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Comment by xnx | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this.

> Waymo will get big enough in San Francisco to affect this

SF public transportation is "good enough" that owning a car in SF is already a decision outside of pure transportation needs.

I lived in SoMA for 2+ years without a car using ZipCar occasionally to drive to SouthBay, which was cheaper than the car payment, insurance and the parking fee put together. Plus my commute was to Palo Alto which was neat because every Caltrain out of SF stopped in PA in the mornings, I used the bullets both ways every day.

Bicycles got me and my partner everywhere, faster and more conveniently (including in a bus or BART). We even went by to Napa on the ferry with bikes on it (once the Vine Trail cycle path connects all the way to Vallejo, I want to do it again - for now you can put your bike on a bus from Vallejo, no problem).

The Lyft would be used for the Costco runs or to lug things out of Tech Shop back home, when working on something bulkier.

Then I had a kid + moved to Mission bay which was still great for my Caltrain commute, but the kid changed the way I could just grab an Uber. There was no travelling light anymore.

I struggled to use a cab because we had to drag stroller car-seat everywhere we went with the kid and often even when didn't have the kid, because you'd pick them up on the way back.

The car was bought, even though it was a bad deal financially simply because it offered a fixed set of storage items we always had.

Even getting from location to location, the car was the slower option, it didn't make any sense except to serve as a home base for all things you needed to have with you.

yep. People railing against cars are usually the younger ones without kids, pets, etc. So they don't understand the value of the car from their own experience, nor able to put themselves into the shoes of others due to that egoism of the youth (i've naturally been there myself :).

I'm a nearly 50 year old dude and cars are awful because I have kids and want to leave them a better city and planet.

They are massive sources of CO2 right now.

Even electric cars produce a lot of particulate matter from tires.

They crowd out housing and businesses when we require their needs be addressed first and foremost.

It's not so much a matter of a binary choice either for most people. You can use a car less and still have one for that occasional hiking trip or something.

Do you have a car? If you don’t - respect for putting money where you mouth is. If you do - what is the point of your glorious virtue signaling statement when your actions confirm what I said?

Jesus https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/036/647/Scr...

>Jesus

Not surprisingly that you mentioned it, preaching and enforcing virtues - let’s get rid of the cars - upon others while enjoying the opposite vice yourself - driving a car - is at the core of the Christianity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I feel like you are really running against the spirit of HN with this comment.

And electric cars still produce a lot of CO2 in manufacturing, to the point that though an electric car is a reduction in CO2, its on the same order of magnitude of an gas car for regular usage.

That's not true at all. There's a bit more CO2 during manufacture, at the moment, but a single year of driving and the EV has caught up to a gas car on emissions. Given that lifetime of cars is multiple decades now, the savings are huge for EVs.

https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric-emissions

I think I overstated my case, its not as bad as I thought.

Much the contrary. Like another post has said, I don't want to leave as inheritance to my kids a polluted planet and cities stuffed with dangerous cars.

But it's not only that. Quality of life is precisely the kids being able to just cycle to school and sports with their friends, rather than being stuck on the back of an SUV in traffic for hours every day, being driven around by their parents.

I have lived in places where the former lifestyle is available and where the latter is mandated. There is NO QUESTION which one is better. That's why I'm working to campaign very hard for this to be a reality where I live in ~10 years time :)

You describe my childhood in USSR. I don't see it repeating at any meaningful scale. I do dream though, while slowly working on human carrying electric VTOL, that we'll get to the world with residential neighborhoods kind of like golf-courses - a lot of green space with minimum paved paths for short hops (and last mile various cargo) on electric "golf-carts"/etc. while electrically-VTOL-ing to any destination farther than 5-10 miles.

Parents driving kids to school and hobbies seem to be an almost uniquely American obsession. I live in an affluent not-USA country and my kids go to school and hobbies by walking/bike/bus. If I had to chauffeur them around all the time my quality of life would go way down.

Car dependency is definitely not a US specific thing, sadly.

Of course not, didn't mean to imply that. But the US seems to take it to 11.

Don't take this the wrong way but I definitely think it's "peak hn" to consider that building 1m wide cycle paths is somehow just an impossible thing to have, so much so that you see some weird scifi vision of flying cars as being easier than that.

If anything, cars (and the necessary infrastructure for cars) severely limit the independence of children and senior citizens. Children often can't get to school without their parents driving them. And seniors become homebound and isolated sooner when they're no longer able to drive themselves to the grocery store and their friends.

>seniors become homebound and isolated sooner when they're no longer able to drive themselves to the grocery store

large supermarkets (naturally can't be just in every small neighborhood) -> efficiency and lower costs. What is the point of local (thus small and high priced) store that a senior can walk to, yet can't afford to shop at?

Small stores can be perfectly affordable. National Co+op Grocers lets local coops buy from UNFI at a national bulk rate, just like the giant chains can. I shop at a member store and usually pay less than I would at one of the big chains.

This is simply your gut feeling, smaller (and cheap) supermarkets are common basically everywhere outside North America. Chile which is in no way rich or some urbanist paradise is a specific counterexample, prices only go up with specialist stores (e.g Whole Foods equivalents) or small business of the size of a parking spot in someones home, think like NYC bodegas.

Cars are expensive, the total domination of personal cars is only possible if you are a rich country. Much like gout.

You are partly correct to note that local markets are often not economical, but the reasons for that are precisely low density, car dependence and restrictive zoning.

For a local market to be economical it needs a catchment area containing enough customers.

Once customers start driving they prefer to drive a bit longer to go to a mega market or mall with good parking options, i.e. not a local market.

Local markets thus have a catchment area that is defined mostly by walking and biking.

(Not having a lot of parking can also help to make local markets more economical)

Some important conditions for local markets are then:

1. Zoning needs to allow the shop to be very close to residential areas, and with only few parking spaces.

2. Residential density needs to be high enough to have a large number of customers within walking or biking distance.

3. Walking and biking should be sufficiently safe and pleasant.

It is easy to see the why there are few local markets in suburban North America, but they are very common in urban places all over the world, as well as in thoughtfully designed and slightly denser suburbs in many countries.

Having kids radicalized me against cars more not less. Cars kill kids. Suburban isolates kids from their friends and in person activities.

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