
The End of Car Culture - llamataboot
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-car-culture.html?smid=tw-share&_r=4&
======
nostromo
One thing missed by most of these post-auto stories: transit used to be _sooo
boring_ , and no longer is.

I'm old enough to remember riding the bus before mp3 players and smart phones.
Your only options were to read or to bring a CD player. Walkmans (Walkmen?)
were a pain: batteries got expensive, and carrying more than 1 or 2 CDs was a
pain, so you ended up listen to a few tracks over and over. Newspapers and
books were good, but not as stimulating as the internet or email or Words With
Friends. I still remember waiting for the train with no music, nothing to
read, and nobody to talk to; it was excruciating.

Nowadays, I prefer transit to driving, even when it's a bit longer, because I
can just zone out on my iPhone the whole way.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I wish I could say this about transit in Beijing. The subways are so crowded
you barely get to sit down, perhaps you would have enough room to fiddle with
your smartphone if only there was signal for it in the tunnel (damn China
Unicom), and standing for 45 minutes kind of sucks.

Taxi!

~~~
discodave
That's an economic issue, the roads in beijing are most likely croweded too
and to boot most of those people are using public transport because they can't
afford cars.

(I am using genaralisations about China to make these statements)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
True. The subway is actually very nice, and in Beijing, very cheap (just 2 RMB
a trip, no distance limit!). Those who can afford cars aren't using transit,
and many of us in the middle are using taxis anyways because they are still
not that bad (50 RMB = ~$8 taxi vs. 2 RMB subway...).

I would prefer nice public transit though, or better yet, the ability to bike
without getting killed by a car.

~~~
dublinben
I think it's a shame that private automobiles were introduced in China. There
are too many people in large Chinese cities for them to all want to ride in a
car. Imagine how much more livable these cities would be if everyone was
either riding a bike or the subway.

~~~
olalonde
I don't know about Beijing but in Shenzhen, lots of the newer apartments are
located in "no car" gardens that can span over a few blocks. There are lots of
trees, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Quite livable places actually.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
All nicer apartment blocks are like that, actually; they usually have a garage
underneath but even this is too expensive for most people (whose work unit
will give them a Mercedes even if they can't afford a parking space!), so they
park on the street...fun stuff.

~~~
olalonde
I've actually always wondered about that. I often see loads of
Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Porsche cars parked around old buildings where the rent is
less than 150$/month. If what you say is true (companies giving Mercedes to
their employees), why is this? Or do some Chinese prefer owning an expensive
car rather then living in a nice place?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I said "work unit" and I'm talking about government employees :) The
government gives them the car and they use their connections to "qualify" for
subsidized housing (the kind they are building for the poor!). So the result
is a lot of Audi's parked around public housing.

Whatever works.

------
jseliger
There is an interesting intersection between this piece, the first comment by
BadassFractal, and Philip Greenspun's recent post about Denmark's bike
infrastructure: [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/06/17/danish-
happine...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/06/17/danish-happiness-
bicycle-infrastructure/) :

 _Because a bicycle can be used safely on every segment of almost any trip it
becomes much more practical to dispense with car ownership and its $9100
annual bleed (according to AAA). The 24-hour metro, excellent intracity buses,
and frequent trains other parts of Denmark complement the utility of bicycles
in situations involving miserable weather and /or long distances. . . .

The way that we have things set up in the U.S. contributes to our higher per-
capita GDP, but it does not make us better off. For example, if you think that
a trip by bicycle will be unsafe due to a lack of bike lanes and take a car,
you will burn gasoline, maintenance, and depreciation on that car, thereby
boosting the measured GDP compared to if you had used your muscle power (not
figured into GDP). If you then sign up for a gym membership and personal
training to get rid of the fat that you’ve accumulated during all of these
car-instead-of-bike trips, that boosts GDP though at the end of the process
you will be no thinner or fitter than if you had biked. If you get hit by a
car the GDP can easily be boosted by $25,000. You will buy a new bicycle. The
car will need bodywork. You may be concerned about your health and get an MRI
done at one of the world’s most expensive MRI clinics. Your MRI will be read
by one of the world’s highest paid radiologists. What the radiologist says
will be read to you, for a GDP-boosting fee, by one of the world’s highest
paid neurologists._

------
BadassFractal
For urban dwellers blessed with proper public transportation and a good Walk
Score, a car is a huge headache and drain on finances. They simply all need to
go and be replaced with extremely efficient, clean and safe transit systems.
Nobody enjoys sitting in traffic for hours a day commuting. Nobody enjoys
wasting time on maintenance. Nobody enjoys the process of acquiring the
vehicle.

