Let’s go one further and just… basically ban all cars. Almost nobody should be driving all of the time in a city, and when you start to think about how many problems and how much of a nuisance cars are it seems painfully obvious.
Yes, there’s problems that we’d need to solve in order to do this, and some things would just be a little less convenient… But cities would be so much safer, quieter, and have much better air quality if fewer people were driving. Bikes are very effective for getting around for most people (especially if you don’t have to worry about cars murdering you), e-bikes make it a little more accessible, and you can’t tell me we couldn’t have an absolutely bitching public transit system if 1) we didn’t have to account for so many cars, and 2) even a small fraction of what everybody spends on their own personal motor vehicles went towards public transit infrastructure.
Sometimes we need cars to haul stuff, it totally makes sense to have motor vehicles for emergency situations and stuff, but pretty much nobody needs a giant SUV to commute to an office job by themselves. The amount of huge cars you see driving around with only one person is super depressing when you start looking for it.
For the United States, I agree mass Transit should be a much more prominent thing than it is, but suburbs and mass transit is difficult to deal with. 50% of the U.S. lives in suburbs, 20% of the U.S. lives in rural areas.
I couldn’t live where I live without a car, and we literally have no mass transit. My nearest tiny grocery store is 3 miles away. I’m not putting a family of 4 on bicycles to make a run to the store to buy groceries, loading it on a bicycle, then hauling it home.
Part of the issue of mass transit, cities, and cars, is if I’m in a suburb 5 miles from a proper urban area with access to amenities, and I have no mass transit to get there, I have to take my car. And if I have my car when I get to the city, why would I park it to then take mass transit?
Mass transit actually has to become a realistic option for the 30% that live in a city before we even start to talk about mass transit for the other 70% of the U.S.
And realistically, those cities need major redesigns to support a mass transit-style system. The fight for public transportation starts with zoning and districting. Get mixed-use neighborhoods up and rolling, some medium-density housing developments with townhouses, duplexes, and triplexes. The fight for a bike system (Why do we need bike lines along car road? Screw bike lanes, I want bike networks.) and buses come shortly thereafter.
Let’s go one further and just… basically ban all cars. Almost nobody should be driving all of the time in a city, and when you start to think about how many problems and how much of a nuisance cars are it seems painfully obvious.
Yes, there’s problems that we’d need to solve in order to do this, and some things would just be a little less convenient… But cities would be so much safer, quieter, and have much better air quality if fewer people were driving. Bikes are very effective for getting around for most people (especially if you don’t have to worry about cars murdering you), e-bikes make it a little more accessible, and you can’t tell me we couldn’t have an absolutely bitching public transit system if 1) we didn’t have to account for so many cars, and 2) even a small fraction of what everybody spends on their own personal motor vehicles went towards public transit infrastructure.
Sometimes we need cars to haul stuff, it totally makes sense to have motor vehicles for emergency situations and stuff, but pretty much nobody needs a giant SUV to commute to an office job by themselves. The amount of huge cars you see driving around with only one person is super depressing when you start looking for it.
For the United States, I agree mass Transit should be a much more prominent thing than it is, but suburbs and mass transit is difficult to deal with. 50% of the U.S. lives in suburbs, 20% of the U.S. lives in rural areas.
I couldn’t live where I live without a car, and we literally have no mass transit. My nearest tiny grocery store is 3 miles away. I’m not putting a family of 4 on bicycles to make a run to the store to buy groceries, loading it on a bicycle, then hauling it home.
Part of the issue of mass transit, cities, and cars, is if I’m in a suburb 5 miles from a proper urban area with access to amenities, and I have no mass transit to get there, I have to take my car. And if I have my car when I get to the city, why would I park it to then take mass transit?
Mass transit actually has to become a realistic option for the 30% that live in a city before we even start to talk about mass transit for the other 70% of the U.S.
And realistically, those cities need major redesigns to support a mass transit-style system. The fight for public transportation starts with zoning and districting. Get mixed-use neighborhoods up and rolling, some medium-density housing developments with townhouses, duplexes, and triplexes. The fight for a bike system (Why do we need bike lines along car road? Screw bike lanes, I want bike networks.) and buses come shortly thereafter.