Fuckcars is just a cult anyway, they go REEEE at any suggestion that cars are a necessity for many people, and that no busses nor bikes will ever compensate for it.
I’ve followed the FuckCars community for a while (started on reddit). Being one of them car fuckers myself I would disagree. There certainly are people there whose thought process doesn’t go much further than car = bad, but boiling the whole community down to that does a disservice to their more important points. I think most people there aren’t so much advocating for less cars as much as they are advocating for policy and societal change toward a world where we aren’t so reliant on cars. Obviously for a massive chunk of the world population (especially in North America) cars are a necessity like you said, but do they need to be? Wouldn’t we all be better off if the world was less car dependent? We aren’t saying that there should be no more cars, just that we shouldn’t continue to design our cities in such a way that you need a car to live.
If you are interested in more about where the fuckcars comunity is coming from I would recommend checking out the youtube channel Not Just Bikes. All of his videos are great but I think this one is a good intro to the channel. I also like this one because it outlines a lot of the specific “first step” type things that could be much better (most applicable to north america). Also, his Strong Towns Video Series is really good if you have the time.
Still. I live near Mannheim, out of the 8 people in my circle of close friends, 4 either outright do not own a car or share a car with their spouses, because their households can make do with one or less cars. They can absolutely make do with walking, bikes, tram, bus and train for everything in their daily lives. In many american cities of the same size, that would simply not be an option.
Are you going to be first in line to give up your computer? Your phone? Antibiotics? Vaccines? Electricity?
Innovation is real, even if you don’t personally like it. Motor vehicles are a legitimately good invention, arguably only becoming problematic due to increasing population and urbanization.
I don’t think they live in the same reality I do, or maybe they’ve never seen Texas? Even if my local area was designed for foot traffic, the amount of space between literally everything here would make it impossible not to rely on a car.
In DFW you can sum about any trip to somewhere you want to be to a 30 minute drive. Favorite restaurant that isn’t literally right next to you? 30 minutes or an hour without tolls.
Work? That’s another 30 minutes.
Wanna go to a store nicer than a Walmart? You guessed it. 30 minutes.
Get home from work around 4:30? We’ll now you have a cool 5 hours of time until bed time. Subtract an hour of the gym, an hour of cooking and maybe you’ve got 3 hours of time to do anything else. Waiting for public transportation or wasting time walking would just cut down even more of the hours in your day.
Maybe I want more out of life than sacrificing my time to public transportation and walking.
Even if my local area was designed for foot traffic, the amount of space between literally everything here would make it impossible not to rely on a car.
If your local area was designed for foot traffic, then things wouldn’t be so spread out. One of the many reasons this is so bad in america (and this is the case in DFW) are the awful parking minimum laws that have ruined so many cities. Since the 1950’s new business developments have been required to have a minimum amount of parking so that even at max capacity there would be enough spots. In a less car-centric city almost any place you would need to visit regularly -be it a grocery store, a department store, or whatever else- would certainly be within walking distance of (or a short public transit hop away from) your home and work. But the parking minimum laws spread everything so far apart that to walk or bike anywhere is unimaginable, and it also isn’t feasible to build up good public transit because you would need stops at every major street corner (rather than in a reasonable city where you would be taking transit hops between dense clusters of businesses and other destinations).
In DFW you can sum about any trip to somewhere you want to be to a 30 minute drive. Favorite restaurant that isn’t literally right next to you? 30 minutes or an hour without tolls. Work? That’s another 30 minutes. Wanna go to a store nicer than a Walmart? You guessed it. 30 minutes.
Get home from work around 4:30? We’ll now you have a cool 5 hours of time until bed time. Subtract an hour of the gym, an hour of cooking and maybe you’ve got 3 hours of time to do anything else. Waiting for public transportation or wasting time walking would just cut down even more of the hours in your day. Maybe I want more out of life than sacrificing my time to public transportation and walking.
You said “I don’t think they live in the same reality I do,” but not only is this pretty much exactly the case in the city I live in, but I have given very similar rants when complaining about living in such a car dependent area. Honestly I was confused for a moment because you have some great points on why living in a city designed for cars sucks so much. The reason I consider myself a member of the fuckcars community isn’t that I think people should walk/bike more or that I don’t like cars. It’s that I want our city designs to change. Walking, biking, and even public transit simply doesn’t make sense in most North American cities but it doesn’t have to be that way. With policy change and redesign projects over time our cities could be so much better.
Fuckcars is just a cult anyway, they go REEEE at any suggestion that cars are a necessity for many people, and that no busses nor bikes will ever compensate for it.
