My original question was “How do we disincentivize the purchase of pickup trucks/SUVs” but then I thought it would be better to approach the larger problem of car dependency and car ownership. One option is, of course, to create public transit infrastructure and improve it where it already exist. This, however, doesn’t change the fact that some will still choose to drive. What would be the best ways to discourage people from owning personal cars?
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don’t discourage people from owning personal cars. most of the time this mentality is just a tax on the poor.
Flip the idea. Encourage people to not use cars instead.
- not just bike lanes, but bike storage & lockers
- not just public transport, but better connections between transport modes (buses with bike carriers, train stations with better car parking and bike lockers and bus connections)
- more small car parking bays with all large truck bays further away from the stores
- more motorcycle parking bays
- cheaper motorcycle registration, etc.
it’s all about spending money and effort in the areas you want it. Not about being restrictive.
it’s a slower method of conversion, but more effective.
You have to do both I’m afraid
no, you really, absolutely don’t.
more importantly, you missed the part where being anti-car is just a tax on poor people. It’s also ableist. We still need cars, and punishing people who need them isn’t helpful.
“poor people, like people on disability payments, shouldn’t be able to afford to drive, but rich people can do whatever they want” is a horrible dystopia.
I agree with you, it’s not fair, but afaik the research and data shows that in order to get people to use their cars less there has to be more downsides to using it as well as easier alternative transportation.
Otherwise people will just keep driving
You can own your car and drive it from time to time, ideally not in the city. Those aren’t what we want to discourage. Discourage driving daily, driving in the city. Make those things simply easier, faster, and cheaper to do than using a car, and, while it won’t KILL cars completely, it’ll reduce them enough to make a noticeable difference.
After that’s successful, and the working class hasn’t completely shit themselves, we can start with making cars less desirable than they are right now. Once only the enthusiasts and most stubborn own a car, we can add some kinds of taxes, so that at the end, we’re left with only the enthusiasts, which I think is a perfectly reasonable goal.
Yes, but you must also do things like add tolls, rush surcharges, etc to actually get the car usage down.
Simply making the alternative better alone won’t make the majority drop the comfort of their own car because it will never be as good as driving yourself.
no, you don’t. that’s all a poor tax, again.
and remember: most of the people who need cars (for mobility reasons) are among the poorest.
So taxing people through tolls and such is just punishing the disabled. ie ableist.
You do if you actually want the traffic to go down and you want to afford the public transportation infrastructure that will be required.
Pretty sure my second paragraph, starting with the word “after” (that word does a LOT of lifting) addresses that aspect.
It usually happens at the same time, you increase cost. Then you use that cost directly to build and maintain the public infrastructure required.
People are in engrained car habits. That’s why alternatives to driving are important, but people are unlikely to switch unless we ALSO make driving less appealing
The solution seems to be, build those public transit options first. Let people get used to them, know they exist, etc. even if they’re not massively used, their presence makes implementing some kind of penalty for driving WAY more likely to work - there’s already an alternative in place, we don’t have to worry about what we’re gonna do now, were just gonna take the bus.
I totally understand why you say this. But at the same time:
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Be a politician
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Do the right thing and invest billions in an amazing public transport system knowing it won’t be used properly until much later
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Lose your job for wasting billions on a system nobody uses. Ensure that every other politician in the world cannot henceforth invest in public transport because “Look what happened when that other guy tried it”.
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There is no Step 4
This is why I propose moving in sloooooow steps. One or two small changes at a time, and eventually we’ve “snuck” some stuff by and moved in the right direction.
The way I look at it, it’s as likely to happen if we do it right as if we do it wrong. Either we’re going to get rid of cars, or we’re not. I’d rather make steps towards doing it right.
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address how this stance of yours isn’t just a tax on poor people and how it isn’t ableist.
Anti-tobacco campaigns proved to be very useful. Anti-car campaigns could be equally useful. Won’t happen in the EU sadly because Germany relies too much on automotive industry.
well, sure, because that’s just because vaping didn’t exist then. Once vaping became a thing, soooo many people switched over from smoking to vaping.
I wasn’t being sarcastic, anti-tobacco campaigns and regulations were very effective
Public transportation should be provided for the public by the public. Quit wasting time with ticket booths and all that shit. Just free transportation. We aren’t charged per use for roads so people drive. Make public transport free so transportation is equally accessible by all social classes.
Even with cheap fares now, moving a family is still more expensive by bus than vehicle. I don’t drive for my sake. I drive for the others that need me to drive for them.
