Submitted by altmorty t3_124yq0y in technology
PurelyLurking20 t1_je33zxg wrote
Reply to comment by Due-Resident-4588 in EU fossil fuel car ban gets final green light by altmorty
I promise you I don't have a private jet and I would push for fossil fuel bans until the day I die.
GekkosGhost t1_je47xeg wrote
>I would push for fossil fuel bans until the day I die.
You'll have too. Cars last 20 years and even when new sales cease the existing fleet will require fuelling. Classic cars, many of which are over 40 years old now, will continue requiring fuel for another 40+ years.
I don't mind electric cars. They can be fun. But we're decades, plural, away from having enough infrastructure to support mass adoption here in the UK. It's very imminent they don't push back the switchover closer to the time.
PurelyLurking20 t1_je4babs wrote
I really don't want us to even switch to relying on electric cars so much, we need to focus on mass transit and walkable neighborhoods both for the environment and just for the general life satisfaction that comes from it.
GekkosGhost t1_je4j6f7 wrote
You might prefer walking or taking the bus but most people don't. Cars aren't going anywhere.
PurelyLurking20 t1_je4jk9u wrote
Infrastructure that supports everyone driving cars can be removed from dense cities. We don't have to leave it up to individuals to decide. Just remove enough streets/parking or create bus route only lanes in downtowns with wide sidewalks and protected bike lanes. It naturally cuts down on traffic by making it more inconvenient to drive in than just using a different mode of transport.
There's a need for cars in remote locations but no need in an urban center.
GekkosGhost t1_je4jwcb wrote
>Infrastructure that supports everyone driving cars can be removed from dense cities
It's, I understand that's what you want, but it isn't what most people want. They don't mind standing in the train waiting for a bus that doesn't come.
>Just remove enough streets/parking or create bus route only lanes in downtowns with wide sidewalks and protected bike lanes
Again, I get that this is your utopia but it's others hell.
>It naturally cuts down on traffic by making it more inconvenient to drive
Yes, that is the whole entire problem in a nutshell.
>There's a need for cars in remote locations but no need in an urban center.
That's lovely if you live, work, and don't try to leave that urban center. It's utterly unworkable once you realise most people working and shopping in the center of town don't.
PurelyLurking20 t1_je4kncj wrote
That's an entirely American problem. Suburbs only really exist like that in America and a select few places that were ruined by people trying to plan cities like we did.
If you properly plan a city there is no reason to drive around downtown, those areas are reserved for people.
Buses in America are currently unreliable because they are not funded and infrastructure is not made with them in mind. That can also be fixed.
The reason americans don't live downtown (often) is because instead of making our cities dense we have created few homes in those areas and allowed single family home zoning which needs to be entirely done away with. If you just replaced parking lots with more housing there would be no issue. If you want to visit dense areas like that you would just bus in or use other transit. It's not really about what people want right now because Americans have not been exposed to living like that.
It's an objectively happier lifestyle just by the numbers. I barely even use my car because I moved to a dense enough city that I can just walk everywhere.
GekkosGhost t1_je4ot1i wrote
>That's an entirely American problem
No it isn't. We have the exact same issue with all major cities here in the UK.
>If you properly plan a city
Most European cities and so capitals are older than the car, older than the bus, and often older than the pushbike.
Hard to plan for what you can't envisage.
>It's an objectively happier lifestyle just by the numbers
Yeah, your numbers. It's objectively miserable waiting in the rain for a bus that may never come.
>I barely even use my car because I moved to a dense enough city that I can just walk everywhere
That's nice for you but wholly unrealistic for most people.
If we're replanning cities then we need to focus on personal airborne transport, because that'll be the future with some leccy cars knocking about.
Nobody is going back to pushbikes and buses. That's the 1800s and 1900s. It's over and done.
PurelyLurking20 t1_je4py1i wrote
I guess I didn't make it clear enough but the UK tore down a lot of the prior existing cities or never rebuilt them after WW2 so that they could make way for the same type of development that America did. You are suffering the same problem but your neighbors in places like Amsterdam aren't.
You know what is miserable? Sitting in traffic and wasting my life away every day. Not being able to walk like we were naturally born to do in order to pick up something to eat or buy groceries. The noise of highways, and the likelihood that you'll die there. Pedestrians getting mowed over by cars. The insane amount of pollution and waste they've created. I would take getting rained on a little bit if it was substantially less full of oil byproducts.
The reason cities were built how they are now in America, and by extension the UK, was because of aggressive lobbying by the oil and vehicle industries to remove pedestrian centric spaces and create ridiculously expensive suburbs. We changed our plans once and we can again, some cities have already made moves in the right direction.
Bikes and buses are the most reasonable transport. You know what is even worse than some idiot on a loud ass bike at 6 am? Some idiot revving up his jet powered hovercraft in your weird dysfunctional future. Have you been anywhere near a flight line? Or even a fairly large drone? That will never be allowed near residential areas.
If you want your personal vehicle, move to the countryside and don't ruin public spaces for everyone else. The only unrealistic thing about living in a walkable city is how insanely expensive they are for housing right now. And that's because too many people are trying to live in them and instead of building more vertically we are building useless parking lots for suburbanites that can't afford to live here currently.
GekkosGhost t1_je4s5bl wrote
>the UK tore down a lot of the prior existing cities or never rebuilt them after WW2 so that they could make way for the same type of development that America did
Lol. No we didn't. We revbuilt Coventry because it got flattened but every city we had at the start we had by the end.
MK we tried around your planning, with mixed results. But that was a new city.
>You know what is miserable? Sitting in traffic and wasting my life away every day
Self driving motorhomes will fix that.
>Not being able to walk like we were naturally born to do in order to pick up something to eat or buy groceries. The
I've just got back from a walk into town (the one I live in rather than work in). Traffic didn't stop you walking you just stay on the pavement.
>Pedestrians getting mowed over by cars
Most pedestrians cause the accident they're involved in. Very few get stuck on the footpath.
Same with cyclists which is why so few motorists are persecuted despite almost every cyclist having video evidence of their accident.
>The insane amount of pollution and waste they've created.
No case to answer Vs electric cars.
>I would take getting rained on a little bit if it was substantially less full of oil byproducts
That's nice for you but it's not the choice most people would make. They could make it now and they don't.
>Bikes and buses are the most reasonable transport
If by reasonable you mean terrible then yes. They're slow, inefficient, unpredictable, and pony useful for short journeys. It's legacy thinking.
>That will never be allowed near residential areas
And yet they will be. It's the future. So trying to make everyone live in the past. We didn't mind it so we changed it. Progress.
>If you want your personal vehicle, move to the countryside and don't ruin public spaces for everyone else
If you don't want to be near people personal vehicles then move to the countryside and stop loving in a city morning about everyone else. You can do this now.
PurelyLurking20 t1_je4u3xn wrote
Im not gonna argue anymore based on your views on future tech development without considering the consequence I don't think we're getting anywhere. You fell for the same car centric propaganda you've been fed. Also you walked to the store which is already better than what Americans can do in their suburbs. That's legitimately not an option for most people here.
GekkosGhost t1_je4vpp7 wrote
Yeah, you seem determined to drag us back to a golden age that never was and refuse to embrace technology as though the luddites were coming back on one of your buses.
Let's agree to disagree.
Due-Resident-4588 t1_je38ufi wrote
I should’ve said those at the top who have power. Obviously us every day people don’t have private jets.
m00fster t1_je4a36y wrote
Many of us don’t even have cars so why should we care
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