Is there anyone left here who still doesn't
know that banning all private vehicles is
utterly stupid on steroids?
know that banning all private vehicles is
utterly stupid on steroids?
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Debate About a Plan to Eliminate Private Vehicles
- Thread starter Brickjectivity
- Start date
Yerda
Veteran Member
I don't think the plan is to ban them
The title says to "eliminate" them.
How is that not to ban them?
Heyo
Veteran Member
1. You're committing a black-and-white fallacy. Just because a better public transport system wouldn't solve all problems, is not enough reason not to try it.
2. We will have to sacrifice some of our freedoms, but many already have and many more would if conditions were better.
3. Public transport should be more economical. There is a difference if 20 people each drive a one tonne vehicle that costs petrol, taxes, insurance, repairs, depreciation, etc. vs. one vehicle (bus, train, tram). The main cost for the public transport is the wage for the driver. That will disappear when public transport becomes driverless.
With time, even taxes may go down as less road maintenance offsets the costs for public transport, which should be lower.
4. Public transport should be more ecological. And less CO2 production should also be worth something.
Heyo
Veteran Member
That's a title - which is almost always clickbait.
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
How do you regard the bans on DDT, lead paint, and asbestos?
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
What about banning them in cities, and making all of the transportation there autonomous, and then allowing them on rural highways, and remote areas? Doesn't that seem like it would be cost saving , and allow the country to stockpile oil reserves?
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
Depending on where you live, it seems probable, and I bet it would be safer. Good idea. But I think the rural areas are the place for private vehicles, because that would be where it makes the most sense. Wise transportation seems like it could be profitable, in that the government could stockpile oil if they wanted, if people only used private cars in rural places. And if most private car traffic was within a city, it wouldn't be like the rural traffic would increase if you were to suddenly band private vehicles within a city, I don't think
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
But that's not sensible. Is the weather only going to be bad 3 to 5 days a year?
You're right about that. Where I live it is more than 3 or 5 per year but still not very bad. Maybe a day at a time things are closed for weather, and it could actually be as little as 5 in a year. Very rarely we'll have snow on the roads for a few days. Occasionally the power goes out. That's not everywhere though. If we had no personal automobiles we'd have other problems but business closures due to weather would not be such a slight.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I'm a bit shocked that you speak so casually about actively shutting down the entire economy, regardless for how many days.
Seems like you have no idea how many millions, if not billions, such would cost the economy - even if it is only for a couple of days.
Guess out of who's pockets that will come.
Meanwhile, during that shutdown, operating costs simply continue...
Rent, energy, licenses, wages (presumably - or are you in favor of not paying any workers on such days?), loans,... all those costs simply continue. And there is loss in revenue to cover them. This was in fact in large part what the economic problem was with the covid shutdown.
A pandemic is however a good reason to take such drastic measures. "it snows today", is not.
I tend to take things literally.
A wee bit more reasonable.
Instead, consider loosening zoning laws
to allow higher density building. (Many
cities oppose this.) Then expanded
public transport systems happen naturally.
Also, make cities more pedestrian &
bicycle friendly.
I have no children, and I don't need to transport any goods that often. Public transport in my city is excellent, and there is enough car sharing to get a car (almost) always when I need it; for emergencies or when I'm drunk I can get a taxi (I don't use Uber, because I think it's a ****ty exploitative business model and should go out of business). So for me, there is no reason to pay for the maintenance of a car.
I guess that this will be far more common in the future. There really should be no reason for anybody to maintain their own car. We have the tech, it would be much more efficient, better for the environment. The only reason it doesn't work, is inertia - technological, psychological, and otherwise.
Besides, I am highly in favor of shared taxis. Much more cost-effective than individual cars, but more flexible than public transport, and with the right tech, things should be traceable enough to avoid ugly violence, for the most part.
I guess that this will be far more common in the future. There really should be no reason for anybody to maintain their own car. We have the tech, it would be much more efficient, better for the environment. The only reason it doesn't work, is inertia - technological, psychological, and otherwise.
Besides, I am highly in favor of shared taxis. Much more cost-effective than individual cars, but more flexible than public transport, and with the right tech, things should be traceable enough to avoid ugly violence, for the most part.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Over here in Belgium, several cities already have "car free" zones, actually.
These zones are rather small though. In general no need for public transport as everything within it is pretty much at reasonable walking distance.
Antwerp also has a "low emission" zone. This means that cars need to meet a certain emission standard in order to be able to drive into the city.
A 12-year old diesel car for example, isn't allowed. Smart camera's monitor all license plates that go in and out of the city and check the car model in the national database. Hefty fines follow for those who enter the city with a car that has emissions that don't meet the standard.
But this is something to motivate people to switch to cleaner cars - not to not drive at all.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I think that all works really well if 99% of your traveling concerns short and predictable distances.
For me, it wouldn't work at all. Work-wise, private-wise, family-wise.
Granted, I don't live in the city. And I wouldn't want to either, tbh. Far to crowded and "busy" for me.
I like the peace and quite from the country side.
... at the price that it actually costs.
Interesting thing about the freedom to buy what we want: in North America, this is often curtailed to the (questionable) benefit of the car.
If you want to, say, buy a piece of land and build a bar without any on-site parking parking (since you don't want to support drinking and driving), odds are that your local government's zoning by-law/ordinance make this idea illegal.
There will be some number of parking spaces that you're required to provide, even if you don't want to, even if the economics of your business don't require them, and even if the minimum number of spaces is so large that it doesn't leave enough room on the property for a viable business.
End Parking Mandates and Subsidies
Parking mandates and subsidies waste productive land on automobile storage. All around North America, the strongest towns and cities are making this common sense change: they are eliminating parking mandates and subsidies.
www.strongtowns.org
This is just one example of the ways that our systems in North America restrict freedom in favour of the car.
Yerda
Veteran Member
Glasgow has an LEZ, too. Sent all the Facebook radicalised uncles into a tinfoil hat frenzy. Lower pollution is fascism, apparently.
If driving works well for you now, that's great... but there will probably be a time when it doesn't.
On average, we outlive our ability to drive by 7 years (though obviously, there's a wide range). Hopefully you have a plan for how you'll live and get around when that happens.
I have family members dealing with this now. One is losing her peripheral vision a bit quicker than typical (she's in her mid-70s) and her opthamologist has put her on notice that within a few years at most, she won't meet the vision requirements to drive. She's otherwise healthy, so there's no reason she wouldn't be active and mobile for decades to come... but the time is coming soon when she won't be driving.
Her community is pretty auto-centric, but also has reasonable transit... however, there are lots of other communities where someone who can't drive just can't live independently at all.