Trains cant take you to specific spots, especially outside the greater urban areas.
When my public transport to work stops being 3-4x longer than simply driving, not to mention the inherent issues of being stuffed into a bus, let me know.
Trains cant take you to specific spots, especially outside the greater urban areas.
That’s called the “Last mile” problem. Trains and buses aren’t much good for a whole day’s worth of shopping either. Try and haul 2 weeks worth of groceries for a family of 3 on a bus. But trains are great for longer distance travel from one area to another. And buses can be great for a quick one-stop trip to the hardware store. But a cargo e-bike would be better yet for light shopping.
I’m all for banning all motor vehicles in major cities, except emergency units. And leave the daily driving to those of us that live in the middle of nowhere and seldom visit large cities.
Last mile is solved by small folding bikes like the Brompton with ease. Also, 2 weeks worth of groceries is just so many groceries. You don’t need that many at once, lol
Dense public transportation sorta fixes the last mile problem. And buying local fixes the Walmart/carrefour problem. I buy groceries every two or three days, and the grocery shops are always at walking distance from home.
“Sorta fixes” ain’t really a fix. And not everyone has the time or ability to go shopping every two or three days. Nor are grocery stores within walking distance for everyone.
That’s the thing. Car orientation shapes how places look and function, but so does tranist orientation. What you consider a downside is actually driving that. Because transit focuses movement along hubs and spokes, this enables walking oriented infrastructure. And walking oriented stores at transit stops enable fast shopping. You can easily shop even daily when all it takes is maybe 5-10 additional minutes on your way home. In car oriented hypermarkets you can’ even make it to the back of the store in that time.
Thing is, we’ve got cities built for cars. The only thing removing cars does in those cities is make everyone miserable. Fixing that would require tearing those cities down to bedrock and starting over from scratch.
You’re clearly not paying attention. Plenty of cities have successfully switched to more walking-focused infrastructure and it hardly requires tearing them down and starting over from scratch. That’s a bit of an overreaction.
The Netherlands have not torn down their cities to the ground even if their cities were pretty car centric in the late 1960s. Of course If you cry for the failed city highway in Utrecht for example that has been replaced with a gracht and scaled down to a regular street, that transformation is a catastrophe for you.
Cities change over time, if you change them away from being car only, that doesn’t need dramatic sudden changes but can be achieved with gradual changes over time.
Also LA has not torn down or destroyed much of its city, just because it has rebuilt a rail transit backbone again (far from perfect or complete but quite substantial already)
That line of argumentation can only be made by someone who can only imagine a car centric way of life. Why would you even do a two week shopping if a well sorted super market is just around the corner or next to your final transit stop?
That said, it is not much of a deal to do larger shopping. You can put a lot in a shopping trolley, also heavy stuff and move it with ease, to your very kitchen. The thing is, if you are shopping that much so infrequently you have to live orimarily from non-fresh food, or old food. Why would you want that?.
You assume large and well stocked grocery stores exist everywhere. That is most assuredly not the case in every city, town, or hamlet. And as for large amounts of shopping, you have never fed a teenage boy or girl have you. They can eat up their weight in groceries every week. And yes, fresh arugula is not readily available in many places. So that’s great for you. But again, don’t assume other people get to have the same choices you do.
I am talking about urban and suburban context. Not rural scenarios where transit cannot be a full alternative.
What you miss is that the way your city/suburb looks like is a direct function of your urban planning. Transit itself fosters the creation of super markets at its stops. Which is why you will usually find those at stops in transit oriented places. As their main customers are transit users they also cater to their preferences and are designed differently from car oriented stores. Usually they allow for much faster shopping while having a focused but complete sortiment (not just chips, sweets and beer)
You’d be surprised, there are plenty of young families in Vienna in the new pedestrian oriented quarters, many if not most don’t even own a car. Somehow you can manage just fine that way. It is one of those myths that you need a car with young ones, if you live in a transit oriented place or suffer for it. If need be just get a shopping trolley, folding handcart or freight bike.
PS: It is nice to see how you assume fresh bread, vegetable, meat etc are necessarily a luxury. I assume that idea also comes from the context of a car centric society.
is nice to see how you assume fresh bread, vegetable, meat etc are necessarily a luxury. I assume that idea also comes from the context of a car centric society.
