No idea if this post will resonate at all, but I’ll give it a shot.
I didn’t want to drive, when I was younger. I made it to 20 without a license, using my bike as my main transportation and the bus for longer trips. Because society here in the USA does not accommodate that lifestyle in most places, including where I live, it was deeply limiting. So I got a car, and it unlocked far better options for me in every way - career, social opportunities, time saved. The downsides are obvious, and this community is acutely aware of them, so I won’t belabor the point.
On an individual scale, the scale at which we live our lives, in many corners of the world it is just better, incredibly so, to own a car. Directing hostility at people for driving, even enjoying driving and the associated lifestyle is deeply counterproductive to any kind of progress. The voices speaking against the cause of walkable cities, better public transportation, aren’t what the focus should be.
The focus should be on supporting any possible effort to open new, car-free lifestyle opportunities. Then new voices will emerge, describing the massive savings and freedom of not needing to own and operate an expensive, dangerous piece of machinery just to get groceries or go to work.
That is my two cents, as a person who drives to work, drives for work, and would love to both replace my commute with a better option and deal with less traffic doing my job, which is one of many that requires driving to transport people and materials throughout the day. You can find a lot more allies with a more positive and incremental approach, incubating awareness of a better path, or you can just be an annoying echo chamber.
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I am glad that E-bikes get more and more mainstream, cheap etc. Anything up to 15 km is fairly easy with those and in cities not even really slower.
I think most people have no idea how fast ebikes are in a city environment. Yeah my bike is capped at 30km/h but I make a lot of that time up by never being stuck in traffic. Short trips are always faster than driving and medium trips are usually comparable.
People also don’t seem to understand how bikes (and good transit) are completely unaffected by rush hour, accidents, or construction. My buddy (who is pretty sympathetic to urbanism) seemed confused when I said my trips always take the same amount of time, the concept seemed outlandish to him.
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there are many people who say the same thing as you. “would love to both replace my commute with a better option”
i don’t know if this applies to you but personally, i know lots of people who say want to give up the car but won’t do it because they don’t see public transit as the better option. but they will NEVER see transit as a better option because they are using flawed metrics to decide
let me give you a simple example i hear over and over. “driving takes me 20 mins, but taking public transit takes 30 mins! i’m saving 10 minutes!”. no you’re not saving ANY time. 30 mins spent on public transit is 100% YOUR time. read a book, listen to podcast, or do nothing… 20 mins of driving is 100% lost paying attention to the road (in theory). people just need to have a different perspective of what “better” means instead of just comparing the minutes of each mode of transportation
My coworker says his commute is 2-3 hours by car so I suggested he take the train which would take around 45mins. He kept making excuses on why he couldn’t and later asked me why I ride my bike to work instead of driving.
Some people just cannot take public transit seriously.
Also, your time argument only makes sense with tame numbers. Trips often take 2-3 times longer by public transit. Yeah I can read a book on the train but I can’t cook my dinner, do my laundry, or clean my apartment.
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I don’t understand you. If driving takes 20 mins and transit takes 30 mins, it’s fair to argue transit is superior because I could be responding to emails or doing some productive task on the bus, and I’m only “losing” 20 mins a day of time at home.
If your commute takes 45 mins by car and 2 hours by bus, pointing out that the person on the bus can read their email on the way home will hardly be a consolation to the fact that they are “losing” 2.5 hours a day of time at home.
I am not arguing against public transit, I’m pointing out that when public transit sucks, it’s really hard to make an argument that taking it is more convenient than driving.
I’m in my early forties and live in an area where no one can fathom that I live without a car. I don’t make a lot of money and spent most of my adult life hovering around the poverty line. I have not had a car for twenty years. I understand that living car free is difficult but global warming is going to be a lot more difficult. Our addiction to convenience is a problem. Additionally until a significant minority of people decide to make life choices that allow them to live car free capitalism is just not going to cater to a better model. I feel like defensive reactions like this come from people who know that they are doing harm but don’t have the willingness to change their own behavior. I know it’s not easy but when has doing the right thing ever been easy.