I’ve followed the FuckCars community for a while (started on reddit). Being one of them car fuckers myself I would disagree. There certainly are people there whose thought process doesn’t go much further than car = bad, but boiling the whole community down to that does a disservice to their more important points. I think most people there aren’t so much advocating for less cars as much as they are advocating for policy and societal change toward a world where we aren’t so reliant on cars. Obviously for a massive chunk of the world population (especially in North America) cars are a necessity like you said, but do they need to be? Wouldn’t we all be better off if the world was less car dependent? We aren’t saying that there should be no more cars, just that we shouldn’t continue to design our cities in such a way that you need a car to live.
If you are interested in more about where the fuckcars comunity is coming from I would recommend checking out the youtube channel Not Just Bikes. All of his videos are great but I think this one is a good intro to the channel. I also like this one because it outlines a lot of the specific “first step” type things that could be much better (most applicable to north america). Also, his Strong Towns Video Series is really good if you have the time.
(here are a couple more because I can’t help myself: Why it sucks to grow up in car-centric cities, How American cities are ponzie schemes, and His video about Stroads)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=uxykI30fS54
https://piped.video/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
https://piped.video/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa
https://piped.video/watch?v=oHlpmxLTxpw
https://piped.video/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
https://piped.video/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Thank you for your well thought out, non-reactionary response. This is the energy we need on lemmy. Not more knee-jerk outrage.
As a European, its funny watching these guys talk about “Europe” as this pure implementation of their motorphobic utopia.
A lot of us still drive daily yanks!
Still. I live near Mannheim, out of the 8 people in my circle of close friends, 4 either outright do not own a car or share a car with their spouses, because their households can make do with one or less cars. They can absolutely make do with walking, bikes, tram, bus and train for everything in their daily lives. In many american cities of the same size, that would simply not be an option.
deleted by creator
Weird how it’s literally impossible to ever live without something no one had 100 years ago
People with chronic diseases: yeah, crazy right?
Are you going to be first in line to give up your computer? Your phone? Antibiotics? Vaccines? Electricity?
Innovation is real, even if you don’t personally like it. Motor vehicles are a legitimately good invention, arguably only becoming problematic due to increasing population and urbanization.
Some of them are raging right now at the idea that not everyone who hates cars wants to live in an apartment.
Its like liberals screaming when they findout you can be a liberal and a gun owner.
Or conservatives when you express socialistic rights while also limiting government.
I don’t think they live in the same reality I do, or maybe they’ve never seen Texas? Even if my local area was designed for foot traffic, the amount of space between literally everything here would make it impossible not to rely on a car.
In DFW you can sum about any trip to somewhere you want to be to a 30 minute drive. Favorite restaurant that isn’t literally right next to you? 30 minutes or an hour without tolls. Work? That’s another 30 minutes. Wanna go to a store nicer than a Walmart? You guessed it. 30 minutes.
Get home from work around 4:30? We’ll now you have a cool 5 hours of time until bed time. Subtract an hour of the gym, an hour of cooking and maybe you’ve got 3 hours of time to do anything else. Waiting for public transportation or wasting time walking would just cut down even more of the hours in your day. Maybe I want more out of life than sacrificing my time to public transportation and walking.
If your local area was designed for foot traffic, then things wouldn’t be so spread out. One of the many reasons this is so bad in america (and this is the case in DFW) are the awful parking minimum laws that have ruined so many cities. Since the 1950’s new business developments have been required to have a minimum amount of parking so that even at max capacity there would be enough spots. In a less car-centric city almost any place you would need to visit regularly -be it a grocery store, a department store, or whatever else- would certainly be within walking distance of (or a short public transit hop away from) your home and work. But the parking minimum laws spread everything so far apart that to walk or bike anywhere is unimaginable, and it also isn’t feasible to build up good public transit because you would need stops at every major street corner (rather than in a reasonable city where you would be taking transit hops between dense clusters of businesses and other destinations).
You said “I don’t think they live in the same reality I do,” but not only is this pretty much exactly the case in the city I live in, but I have given very similar rants when complaining about living in such a car dependent area. Honestly I was confused for a moment because you have some great points on why living in a city designed for cars sucks so much. The reason I consider myself a member of the fuckcars community isn’t that I think people should walk/bike more or that I don’t like cars. It’s that I want our city designs to change. Walking, biking, and even public transit simply doesn’t make sense in most North American cities but it doesn’t have to be that way. With policy change and redesign projects over time our cities could be so much better.