Spoken like an upper middle class person. And yes, fresh tomatoes and lettuce can be a luxury even in a dense city. Food deserts exist even there. Not everyone lives in Vienna or the Netherlands. And ordinary people do NOT get to choose the urban planning they can afford live in. Almost all of it was decided 100+ years ago. And is nearly impossible to change now. Unless you want to move large numbers of the population out of an area to demolish and rebuild that much new infrastructure, a thing that often gets called “gentrification”. And what of the poor people who can’t afford to live where you do and how you do? They very often live the farthest away from all those things you take for granted.
In fairness, it’s often false thrift to move to an area you need a car with the hopes of saving money on rent… that all ends up going into the car. I hear you as someone born into poverty in a car centric place that this often isn’t a choice, that’s fair, but all else being equal my experience that needing to maintain a car was a constant albatross around our neck as a family. Once I moved to an area with good transit and didn’t bother with a car, I could save way, way more money even considering higher rent…
Like I said, your opinion seems to be formed by a car oriented society and you appear to struggle to imagine an alternative. If you need to watch your finances you can find all those fresh produces at urban discounters in transit oriented cities. Buying those without the need for a car is actually less costly than having a car and buying the cheapest worst kind of food.
That is the thing transit oriented cities generally enable that. I m well aware that not every city is transit oriented. I am not saying people living in these places have a choice. I am saying urban planers have a choice to change how the cities look for the next generation(s). You mentioned the Netherlands, they are a great example for that. 2 generations ago they were very car oriented following the US lead. Not 100 years ago, 50 years ago.
I am not saying people living in these places have a choice. I am saying urban planers have a choice to change how the cities look for the next generation(s).
Rampant fascism is on the rise, here and abroad. We can’t even get US citizens to recognize Mamdami is center, at best, or as I’m discussing elsewhere, how to even get our compatriots online not to accuse us of being trolls, and in 3D not to view us as enemy (see also POTUS reverting to full McCarthyite “Godless communists” red scare tactics on Truth Social).
It seems like you’re arguing that a better way of doing things is hard, therefore not worth doing, or that a century ago was the cutoff for deciding how we do transportation.
The way our stuff is laid out makes it difficult to live without a car. That doesn’t make the car a necessity in the abstract when that layout and design is often the direct product of designing around cars in the first place. It makes the car a necessity in the specific system we have for many people.
“We can’t do things differently because then it’s harder to do things exactly the same” is a weak argument.
Spoken like an upper middle class person
Are you actually using your perception of someone else’s economic class as an argument? When you’re arguing in defense of car based suburban sprawl and buying groceries by the carload?
Trains cant take you to specific spots, especially outside the greater urban areas.
When my public transport to work stops being 3-4x longer than simply driving, not to mention the inherent issues of being stuffed into a bus, let me know.
???
Sounds like you want more and better public transportation.
That’s called the “Last mile” problem. Trains and buses aren’t much good for a whole day’s worth of shopping either. Try and haul 2 weeks worth of groceries for a family of 3 on a bus. But trains are great for longer distance travel from one area to another. And buses can be great for a quick one-stop trip to the hardware store. But a cargo e-bike would be better yet for light shopping.
I’m all for banning all motor vehicles in major cities, except emergency units. And leave the daily driving to those of us that live in the middle of nowhere and seldom visit large cities.
Last mile is solved by small folding bikes like the Brompton with ease. Also, 2 weeks worth of groceries is just so many groceries. You don’t need that many at once, lol
Dense public transportation sorta fixes the last mile problem. And buying local fixes the Walmart/carrefour problem. I buy groceries every two or three days, and the grocery shops are always at walking distance from home.
“Sorta fixes” ain’t really a fix. And not everyone has the time or ability to go shopping every two or three days. Nor are grocery stores within walking distance for everyone.
That’s the thing. Car orientation shapes how places look and function, but so does tranist orientation. What you consider a downside is actually driving that. Because transit focuses movement along hubs and spokes, this enables walking oriented infrastructure. And walking oriented stores at transit stops enable fast shopping. You can easily shop even daily when all it takes is maybe 5-10 additional minutes on your way home. In car oriented hypermarkets you can’ even make it to the back of the store in that time.
There are also people with mobility limitations.
Thing is, we’ve got cities built for cars. The only thing removing cars does in those cities is make everyone miserable. Fixing that would require tearing those cities down to bedrock and starting over from scratch.
You’re clearly not paying attention. Plenty of cities have successfully switched to more walking-focused infrastructure and it hardly requires tearing them down and starting over from scratch. That’s a bit of an overreaction.
The Netherlands have not torn down their cities to the ground even if their cities were pretty car centric in the late 1960s. Of course If you cry for the failed city highway in Utrecht for example that has been replaced with a gracht and scaled down to a regular street, that transformation is a catastrophe for you.
