Yeah that’s a bold assumption. My bet is on “it’s going to get progressively worse and never better”. I have yet to be proven wrong. Since the day I was born everything’s been enshittening with only inconsequential cosmetic improvements (lol technology, what a joke).

If nothing else, car dependency is fiscally unsustainable. We might go kicking and screaming towards the solution, but eventually people will have no choice but to abandon the financial suicide that is making your city car dependent.

Depends on society. Here in Europe we build more and more railways even though we already have shitloads (compared to US).

Memes are so much better without the backstory. This was the first time I’ve seen it mentioned so I looked it up, and holy shit. Had no idea that was him, I’ve seen the name but not the face.

I’m still not 100% on board with it because it still made me immediately think of that mentally, sexually, and maybe even physically abusive fuckhead.

It’s things like bikes, ebikes, electric scooters, monowheels, etc.

!micromobility

Cars, but like, Hot Wheels size.

It’s a relatively new term to refer to extremely small and lightweight vehicles generally used for short-distance rides. Things like bicycles, rollers, very small electric vehicles like e-rollers, e-bikes, segways etc.

Wasn’t there a toy in the 80s called Micromobiles?

Yeah, I live in a conservative state, and the state department of transportation stepped in and blocked my city from adding a few blocks of bike lanes. They want to get rid of everything “public;” transportation, schools, health, etc.

Why do you live in the USA?

True. Then came ethyl alchohol. Then came alchohol ban, that basically subsidised oil industry.

Trains can transport higher loads of people though. So ultimately both trains and busses need to be the priority.

We can all live near a train stop. Roads were built everywhere. Train rails are actually not as expensive to build

Those super long electric busses will become more popular than trains.

Though heavy batteries are bad for energy efficiency and big capacity batteries are long to charge. Well, it can be solved by constantly charging them. This also allows to reduce required capacity, thus reducing weight. Constant charging most efficiently can be done by using wires. Oh, wait. I just reinvented trolley.

Though we also cant all live nrar these “train stops”?

*European disagreeing noises*

Yes, bulldoze suburbia!

The suburbs are inherently compatible with trains and really any public transportation. They were quite literally designed around the car and the expectation that everyone would have a car.

New suburbs get built and they can be built differently. Not to mention that the current suburbs in the US aren’t made to last the next hundred years, like stone houses in Europe are. They can, have to and will change.

The Work from home trend for example is a huge change. If you work from home and do not have to drive to work and back, you do not want to drive the same amount anyway just for grocery shopping. You want to use the free time won, by stepping outside of your home and go on a walk, sit in a café and meet people in your suburb.

Why are the anti-car people anti-self-driving car?

If a human makes a mistake while driving, we call for self-driving cars.
If a self-driving car causes an accident, we call for the road to be more catered to self-driving cars. Self-driving car is still too many cars rotting on the road, unused most of the day, heating up cities and taking up space and resources, when a bus can replace hundreds of them.

A self-driving car is still a car, and it can’t do what humans can do: People make billions of good decisions every day that help avoid accidents. We just don’t recognise them because we focus on the bad decisions that cause accidents. Self-driving cars will never be able to make those good decisions, so having lots of them will only work if the roads are designed more for them. Then we will have roads that are like train tracks with all the negative characteristics of today’s cars on top, when we could just have trains and busses all the benefits that come with them.

Well Los Angeles used to have an extensive streetcar system like Toronto. It was bulldozed in the 1950s and that was that. So LA isn’t inherently anti-transit, but that was a result of deliberate planning. I could be converted back, however it’s density is quite low and it could stand to have some urban centers linked by high-capacity mass transit.

There are indeed suburbs that make use of transportation, but they… look a bit different than the sprawling, disconnected single family detached with a lawn and a backyard style suburbs. I peraonally believe with a few changes the suburbs could make use of public transport in busses. The suburbs are actually inconvenient for cars, they are poorly connected and have many stop signs and generally no lines or other features. The scale is best with a vehicle rather than on foot, but it’s not the end of the world either.

Personally, my anti-car dream only applies to me. I wanna live in a city where I’m at zero inconvenience without one and the risk of being hit by one is significantly lower, too.

With Uber and other ride hailing services it became clear that cheap point to point transport replaces trips that are otherwise being made with public transportation like buses, and thereby increasing traffic. There were also more trips in total done because of the convenience than were done before, thus also increasing traffic. It’s the classic Jevons paradox.

Self driving taxis could certainly have the same effect or more if they are cheaper than ride hailing. The increase in usage can easily be greater than the number of private cars it replaces.

