I’m not disagreeing with the post, but mass transit is completely non-existent where I live. We have so far to go.
Don’t know where you live, but to put this into perspective: it’s the same situation here and I live in The Netherlands (outside of the major cities). Even in a rich, flat country, the size of a post stamp, we cannot make mass transit work outside of larger cities. I agree that we need mass transit, but it’s only one solution for the mobility puzzle. Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
So from my perspective, no, cars aren’t just for the rich.
Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
When there’s 1 farm per 5 km maybe. In 1920, you could get from Savanah to Boston just by taking trains and streetcars; every neighborhood was served by atleast a tram.
The USSR found it worthwhile to build rail lines to remote settlements, without stops, a few times a day a guy would just drive a 2 train locomotive and stop if he saw anybody.
In some rural parts of Japan, you have lines it’s just 1 railroad, and every 20 miles is an unmanned station where it splits into 2 for the trains to pass, for like 10 stations. So you have 200 miles worth of suburbs being served by 40-50 workers running 20 3 car trains, that arrive every 30 minutes or so. The unmanned stations tend to have tons of bikes, they probably have buses too.
Average cost of owning a car per day is 20USD or so. A single railroad line that allows just 1000 people to not pay for a car does not cost 20,000 USD a day to operate. This is not including the cost of road building and maintenance. But even if it did, cheap transit is a public good; transit isn’t supposed to be revenue neutral. Roads aren’t revenue neutral.
I also live in the Netherlands and live in a commuter town of 80k inhabitants. There are a lot of bus routes in this town but they are all designed for commuters going to Amsterdam or for people going to the town center. If I want to visit a friend on the other side of town by bus I have to take multiple buses and waste a lot of time on waiting. I usually take the bike when I visit them since that’s faster than going by bus. But if I have to bring lots of things or it’s raining heavily or I know that I’m going home after midnight I take the car, since public transportation is just not a good option to take. Or if I want to visit another town that isn’t on route to Amsterdam it takes me twice as long to get there by bus compared to taking the car. Majority of homes in this town have a car since public transportation or the bike doesn’t satisfy every transportation need they have. And I rather want all these cars to be electric since that is conducive for the air quality.
It’s just not cost efficient for a town this size to have dedicated bus routes that connect every corner of town to each other. And it’s even worse for smaller towns.
absolutely. the debate when we were kids, and some, many in the city wanted light rail, which was ultimately voted down. my buddy who lived out in the sticks argued, it wouldn’t benefit him way out there. I should have pointed out he already benefits from the sewer and water infrastructure extended to far out communities like his. should have asked him to justify why the city supports him living out there.
Rural houses around me are all on well/cistern water and septic systems. I’m not even clear how you’d run sewer way out without elevation gain towards the rural areas, isn’t it largely dependent on gravity?
yes but… imagine a massive flash flood at high elevation where they built well, but not for that
Think tanks say that constantly, what are you talking about?
mass transit enables the individual to travel far and wide at low cost
public transit provides autonomy to the individual to travel without the liability of owning and operating a half-ton missile just to get around
chinas BYD wouldve destroyed the OVERPRICED ev companies of the us, wish it did.
Tariffs from both Trump 1.0 (~30%), Biden (~100%), and Trump 2.0 (~169%) mean that BYD will never come to the US. An EV from them is ~$30,000 compared to the ~$70,000 they are here. But the US government wants to coddle the oil & gas people while also making it seem like it’s trying to support American exceptionalism.
Always important to remember in this debate: electrification of transport is not just about carbon and climate. It’s about public health, not to mention public sanity.
The filthy noisy combustion engine was never compatible with dense cities, which is where most people live these days. Anyone who has been to one of the few places in the world where urban transport has been completely electrified will testify to the difference it makes to be free of the internal combustion engine. It’s night and day.
Let’s not lose sight of the wood for the trees.
Motorway noise won’t be reduced by electrification.
Urban planning won’t be improved.
Heavy metal pollution will be reduced.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1352231012006942
As, Hg and Se exhaust emissions were dominated by fuel combustion while Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn exhaust emissions were dominated by lubricant oil combustion.
Microplastic pollution will increase.
Let’s not lose sight of the wood for the trees.
I agree.
I wish my city would ban the loud sport cars.
They dont even have to be sport cars, they might just use a modified exhaust (you can add a thing at the end of it and you can make noise very very cheaply)…
Are whistle tips making a comeback? Whoo whoo!!
