Because as much as trains and buses are great for everyday commuter movement (and having amenities within walking distance is key as well), there’s two issues:
Changing the infrastructure and zoning of an existing city is much easier said than done. Ripping up concrete, tearing down existing business and homes to increase densification, that’s a huge undertaking.
Trains never replaced the horse drawn carriage. You can never fully eliminate the need for cars because sometimes you need to move something big like a couch. Even if there’s less cars on the road, it’ll never be 0, as this also includes things like ambulances, and fire trucks that can’t rely on schedules.
It in that case the people with power wanted the change. They could profit from it, so it came easily.
Once those same people can make money by densifying urban areas into rental hellscapes and monopolizing public transit, you’ll have that. And it will suck.
That’s what rentals are for. Yeah, there’s always going to be a need for low volume cargo transport and emergency response, but ultimately building cities so 90% of trips can be easily and comfortably accomplished via mass transit should be the goal. Nobody is suggesting transit can replace all cars.
The image in the post is of a yogi of some sort stating that electric cars are here to save the car industry first, and my impression of it is that it’s suggesting that exploring the idea of electric cars is unwise.
And hell yeah, efficient transit and walkable cities are the goal. But while we’re working on that goal, we should also focus on electrifying cars! Tackle the crisis in multiple ways. Because there’s no way we’re gonna stop using cars overnight, and if we can make cars more environmentally friendly while we taper off of them, that’s a win.
If a solution involves lining a billionaire’s pockets, he’s unlikely to offer you an alternative.
Electric cars are palatable for most of us because it just involves a straight swap. No lifestyle changes needed. It’s a much easier sell than lugging all your shopping home on the bus.
Yes. If we had infinite money, infinite time, and the ability to put people into stasis while we tear up entire cities to retrofit them for a train system… that still wouldn’t solve the problem.
Cars haven’t existed forever and we managed to build places around them. There’s no reason we can’t start building everything new around other modes of transport.
If you live in a city, you are done. If you live on the outskirts of a city?..
I live in Switzerland, and none of the problems you mention in the next few paragraphs exist here. I mean frequency of public transport isn’t as good out of the cities, but I can get a bus or train to pretty much anywhere a car can get to, and some places they can’t. The buses are nice and work well, they have priority in the city so they don’t get stuck in traffic. I can get train, tram, bus, or bike to the airport no problem and if I need something bigger than I can carry I’ll just get it delivered. Yes Switzerland is rich but there’s a lot of money to be saved if it wasn’t being spent on cars, car infrastructure, and all of the externalities of driving. It’s also small, but our trains don’t go particularly quickly.
Even then, the vast majority of people in developed countries (and the majority worldwide) live in urban areas. If the people living in podunk towns need to drive, power to them. Focusing on urban areas will have a bigger impact.
But unless you are rich enough to live in the city center, you are still going to deal with a lot of headaches.
And the alternative is being rich enough to afford a house in the suburbs AND a car for every member of the family? Walkable doesn’t have to mean the city centre, and it’s much easier to achieve if you don’t have to kowtow to a bunch of suburbanites who want to drive their SUVs through your neighbourhood.
First: Your baseline is Switzerland? The 6th highest GDP per Capita (how the hell is Ireland 5th?!?!?!) which ranks 132nd for area.
Please read my entire comment, I addressed this already.
Again, if you live in Tokyo or even freaking New York City (arguably all of New York+New Jersey but upstate NY is REAL republican), you are more or less good. You might be a bit inconvenienced if you don’t live near a rail station, but you’ll probably be looking at a 20-30 minute pre-commute.
The vast majority of people in developed countries live in urban areas, so for the vast majority of people that drive, this isn’t an issue. It is the rich suburbanites who are driving into cities.
Yes. If we had infinite money, infinite time, and the ability to put people into stasis while we tear up entire cities to retrofit them for a train system… that still wouldn’t solve the problem.
Fun how we had zero fucking problem doing it to every city in the country for cars. 🤷
EDIT: lol so the !fuckcars on lemmy.world is just pro car drama addicts, got it.
My brother in Christ we haven’t BEEN HERE for multiple centuries. Fun watching people give zero fucks that their defense of the status quo doesn’t make a damn lick of sense or even adhere to basic knowledge of reality.
Actually most cities had rail laid out and working commuter trains. The car manufacturers bought them up and purposely ran them into the ground to increase car sales. (Think Twitter) they were run like that.
Some cities, yes. LA is an example, right? And how they wrecked the street cars.
But not my city. Calgary was built as a stop on the Trans Canadian Railway, and that still exists, and there’s an (okayish) light rail train system here that’s slowly been built over the years and not torn down. Fully wind powered, too! Edit: our public transit kinda sucks though, I’m not saying we’re great. My commute to the office would be over an hour by transit and twenty minutes by car, I’m lucky I work remote.
A majority of North American cities that have grown within the last hundred years (coinciding with cars) were built from the ground up with cars in mind as the primary form of commute.
Yeah, all of those things weren’t problems at the dawn of the steam engine. Those are all problems brought on by the automobile and oil companies designing cities in the 40s.
