"The priority should not be to replace every car with its electric equivalent but rather to rethink #mobility in general.
"Placing so much focus on the automobile and even now the electric automobile is not the way that we solve our mobility problems, but rather it's time to invest in #transit, in #cycling, in walkable cities, to get people out of #cars altogether," they said."
Streets need to be safer for those who walk or bike. But
"In the first half of this year, an estimated 19,515 people were killed in traffic crashes [in the United States].
Those numbers are expected to rise as vehicles follow an industry trend in which cars, and trucks in particular, increase each year in weight and size — especially as they transition to #ElectricVehicles.
@CelloMomOnCars what about rural areas? All this is about cities where mass transit is easy or inter city. Not the vast swathes of low populated rural areas
@CelloMomOnCars about 5% of the population is farmers, they are insignificant, so they can drive . The rural towns that support them only need a.couple buses to provide great service.
@bluGill@CelloMomOnCars we only have a couple of buses a day. We still have to shop, attend to our health matters and meet with family some distance away.
@bluGill@CelloMomOnCars I live 9 miles from a big town. The villages around here can’t create enough business for any more. And buses useless for workers as after work starts and before it finishes. So my trip to Birmingham by train next weekend means driving to the station. At least the trains are running. Many villages around here have no bus service at all.
@CelloMomOnCars@bluGill you don’t live in the country obviously. Dictate for towns and cities but please don’t think that the same rules apply to the country.
@CelloMomOnCars people don't even think anymore how much cars are killing us. We are not going to eliminate them altogether, but you are on the right track. Our cities used to be built around transit. Indeed, some of the streets in the older parts of San Diego were made wider for street cars spaced within walking distance. It's just a matter of laying the tracks again. Are the infrastructure bills doing that? I doubt it.
@CelloMomOnCars less people driving and the people who do drive are driving classic cars. That's the only future that makes sense in the face of global warming and ending the mass-production hyper-consumerism that comorbidly exists with it. Modern cars are just as much of a problem because they're disposable, mostly plastic, and use up silicon. Classics are meant to be fixed and maintained and parts refreshed; they can last a long time and a lot of the work can be done by the owner.
@CelloMomOnCars the apartments which are closest to the centers of commerce, such as the ones above stores and things like that should expressly be for the disabled so they needn't have far to go, or wait long for delivery. But where cars can't go, neither can construction equipment or 52" flat screen TVs or queen size beds. There is a bigger conversation about the negative impact of mass-commoditization and homogeneity of lifestyles to be had parallel to this.
@CelloMomOnCars the ADA past more than 30 years ago. It is intentionally not caring about the disabled that NYC hasn't remodeled everystation for accessibility by now. Demand the leader ship be fired.
@CelloMomOnCars Yup. I’ve really worked at structuring my life for bike commuting and that’s why despite my old truck getting an embarrassing 14-18mpg I still only produce like a quarter to a third of the average American tailpipe emissions. The least polluting cars are the ones not getting driven 15-20k miles a year.
@CelloMomOnCars I’d love to get an electric or hybrid, but when you drive as little as I do it takes a LONG time to break even on the emissions of building a new car vs operating emissions. It takes even longer to break even financially. I also actually need a good 4x4 because I do wilderness search and rescue, and nothing newer could match what I have now there for a reasonable amount of money.
So sadly it makes only a little ecological sense for me to get a new car, and zero financial sense 🤷♂️
@CelloMomOnCars We’re rare but we do exist. In particular I need to be able to handle bad snow because in the winter we get lots of calls in the mountains outside the city that are best reached from parking lots above where they plow regularly.
We’ve got this wacky situation where you can take a tram from tee shirt weather to a sometimes gnarly alpine environment that’s hard to drive to sometimes in winter. Then if the wind picks up they can’t run the tram to get rescuers up there.
@CelloMomOnCars For sure. For most normal on-road winter driving, good tires and maybe full-time AWD is the way.
My truck sucks in normal urban winter driving, because if it's not slippery enough to warrant 4WD, it's RWD with a light rear end. So in lighter winter road conditions it wants to fishtail if you think about the accelerator pedal too hard.
On a steep dirt road with a foot of fresh snow on it though? It'll run (well ... very slowly crawl) circles around almost anything.
Personal automobiles are a MASSIVE problem—their existence as much as their energy source. If you want to live in the boonies then that’s a choice. You have no right to bring your living room on wheels into the city. Park outside.
We can’t afford to cling to “normal” and just tweak some things anymore. We MUST pivot to non-auto jobs, invest in our future together, b/c time is running out
And you would have better health and mental health, and your kids would have higher grades, etc. So many benefits.
