Believe it or not, cars are a product of our wants and needs. They aren’t an obstacle to our goals, they were the solution to our goals. People want to do things on their time schedule, not work around a transportation system that they don’t control.
With all due respect – did. It’s an article I have quite a good familiarity with.
You are focused on the city.
I am focused on the US. We are not the same. The US does not have a strong rail infrastructure. It has a much larger bulk transport infrastructure via roads. It’s STILL not an obstacle to our goals.
In fact, I wish I knew what the impact was for a road that was more directly linking point A to point B, vs the additional pollution created by cars having to go twice as far on a non-direct route. I have a feeling that data would be interesting.
Given that every time they add a road, more cars travel them, I’m starting to think we haven’t reached enough road density yet. I think we should add more.
Maybe we could build more rail and reform the existing rail infrastructure instead of doubling down on inefficient and dangerous infrastructure that is both destroying our planet and atomizing our societies… ?
Given that every time they add a road, more cars travel them, I’m starting to think we haven’t reached enough road density yet. I think we should add more.
I think your heart’s in the right place here, and I don’t mean to insult you or start a flamewar here - but, didn’t urban planners discover induced demand 100 years ago? It’s the nature of the beast that, whenever more roads are built instead of more alternative transportation infrastructure, more people will choose to drive on those roads. Of course, these new cars aren’t coming out of nowhere - but if you’re looking for a house or a job, you’re likely to pick one at least somewhat based on the commute. New residents and people looking for new jobs will look for ones they can drive to, which means more houses and jobs on the highways, which means more cars on said highways, which means more highways, ad infinitum.
Failing the highways (as is often true in places like Europe or Japan), people will instead plan their commute based on where they can go with the transportation options available to them - and you can transport more people per hour on a railway than on a highway by orders of magnitude, so while the number of people being transported is going to be the same, the space and infrastructure cost required to transport them is lower with most alternative methods (though I can’t say if bike lanes or other specific infrastructure options besides rail are among these). The American rail infrastructure sucks right now, but we spend a LOT of money on highways, and if a significant fraction of that were allocated to railways, it seems very feasible that they could become practical for interurban use again, as they were in days gone by.
Cars were forced on us. They are a solution to problems create that we cannot solve without a functioning democracy (which the US has never had, it has always been a plutocracy that serves the rich over the needs and will of the people.)
So no, I strongly disagree that people actually want car dependency. When cities were first destroying their city centers to make room for cars, people fought against it. But these days most people don’t know anything else than car dependency. But when they travel to other countries it is like taking the pill from the matrix and they wake up to how hellish and dystopian car dependency truly is
Believe it or not, this is actually a product of cars.
Believe it or not, cars are a product of our wants and needs. They aren’t an obstacle to our goals, they were the solution to our goals. People want to do things on their time schedule, not work around a transportation system that they don’t control.
With all due respect - just read the article you dense motherfucker :)
With all due respect – did. It’s an article I have quite a good familiarity with.
You are focused on the city.
I am focused on the US. We are not the same. The US does not have a strong rail infrastructure. It has a much larger bulk transport infrastructure via roads. It’s STILL not an obstacle to our goals.
In fact, I wish I knew what the impact was for a road that was more directly linking point A to point B, vs the additional pollution created by cars having to go twice as far on a non-direct route. I have a feeling that data would be interesting.
Given that every time they add a road, more cars travel them, I’m starting to think we haven’t reached enough road density yet. I think we should add more.
Maybe we could build more rail and reform the existing rail infrastructure instead of doubling down on inefficient and dangerous infrastructure that is both destroying our planet and atomizing our societies… ?
I think your heart’s in the right place here, and I don’t mean to insult you or start a flamewar here - but, didn’t urban planners discover induced demand 100 years ago? It’s the nature of the beast that, whenever more roads are built instead of more alternative transportation infrastructure, more people will choose to drive on those roads. Of course, these new cars aren’t coming out of nowhere - but if you’re looking for a house or a job, you’re likely to pick one at least somewhat based on the commute. New residents and people looking for new jobs will look for ones they can drive to, which means more houses and jobs on the highways, which means more cars on said highways, which means more highways, ad infinitum.
Failing the highways (as is often true in places like Europe or Japan), people will instead plan their commute based on where they can go with the transportation options available to them - and you can transport more people per hour on a railway than on a highway by orders of magnitude, so while the number of people being transported is going to be the same, the space and infrastructure cost required to transport them is lower with most alternative methods (though I can’t say if bike lanes or other specific infrastructure options besides rail are among these). The American rail infrastructure sucks right now, but we spend a LOT of money on highways, and if a significant fraction of that were allocated to railways, it seems very feasible that they could become practical for interurban use again, as they were in days gone by.
Cars were forced on us. They are a solution to problems create that we cannot solve without a functioning democracy (which the US has never had, it has always been a plutocracy that serves the rich over the needs and will of the people.)
So no, I strongly disagree that people actually want car dependency. When cities were first destroying their city centers to make room for cars, people fought against it. But these days most people don’t know anything else than car dependency. But when they travel to other countries it is like taking the pill from the matrix and they wake up to how hellish and dystopian car dependency truly is