And motorbikes.
Controversial take (for this community): Electric personal vehicles were the catalyst for the electrification of commercial vehicles. So while it doesn’t address the problem of car-centric infrastructure, EVs have had a net positive impact on the environment by converting fleet vehicles to less polluting options as well as taking diesel trucks off the road.
Kind of, right? That depends on a great many assumptions, and if you adjust them slightly, you get a different result. For example, if the U.S. were to switch from SUVs to small sedans and hatchbacks, the CO2 savings take many more years to obtain.
In other words, OK sure go EV, but the main targets should be what they always were: drive less, and drive small cars. Oh, and don’t be fooled into thinking EVs solve a problem when they don’t.
Well, they solve the pollution problem in built-up areas and they solve the CO2 problem if you increase solar and wind power. The one thing they don’t solve is the congestion problem.
The congestion problem, the microparticles from tires problem, most of the noise problem, the physical safety for pedestrians and cyclists problem…
Of all the problems with cars in cities, EVs solve one of them (air polution from burning fuels) and that only if the makeup of the generation infrastructure for the electric grid is mainly renewables or nuclear.
Plus, even if you reduce the number of cars by 50% you still need to replace the other 50% on the road so the EV industry needs to grow
The conservatives where I live shit blood absolutely any time any changes are made to roads to make them even slightly more pedestrian and bus/bike friendly. Preventing accidents/deaths and generally having a more usable, inviting environment for anyone that isn’t a car is unacceptable if it adds even a second to their commute. Go live on the fucking highway if you like it so much.
Yeah this. It’s kinda wacky how serious they are about it.
They have been brainwashed by car and oil companies.
That doesn’t excuse their ignorance, but it does highlight that the public information component will be very expensive to fix.
It’s not that. My theory is that its a brain chemistry thing.
Many drivers don’t do any form of exercise at all, and don’t do anything exillerating ever. The only time they experience any kind of movement faster than a shuffle is driving. It’s the most exciting and engaging thing they will do all year.
With this in mind, there’s kind of an imperative to zoom around as fast as possible without encountering adverse stimuli like a fine.
It’s funny because adding more non-car options tends to make using a car more pleasant. But conservatives aren’t known for being smart, correct, or good at long term thinking.
Every car commerical shows the fantasy of being the only car on the road.
It’s so ludicrous. and consistent that when you know to look for it, it’s actually hilarious.
People do not like traffic. They already hate most cars, cause they’re only driving one.
Oh definitely. The fewer cars there are on the road the nicer it is for me to drive. Make public transport better for everyone, reduce traffic!
To be fair, I do not drive a lot in any particularly dense cities. Mostly countryside and for my main route, I use a shortcut that takes me off the boring highway, onto a curvy road that surprisingly few people use. I’m living the car commercials! Also I mean public transport for this particular route is nonexistent (one bus a day each way and they’re hella uncomfortable). If public transport was better for my use cases and if I wasn’t constantly lugging around a bunch of stuff, I’d sell my car and get a motorcycle to use on the weekends in the summer.
Yeah. My city changed a one way street that runs 30 blocks headed away from downtown from a two lane multiple stop sign traffic hazard to a single lane with plenty of parking, a bike lane, turn lanes for busy intersections, and highly visible intersections with proper pedestrian connections. Traffic would get backed up before, but now it goes pretty much straight through at the same time of day with barely any sloowing down. Sure, all the cars are in the same lane, but prevoiusly they were just spread out between two lanes and slowing down way more often to merge and turn more slowly.
Haven’t heard of any new plans to do the same with comparable streets despite being a roaring success. People look at a single lane and don’t understand it can be faster for everyone than two when done right.
Not where these people live. Most conservatives don’t live in cities.
Well that’s not true. Rural areas are typically majority conservative, but mid-size cities and suburbs are typically closely split conservative vs. not.
Tax rebates for massive luxury electric SUVs but you’re on your own if you want to buy an e-bike worth less than the total tax rebate for an EV. Most places won’t even build infrastructure for anything other than cars. My city has roads with no sidewalks that go straight to downtown and some newly built suicide bike gutters along a major stroad.