We need a culture change. That's hard, but not impossible. Think of how smokers went from being the cool people to being the pariahs relegated to the outside.
@CelloMomOnCars
EV's are FAR more practical than thinking you'll convince enough people to use Mass Transit to have a significant impact on #ClimateChange in the time we have left.
Yup. They are.
That's because everything in US cities is built for the car. This article suggests we need to rethink that approach.
Cambridge MA is getting to be real nice. If you work at MIT your ID is your public transit card, and you ride for free. I've seen people who never take the bus, now do nothing but take the bus (or walk). Cool, how that works if you make it more convenient to ride bus or bike than to drive in.
@CelloMomOnCars
When I worked downtown, I took the "Park & Ride" Metro bus for the first time in my life. It was great. Saved me a ton of money and I didn't have to wake up as early to get to work.
But once that job ended, it was back to the car.
We definitely need better "urban planning" in the future, but until we get there, we need to promote #Green alternatives to everything we use today.
We need better urban planning NOW - it takes quite a few years for the stuff to get built, so the time to ask is now.
Every town and city has a Master Plan. They are all online now and easy to get. Find yours. Read the "Land Use" and "Transportation" parts. Most places review their Master Plan every so many years. Get involved in that, and let your voice be heard (and bring your friends!); this is what local democracy is about. Also you'll meet a lot of cool people.
@CelloMomOnCars Why not both? One of the biggest impediments to addressing the #ClimateCrisis is resistance from consumers unwilling to lower their quality of life. we can fight through it or accommodate it. #EV s are a suitable accommodation while we also fight for better transit options. We should not drop support EVs just because they are not the total solution.
@antares@CelloMomOnCars I’d give anything for public transit here. Eventually I won’t be able to drive anymore due to my eyesight, and I, like a lot of elderly, will be dependent on others for transportation to dr. appointments, grocery shopping, etc. it would be nice to have train and bus service, like we did in the 30s-50s, but nope.
Find you the local public transit committee and speak up at their meetings. Bring your friends. Local democracy only works if you show up. Join that committee if they invite you (or invite yourself!).
This will take time, but if you have that luxury of time and apply it, you can win.
Certainly, electric cars are part of the solution. They can't be the only solution, though, for many reasons. Besides the finite nature of the materials required, there's the mobility justice issue - not everyone can drive - and there is the safety issue - the extra weight on EVs make them more dangerous to everyone else on the road, just at a time when we want people to choose other ways to get around. We don't want to be locked into that metal box any more.
@CelloMomOnCars You go work on making your cities even denser and more transit friendly. I'm going to try get my neighbors out here in the country to trade their full-sized trucks for something more environmentally friendly. When #LAmetro or #Bart makes it to SLO county we can talk again.
@antares@CelloMomOnCars my government has cut public transportation, all but cancelled it’s expansion and is royally messing up their flagship infrastructure project, and turning attempts to reduce pollution into culture wars wedge issues. We still have another year before a general, Ev although not perfect is something the individual can do. EV’s currently tend only to be 10% heavier like for like, France is taxing heavier cars in cities, regardless of platform, which is a good idea.
Paris is charging heavier cars a higher parking fee.
The Netherlands - as I'm sure other European countries - charges more a higher annual vehicle tax for heavier cars.
Cities are also starting to simply eliminate parkingn spaces. I mean, there are other things to do with public space than the storage of private property.
@CelloMomOnCars@antares yep, ran out of characters. Infrastructure costs in the UK are also higher than the rest of Europe, which doesn’t help, we’re a long way behind
There’s a lot European countries are doing, in fact I posted a video about some if the stuff France is doing here:
@antares@CelloMomOnCars Why the assumption that moving society toward a less car-centric infrastructure model necessarily means a lower quality of life?
At a certain point people are going to HAVE to accept that addressing climate change in an actually meaningful, proactive way, REQUIRES a fundamental change in how society is ordered. This is nonnegotiable, regardless of how people feel about it.
I agree that I would find an urban area with fewer cars to have a higher quality of life than the equivalent area with more.
However after two decades away, this country bumkin is thrilled to finally escape the crushing, crowded, noisy, built up environment of the city to get back to having an acre(half a hectare) out on dirt road where I have the space to grow my own food, not have to fight my neighbors about the value of established trees that might hit their building, and can see the stars at night. At least for me this is a higher quality of life than any city no matter how well designed.
It's really cool that you can afford to do that. For those who can't, and must live in that city, people having options other than cars makes their lives better.
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