![[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/11c37658-7c32-4cc2-b12c-6ced348bd09d.png){kind=link}
Because as much as trains and buses are great for everyday commuter movement (and having amenities within walking distance is key as well), there’s two issues:
Fun how we had zero fucking problem doing it to every city in the country for cars. 🤷
Including destroying neighborhood-after-neighborhood with highway overpasses.
Literally destroying buildings to build surface level parking.
It in that case the people with power wanted the change. They could profit from it, so it came easily.
Once those same people can make money by densifying urban areas into rental hellscapes and monopolizing public transit, you’ll have that. And it will suck.
That’s what rentals are for. Yeah, there’s always going to be a need for low volume cargo transport and emergency response, but ultimately building cities so 90% of trips can be easily and comfortably accomplished via mass transit should be the goal. Nobody is suggesting transit can replace all cars.
The image in the post is of a yogi of some sort stating that electric cars are here to save the car industry first, and my impression of it is that it’s suggesting that exploring the idea of electric cars is unwise.
And hell yeah, efficient transit and walkable cities are the goal. But while we’re working on that goal, we should also focus on electrifying cars! Tackle the crisis in multiple ways. Because there’s no way we’re gonna stop using cars overnight, and if we can make cars more environmentally friendly while we taper off of them, that’s a win.
If a solution involves lining a billionaire’s pockets, he’s unlikely to offer you an alternative.
Electric cars are palatable for most of us because it just involves a straight swap. No lifestyle changes needed. It’s a much easier sell than lugging all your shopping home on the bus.
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More headaches than wet bulb temperature?
Yes, bc no headache when you’re dead.
I was thinking as your brain fries it might hurt, but you’re right! It won’t hurt for long.
Cars haven’t existed forever and we managed to build places around them. There’s no reason we can’t start building everything new around other modes of transport.
I live in Switzerland, and none of the problems you mention in the next few paragraphs exist here. I mean frequency of public transport isn’t as good out of the cities, but I can get a bus or train to pretty much anywhere a car can get to, and some places they can’t. The buses are nice and work well, they have priority in the city so they don’t get stuck in traffic. I can get train, tram, bus, or bike to the airport no problem and if I need something bigger than I can carry I’ll just get it delivered. Yes Switzerland is rich but there’s a lot of money to be saved if it wasn’t being spent on cars, car infrastructure, and all of the externalities of driving. It’s also small, but our trains don’t go particularly quickly.
Even then, the vast majority of people in developed countries (and the majority worldwide) live in urban areas. If the people living in podunk towns need to drive, power to them. Focusing on urban areas will have a bigger impact.
And the alternative is being rich enough to afford a house in the suburbs AND a car for every member of the family? Walkable doesn’t have to mean the city centre, and it’s much easier to achieve if you don’t have to kowtow to a bunch of suburbanites who want to drive their SUVs through your neighbourhood.
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Please read my entire comment, I addressed this already.
The vast majority of people in developed countries live in urban areas, so for the vast majority of people that drive, this isn’t an issue. It is the rich suburbanites who are driving into cities.
Actual poor people are the ones who benefit the most from better infrastructure. Public transport is a lifeline for the homeless, and access to it is the biggest factor in whether they will be able to escape homelessness. Owning a car is really expensive, and The burdens of vehicle dependency fall disproportionately on marginalized people, especially those who are low-income and those who are Black.
Well said.
Fun how we had zero fucking problem doing it to every city in the country for cars. 🤷
EDIT: lol so the !fuckcars on lemmy.world is just pro car drama addicts, got it.
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My brother in Christ we haven’t BEEN HERE for multiple centuries. Fun watching people give zero fucks that their defense of the status quo doesn’t make a damn lick of sense or even adhere to basic knowledge of reality.
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OOOOHHHHHHHHH You’re comparing apples to turnpikes and claiming it a win. Gotcha. Have fun mate.
Actually most cities had rail laid out and working commuter trains. The car manufacturers bought them up and purposely ran them into the ground to increase car sales. (Think Twitter) they were run like that.
Some cities, yes. LA is an example, right? And how they wrecked the street cars.
But not my city. Calgary was built as a stop on the Trans Canadian Railway, and that still exists, and there’s an (okayish) light rail train system here that’s slowly been built over the years and not torn down. Fully wind powered, too! Edit: our public transit kinda sucks though, I’m not saying we’re great. My commute to the office would be over an hour by transit and twenty minutes by car, I’m lucky I work remote.
A majority of North American cities that have grown within the last hundred years (coinciding with cars) were built from the ground up with cars in mind as the primary form of commute.
Calgary had a pretty extensive Streetcar network around downtown once upon a time.
https://saadiqm.com/2019/04/13/calgary-historic-streetcar-map.html
Hey neat!
Just goes to show how history gets erased. Hopefully the green line gets built and we’ll have even some of this coverage back.
Yeah, all of those things weren’t problems at the dawn of the steam engine. Those are all problems brought on by the automobile and oil companies designing cities in the 40s.
Lots of places can’t support trains either. Kelowna area would not work well because of altitude changes and lakes.