Not to say that you’re wrong, but driving does cost money in the form of registration, excise tax, gas taxes, and inspection. It’s still heavily subsidized, but drivers don’t pay nothing to use the roads
Many of those are fixed costs. That means that if you use the car more, it becomes more worth it.
Instead of making cars more expensive, we should make public transport cheaper. And it should also reach outside of cities.
If you want to go outside of a city for whatever reason (maybe you even live outside a city!) the options for public transport are very few, very expensive, and very time consuming.
The one tied to increased use is linked, not fixed.
Well there are fees in registration, and gas, but it isn’t enough.
If we want people to switch, time and money are the best motivators to broadly apply. Making transit both faster and cheaper than a car (or free) will increase ridership and decrease car usage.
No disagreement. Was just clarifying misinformation.
For me the only answer is good, fast, cheap public transit.
Gosh I took the railroad from Long Island, NY into NYC and back. Each way was about 40 min but the total cost was like $19 per person! If I was going with 3/4 friends, it could literally be cheaper and about as fast to drive into the city and pay for parking. It needs to be more subsidized.
Car driving also needs to be less subsidised.
Ultimately, we need alternatives, people will take alternatives if they are faster and affordable. We need a rich public transit system.
If people are fully exposed to the real cost of car ownership they will happily choose alternatives. This means no free parking or mandatory minimums, no subsidies, tolls everywhere, and carbon taxes on fuel. Even after all of that some people will still decide that driving is their best option and that’s ok.
In a world where there are no viable alternatives, like much of the US, this ends up putting additional financial pressure on the poor and the rich can simply carry on. This ultimately just increases the cost of ownership, and forces people to pay it.
Studies also show that people will take faster more robust alternatives if they exist, regardless of price. If driving means you sit in traffic for an hour, but taking the bus means you get there in 35 minutes, people will take the bus.
The point is, the poor can still successfully use mass transit now that there’s not much traffic for buses and crosswalks.
I’d rather implement stronger options for free/cheap transportation BEFORE we increase the cost of car ownership. A lot of cities don’t have proper transit options, mine included, and if I was suddenly exposed to the “full cost” of owning a car, I’d be SOL until a bus route near enough for me to walk to gets put in place.
I think this is the essence of what you’re replying to is getting at. It’s a great idea, later, right now we need something that doesn’t kill the working class.
That’s not necessarily possible. Good public transit and bikable neighborhoods are made possible by the low land usage. Low land usage requires having fewer roads and smaller parking lots. Those, in turn, require fewer people to be driving.
The midway transitionary option is buses. But buses are only convenient if they don’t have much traffic to battle. We need fewer people driving.
There are options available. More heavy subsidation for buses comes to mind. Subsidize it enough it’s practically free, and expand their routes. Add more priority lanes for buses. That much is doable today. Then we have a bit of infrastructure so we’re not just pulling the rug out from under people. From there, slowly introduce things to discourage car driving. Gas taxes, more strict emissions requirements, more expensive registration, harder license exams, etc.
You may not have read the second paragraph. People won’t even ride free buses when they don’t arrive and are slower than walking.
Money alone does not solve the issue. You can’t engineer a faster engine for a bus that’s stuck in traffic. Even adding more buses to the route does not help.
It doesn’t matter if they’re riding them right now. Get that infrastructure in place before you pull the rug out. When the rug is pulled, they’ll ride. Yes, it’s a bit of throwing money at the problem, but it doesn’t leave people fucked in the interim period. Do what you can to get infrastructure in place BEFORE tackling cars.
Oh you can also just give a clear preference to other modes of transportation via traffic rules. Let’s say there are traffic lights that only allow bikes to pass more often than they allow cars to pass that’s pretty neat
Good public transportation, good bike roads, a train system that works well.
I’m firmly on the side of it being unreasonable to discourage driving until there is a reasonable alternative.
- There are a handful of us cities where there is enough of an alternative and they already make it expensive to have a car and getting more expensive all the time (see NYC proposed congestion fees, Boston record prices for a parking spot, Cambridge street restrictions)
- even then, there should be a better way to support people who think they need a car but don’t use it everyday. It shouldn’t need to be in everyone’s way
However for most of the US, that’s just alienating people who would be on our side if there was a choice
Where I live we don’t even have sidewalks on most roads, so that would be a start.
Honestly though? Great public transit. I really miss living somewhere that allowed me to be car free because the transit was pretty good. Not even great, but just pretty good. Something like Singapore public transit would be great.
