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Both is good
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
1250 points (96.9% liked)
Fuck Cars
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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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So, I don't know if you know this or not, but a majority of people want their cars. Nobody is forcing their use. Roads exist because people want their cars, and they want to be able to get places in those cars.
I want my car the same way I want to go to work tomorrow.
This exactly. Do I want a car in the US' current car-centric hell where taking a bus across town could take two hours? Yeah, absolutely. Would I want one in a US with robust public transit and micromobility infrastructure? Almost certainly not. It's a constant financial drain and huge pain in the ass at every turn.
When people say we need to get rid of cars, we mean that we need to 1) build up viable alternatives to cars and in conjunction 2) stop letting the interests of cars dominate everything else. Car drivers in the US are actively given enormous privilege over every other mode of transportation. Businesses need to meet ridiculous parking minimums to ensure you can drop your giant metal box anywhere, anytime and for free, dramatically reducing walkability; speed limits are basically never enforced, speeding up car commutes but dramatically increasing the danger for those who elect for micromobility; ungodly amounts of transportation funds get funneled into unsustainable road projects while public transit starves; car companies are deliberatelly allowed to skirt environmental regulations by selling even less environmentally friendly trucks and SUVs; and basic traffic calming measures are given ridiculous thresholds like "Have X number of people died here yet?"
If you start taking away the insane privileges that are afforded to and often even mandated for cars, you make way for other means of transportation to grow and become the optimal choice for most people. Some people will still use cars because they need to or want to, but even those people will use them less frequently.
I want my car, and I want 100 others. I just can't afford all the cars I want. Most of the people I know also want more cars or sportier, more expensive cars.
So, in your view, a car is more like an accessory than a mode of transport.
It's an enabler of more. It allows me to transport me and my family to the movies when we want, it allows us to go camping, it also means we can easily traverse many shops and buy what we want without having to worry about how to get it home, etc.
When we buy groceries, we buy them in bulk and keep meats in a freezer out back, so it's easy to transport a whole trunk-load of groceries home.
It's as much as an accessory as that too. It's like clothing. I like my small 2 seaters, and as a family we like to drive around and play ingress/pokemon go, together.
Do they want to get to places on those cars, or do they want to get to places and cars are the only (or only practical) way?
They want to get places in those cars. Why do you think everyone "goes to work"? They go to work, because .. they're providing a service for people who are...
dun dun dun...
Driving cars to the places they want to get to, for commerce. This shit isn't mandated. You don't HAVE to own a car. Everyone WANTS to own cars.
Terminal case of carbrain. I feel like I just stepped into a 1960s Ford Motors propaganda film reading this comment. Like I'm reading the perspective of someone who's never set foot in a city with functional public transit/micromobility infrastructure and walkability in their life, or if they have, they tried to shoehorn their obnoxious 2019 Child Crusher AWD SUV into it and either completely missed out or actively blamed the objectively safer, more efficient, more pleasant infrastructure for impeding on their ability to go vroom vroom.
You're out of touch with reality. Go talk to a normal person sometime. Like, face to face. Not in your internet echo-chamber.
As a mid-westerner, cars and driving is in my culture and DNA. For many of us, cars are our freedom machines, the only way to move on in life, the only way to get anywhere. I love to drive and I can drive almost anything. What I don't like, is having to drive to survive, having to constantly be in a hurry.
Im pretty anti car but I do like having the option that is my own. I just want my driving to be like the used car salesmans little old lady that used it briefly once a week. Im one of the few anti car that want to make it more a choice so that they can be kept parked as much as possible.
Same, I really enjoy driving in rural areas across long distances with low traffic. I hate driving in cities.
Any time I go to a city with a decent subway/metro/light rail line that is my first choice if possible. Or walk, since a lot of city downtowns are very walkable, especially compared to rural areas and spread out midwestern towns woth barely any shade trees.
A majority of heroin users want heroin too. Roads exist because people want to go places; they preceded cars by a couple thousand years
“But i really waaaaaaaant it” isn’t grounds for policy making
It really is though. Why do you think Marijuana is being legalized? It's because "I really waaaaaaant it"...is literally grounds for policy making.
Last I checked, cannabis was still DEA Schedule 1 fully illegal, despite a majority of Americans wanting it.
See also: abortion, campaign finance reform, ranked choice voting, and so on.
American policy isn’t decided by the people, it’s decided by the people in power, and the people in power make money by keeping us tied to inefficient transportation
You really are taking this stance, purposely ignoring the progress made on Marijuana?
Really. Evaluate your life. If you can't even have a discussion in good faith, what are you doing?
The abortion issue came because nobody considered the circumstance we're in where the supreme court would upright and turn over 30+ years of settled law. Inroads are being made on turning it back - as abortion access was always (historically) a lever that government controlled in order to be able to control population incline/decline. We've moved forward with our thinking and regard it as a human right now.
Just admit that "I really want it" is absolutely a valid reason for policy change. You got something wrong, it's fine. We all do sometimes. Unless you've got MAGA-brain.