless of the impact to people living in the center and along the way to it.

I can assure you that in The Netherlands, the rich people live in the cities. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague. You need to earn in the top 5% if you want to buy a place there. The people commuting into the city by car provide the services for the people living there. Police officers, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, teachers. Those people don't live in the city and with their work schedules often can only go by car.

You're confusing the ultra rich that live in penthouses in the financial district, with the rich that commute from the suburbs or wealthy periphery into the center.

> Police officers, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, teachers. Those people don't live in the city and with their work schedules often can only go by car.

They absolutely can go by PT, or relocate, as it has been proven by all the cities that successfully have restricted cars.

We cannot increase density in cities anymore, cars are not the solution because they simply don't scale and are not actually accessible to poor people.

Do you even live in The Netherlands, making such bizarre statements?

The top 5% earners are not the ultra rich. To even afford a 50 square meter apartment somewhat near the center of Amsterdam you need to be at least an engineer, lawyer or doctor earning six figures. Those people do not live in suburbs, that is where the people earning modal income live.

Is this some sort of American way of thinking you are projecting onto my country?

And where should those essential workers relocate to? They already live as close to the city as their lending/renting capabilities allow them. And no they can't all use public transit otherwise they likely would be using it already.

And yes we can increase density. Amsterdam only has 3700 people/km2. The metropole only has 900 people/km2.

I'm a European enjoyer of car restrictions.

You have a distorted view of what "modal income" is. If you can afford to live in the suburbs and drive one car (per worker) into the city, then you are rich. The poor live in the periphery and walk, use PT, or carpool. Then, the ultra-rich can afford to live in penthouses in the financial district and will always weasel a way in to be able to drive (or get driven) in a SUV, they are irrelevant to the discussion.

You are relatively rich and want to have your way with your car and driving, and are using the poor as a bad excuse.

What do you think will happen, that the system will collapse? Trains and buses spilling with people, no essential workers, police and healthcare unavailable, chaos, anarchy?

No! Everything goes on normally in cities that have restricted car traffic. Because restrictions are gradual. If a job offer in the city center becomes less competitive (considering time and money), then it will attract different workers from better locations. And same for housing.

> And yes we can increase density. Amsterdam only has 3700 people/km2. The metropole only has 900 people/km2.

Sure, if you want to make everything worse, you can keep dialing it up until it's too late. See any other major city in the world. There's an upper limit of what is acceptable, there not really a limit in decentralizing.

You don't need to buy a place to live in the cities. In Amsterdam, 70 percent of the places are for rent and over 2/3 of those are in the social sector (almost 50% of the total), meaning that there is a cap on the rent.

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