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Step 1: defeat the car lobby Step 2: take over city land use planning Step 3: allocate trillions to city road design Step 4: allocate trillions to to public transportation Step 5: adjust the culture to accept commercial near residential Step 6: ? Step 7: you know the rest
Towns and cities should restructure more to a self sustainable way, so people don’t have to travel as far as often.
My personal example is that I live in a very bicycle friendly city, but at the same time we don’t have a bicycle shop anymore to buy tires and chains and shit…
We need a bike shop here!
With enough cycling investment, i could see denser areas having emergency bike shops along major routes. Offering fast repairs like a tire or chain during rush hours.
Imho the best policy is to require a permanent parking space close to the main residence of the person owning the car. With permanent access I mean that the space is only to be used for the car and has to be either rented or owned by the person using it. This is rather easy to do in a rural setting, but much harder the more urban the area becomes.
The next part is making access worse for cars. Place parking further away from interesting destinations then bicycle parking and public transport access. Like having bicycle racks right next to the shop doors. That also includes just removing parking as much as possible. Besides handicap spots obviously. Also modal filters to block cars to move through certain streets, but allow bicycles and pedestrians to use those. That can also mean one directional roads.
Slow down cars as much as possible. When cars are as fast as bicycles, cars loose a massive advantage. This has to be done using built infrastructure and not just street signs, but those are an important start. So narrow roads, little viewing space and speed bumps. Also traffic lights are a good option. Give priority to other forms of transport(default green for pedestrians and bicycles for example).
the first point makes it sound like you either don’t want cities or you love vast amount of space being wasted. it would just be more reasons for developers to not build homes and new businesses, while also complete inflating parking lots everywhere.
instead, scrap the bit in zoning laws where businesses have to allocate space and funds for parking lots in their designs. denser setting incentivizes walking or biking. in line with this, make mixed use development more apparent-- shops on bottom floor with apartments on top. capitalism will say to developers that they could fit another 2 or 3 stores in a lot that was previously going to be dedicated to parking
reduce the number of road lanes and make them narrower in cities while opting for curb-raised and separated bike paths. ditch the grid based road map for a more natural one. the visual clutter on and around the road will make drivers go slow. ensure there is proper daylighting for points of conflict. get large trucks back onto rural roads, and incentivize, both to consumers and corporations, a return of small vehicles. we should be able to find a happy medium where if you need a car, be it for hauling furniture or going on a camping trip, it should still be convenient enough to do so.
let there be a priority bus or emergency vehicle lane in the center of the road. that way busses and emergency vehicles don’t get stuck behind any car traffic
to developers that they could fit another 2 or 3 stores in a lot that was previously going to be dedicated to parking
That is exactly my point. Underground parking adds 35-50% to a mid rise building construction cost. That means people have the choice between larger or cheaper units without a parking spot and more expensive ones with a parking spot. Even with underground parking mid rise buildings are already cheaper then single family housing. Especially ifthe area we are talking about has high land prices, like pretty much every city.
When a drivers license is taken or suspended, especially for speeding in cities, give an easy option to directly… lease(?)1 an e-bike. And then suspend licenses for a lot more of the dangerous behaviors we currently just accept.
A relative got her license suspended for a month for speeding, and then simply did not go anywhere. Having an exciting new mode of transport might have just been what she needed, the supermarket is just 2km away.
1: The state can hammer out the details, obviously we don’t want to gift them it or it becomes a reward for speeding, and selling them it means they could just resell it afterwards when the goal is that they keep and use it. Maybe like a 5 year ban on reselling it, only one per household. Also, probably keep the model generic and discreet so no shame is cast when just trying to buy groceries.
Weird, of the people I know that have had their licence suspended, I don’t think any of them actually stopped driving.
replace public parking with green spaces, add more barriers to slow cars down in high pedestrian traffic areas, and more goddamn trains.
By making it a poor choice, which you do by providing a better alternative that is cheaper.
- Tax carbon (and equivalents)
- give back all carbon tax to all citizens, equally
- Increase tax linearly over time, and let folks and business plan their transition predictably.
This will incentivize people to demand affordable transportation, transition to alternatives, get low income citizens a reason to not oppose increased cost of living. Big consumers have to pay, low consumers will pay a little but get more back.
Check out Citizens Climate Lobby.
Now that EVs are a thing, taxing carbon may not do what you expect.
EVs still create a lot of co2 in production so I’d expect it would incentivize people to use and demand more efficient means of transportation. Trains, busses combined with incentives to do better city planning.
EVs aren’t silver bullets. Will still be cheaper to use an EV than a car running on gas.
