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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I just want cheap and reliable mass transit.
Yes! Fuck this individualistic "you should cycle instead of taking the car" language. We need collective investment in mass transit, because not everyone can bike to work, and even less people want to do it in the rain.
I cycle almost every where, at every weather, but at distances above 30km, it's just taking too long to be viable for every day tasks or visiting friends and family.
Public transport is neccessary.
Where you can take your bike with you. The two modes of transportation combined is almost perfect.
The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will **not **feed in **fast enough **to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.
Ah thank god we still have 5 years. Now the climate scientists just need to advise the general public to start shooting all the cars through the motorblock because it has been scientifically proven that is the one way we'll make it.
Published: March 29, 2021 10.59am EDT
OH MY GOD!!!! WE ONLY HAVE A YEAR LEFT TO MURDER ALL THE CARS??
I think something that gets regularly overlooked is scooters. They can be gas or electric and they will drastically reduce emissions. ICE scooters can do 100 mpg and the manufacturing emissions are going to be a sliver of what a car or truck would be.
Make one that doesnt go BrrrrAAAP ! And I'm onboard:-D
On a serious note, electric; bikes, scooters, cargo bikes, small utilitarian vehicles, busses are the future of the city IMO.
I recently bought one that does ~40km on a single charge and doesn't go above 25km/h and honestly I don't get why anyone would need more (people living in the hellscape distopya commonly referred to as "the US" need not reply).
Roads and highways would be perfectly fine cycling infrastructure, if we just got the giant motorized death machines off of them.
Cycling would also help to reduce the amount of dangerously fat people. Which is an ever increasing problem.
And not just fat people. It helps prevent cardiovascular diseases.
For me the biggest benefit aside from generally increased fitness is how it helps with my mental health. It's hardly a new revelation that exercising regularly is good for your mental health. But it's so much easier to get yourself to move when you have to to get somewhere than it is if it's purely for exercise. At least for me.
Cycling and walking are also far healthier options since they count for the whole "if you walk at least 30 minutes a day your chances of heart conditions drop by 70%" thing.
Even better, the fewer the cars around, the better it gets for everybody who walks and cycles (due to decreased pollution and less danger on the road).
Even electric cars and even if 100% of our electricity was from renewables still pollute due to the micro-particles produced by the tires when rolling on the road (and heavier vehicles make this worse).
I have an EV and I still agree with this. An EV is better than an ICE vehicle but it is no substitute for designing cities around people - footpaths, cycle lanes, recreation, public transport etc.
Yeah, but bicycles don’t have the same profit margins as cars
Edit: just gonna add that I was being snarky with this comment. I’m for walkable cities with quality public transportation infrastructure.
Bikes really are a downward spiral. First people don't need to spend 20% of your annual salary into their car so they have all this extra money that they can use.
Worse! Since they are now traveling through their city in open air rather in a glass and steel prison they might start noticing local businesses and spend their money there rather than the billionaire's owned giant box store.
And now that they arrive home on their bike they will stay to notice their neighbors, maybe even say hi and start building local communities. It's also much easier to build a local community when you don't have deadly machines that you need to avoid passing in front of your house all the time.
Electric cars have very little upsides compared to gasoline cars. They're basically made for the car industry. Not the consumer.
What we need is more cycling and public transportation.