djrobstep

Cars seem to live in a special category in peoples minds where the costs simply do not exist, and thus the problems can be solved by simply throwing infinitely more resources and space at the problems.

Cars are inherently spatially inefficient, which makes them a terrible form of transport for cities. That is the hard mathematical reality that so many people avoid reckoning with.

Think of the space taken up by 1000 people on a single metro train, vs 1000 people in nearly 1000 cars. Think of 1000 people on bikes vs 1000 people in cars.

It's so obvious that this is a terrible way of moving people about, and we see this in congestion, in longer commutes in spite of cars traveling at higher speeds, sprawling patterns of urban development, road deaths (the biggest cause of death of children in most western countries), noise, pollution, sprawl, inactivity and social isolation.

Only ideology (car brain) prevents people from seeing it as the problem it is.

> Public transit needs a lot of money and time

Public transport is far, far more cost effective than car infrastructure. And that's just direct costs - not even including the cost of sprawl (which makes all other infrastructure more expensive), road deaths and injuries, noise, pollution, storage costs for vehicles, the health costs of inactivity and social isolation, etc etc.

> build good transit for the busiest part of the city (downtown) and build large parking lots around the terminals

This is a terrible idea because the numbers simply do not stack up. A typical metro train can carry roughly 1000 people. A large car park might fill half of a single train. At a station with good frequency, a train will leave the station roughly every 5 minutes.

A much better idea is to run good regular public transport to the station, build bike paths to the station and quality bike parking at the station, and build more housing at/near the station instead of a big parking lot.

People are products of their environment. What purpose is served by being judgemental and separating people into deserving/non-deserving baskets?

Everybody should have a right to healthcare.

The concept of a business can only exist within the context of a myriad of laws (property law, contract law, etc) all of which require violent enforcement or the threat thereof, ie reduction in personal liberty.

> You can't have free markets without personal liberty

I literally just explained why the exact opposite is true. Not a proactive conversation if you’re not going to engage at all with what I said and just talk past it.

Good example of how ideology (and motivated reasoning) really clouds people's thinking.

Personal liberty and free markets are in direct conflict with each other. Free markets require private property, which requires enforcement through violent aggression (or the threat thereof).

Free markets and private property might be justified for any number of (other) reasons, but "personal liberty" isn't one of them.

Uh huh honey. Newsflash: Most people are doing their jobs because they have to to get by, and don’t have the choice to work on socially-useful-but-not-lucrative stuff.

What are you talking about? It will have overwhelmingly strongly positive effects, while also raising revenue to fund stuff like more transit. Congestion charging is great and every city should do it!

You’ve never heard of public housing?

How much do you think supply needs to increase in Australia to bring homelessness to zero?

Are you actually living in Australia? Because nobody here would describe it as having an extensive public housing program.

Your own source says that public housing is a small percentage of housing and is at a 40 year low.

But it’s not just the block sizes, it’s also the streets. Often Western Sydney streets have no trees at all (and even no footpaths)

From wikipedia:

> Cycling is increasingly popular in New York City; in 2018 there were approximately 510,000 daily bike trips, compared with 170,000 daily bike trips in 2005.[2][3]

New York City, for one. Heavily used transit, and in recent years much improved bike lanes, and a v successful bikeshare scheme. I highly recommend reading about Janette Sadik-Khan's great efforts to make NYC more walkable and bikeable and reduce car dominance (she has a good book called Street Fight).

That is not how it works. What people want is a function of the choices available.

When the government builds a ton of car roads, people want cars. When they build great rail, bike lanes and walkable streets, people want cars much less.

I currently work from home, but with occasional (completely unforced) days in the (open plan) office.

I’ve found I detest the noise of the open plan office so much that I end up using one of the spare meeting rooms instead because it’s quieter.

Low density doesn’t = nature, it equals car-dominant sprawl, which is what creates the pollution and noise you mention.

Cities aren’t loud, cars are loud.

Pure ideology.

Melbourne has a lot of cars but the air quality is nonetheless good by world standards.

The roads are car-dominated and not very friendly to bike on. There are a few bike trails which are great, but they aren't well-connected to each other, so aren't useful unless there happens to be one exactly where you want to go.

One thing I did not appreciate until I got an electric cargo bike is how they are faster than cars for typical city journeys if there’s any level of traffic.

I live in a city of 5 million people and if I needed to get across town in a hurry I’d take my cargo bike, not my car.

My cargo bike usually beats the google maps car estimate by about 20%.

No such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Bike ponchos are a game changer for dealing with rain. I actively enjoy biking in bad weather.

And my kid/dog sit nice and dry under the hood of the cargo area.

I get most of my grocery shopping delivered, or I go to the supermarket in my cargo bike, dump it all in the front, and ride home. You really don't need a car for this stuff at all.

> Because you're not developing against a schema, you can, for example, retool a feature and its data quickly without having to stress about migrations. A big advantage for a startup looking to move fast.

Why wouldn’t you need to worry about migrations without developing against a schema? You’ll need to worry more about migrations because your data will be more messy.

That's exactly what I'm saying, yes.

> the right to own property, and to trade it without coercion

Trade requires coercion. Without coercion to stop you taking a particular object, there would be no need to trade for it, you would simply take it.

Without coercion to stop you living in your house if you stop paying rent or mortgage, why would you keep paying?

The US also has this.

What are you talking about? Australia's superannuation system is also defined contribution with individualized risk.

Commuting to work by train but driving around otherwise is very common, but it's usually because train lines are oriented about CBD trips, but less so for cross-suburb trips.

Are you saying you'd use a car for non-work trips even when the train would be more convenient?

Fear of public spaces or even being in the same space as strangers isn’t “liking different things”, it’s a psychological problem - albeit one that a lot of people experience due to modern society being very atomised.

? I pay $15 for my weekly groceries to be delivered, which saves me at least an hour. They are otherwise the same price as in store.