American cities weren’t built for the car; they were bulldozed for the car. See Cincinnati, pictured below:

Further, we only have suburban sprawl because of government mandates. For example, thanks to restrictive zoning, it is literally illegal to build anything but detached single-family houses on the vast majority of urban land in this country.

Then there’s the matter of parking minimums, based in arbitrary pseudoscience, that have resulted in the demolition of our urban cores.

And also the matter that most cities in America had incredibly extensive streetcar networks, before they were literally torn up. It’s no accident that the city in the world with the largest tram network – Melbourne, Australia – is also the only city that left its historic streetcar intact.

The beautiful thing about fixing all this malarkey is we don’t have to demolish and displace millions of people from their homes like we already did once only ~60 years ago. We just have to abolish those restrictive, Euclidean zoning laws and parking minimums and setback requirements and so forth. Let the invisible hand of the free market provide us with the density and walkability and transit-oriented development it’s trying to provide us with!

The primary thing that needs demolishing is parking lots, and absolutely no one will miss those, I guarantee it.

The argument that we will get rid of all cars on the planet is just silly. Prior to the automobile, people had wagons and carriages for thousands of years. They had the same problem as cars due today - they cause pollution from horse poop, and they caused massive congestion.

I don’t think there is a single major city on the planet today that doesn’t use cars in some level of the transportation system.

What’s really funny I said a bus is just a really large car. And a taxi is just a car that somebody else drives for you. So saying that mass transit and taxis or a solution to cars is ignoring the fact that they’re basically the same thing.

That’s whete micromobility comes in and abolish whatever prevents suburbs from having shops every other street.

One of the leading causes of death for children in North America is from cars. Well funded and built transit should be accessible to all in their urban areas. Stops should have sheltered waiting areas with adequate and maintained seating. Good maintanence and funding would reduce equipment failures in elevators and other equipment. Ideally we densify around this transit as well which would help to reduce travel distances for people with movement disabilties and promote walkability. 95% of the time well designed and funded transit paired with good urban density and zoning will be more accessible to those with disabilities than private vehicle ownership.

That is an organizational problem because my country next to it has all those things at just about every train stop (Switzerland).

Elderly people use electric mobility scooters at Disney literally all the time. They’re pretty great for the elderly so long as there’s accessability ramps everywhere.

Escalators and elevators being out of service seems like an issue of lack of investment in public transit.

And cities can be built around public transit and micromobility while still allowing cars. Generally, you’ll have better access for emergency vehicles, and you can do the same for people with disabilities.

A big problem with car-heavy streets is everyone’s safety when the elderly are driving on them.

It’s also shown that if people live in walkable neighborhoods, they get more exercise and can get used to movement even in old age.

That’s definitely not a problem everywhere. The buses we use in Canada are very disability friendly and we have programs to teach kids how to ride the bus alone. We have bike racks on the front of our buses too, so we can combine modes of transportation.

The biggest problem with public transit over here is lack of funding and infrastructure. The bus system is intentionally kept shitty here so that people will opt to buy cars where possible.

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American here, I have a disabled family member. Cars are ultimately harder on them because they physically cannot lift themselves into a car while also stowing their 200lbs wheelchair.

A bus or train doesn’t have that problem and are therefore better.

And the more walk able the area the better because it makes it far easier. I’m sure there are disabled and elderly people who have an easier time using cars. But to say in a broad sweeping generalization that it’s better for all disabled and elderly people is a mistake. Cars should not be the first go to for a solution.

And kids can’t even use cars. They are dependent on public transportation and the walkability in their area.

A huge problem with public transportation is safety and usability for small children, the elderly, and people with disabilities

Probably because all of them can drive. Sarcasm. You just named all groups that will not get driver license. Expecially children and disabled.

They have problems with having to wait standing and constantly out of order escalators and elevators.

Everyone have to wait. Everyone hates standing. Maybe just do proper benches, maintanance of escalators or remove steps? Well, probably Germany don’t have problems with last one.

The cities were radically different before we decided that a car should be able to go anywhere.

1. People are calling for radical change to their cities as they realize the poor economics of urban sprawl and suburban development. You do have a good point though as transit, density, and mixed zoning all work best when used together.

2. The shift to transit and walkability will actually make exisiting roadways and highways less congested and better serve any delivery vehicles using them. We won’t rip out all existing roads, but we will stop building a new lane every 5 years.

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Like every other huge factory before cars: connect to railways. Or tram network if you are in city.

I think you’re making it out to be a bigger problem than it really would be. Nobody is going to push personal and commercial vehicles out, but there would be a lot less of them, they’d only be as big as necessary, and they’d be more environmentally friendly.