
Why cars do not make sense - gerland
https://stronglyagainst.com/in-cars/
======
Justsignedup
I am a father living in NYC except not in the middle of the city (manhattan,
downtown brooklyn, long island city).

In my neighborhood, getting to mid-town is by train. You only drive if you are
a bit crazy.

But to get from point A -> B in my neighborhood it is orders of magnitude
slower. To get to my parent's house is 15 minutes by car (25 if heavy
traffic). 45-90 minutes by bus. 45 minutes by train.

To take my daughter to school, 15 minutes by car, and 30-45 minutes by bus,
45-55 minutes by train.

And owning my own car, after 7 years is free. Low maintenance (I bought it
new). Insurance is $133 a month, and gas is ~40 a month. Significantly cheaper
than a daily Uber in addition to all the other ways I use the car.

If I was single, living in the middle of Manhattan, sure, cars make zero
sense. In fact many who I know commute by Bike, Walk, Train.

However it heavily depends on where you live, how many kids you have, what you
want as your lifestyle and convenience.

------
dwrodri
In today's age, cars are a necessity in the US largely in part because our
cities have been designed with limited amounts of mixed zoning in downtown
areas. Many cities in the US were restructured around major highways and have
yet to recover from this (Atlanta being the one I can testify for). Car
manufacturers have had a very tight grip on USA urban planning throughout the
20th century[1], and the rise of suburbs and accessible (at the time) single-
family housing outside of metro areas has helped solidify the presence of cars
in the lives of many Americans. Furthermore, our federal and state governments
have done little to move people away from cars, despite the fact that the US
economy doesn't rely on car manufacturing like it used to.

I am pretty anti-car myself, but the last point of the post makes me think
that the author hasn't seen how personal transportation plays in ENORMOUS role
in the everyday lives of families who live outside of major cities in the US.
I'm a young 20-something pursuing a career in tech, so I'm part of the
demographic who is most able to avoid car ownership.

I went to school in the south, and got to see firsthand how many of the
thousands of people who worked for my university were only able to get to
their jobs because they owned a car. My school, like many others in the US
(Virginia Tech, UIUC, UPenn, etc.) was out in the middle of nowhere, and was
by far the largest employer in the county (and surrounding counties). My
school subsidized a fleet of several buses to make public transportation
feasible, but those bus routes often were 5-10X slower than personal
transportation and were undersupplied and undermaintained, making it difficult
to use them as true replacements to car.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odF4GSX1y3c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odF4GSX1y3c)

~~~
gerland
That's some nice insight. Actually, I'm the author :) Would you mind if I cite
the whole thing in the post section of the article?

~~~
dwrodri
Go for it! Sorry I didn't see this reply sooner.

