The deer aren't crossing the road
The deer aren't crossing the road
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110 comments
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Very well.
Then let's go back to ridding horses and after that we can all deal with the amount of abuse the animals have to endure to provide transportation, for people and cargo. And while we're at it, let's also ruin the concept of emergency delivery of organs for transplant or emergency medical care. Not that the last one is relevant for the USofA but since we have the opportunity, let's stack the shit as high as we can manage.
Travelling would become a fun endeavour again, I'll risk, both for work, leisure and family affairs. And aren't we glad for having wagon trains moving food items across large stretches of land again? Fresh food, nobody real needs it; if you want it, plant and raise it yourself.
And electrical vehicles are loud and slow? Which ones? I'll take a fleet of EVs "roaring" by my door the entire night over having one single conventional car with a tricked exhaust line or a lead footed idiot at the wheel driving by.
About danger? Biggest danger in any car is found between the seat and the wheel.
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Trains. The answer is trains. Just because you are uncreative in using technology as it exists today does not mean that we have to go back to the stone age to find a low-emissions and safe means of transportation.
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Trains can't be the answer. What are you gonna do, put large networks railroads connecting every part of a city easily and accessibly, perhaps underground so they stay out of the way and can operate without unduly harming the natural environment? Let me guess, you also want to put railways stretching across countries so that large amount of people and/ or cargo can be transported with relative speed and efficiency while also avoiding creating large swaths of asphalt wastelands? Preposterous!
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I love trains but trains can't reach everywhere.
And if you can't spot comedic exaggeration, I apologise.
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How convenient it is then, that local transportation is also a thing that exists.
Edit: not sure if I was blocked or if it's just an error... but here's my reply for anyone that isn't so sensitive to being challenged on their view of the world
There you go again proving that you are both uncurious and uncreative in using technology as it already exists today.
That is also very obviously not what I am talking about, nor is it where the vast majority of people in the US who use cars, are living. but good for you. The only moral car ownership is MY car ownership, and the two can't possibly exist alongside each other, therefore shut up about public transportation we can't have it sorry.
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Have you read my other reply?
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Wait, let me check.
No, don't have it. And I wish I had.
I live in an area with around 10.000 inhabitants and besides a single bus that swings by every hour, where most of the population is over 60 years old, there are no public transportation options.
Mass transportation requieres masses.
P.s.
Only gave you low hanging fruit to pick.
This applies here and anywhere where population has very low density per square kilometer. Public transportation becomes ineffective and a 10 minute drive easily turns into an hour or two affairs. And taxis/Ubers/whatever are not affordable for making daily use of it.
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What if we build railroads to everyone's home and made little self contained train engines which can easily switch rails and take you exactly where you want to be rather than within a mile or 20 of where you want to be? It's the fuuuutuurreee
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What if we built more homes within a few hundred feet of a public transport stop and built societies where we don't all hate each other and can't stand to spend more than a few hours in the same building with people that aren't in our direct household?
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Lol
This is the first time I've heard "cars cause political division". Nice.
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Not what I said. Cars and suburbia certainly enable that, however.
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Kinda is.
"Not what I said but I agree with it" isn't a great counter
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Listen, I really don't have the energy to debate you. "enable" and "cause" are two entirely different words.
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politicians use cars to create and strengthen division.
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We can use electric cars for emergency services, but all non emergency personal travel should be buses, trams, trains, and bicycles.
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You just stated in you previous comment those are:
Still loud, slow, and dangerous.
Am I misrepresenting you?
If you're advocating for universal public/mass transportation, that is a fine cause but learn to measure your words and take into consideration those means of transportation can not be used by many, be it by health reasons or difficulty of location.
It makes no sense to expect a bus to travel through high country where two chickens and a dog live or an older person to just pick up their bycicle and make a 20km trip to town for groceries. Also take into account mass transportation requires masses of people and not all places gather that volume of bodies.
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Yes, electric cars are loud, slow, and dangerous. It's okay to accept such costs in order to quickly get a patient to a hospital or to put out a fire. It's not okay to accept those costs as the result of business as usual.
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Out of morbid curiosity: define "loud" and "slow". Indulge me.
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Over a certain speed threshold, the noise from tires becomes a more significant factor than the noise from engines. The Netherlands has special sound dampening roads that they allow high speed travel on. But more importantly, they try to keep homes and businesses far away from roads. When a car is near an urban center, it has to travel on streets, which have a low speed limit.
Cars can move one person quicker than most terrestrial transit. But they absolutely suck at moving entire populations. They have to waste too much space. There's too much space wasted in a car, and too much space between cars that's required for safety. One railway line can move twenty times as many people as one car lane. In fact, a well designed bike lane like they have in the Netherlands moves commuters faster than a car lane.
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Urban centers have a differentiated traffic speed, that is correct, and it is not an exotheric exercise to understand why that happens, as urban settings forces vehicles into confined space shared with a multitude of other moving (and unmoving!) entities. In urban settings it is also easier to implement and use mass transportation solutions and, yes, car traffic should be more and more restricted in urban areas. My personal view goes so far as to purge any vehicle as much as possible from urban areas to allow for pedestrian movement solely.
Mass transportation is also viable to move people and cargo over large distances, yes, with trains being the undisputed best solution over land. There was even a time when cars could travel by train in my country and it was a very sought after option for vacationing. Then came a wave of very "smart" and "informed" of individuals to a succession of governments and those options went away, replaced by one of the largest highway networks in europe. And the least used, proportionally. Now, grudgingly, railways are being renewed, reactivated and built new, which is a good thing.
But now allow me to dive into a problem that is not easy to manage, that is providing those solutions to areas where mass transportation is not feasible.
Currently living in an area where 10.000 people live, theoretically, it should be easy to implement mass transportation solutions. At the lowest possible level, at least bus service. But with only a fraction of that population concentrated in an urban area and the rest scattered throughout a wide, mostly rural area, implementing a public transportation system is highly inefficient, making ten or twenty minute trips ordeals capable of taking an hour or two.
Mass transportation should be a goal. Must be. But there will always be the need for roads and cars. If - and I would very much like to live to see even if only the most tentative of beginnings to this - we can shift the paradigm to allow people to work from home more easily, make it the norm, even, that alone will drastically reduce the need for cars. Many more small changes need to be made but if that first one gains traction, others will follow.
It was a pleasure having this exchange.
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110 comments