I'd prefer public transport and trains over small cars, but I'd prefer small cars over giant cars.
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Good luck finding usable publich transport in 99% of the US.
Blame zoning that makes building anything but single family houses illegal. With such sparse density you can't have public transit that is affordable and frequent. It is time to transform those money-sucking suburbs into walkable mixed-use medium density neighborhoods.
you can't have public transit that is affordable.
Total cost of a bus is ~$122 USD/hour ($165 CAD)
A car costs $729 USD / $988 per month on average and is used 380 hours per year on average. Therefore $23 USD / $31.2 CAD per hour (no driver cost, unlike the bus).
Therefore bus costs the same to run as 5 cars. We can't afford to not have public transit.
Edit: the bus data is in USD, the car data is in CAD. I missed this and originally wrote 4 cars had the same running cost as a bus instead of 5.
The trick is state level zoning reform. NIMBY's death grip doesn't work above the local level
I love my tiny car. Gets awesome mileage, the AC works, and I can Bluetooth my phone to the sound system. I spend about 30 bucks every week and a half to fill it up. I’m thrilled to own it.
Fuck that embrace trains
I like trains and I'm in favor of them, but the majority of the US isn't suited to them. The future may change that, and I hope it does, but if we want something that can make an impact right now smaller cars nationwide are the best "good" but non-perfect answer.
Every area is different, so I'll just go with what's local to me right now.
Where I currently live (rural rust belt Midwest) the logical right of ways for railroads already exist and they run between cities and significant towns.
The problem is that these right of ways - which used to be railroad right of ways - are all bike paths now. In one respect, it wouldn't be too much trouble to convert them back to rail. We wouldn't need to break up neighborhoods or demolish much infrastructure. Just lay rail and add crossings and stations.
On the other hand it would also destroy one of the few things that makes life bearable around here. It's free public space and it's used by walkers, joggers, skaters, and cyclists. I live within view of one. Every day and in all weather, I see an incredible variety of people pass by. Elderly, young families, people on horseback, those road cycle-bros, cycles with camping gear, mothers pulling kids in wagons. Sometimes emergency services use it to bypass a slower dirt road when they're needed at a remote community nearby.
They're safe and well maintained. They're like linear parks that also offer a safe non-motorized transport option between towns.
Back when I was on Reddit I lurked on the local city sub. Whenever a potential migrant would post an inquiry about "nice things in your area" it was literally one of the only things people could recommend.
"Most of the city is a food desert and there's a lot of condemned buildings and heavy metal contaminated soil, but there's an annual Bluegrass concert and the bike trails are AMAZING."
~~-I'll add some further comments in a reply to this~~ actually, no. It's too long
Just build the trains where the highways are
Embrace Chukudu. . . .
An easy first step would be making licensing more strict. Where I am there are classes of licence for passenger vehicles, larger transport trucks, busses, and finally semis/lorries. Each step up requires further testing and more stringent requirements.
I feel like it'd go a long way if your typical American pickup was moved up a class. How many people just wouldn't bother with a big truck if it meant another driving test and visit to the DMV? Any vehicle over X height, X length, X wheelbase, whatever would become a "commercial truck". Smaller trucks from back when they made small trucks wouldn't meet the requirements.
Sadly I don't think a politician running on a policy like that is winning an election anytime soon.
What's bizarre is how backwards the current incentives are. Not only are American pickups the same class as normal cars, they are incentivized for the car industry because of their exemption from the fuel efficiency rules
Thats why they pass unpopular laws while no one is paying attention.
"Sure, let's embrace small cars... But you go first, I need my big car to protect my kids"
"Oops I just ran over my kids in my own driveway because I can't see over the goddamn hood of my big car"
The obsession with giant vehicles has more to do with fucked regulations.
You mean it's time for reasonably priced small cars to be sold in North America.
There's are a TON of European cars that NA would gladly purchase.
But they don't sell them here. And when we talk about 'small cars' like a mini or smart cars. They are ridiculously overpriced.
They recognize exactly why people prefer larger vehicles and then completely miss why driving a smaller vehicle puts you at a disadvantage against those bigger vehicles. People would of course become very angry if they’re told their humongous, gas-guzzling, tank of a vehicle were illegal to operate on the road especially only 7 months into an 84 month loan.
How then to reasonably phase these giant cars out? They’re directly more dangerous to everyone but the person sitting inside.
The main thing is to remove the exemption of "light truck" for regulations that make suvs and trucks so much cheaper to manufacture for auto companies.
As for local areas, they can increase property taxes for heavy vehicles, to disentivse owning them.
Taxes. The trick to ban something without actually banning it is taxing it into oblivion, discouraging people from doing it. It won’t dissapear, but most people will be discouraged.
Regulations on the size of cars, ratcheting down for new models. Iirc, one of the factors in the increasing size of cars is due to how fuel efficiency standards are implemented - apparently it’s easier to make a car larger, but lighter, than to actually improve efficiency
Create an aggressively high truck and SUV personal vehicle ownership tax that increases every year. Tie that tax rate to not only the vehicle's ecological and public safety impact, but also to the owner's income (so that you don't have rich fucks just buying them anyway).
Create buy-back programs that offer reasonable market prices and trade-in values for used trucks and SUV's, which would be held as stock for sale to industry and ag, which would be exempt from the above taxes or taxed at lower rate.
Tightly regulate automobile financing so you can no longer offer loans that outlive large dog breeds.
Subject all consumer motor vehicles to fuel economy standards with no bullshit exceptions.
Yes, this will inconvenience a lot of people with first world problems, but you'll never fix anything if your primary goal is to please everyone.
Increase their insurance premiums so that it actually account for the destruction those cars cause.
We need to tax the externalities of antisocial behavior.
- Require safety standards to test the damage vehicles cause to pedestrians and cyclists, including women and children. Tax vehicles based on how dangerous they are to others on the road.
- Tax vehicles for the damage they do to the roads. Heavier vehicles destroy roads.
Mass sabotage and vandalism
Way ahead of you. If I can’t get some good public transportation in Austin, I’ll carpool with my wife in our little Ford Fiesta getting 34.5mpg. It’s all we could afford, but it beats the alternative for now.
60k on mine so far, paid $13k, getting about 38mpg. Pretty happy overall.
Hey if it works it works
No one makes small cars here and they make it as dificult as possible to import cars.
especially americans with small pp
They'd rather die.
Clearly.