This conforms to my own experience. I first got on the “anti cars” train back when I was a lib, and I got on that train precisely because I worked a job in a place where I wasn’t allowed to have a car, but there was a bus that took me directly to work in the morning and everything else was walkable/busable and occasionally I would take a price-controlled taxi.
Not having to pay insurance or buy gas, not having to find parking, not having to wait in traffic, being able to read or use my phone during my commute - it’s all so nice, I got converted before I had ever heard the word “urbanism” and before anyone had invented the term “fifteen minute city”.
A bicycle is not good enough to transport cargo or large items
Skill issue
It is very easy to accidentally puncture a bicycle wheel tube
Skill issue
A bicycle can be stolen from you more easily than a car
True, but a bike costs a fraction of a car, so it’s also much less of an issue if it happens
The bicycle does not protect you from rain and snow and is more difficult to ride on ice, mud and puddles
Skill issue
Nah, I saw some kids stealing a bike in town the other week, and they did it in a few seconds maybe 3 or 4 metres from a security guard. Smart kids, they acted in the moment I walked between them and the guard with pit crew-like efficiency - two steadying the bars, one cutting and removing the lock, and the last getting on the bike - so by the time the security guard called out they were already riding and running away. You can steal a car fast, but not that fast, and not in the middle of a crowded city centre.
The cops definitely don’t give the slightest shit, but it’s not the only reason.
If you need to go to the hospital, you can call an ambulance that will be able to quickly and easily reach you due to there not being any car traffic. (The utterly ludicrous cost of US healthcare is its own separate problem)
Going to the countryside? Take a bus to the outskirts, or even out into the country itself, and cycle to a particular spot. Going to or from a club? Take the metro, take the bus, maybe even (depending no the strictness of ‘no cars’) a taxi, which you can afford on special occasions with the literally tens of thousands of dollars you’ll have saved by not needing to buy, insure, repair and fuel a car.
You have to also understand that for a car-free society to even be on the table, a number of other social changes will have to have been made too. So just arguing that going without cars is impossible due to the limitations of the car-centric society that currently exists is just circular reasoning. There SHOULD be ways to do the things you’ve listed without using a car, and the reason there aren’t is BECAUSE of cars.
Nobody’s proposing banning ambulances. You should be able to take the metro to the club. You should also be able to take it outside of the city and you can figure out the remainder of your journey from there. Reclaiming land from cars would also allow more space within cities for parks and such and decrease the need to get out of the city to escape dickheads leaning on their horns.
if you need to take two people at once to the hospital
ambulance
to a nightclub or to the forest outside the city for fishing and barbecue or somewhere else.
shut up, those aren’t remotely urgent. Get on your bike.
I’ve already warmed up to the idea that we’d have to force positives changes through in the dead of night. With all things said and done, watch those who’d rail against it say they’ve always been in favor of it.
It’s like when chuds try to take credit for civil rights, or 5 day work weeks (Henry Ford willed the concept into existence, not years of direct action by the labor movement).
Lenin talked about how the ruling class will actively oppose a revolutionary figure, but once society at large accepts them, the ruling class will switch face and pretend like it always supported said figure.
“What seems to work best is a carrot-and-stick approach—creating positive reasons to take a bus or to cycle rather than just making driving harder.”
I guess this is why we shouldn’t only play the “fuck cars” tune but also include melodies like “we love to bike” and “public transport is fun” 😉
But then they call you insane because transit very obviously shitty. Like i shill for the alternatives but its barely functional most of the time, much less pleasant
Feel free to spit on the current state of transit; it’s shit in so many places and there’s no pretending otherwise. It’s important to stress that the transit will be unrecognizable from current state if properly funded. If people think I’m talking about them ditching their cars, getting on the existing transit and watching their trip times go up 292%, they’d be right to dismiss me.
Hating the idea…? Is this another American thing?
Wait until you hear that some not only hate the ideas, but think they’re a conspiracy theory by some higher power to make people…… be able to walk to the shops? I don’t know…
Every time a new apartment or condo development gets built here, there are people in the local community forums who rabble about “15 minute cities” and how they are trying to force us get rid of cars and control our travel. In spite of the fact these buildings are built with parking lots and garages that are as big as, if not bigger than the buildings themselves.
Always worth remembering that American-style suburbs were a deliberate political project in the postwar period. They didn’t “just happen”, the government spend billions making them happen at the behest of auto makers, property developers, and racists (but I repeat myself).