Incremental steps are not personal EVs. They are diesel and electric buses. EVs eliminate 1 problem (tailpipe emissions) while creating 2 more (battery manufacturing, increased vehicle weight making road and tire wear worse, and making them more deadly - there’s others, take your pick) and not addressing the other hundred problems with car dependence.
Buses use the same infrastructure as cars. Bus stops are stupid cheap in comparison to anything else. And then, bus lanes can be implemented to prioritise buses and keep them from getting stuck in traffic.
The number one (by a long way) selling vehicle in the US is a massively over sized truck. Designed to be so heavy to avoid falling under emissions laws.
There is no electric vehicle that comes even close to that. You want those people interested in electric cars. They don’t give a single fuck about what your think about buses and nothing you will ever do in your lifetime will change that. Ever.
Getting people into EVs is an across the board incremental improvement in the exact definition of the word.
You’re right about the massive benefits of transit and trains in particular would be so amazing… but none of the people we want getting out of F150s give a single shit.
@xenoclast @ProgrammingSocks once you add a weight tax and special license qualifications they might start changing their tune
I don’t care about getting people into things. That’s a highly individualistic way to look at the problem. Car dependency is a societal problem, and marketing won’t solve societal problems. There needs to be a fundamental change in the way we (specifically the government) view transportation as a whole. (And as an extension to that, there also needs to be a change in regulation to close that loophole for light trucks.)
What’s important to me is getting lawmakers and those advocating to the lawmakers on board with funding public transit and making the streets safer for all people using them. Yes we need people on board too but really only enough to get these ideas in lawmakers heads as a major issue. A minority. The majority of people don’t understand or care and that’s fine, because their minds will start to change once they see it actually working. In the words of NJB, there are not that many car people, bike people, or train people. Most people just want to get to their destinations as quickly and efficiently as possible.
We don’t live in a direct democracy. 51% don’t have to explicitly agree to laws. The government passes laws that are bad for people and the majority disagree with all the time. Not saying the majority of people disagree, I honestly think they couldn’t care less. I’m just saying we don’t actually have to recruit hundreds of millions of people.
Unfortunately, a major part of this plan is going to have to restrict what oil companies are allowed to do and nowadays that’s seemingly impossible. Only seemingly though. Nothing is truly set in stone.
Ok you try riding the bus everywhere with your whole family dude. That’s not happening. It’s incredibly inconvenient. Especially given the infrastructure we have.
I’m loving my electric car and hope you all get one.
Having been to the UK and Germany, it’s incredibly convenient and much quicker than driving in many cases. I’ve used the metro where I live and it’s also much quicker, the only issue is the closest bus stop is 20 minutes away by foot. That’s easy to fix though.
I live in the UK, and I can say it depends greatly on your circumstances.
In general, if you’re traveling between an outside town to a city it’s usually an alright experience.
However, if your commute is between two outside towns then you have to be lucky, otherwise a car ends up being the only real viable option. My work is about 15 miles away, and before I had a car I had the only option of a railway line that ran through my town. If that line ever had issues getting cancelled or on the train strikes were on that day I couldn’t get to work because to get my work was 2 buses and 2 hours to go 15 miles. The train ran once an hour and didn’t call at half the stops on a Sunday including the stop I needed for work so if it was a Sunday I literally could not get to work.
It’s not even cheaper than a car when I factor in leisure travel, many places I regularly go to take longer to get to by car and are usually a worse experience whether that be service infrequency, long layover times or services getting cancelled/being on strike.
Having lived in Germany, you obviously didn’t meet enough people. They fucking love thier cars dude. Yeah their buses are better, but I was shown many people’s cars as if they were a child.