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OK, those are the solutions for people living in a city center. Commutes are short enough to walk or bike, and for longer trips, there is a bus or tram every five minutes. Got it.
And what would be the solution for those people living outside the city centers? Biking from here to the city is 20km, nearly an hour downhill towards the city, but at least one and a half back up. Busses go every hour, but only Mo-Fr during the core hours. In the evening or on weekends, bus traffic is spotty, to say the least. And Trams, well, we don’t do trams or trains in the country.
Design better cities. End sprawl.
But it’s probably too late for cities already designed to be suburban hell to make any changes that dont involve redesigning and tearing up half the city. I mean, its possible but unlikely in north america at least
You have to differenciate between sprawl and people living outside the city basically forever. Remember: cities are the new things, not the other way round.
Cities are centuries older than cars though. Cars are the new thing. And yet it’s true that cars are an obvious QoL improvement for anyone in a rural area, and no reasonable person is suggesting that people in rural areas shouldn’t drive cars.
The real issue is that Americans (among others) have decided they want all the convenience and amenities of living in a city (sewer, water, energy, convenient access to most goods and services, etc.), but they want to pretend they live in a rural area, with no density whatsoever. This has resulted in the suburban sprawl that is financially ruinous and requires cars to be able to go anywhere and do anything, which creates traffic, which we solve by building bigger roads and pushing things farther apart, creating more traffic.
Thus, the answer really is that if you want city amenities, you need to live in a city. It doesn’t have to be as dense as New York. Not Just Bikes just posted a great video about the smallish town of Bergen in Norway that is not a super dense urban hellscape, it is medium density with human-centric development.
Y’all are missing the point. US had huge growth after wwii, most of it suburban and car oriented. This is how we got cities designed to sprawl, complete car dependency, and that’s all that too many people know. For all of them, too many cities, too much of the population, it’s new to want city amenities, new to think in terms other than cars and suburbs.
It’s still get odd looks talking about how much nicer things are. I still get people thinking cities are the crime ridden hellholes the 1970s told them they were
Nobody is suggesting people in rural areas to live without a car.
Fuck cars is about eliminating car dependency in cities. Actually, forget eliminating car dependency. I’d be happy if we could stop this silly car size arms race and ban these huge pickup trucks and SUVs in cities
That sounds like where I grew up, small town and nearest cities were over an hour by bus. Never had an issue without a car, most shopping is just food so easy enough to walk or cycle to the local Tesco.
Most weeks the only time I would leave the town was when walking the dog. Until I got a job in the next town over, which was only 6 miles away, easy distance to cycle. Moved since then, now its quicker to cycle to the next town over than get the bus or drive. Google says its up to an hour to drive there in the morning, cycling you can just go past all the cars that aren’t moving anywhere.
So it’s bike, bus, train and walk. I mean, yeah.
Step 5: Get hit by a car while on your bike and wind up with lifelong injuries because your city does not have bike-friendly infrastructure and riding on major roads is essentially a death wish.
Lol, you think horrific injury with permanent loss of limbs stops north americans from driving?
Mmm’k, I’ll take the bike next time I’ll bring 300kg of concrete from the store…
The problems is not having a car. The problem is taking its car everyday for less than 5km to go to work.
Yes, you can live without any car if you live in a big city (in 30m2 apartment 😝), eat in restaurant, go to cinema, etc… and love this way of living.
But if you want a house, with decent garden, close to nature, then it becomes hard to live without car. Not that you must take your car everyday, I have an electric 50cm3 equivalent bike to go to work.But yeah, when I do the garden and have 3/4m3 of organic waste, it’s hard to evacuate this by bus…
I’ll take the bike next time I’ll bring 300kg of concrete from the store…
To be fair, you could get a bike trailer that handles 300kg, and it would be way more affordable than a pickup truck or van.
But are you doing this often? Are most people??
When I get something large enough to require a cargo van, I usually just rent one for like $20.
It’s about using the most appropriate vehicle for the job, with a priority being on the one that causes the least harm to the environment and community.
A car is not appropriate for most of the trips people take, and a truck/SUV even less.
Why aren’t you keeping you organic wastes on the property to make nutrituous compost?
Dude, do you have any idea if what 5m3 grass, woods and leaves represent in a 700m2 garden, and the time it would require to compost it naturally ?
There is an “organic factory” (don’t know how to translate it) were people can bring their organic waste close to my home. They have big crusher for wood, and several areas to maturate the compost. You can buy premium organic compost for your garden for like 0.1 euros per kg. You can also come with your trailer and take a few tons if you want.
It is also used by townhalk to decorate round about, public PARC, etc…
I lived rurally for 15 years and we composted everything from food waste to yard trimmings in our yard. Does you area do organics collections? My area also has a municipal compost and they pick up organics every week along the garbage schedule.
Yes, we have this, but they don’t pick above 1m3. Which is stupid, because for less than 1m3, I put it in my own composter.
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And only $16k/year for a car in Canada! $2. 5k less than the average Canadian mortgage, what a bargain!
Yeah I don’t know people who pay that. It costs about 4k per year.
That might be old news …. The average new car is north of $40k, so $4k in costs every year means you keep it ten years to cover the purchase, and that assumes no fuel, service, repairs, insurance. And there aren’t many of us who keep cars 10+ years. And trucks are insanely priced
If you are buying new cars, well that’s it’s own problem
Those are both Canadian medians, but that doesn’t invalidate your lived experience.
https://www.ratehub.ca/blog/what-is-the-total-cost-of-owning-a-car/