Cities change over time, if you change them away from being car only, that doesn’t need dramatic sudden changes but can be achieved with gradual changes over time.
Also LA has not torn down or destroyed much of its city, just because it has rebuilt a rail transit backbone again (far from perfect or complete but quite substantial already)
That line of argumentation can only be made by someone who can only imagine a car centric way of life. Why would you even do a two week shopping if a well sorted super market is just around the corner or next to your final transit stop?
That said, it is not much of a deal to do larger shopping. You can put a lot in a shopping trolley, also heavy stuff and move it with ease, to your very kitchen. The thing is, if you are shopping that much so infrequently you have to live orimarily from non-fresh food, or old food. Why would you want that?.
Food deserts.
You assume large and well stocked grocery stores exist everywhere. That is most assuredly not the case in every city, town, or hamlet. And as for large amounts of shopping, you have never fed a teenage boy or girl have you. They can eat up their weight in groceries every week. And yes, fresh arugula is not readily available in many places. So that’s great for you. But again, don’t assume other people get to have the same choices you do.
And to be a dick about it too, really shows how disconnected from others reality some folks are.
I am talking about urban and suburban context. Not rural scenarios where transit cannot be a full alternative.
What you miss is that the way your city/suburb looks like is a direct function of your urban planning. Transit itself fosters the creation of super markets at its stops. Which is why you will usually find those at stops in transit oriented places. As their main customers are transit users they also cater to their preferences and are designed differently from car oriented stores. Usually they allow for much faster shopping while having a focused but complete sortiment (not just chips, sweets and beer)
You’d be surprised, there are plenty of young families in Vienna in the new pedestrian oriented quarters, many if not most don’t even own a car. Somehow you can manage just fine that way. It is one of those myths that you need a car with young ones, if you live in a transit oriented place or suffer for it. If need be just get a shopping trolley, folding handcart or freight bike.
PS: It is nice to see how you assume fresh bread, vegetable, meat etc are necessarily a luxury. I assume that idea also comes from the context of a car centric society.
cries in USA
Spoken like an upper middle class person. And yes, fresh tomatoes and lettuce can be a luxury even in a dense city. Food deserts exist even there. Not everyone lives in Vienna or the Netherlands. And ordinary people do NOT get to choose the urban planning they can afford live in. Almost all of it was decided 100+ years ago. And is nearly impossible to change now. Unless you want to move large numbers of the population out of an area to demolish and rebuild that much new infrastructure, a thing that often gets called “gentrification”. And what of the poor people who can’t afford to live where you do and how you do? They very often live the farthest away from all those things you take for granted.
In fairness, it’s often false thrift to move to an area you need a car with the hopes of saving money on rent… that all ends up going into the car. I hear you as someone born into poverty in a car centric place that this often isn’t a choice, that’s fair, but all else being equal my experience that needing to maintain a car was a constant albatross around our neck as a family. Once I moved to an area with good transit and didn’t bother with a car, I could save way, way more money even considering higher rent…
Like I said, your opinion seems to be formed by a car oriented society and you appear to struggle to imagine an alternative. If you need to watch your finances you can find all those fresh produces at urban discounters in transit oriented cities. Buying those without the need for a car is actually less costly than having a car and buying the cheapest worst kind of food.
That is the thing transit oriented cities generally enable that. I m well aware that not every city is transit oriented. I am not saying people living in these places have a choice. I am saying urban planers have a choice to change how the cities look for the next generation(s). You mentioned the Netherlands, they are a great example for that. 2 generations ago they were very car oriented following the US lead. Not 100 years ago, 50 years ago.
Rampant fascism is on the rise, here and abroad. We can’t even get US citizens to recognize Mamdami is center, at best, or as I’m discussing elsewhere, how to even get our compatriots online not to accuse us of being trolls, and in 3D not to view us as enemy (see also POTUS reverting to full McCarthyite “Godless communists” red scare tactics on Truth Social).
It seems like you’re arguing that a better way of doing things is hard, therefore not worth doing, or that a century ago was the cutoff for deciding how we do transportation.
The way our stuff is laid out makes it difficult to live without a car. That doesn’t make the car a necessity in the abstract when that layout and design is often the direct product of designing around cars in the first place. It makes the car a necessity in the specific system we have for many people.
“We can’t do things differently because then it’s harder to do things exactly the same” is a weak argument.
Are you actually using your perception of someone else’s economic class as an argument? When you’re arguing in defense of car based suburban sprawl and buying groceries by the carload?