We only have to convince people to hate one more car than they already despise.
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I find the general vibe of this community to be more fuck car dependancy than fuck every car that has ever existed for any purpose.
Sometimes groups like this go overboard since they’re naturally sort of echo chambers. Not saying that has happened here yet
Just: I’m in the latter category, but that’s because I’m an avid pedestrian who’s been almost run over FAR too many times.
Unless it’s a pickup or ute, in which case burn it.
Vans, regardless of size, are OK though.
A bit like the consensus that most gods don’t exist.
I believe in all gods cause I’m a rebel
That’s the spirit! What fun you must have imagining them all fighting about who’s real…
Actually I find it deeply depressing. Everyone used to think like me, but then Abrahamic monotheism came along and introduced this stupid pointless fight over what’s real and ended up leading to hundreds of pointless genocides of indigenous cultures during the age of colonisation. In my book anyone who carries on this pointless tradition of claiming everyone else’s gods aren’t real is a dick.
I believe in Gods, but my Gods have no problem with you or anyone else doing whatever the heck you want, and we’ll probably end up in the same afterlife…
They sound like great Gods, and I’ll believe in them even though they don’t exist. Where do we meet up to sing?
Around the fire, we can sing to praise Óðinn. It calms the mind and inspires. And I agree with your sentiment exactly - I’m Nietzschean in my philosophy, but I use belief as a tool, at least while I’m personally figuring out where to go in light of the death of god.
Not if I get my way. I’ll have access to a holodeck that can make me food, and you’ll never see me again!
My gods are old and come to me in dreams to show me an ancient city, deep beneath the ocean. I think they’re trying to tell me about Atlantis.
I do hope that city isn’t called R’lyeh…
I hate my car too, I’m just required to own it because I need it I’m the suburbs to commute and it has already been paid off.
“The only moral pollution is my pollution.”
Very true. But I would still get rid of either mine or my wife’s (and only keep one for trips) if we had public transportation… or fucking sidewalks at least.
I live in a very very car dependent city with an almost non-existent bus system I survived for 7 years without a car until a potential employer insisted that in order to work there a car was mandatory. This happened at three separate job offers in my career before I finally caved.
It’s incredibly common for most decently paying jobs where I live, and has been becoming more common even as the gov:t has pushed for public transit (and reliability of trains has declined). The potential costs of an employee being potentially 30+ minutes late due to transit issues are just too great.
I understand their point of view it just sucks because no doubt it’s generated even more traffic exacerbating the problem
If you managed to escape car centric development, you still got to escape car centric employment.
Remote work?
I really hope more workplaces embrace remote work but unfortunately the nature of work I do necessitates in person work
It’s incredibly common for most decently paying jobs where I live, and has been becoming more common even as the gov:t has pushed for public transit (and reliability of trains has declined). The potential costs of an employee being potentially 30+ minutes late due to transit issues are just too great.
Sunk cost fallacy. We already dropped money on it, after all.
Believe me, I wish I didn’t need a car, but I’m a field service tech and my job requires a work vehicle since I’m travelling with a ton of tools. I’d also love to get rid of my personal car, but my wife needs it for a 30-minute commute; the bus ride is close to 2 hours and there aren’t really any other practicable transportation methods.
Don’t even get me started on the lack of infrastructure outside of downtown, there are a ton of places around town where they don’t even have sidewalks, let alone bike or bus lanes.
I don’t know what the solution is when so many cities and municipalities either don’t want to invest in mass public transportation or (in the case of my city) cheaped out and ended up with a light rail transit system that barely functions. It just reinforces car ownership out of necessity.
Public transit doesn’t work in sparsely populated suburbs. You need medium density developments like we had all around the world before car-centric urbanism took over. Throw in some commercial buildings and public amenities and you often don’t even need transit because you can walk anywhere you want to go.
Public transit does work in sparsely populated suburbs. We just don’t want it to work there.
In short: at 50 households per sq km, we could replace cars with a bus every 5 to 24 mins 24/7/365.
Assumptions:
Density: 50 households per sq km (lowest possible before rural) Transit catchment: 1 km radius Cars per household: 2 Cost of a bus: ~$122 USD/hour ($165 CAD) Cost of a car: A car $988 per month on average Use of car: 380 hours per year on average.
Calculations
Households per bus stop: pi r sq x 50 = 157 Cars per stop: above x 2 = 314 Car cost per stop: above x $988 x 12 = $3,722,784 Annual Car hours per stop: cars x 380 { 112,000 Annual Bus hours per stop: car cost / 165 = 22,562
22,562 annual bus hours, or 2.5 busses running every hour all hours, per stop with 1 km bubble at the lowest possible density for suburbs.