At the very least, car sharing is a step in the right direction. Eventually as
the Google car becomes reality, I hope that the # of cars on the roads is
reduced to a bare minimum and we don't need to drive / pay people to drive any
longer, and free up a lot of human talent to do something more productive.

~~~
6d0debc071
> Nobody enjoys sitting in traffic for hours a day commuting. Nobody enjoys
> wasting time on maintenance. Nobody enjoys the process of acquiring the
> vehicle.

Maybe not, but some of us find it vastly preferable to being crammed in with
others on public transport. So don't tar everyone with your particularly
preferences thanks.

~~~
veemjeem
I guess one has to balance the time spent in traffic and being crammed with
others in public transport. Here in the bay area, one can get stuck on 101 for
2 hours when it would take only 40 minutes via Caltrain. I'm sure quite a few
people would rather save 1.5 hours every day being crammed in with others.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Caltrain also has seats most of the time. The worst is that you might have to
sit next to someone...cry me a river.

~~~
potatolicious
One of the more depressing things is that the conversation around transit is
so frequently: "But... [horrified whisper] _other people_!"

------
neutronicus
I don't know, man.

I live in Colorado, in a super bike-friendly city, and I'm buying a car. Can't
take public transportation to a campground. Can't take public transportation
to a mountain bike trail. Public transportation for skiing is a huge pain in
the ass.

~~~
HaloZero
But will you ride it daily to work? I think an argument isn't that nobody
needs cars but more people will be relying on them less and the total # of
hours spent driving them will be reduced.

~~~
qu4z-2
Indeed. As you carry on in that direction, hiring a car when necessary may
become much more attractive compared to the upkeep on a car you only use
occasionally.

~~~
neutronicus
I belong to a non-profit carshare, and that shit adds up fast, especially if
you want a car for a whole day.

------
Yhippa
Right now I'm stuck in the suburbs and the city I live in just doesn't have
good public transportation and probably won't ever. There is one scenario that
I'm looking forward to that could make my life easier.

What if Google or another company perfects self-driving cars? You could have
"cars" that are basically motorized shopping carts. You go online and register
your car with a particular store. Your car could drive from store to store
having the workers load everything for you. If a lot of people use this it
could be efficient since these self-driving vehicles drive optimally and won't
get into accidents and will cooperate with each other to get to where they're
going.

This way I can spend more time doing what I want and less time stuck in
traffic and more time doing what I want. Basically it's automating a set of
tasks you used to do with a car. I hope that day comes very soon.

~~~
rglullis
Wouldn't this usage fall in the "better mouse-trap" model?

Instead of having _your_ car driving around, it would be much better to have
businesses' trucks and vans going to customers. This way, companies get a
better distribution process, parking lots become a thing of the past, you get
to reduce your car usage... and perhaps this even makes it viable to have car-
sharing companies working in the suburbs.

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josht
My dads tire and wheel business is screwed. 40+ years in the business, and it
has dwindled down to practically nothing.

~~~
meritt
Uhh, there are still plenty of cars last time I checked. Help your dad adapt
to modern age and he'll do just fine.

------
obeleask
As a car guy, maybe I am biased, but:

1) Where are the data/charts behind this statement: "Part of the explanation
certainly lies in the recession, because cash-strapped Americans could not
afford new cars, and the unemployed weren’t going to work anyway. But by many
measures the decrease in driving preceded the downturn and appears to be
persisting now that recovery is under way. " If the whole premise of the
article is that this is more than just something related to the recession,
shouldn't we be able to see that data for ourselves, and the justification
should be more than a passing statement. The wording of "by many measures"
also makes it sound like the author is cherry picking metrics to make his
point. I'd also like to see the car usage compared to unemployment rates for
the same age group. Overall, I just don't believe the validity of the claim
without seeing more data.

2) As the author says "Whether members of the millennial generation will start
buying more cars once they have kids to take to soccer practice and school
plays remains an open question." I'm not sure it is an open question. When
you're single and can live near where you work, it's reasonable to get on
without a car. Then life changes, and you need a car.

3) If there is an actual drop-off in car usage, then it could be because we
likely are at an inflection point of some significant changes in the industry.
The two big ones being electric cars with Tesla leading the way, and the
second one being self-driving cars with Google leading the way. We might just
be seeing a temporary drop as people reject the "old" way, and as these two
new technologies take-off and become more mainstream, so again will car usage
.

------
DanBC
There's still a few billion people with no transport who will be buying
vehicles soon.