Some states have programs, I know Cali has a program for ebikes https://www.ebikeincentives.org/
Though I will admit most of Cali is not bikeable (at least socal imo, norcal is better)
Here’s a list from what I could find online on it. https://tstebike.com/blogs/new/unlock-savings-2025-u-s-state-e-bike-tax-credits-and-rebates
As long as a majority of Americans live in suburban areas, car dependency will continue.
If suburbs were developed to be people-centric, you really wouldn’t need a car for 99% of your daily tasks. Most trips by car are very short, and can very easily be replaced by non-car modes of transportation.
The argument I usually hear from car-brains is that we have to pRoTeCt RuRaL cAr DrIvErs.
Unless you’re transporting anything of a decent size which most people do frequently.
Unless you’re moving furniture or have a physical disability it’s not really an issue. It’s also easy to use Uber/Lyft/etc and book a large vehicle on the occasions you do actually need it.
I guess if you’re buying a ton of pet food/litter or drinks regularly it could be a pain, but if an area is actually designed well you won’t be carrying it very long. And if you plan ahead and have one of those little luggage/shopping carts you don’t have to carry it at all.
Source: have lived for the past 15+ years without a car.
Define “decent size” and define “frequently”.
It’s incredibly rare to see pickup trucks in the suburbs or city hauling stuff. Sure, there’s that one guy who collects metal scraps once a week, but that’s about it. He’s using his truck to make a living, not to take his kid to school up the road.
Heavier or more awkward than you can comfortably carry. Weekly/monthly food shop, furniture, weekend getaways, etc.
Weekly/monthly food shop, furniture, weekend getaways, etc.
Food shopping doesn’t require a large truck, or even a car.
I’ve carried 120lbs worth of groceries on an old bike + a lightweight trailer. It’s easy to haul stuff on a regular bike, and if hauling large loads is something that you’d often do, a cargo bike makes a lot more sense than a car.
These days, since I don’t support Walmart anymore, I can walk to my local grocery store a few times a week with a handcart, and get all the groceries I could need (even pulling 60lbs+ with a handcart is easy). I can also get exercise and connect with other humans at the same time! It’s a better way of doing it.
Furniture? How often? Most people get stuff like that delivered for free, or might rent a small van for the odd time they want to pick up themselves.
Weekend getaway is understandable. I don’t know anyone who goes on them every weekend. Maybe on a holiday weekend, but even then, owning a car for the odd getaway seems… wasteful.
The majority of people would still benefit from people-centric infrastructure, and an even greater number of people don’t need anything bigger than a small car (if that).
And I say that acknowledging that North American cities aren’t even designed with people in mind, so imagine how useless cars would be if they weren’t the priority?
Ah. See, you’re able to ride a bike and not die. My community is not there yet.
This is privilege. Funny how so many in here would immediately bitch about others not recognizing it but in here it’s totally acceptable to be completely obliviously.
That’s not even true. E-bikes solve the low density suburb problem. You just need to actually build out appropriate bike lanes and trails. Suburban neighborhoods aren’t unfixable.
Many millions of Americans spend at least an hour commuting to and from work every day. I don’t think they’re going to want to do that on an e-bike.
Your vision is too small. What do you think the biggest problem is for deploying transit to suburbs? The last mile problem. You can have a train to the suburbs, but people still then need to drive from the train station to their home. With an e-bike, that solves this problem.
Sure, you can cite some hypermiler that commutes 2 hours across rural land between cities, but now you’re just masturbating to edge cases, the equivalent of someone that justifies buying a giant truck because they move a couch once a year.
E-bikes solve the last mile problem of transit. Look at how trains and bikes actually work in countries like the Netherlands. People tend to bike to the train station, ride the train, then take a bike to their destination. With an e-bike, your train stops only needs to be within a couple of miles of both your start and destination. E-bikes make solve the problem of the incompatibility of low-density suburbs and transit.
How am I going to bring home groceries for my family of 4 on an E-Bike?
I do groceries for 2 people once a week with a bus and my legs. With an e-bike and a cargo trailer it would be trivial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_bike
You get an electric cargo bike. The idea only sounds terrifying, no? But that’s because you’re imagining riding the thing with your kids through car traffic. If you have the infrastructure to make it practical to run errands with vehicles like this, without sharing paths with cars? Just other vehicles of similar size and speed? Suddenly it’s much more sensible.
