What about transit? Why do Americans always have to drive. We need real alternatives to cars.
The suburban sprawl makes building transit a lot harder but to fix that we need to increase density but then it’s hard to increase density when you need space for cars because you have no usable transit
Infrastructure alone to Bungalow jungle is never cost-effective: as Detroit learned, it never pays for itself with property tax.
I say we jack the property tax on low-dense residential to properly reflect a 20-year amortization and all the operating expenses of the infrastructure used, all the way back to City Hall, so that it does pay for itself (and the farther out, the more expensive to fix, the more expensive the tax).
At the same time, the city will
- wreck a park (wait for it)
- put up 40 storeys of mixed use
- offer to buy the shitty bungalows around the building, with an option to buy into ready condo space
- same for businesses, because #mixed-use
- use adjacent bungalow space for central square. Start with transit station underneath
- build 7 more towers
- offer same buy-up to adjacent bungalows
- surround with greenspace and one really ineffective laneway to connect garages under building with roadway out there
- begin offering more incentives for bungalow people to give up their home for agri space and move into mixed-use
- repeat until city is transformed to efficient walkable oases linked by transit
People think they can’t do apartments, but I’m sure a spacious 1200sqft place planned with an eye to sight-lines isn’t what they’re thinking. We love our (smaller) apartment near the mixed-use block that sprung up , and everything we need is within that block. From daycares and pet stores to restaurants and coffee-shops and take-out, and gyms (plural) and insurers and a market and a chemist and an insurer and a physio… it’s endless, and they’re still building out more commercial space.
But you have to build the new space, properly configured with GOOD (rail) transit, before you can get people out of their cars.
It’s really isn’t difficult
Our government just won’t spend the money to do it
If you want useful public transit then it needs to connect population centers where people are. People are lazy and don’t want to walk more than 1/2 mile to a bus stop so if you have a population density of 1000/ sq mi that means any one bus stop is only going to be able to provide adequate coverage to 250 people. With so few people per stop it needs to make a lot of stops to be useful which then makes it slow which further lowers use. At that density it also doesn’t make logical sense to have designated bus lanes so they are stuck going slow in traffic as well. So now you have an expensive system that nobody uses because it sucks
If you have higher density then you can justify more lines which makes them actually useful and can add things like light rails which really make a difference
Bike transit is usually easier in those lower density areas but due to the low density getting between places is usually a bit further away so there are usually higher speed limit roads that aren’t as good for cyclists so more expensive barriers need to be constructed or they have to follow less direct paths which causes cycling to be slow
transit
“We mean electric cars, you commie! The next time you talk about that thing, you are going out that window.”
\s
I live in a mid-sized Canadian city, with a population of just under 400k with what is considered a pretty good bus-based transit system, with roughly 60 routes. Even way out in the boonies you can catch a bus. You can get from pretty nearly any point A to any point B on the bus.
And yet I and those who can afford to do so generally avoid the bus. Our streets are still filled with cars during rush hour (which, as someone who has 100% WFM for the last 15 years I’m happy to say I’m not contributing to). Reasons?
- If your origin and destination aren’t on the same route, you’re going to need to transfer. Possibly multiple times. And wait for those transfers.
- Buses are sometimes either late, or too full and don’t stop. Which means if you rely on taking the bus to get to work, you had better be up quite early to ensure you get to your destination on time.
- Bus people. Creepy old guys hitting on young (or even old) girls and women. People who haven’t showered in a while sitting next to you. The people who think their bag is too important and needs a seat. We bought my wife a car the week after some racist tried to attack her.
You know what doesn’t have any of those problems? My car. I can crank my music up if I want to. I get to pick who is in my car. I don’t have to get up extra early to make sure I get to my destination on time because the bus might be late, full, or because I have to make multiple transfers (at each point of which the bus could be late or full…).
I’m glad we have the bus system we have for those people who need it. I know we have people in our city who don’t have the privilege of owning a vehicle of their own — and for some people whose needs are simple the bus can likely work just fine. I’m glad we have that system for the people who don’t otherwise have a choice — but for everyone who has that choice, the choice is typically being in their own private vehicle where they can sing loudly, eat and drink whatever they like, control who rides with them, and go wherever they want to — heck, I can even change my mind about my destination mid-drive and go wherever I want to without having to switch cars.
I’ll admit, having taken transit in bigger cities (Toronto, Montreal, Istanbul) being able to take a train (subway, LRT, surface rail, streetcars etc.) can be pretty great. I think bigger cities need this kind of transit — even with its many, many problems it can beat out taking a car to a downtown core. But even when I lived in some of these cities I still had a car. But the size of my current home city just isn’t big enough to accommodate that level of transit. The cost would just be too horrendous.
Can everyone do better? Sure. But I don’t think such improvements are going to significantly encourage more people to take transit over their own vehicles.
There’s many smaller cities than yours in Europe with a tram network. Volchansk in Russia has a tram line with a population of 10k. Canada isn’t know for having great public transport… In a city like Hong Kong you don’t need a car, it’s so convenient.
Hamilton? Guessing it because of the racism
Couldn’t be that most Americans can’t afford new cars.
Because they keep buying shit they don’t need and hording it in the garage, while their car sits outside in the driveway exposed to the elements.
Hyperinflation and incoming recession aside, Americans have been using their garages for junk storage for many decades.
People can’t afford a new car, let alone an EV, let alone a carport or car hole.
This is just tone deaf poor blaming.
Money and options are hurting my adaption rate
I moved in to a house with a garage and my in laws are constantly trying to give us crap to fill it up.
I don’t even know where they’re getting this stuff, they just show up and are like “oh, we’re getting rid of this dresser, we thought you’d like it” or “or, I bought this antique trunk at a yard sale, can you hold on to it”.
Yeah, my bfs dad is constantly filling his house, garage, and yard with a bunch of crap that he’ll never use. It just sits there and gets forgotten and deteriorates. Took us 6 years but we got like 90% of what he was storing out of our house too.
Too real
If you need to top off with 200 - 300 miles of range every night, you commute sucks giant donkey balls.
We have a one-car garage and two cars. I have a table saw, therefore we have a no-car garage.
you don’t even need a garage to charge your EV, just install it on the exterior.
lol, this totally makes sense to me. It can’t be the only reason. But my lived experience tells me it’s not insignificant.
If you’re work commuting with an EV and charging at home. What’s the hit to your electric bill?
Because that’s one of a few bottlenecks. $10 every few days for some gas is a lot easier on people than a blanket X hundreds of dollars higher light bill.
Being poor is expensive.
My MIL has had the original leaf and is now driving a newer Bolt. She said her bill only went up 20-30 bucks a month compared to what she was spending a month on gas.
I was paying $385 per month in gas for an Astra hatchback, which is not exactly a gas guzzler, though I did live in the mountains at the time.
I replaced it with a Bolt EV and the hit to my electric bill was about $50 with the same commute.
