Hacker News Reader

Comment by mlinhares | Hacker News Reader

> The results were “surprising”, Saadaoui said, and could be the result of a number of negative impacts of driving, such as the stress of continually navigating roads and traffic, the loss of physical activity from not walking anywhere, a reduced engagement with other people and the growing financial burden of owning and maintaining a vehicle.

These results are only surprising for someone living under a rock LOL. Still, they're so carbrained that they will continue to vote against their best interests to continue to have the whole place dominated by cars.

View on HN

And even this comment will get a lot of explanations why cars and the infrastructure as it is is absolutely necessary for them. Yes, given your setting you built and the only pov you can imagine! The opposite is easy, fun, and proven in many places to work well and better;)

I remember the brain melting experience I had when I arrived in Madrid and saw that there were two circular subway lines, I can’t even catch a bus anywhere where I live or buy bread without driving because there are no sidewalks, that was like arriving at the Star Trek universe.

Some people are living in the future and don’t even notice it.

Only been to Madrid once, but was very impressed by the design of the subway - as I remember, they have the different lines colour coded and there's matching coloured lines on the floor/walls so you just follow the relevant colour to get to the correct platform.

> they're so carbrained that they will continue to vote against their best interests to continue to have the whole place dominated by cars.

This is an arrogant statement. It's more likely that you don't appreciate or agree with what their best interests are.

Mostly because they say things like "bike lanes make car congestion worse", when the evidence is generally that bike lanes improve car transit times.

Or claim they don't want bike lanes because cyclists break the law all the time, while not noticing how motorists break the law even more often - in a multi-ton vehicle - nor realizing how much infrastructure has had to be put into place to physically prevent motorists from breaking the law even more often.

Or claim they don't want their tax dollars to support rich people in lycra, while they simply don't see the poor people who use a bike to get around.

Or say they need a car to transport the kids around to sports events or band practice, when their 13 year old could cycle in their own should a real bike system exist.

Bike lanes can even offer an alternative routing that an ambulance can use when a traffic jam blocks the road, because cyclists can pull their bikes to the side far easier than a driver can pull a car to the side. I suspect some of these drivers may like faster medical services when having a heart attack.

People waste a full hour to drop the kids to the elementary my kid goes to because there is an infinite amount of cars dropping a single kid each.

I just ride a bike through some grass (cos there’s no connection between my neighborhood sidewalk to the sidewalk in the school neighborhood) and get there in 10 minutes.

People should be asking for a sidewalk and signaling so kids can ride to school but instead it’s just “more lanes” or “pick them up faster”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com