I used to do something like what you’re describing. I would drive my car to a light rail station then take the train into the city to work. I suppose what you’re talking about is just replacing the car with an e-bike. That’s fine, but I don’t see a huge difference in this scenario between an e-bike and an electric car, especially since I wasn’t just driving to the light rail station, I was also driving to the grocery store and to restaurants and to the houses of friends and family, etc.
Now, if I had lived in the city nearer to my work, and to stores, and restaurants, and shops, etc, an e-bike would have made a lot more sense.
Most people in suburbia have a stores within a reasonable e-bike distance of them. And yes, there isn’t a ton of difference between the e-bike and an electric car in that context. Which is the entire point! The difference is that one costs a minimum of $30k, while the other can be had for less than $1k. And for the resources to build one electric car, we can build dozens of e-bikes.
The difference is that one costs a minimum of $30k, while the other can be had for less than $1k.
That’s true, yet I still think many people will opt to spend the additional money for a car. They’re covered and climate controlled, and they offer more passenger and cargo capacity. In the Netherlands, which you mentioned as an example of a country with high e-bike adoption, there are still millions of cars. I’m sure there are fewer cars than there otherwise would have been, but cars are still very much in the transportation mix. Not a bad thing, necessarily. I definitely think it has reduced car dependency - cars are no longer as much of a necessity - but cars are not eliminated.
As long as new housing is built in suburbs due to zoning, people will continue to live there.
All of the housing in my city that is near downtown or near business districts is either abandoned, run down, or gets converted into businesses.
Well said.
True dat. I remember how quick they were to start criticizing remote work. Saying how it isn’t fair to the office building owners when people work from home. Less traffic & congestion was probably one of the few upsides of the pandemic to me.
thanks, henry. your horrible ideas still echo throughout history to this day. elon’s taking notes.
why not both
The money wasted in electric car subsidies is much better spent on mass transit and cycling and pedestrianization initiatives, all of which move far more people at much less cost per person. Electric cars are being posited as the solution (as opposed to drastically improved mass transit) because that’s the only way auto companies can stay relevant and maintain their supremacy
It’s all about protectionism for an obsolete car industry. If we legalized golf carts, and ATVs, most families in the suburbs would buy one of those. They’d use it for groceries, school runs, dentist appointments, and getting coffee down the street. Their main car would sit idle the majority of time, because it’s a hassle to drive a large car. It would make living in suburbia someone more tolerable, as you would see your neighbors more in golf carts.
I know this isn’t exactly an urban area but ATVs can be legally driven on the road in West Virginia
Also we should be looking to reduce car use because car infrastructure is incredibly expensive and environmentally destructive.
Electric cars still need ashphault, make tire dust, require salted roads. Roads will still have surface water run off contaminated and artificially heated damaging natural water ways. Roads will need to be repaved more often due to EVs weighing more.
By the end of day, we are barely getting ahead environmentally with EVs if at all. Some EVs like an electric hummer will generate more carbon through their lifecycle (production, use, and disposal) than an ICE compact car.
So what do you suggest? No cars allowed at all? Even in European countries with strong public transportation cars are still useful and allowed (except in crowded city areas). It’s hard to imagine life out in the boonies without access to a car…
I think we should pursue better public transportation primarily, but I also think efforts to make electric vehicles better are an important piece of the puzzle to transporting ourselves sustainably.
I claimed reduce car use, not no cars at all. If we cut car trips in half in favor of walking, biking, or transit thats a huge improvement. Car dependancy has other issues as well with land use causing sprawl and strip malls, which often sit abandoned and a new development is built further down the road. I think reducing car use and improving density and livability of cities goes hand in hand.
As much as I would love for the modern world to be able to reduce its car dependency, unfortunately in places like North America that is just straight up impossible, even with public transit places are just too far apart.
The vast majority of car trips are done locally. Most people aren’t driving from Dallas to New York to get their grocceries, go to the gym, or go to work.
Most people who live rural areas need to travel at least half an hour to get groceries, I am not talking about people who live in cities.
I think there needs to be an effort to advocate for reduced car use, many of the suburbs would be much nicer if people could be allowed to use golf carts on the roads. It would be a step in a better direction, break the obsolete car industry, and bridge to walk-able communities in existing burbs that can’t be easily or quickly redeveloped.
Yup. Even if we don’t reduce the number of cars, driving them less often is a massive benefit.
bUt oUr pRoFit MaRGiNs!
