- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
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Is it really a choice if they fundamentally cannot afford to do so?
Many can and choose not too. Fuck cars.
Don’t disagree with you but north american infrastructure is not set up for public transit
i mean, sadly
With any luck, over time, we’ll learn proper city building infrastructure from the europeans and implement it locally. Florida will probably be several feet under the ocean at that point, but hopefully when everyone relocates to higher ground we’ll build half decent cities for them to live and work in.
Hopefully.
… hopefully.
Honestly Japanese city infrastructure and planning is better than the european one, so americans should learn from Japan in that regard not europe.
- Especially integrating train stations with shopping malls.
- Make train companies real profitable by making the stations profitable by integrating them with businesses like hotel chains supermarkets and more using the location to their advantage
- Parking in your own garage or Parking House required, no curb side parking making roads smaller more unobstructed improving visibilty and safer.
Definitely agree with you there, I would also posit that everyone should be following the Japanese recycling, compost and trash models as well.
No reason why anyone is doing anything different than what the Japanese are doing in 2024.
“Gen-z is choosing to be homeless.”
These crazy kids are forgoing the tradition of having a roof over ones head in favor of urban camping. It definitely has nothing to do the kleptocracy that made housing unaffordable by converting it into a speculative market for Wall Street and foreign nationals to park dirty money.
In the article they noted this was the same for millennials and gen x before them. I’m going to assume the standard for youths purchasing cars was with the baby boomer generation. I know my dad told me when he was young, you would purchase a cool car that didn’t work for the equivalent of $100 dollars, get a friend to tow it home, then work on it for a few weeks to get it running. He told me how much he missed his MG Midget, which let’s recognize as a cool ass car for a kid to have. He could fix that car with a wrench, a stick of butter, and a deck of cars*. All his friends would be doing the same.
Nowadays it would be a $1k junker, and you’d need to have a computer science degree to fix the onboard computer while having all the specific tools to get into their proprietary parts. There are older cars too, but the standard of fixing a car has increased, all the while each generation has less time and money to do it.
- This was a typo, but I love this typo. You say deck of cards, I say deck of cars, Thank you @otp@sh.itjust.works !
_He could fix that car with a wrench, a stick of butter, and a deck of cars.
Well yeah, having a whole deck of other cars would make it pretty simple!
Born into the cheapest air fares ever.
good
I’m a fan of public transportation too, but if you live in America, and not in a city, no car equals no job equals no income. Good for some things, not good for economy and living expenses.
The important element that needs to be, and now is, talked about more is that this state of affairs is not normal or natural. It was very deliberately created by car manufacturers in order to make life without a car be essentially impossible.
Right. But it’s not like a complete overhaul to the entire country to be designed around public transportation is going to happen overnight. I own a house ~9 miles from my wife’s work. It’s not like me owning my house or where her work is located is going to change in the foreseeable future, so what do you propose in the meantime?
While it might not be possible with the current built environment, 9mi (~15km because I’m Canadian) is a doable bike commute. Even at a very casual pace, it can be done in 1hr.
Also, there’s no reason your home address or your wife’s work location can’t change. AAA says the “Average Annual Cost of New Car Ownership is $9,282”. That means if your wife found a job where they could walk/bike, their net earnings could be ~$9K and you’d still be ahead. Or, if you moved close enough to her work that she doesn’t need a car, you could put $750/mo extra towards housing and still be ahead.
Again, it’s possible none of these options work for you, but they are options.
My wife has an old back & nerve injury, so biking 9 miles to and from work isn’t happening, not to mention it’s 9 degrees and snowing outside, so not, biking isn’t an option. She works in the healthcare industry, and her work is the closest health-related building to our house, so a closer job isn’t available unless she changes her profession.
Even if I sold my house, I’m paying ~5% interest rate on a mortgage from ~2010. Selling my house, even at a profit, and purchasing a closer house (even at a lower cost), would result in a significantly higher payment (like 2.5-3x).
I understand that these are options for people that rent, or are planning on moving anyways, or don’t have health issues. Also, I agree with the less/fuck cars movement, but I don’t see how it’s changing in my lifetime. Even if I end up moving in the next 5 years, it’s not like we are ever getting rid of owning a single car. We sometimes go camping, and don’t have a truck, so we have a car with a hitch for those things. Also, to bring for example, one of my kids to a friend’s house, we would need to drive roughly 5-10 miles, without any public transportation in between, no crosswalks, and it’s not like my youngest can bike that distance.
I also need to bring my parents to doctor’s appointments. Some of them can be 20-50 miles away to see specialists. It’s not like they can ride a bike, and public transportation is limited to very specific dates & times (and not convenient ones for 1-hour appointments). Hell, my father has dementia. He can’t go anywhere without assistance, even with a car. Car-free living in the boonies seems like a pipe dream. The more I think about it, I’m starting to get irrationally irritated at the idea.
Yeah, that seems fair in your case. I don’t completely agree with all your points (for example 9°F(-13°C) is still bike-able with the right kit (Oulu, Finland gets below -30°C, and a lot of people still bike) but snow can be a problem if there’s a lack of maintenance) but overall I agree and I think you’re already on the path to being car-lite, which is great if that’s all you can do.