At 3 km (cycle distance) you get 1,413 cars replaced with 101,530 annual bus hours. Or 11.6 busses per hour, every hour, 365 days a year.
Edit: added up front summary
The reason I find your figures unconvincing is that I am not aware of any place with the typical density of North American suburbs where such a public transit network exists. How do you explain that?
You can’t assume a 100% market penetration of public transit as long as private vehicles exist as an alternative. This further reduces your ridership and thus the economic feasibility of the network, because it forces you to either increase fares or reduce frequency, and when frequency is reduced ridership falls as well.
By the way, how have you estimated the ridership in every bus? You can’t assume every bus will be full to the brim every time. In turn, this would reduce ridership in your transit network and would force you to either reduce frequency (which further reduces ridership) or increase your cost per passenger.
Big edit: Americans may not be used to units per sq km. 50 units per sq km = 5 acres per lot, or 0.2 units per acre. This photo is 4 units per acre, or 20 times more dense than the example calculation
This is a collective economic analysis only.
These don’t exist because, while no one would bat an eye at spending $24,000+ on private transit a year per household, no one would spend $24,000 a household in public transit; no matter how it is divided.
Your assumption was that collective transit could not work in suburbs. I offer that is can work.
I fully agree due to socio-political reasons, it would not work.
The ridership calculation, based on car hours to bus hours, is 5 passengers per bus; this calculation is for all applications (based on the data assumptions I stated). This is the economic equality point.
This is also a point to put system, that relies on this single-stop suburb bus dropping off at places people want to be, or transfering to a transit spine. You can double the frequency of busses by adding a second stop in the suburbs before heading to the spine. You reduce frequency by adding more destination/spine stops.
while no one would bat an eye at spending $24,000+ on private transit a year per household
The disabled in Ontario are given 13k a year to live on. My transportation budget is literally zero. I wear Xero sandals because they are cheaper than shoes and wear out less, which matters since I walk everywhere.
Average total cost of a car is $12,000 a year in Canada. So a 2 car household spends $24,000 on transit. Honestly it’s probably higher for 50 units/sq km density, but that just my anecdotal evidence from people I know in that density.
I get it, it’s an insane number. But that is the average, so it’s what I used to the case study. Also remember that your $0/year transit budget is dragging that number down. I am surprised Ontario doesn’t have free transit for those receiving disability. Reduced mobility and (recently) anyone over 65 has free transit in Montréal. I think are fees for the paratransit system, but I can’t figure it out with a quick search.
The economic point for a bus to be cheaper, per running hour, than a car is only 5 cars.
I mention because people need to know, not because it necessarily has a lot to do with the conversation, except that the conversation places the figure into sharp contrast.
I am surprised Ontario doesn’t have free transit for those receiving disability.
Have you MET Ontario?!
The disabled in Ontario are given 13k a year to live on.
Fuck, that is rough. I’m so sorry. That is a raw deal. It’s not fair.
I said:
Public transit doesn’t work in sparsely populated suburbs
You said:
Your assumption was that collective transit could not work in suburbs.
As you can plainly see, that is not what I said. Also, it is not an assumption but an observation of the real world.
I offer that is can work. I fully agree due to socio-political reasons, it would not work.
Notice how the second sentence is a stronger assertion than what I said, but I’m willing to concede that it may be true. What is plainly obvious is that it does not work in practice, whether it would or would not work hypothetically.
In the real world, neighborhoods with economically viable frequent public transit require more density than the typical North American suburb. So we can start by fixing density, as the only reason these suburbs are so prevalent are dumb zoning laws that prevent anything other than single family homes to be built.
I apologize, I must have unpacked my own personal assumptions in what doesn’t work means.
My point remains that the total cost of transit of the presented option iis the the exact same as personal cars. Therefore it is economically viable.
It’s not politically viable because people want cars. That’s what stops it in practice. I’m trying to highlight how much people wanting cars fucks all transit equations. 5 car hours is one bus hour.
I’m in full agreement of unfucking zoning laws, parking minimums, and traffic service standard definitions.
We’re absolutely in agreement, I just think suburban (even rural) transit can work. We just need to ban the cars and recapture those costs as transit.
Same here. I even have a bucket on my truck.
I hate being in a car. If we had reliable and safe public transportation I’d actually go places. Trains would be nice too.
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My county removed busses a few years back, at the same time nearby counties have had their bus systems blossom into great networks.
You’re not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic.
Eh, not a massive fan of driving either. I still have a car, as my town’s bus network isn’t entirely bulletproof (though it is really awesome), and of course for going between towns when necessary.
Relatable. I totally love the bus that I often take
Sounds alot like religion…
I hate the one I drive too. It’s a piece of shit.