I really freaking hope we've sorted out some better engine than internal
combustion.

But even batteries might be tricky - how much rare earth metal do you need for
a billion electric vehicles?

The problem with Beijing population all driving cars isn't so much that
they're driving cars - it's weird of me to demand they still ride bicycles -
but that they mostly drive badly made badly maintained cars.

Also, this is the kind of thing where international travel helps you see other
perspectives. The first 'drive through mailbox' I saw was in the US. At Gilroy
Outlets I would see someone leave one store, get in their car, drive 20 yards
to be outside the next store, get out, go shopping, get back in their car,
drive 50 yards to the next store they wanted to visit, and so on. I have no
idea if that's common in the US, but I saw it in a few different malls in CA.
It kind of freaked me out. (I understand if these people have a disability
that makes walking painful or whatnot. That wasn't obvious from looking at
them. Maybe they just hate the smell of garlic?)

------
shalmanese
For me, this is where lyft is so exciting. It used to be, if you could depend
on walking/biking/public transit for 90% of your usage, you either still had
to get a car for the other 10% or suffer a 10% downgrade in lifestyle.

Services like lyft perfectly patch over that hole. The cost of taking lyft
indiscriminately is still less than owning and maintaining a car and the time
I spend waiting for a lyft is counterbalanced by the time I would have spent
parking.

------
fragsworth
> When adjusted for population growth, the number of miles driven in the
> United States peaked in 2005 and dropped steadily thereafter

The reason for this is more directly "The Internet" than they suggest. Nearly
everything that used to require you to drive somewhere is now done online. You
order products off Amazon today.

------
rosser
I know it has a great deal to do with this city, but since I moved to San
Francisco, I've found myself using my car so rarely that every time I pull
back into my garage, I need to disconnect one of my battery terminals, or I'll
have a dead battery the next time I need to drive somewhere.

------
andyl
The end of car culture can't come soon enough.

~~~
sowrong
this article is wrongheaded in many, many ways. The crux of the problem is
that cars are designed and produced ahead of what is actually wanted and
desired without concern whether there is actually an impedence mismatch with
what consumers want in a car. For example, modular design in cars no longer
exists. You can't find a car anywhere that can be transformed with add-ons
between a commuter car to a weekender car to a car for hauling things to a car
for being sporty. The same is true with manual transmission, you can't find it
on the market ANYWHERE. For tinkerers, you can't get information about your
car's computer chips or any kind of API that could serve a buyer's use, not
someone elses. Not only that, you pay a lot of money for a car, and then find
out that it's easily hackable, by anyone except the rightful owner. People
love cars, and definitely prefer them to public transformation, which is
unreliable at best, but there just aren't any cars on the market that match
what consumers want.

~~~
sliverstorm
What? When was the last time a car could be converted from a sports car to a
capable tow vehicle with an _add-on_? You can bolt a tow hitch on just about
any car, but tow vehicle/sports car/commuter/weekender runs _so much deeper_
than that- at least if you want it to be better than "poor" in all of the
above categories.

 _The same is true with manual transmission, you can 't find it on the market
ANYWHERE._

Patently false. Manual transmissions are not as common as automatics, and
certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission, but they can still be
found in many different vehicles.

~~~
sowrong
"certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission"

Exactly right.

~~~
sowrong
if the make and model of the car of your interest is not available at all in
manual transmission, then yes, absolutely yes, it's simply not available
anywhere.

Henry Ford famously said "Any customer can have a car painted any color that
he wants so long as it is black" and that's the problem today. An entire
market of buyers is being ignored.

If you accept that only grey color cars are being made and wonder why people
aren't buying grey cars, nothing can help you.

~~~
sowrong
Manual transmission is but an example. The idea is that ownership rates
declined before the downturn unrelated to the economy. What is declining, is
the value proposition that the current set of new cars offers compared to
older cars and, that many would-be car buyers just aren't finding what they
want in a car. Imagine the cell phone market before the iPhone, that is the
state of the car market today.

~~~
sliverstorm
_What is declining, is the value proposition that the current set of new cars
offers compared to older cars_

What is happening (IMO) is that "old" cars (in relative terms) are lasting
longer and longer. The car I learned to drive in had a 5-digit odometer. The
car I drive today can reasonably be expected to reach 250k with regular
maintenance.

 _many would-be car buyers just aren 't finding what they want in a car_

Ok, what _do_ they want? 'Cause I assure you, "it doesn't have a manual
transmission" is not the complaint of the majority.

