Please stop being disingenuous. You know perfectly well that what we want is doable because it is already being done in many places in Europe and Japan. Stop fighting a strawman of your own creation.
We want fewer private motor vehicles in our streets because car-centric urban planning translates into places that are unpleasant to live in, especially for people who don’t drive.
I live right by a busy stroad. How many of the cars whizzing by do you think are delivery vehicles? How many busses? Very few compared to the number obese SUVs and lifted pickups, even though there are four large supermarkets and many shops within walking distance along this corridor.
If we reduced the number of private motor vehicles in this stroad the quality of life for my family would significantly increase: less air pollution, less traffic noise, more pleasant daily errands, less risk of being run over by a tank-sized ego booster, more room for trees and bicycles.
Stop spewing bullshit and fear. Let my kids and I hope for a better future.
I never said it was not doable. I just made it clear that making personal cars somehow “vanish” will not really change the financial side of things.
I’m not against change. On the contrary. But I know that just wishing won’t help. One needs a realistic goal, and find an equally realistic way to get there. Anything else is just dreaming. Just saying “Cars have to vanish” won’t accomplish anything.
I wish anyone in this “FuckCars” community would actually think of a way to fix the world, and not just complain about the way it is.
I just made it clear that making personal cars somehow “vanish” will not really change the financial side of things.
What you are not taking into account is that the sort of low-density, car-dependent, single family home suburbia we criticise requires many more square meters of road per person than a walkable medium-density mixed-use neighborhood. Strongtowns shows with data, not opinion, how town centers are subsidizing financially unsustainable car-dependent suburbia.
I wish anyone in this “FuckCars” community would actually think of a way to fix the world, and not just complain about the way it is.
Easy. Start by copying the Dutch street design guidelines and zoning laws. Boom! Living car-free or car-lite would be much easier, at least in North America where so many people drive to do the most basic daily errands.
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just study and copy what already works elsewhere. That’s how bad things are around here.
Looks like you’ve never been in a town in the Netherlands. I’ve been, many times, and it’s not all roses. Yes, they are often better for bikers, but overall, they are traffic nightmares.
The low-density housing situation is an American problem that we don’t have. We, on the other side, have cities grown for thousands of years, and nobody thought of leaving space for people, bikes, and public transport. So we usually try to protect the weakest (the pedestrians) by giving them a safe space (unless violated by bikers), and the streets have to be shared, simply because there is no space. Yes, you can wish for all cars to vanish there, but it is not realistic. Just like wishing your suburbans away.