my area doesnt even have sidewalks
US rah rah
Because to them, ‘car’ and ‘vehicle’ mean the same thing.
Autonomous vehicles work better on rails. Also without having to deal with pedestrians.
And when space efficient enough to allow for a livable city.
Except that they have much lower rolling resistance and much longer lifespans of both the road and the tires.
Are you trying to argue seriously that cars are more efficient than trains?
I find these discussions seem to be dominated by young urbanites. People who don’t need a car to get around as opposed to the huge number of people who live in areas that require a car to function. They are also physically able to bike many miles every day in any weather.
I took public transportation when I lived in a big city and was glad to have it but anytime I needed to go beyond a limited area in the city I needed a car. Now I live in an area with very limited public transportation and very very little is in walking distance and biking for my needs is not an alternative. Frequently using 100% public transportation routes would increase your travel time by a large amount, time you may not have or want to sacrifice. If you live in country like France it seems like the transit unions have a stranglehold on the nation as they can shut down everyone at will, if you have a car you at least have an alternative. There are also breakdown issues, maintenance shutdowns, etc. You also run into the last mile issue a lot. Where you need to go is frequently not a reasonable distance from the stop. I usually needed a car to get to the train stations for instance.
huge number of people who live in areas that require a car to function
That is exactly the problem. Areas that require a car to function shouldn’t exist. That’s what those “young urbanites” are arguing for.
And there are a lot of great point there about mixed zoning, but nuance is important. Should small towns with nearly nothing available locally, where you have to travel outside of town for most things just not exist? Even if they do have train connections (as they often do where I live, in Europe), you usually only have one train every 1-2 hours unless there’s some specific significance to your town.
Improving things is a nice goal, but it often feels like here that people just want to eliminate anything that doesn’t conform to their ideals of how the world should be like.
You’re stating exactly what this community is about in your first paragraph. Why should they only have trains every 1-2 hours? That is the problem. What people here argue for is for the elimination of the need for cars. A car should be a situational tool, not an everyday need.
Nobody wants to eliminate small towns, this is about improving the quality of life for the people who live in them.
The reason they only have trains every 1-2 hours though is that that’s the frequency at which they’re operating at a desirable occupancy. You can probably popularize trains somewhat and increase it slightly, but not even close to enough to solve the problem that way.
The other option is smaller, more frequent trains. And yeah, automation could probably help there, but that’s the niche cars fill currently: personalized transport that’s effective and low-latency for your particular need. I do feel like this community has an affinity to reject that though, because the higher you scale each vehicle the better efficiency you get, but everyone who uses the system pays for that in scheduling and wait times.
It’s a chicken and egg situation. They don’t have occupancy because people already have cars. And while it continues like that, cars will remain the only option. The argument is when you’re in that situation, you don’t build more roads. You improve the public transport infrastructure.
I’m fairly sure it’s an equilibrium thing. Like yes, if you suddenly told a bunch of people that they have to use trains for the next year, trains would get more frequent, and things would be better for everyone. However, they likely wouldn’t be better enough to completely sway everyone, so after the year ends a bunch of people would switch back, trains would get more infrequent, therefore more inconvenient, others would switch back again, and you’d end up in the same spot. People who used trains before would think that one year was the shit, but everyone who opted out would cite the inconvenience even during that year of heightened frequency. (It would take a while to settle back though.)
Whether it’s this or a spiral depends on the magnitude of the change the popularity of trains would have on the experience of using trains. And the thing is, increased frequency still doesn’t solve all the gripes, so I don’t see it spiraling anytime soon.
For example, for my commute, I time it so that I leave the house at the exact right moment so I only have to wait 1-2 minutes at the station, a necessary buffer to account for imprecision both on the train’s part and on mine. On the return trip, I leave mostly randomly but trains are more frequent at that specific part of the day, so I have to wait about 6 minutes on average. Waiting accounts for about 8 minutes on average out of, let’s be generous, my daily total 110 minute commute.
The daily total by car would be 60 minutes. It would be free of annoying people who listen to music without earbuds, smoke in crowded places (and often around the only entrances/exits!), and push you around on a crowded train. It would have significantly lower exposure to adverse weather, require less physical exertion, and it would be free of the stress of being on time or paying for it with sometimes 15-20 minutes of your life. I don’t know how you can fix any of that with better public transport.
With all that said I do still use public transport, but I totally understand anyone who doesn’t. If you can replicate the convenience of cars with public transport without requiring everyone to live exclusively in large cities, I’m all ears, but until then, I don’t think you’ll be able to fully eradicate car culture. And that does come with the recognition that cars are way more popular nowadays than they have any right to be, often due to shitty zoning and city design, but there’s a lot you just can’t do with public transport.
You keep misrepresenting the position I’m trying to explain. No one wants to eliminate cars completely from the face of the earth (well I’m sure someone does, but that’s not what’s being talked about). As I said before, cars should be a situational tool, not an everyday necessity for everyone.
All that only further proves the point that current public transport infrastructure in your area is insufficient.
So vast swaths of the earth should be depopulated? Hold on while they open the camps…
Who’s saying that? Don’t put words in my mouth. Maybe read before kneejerking.
That was a bit exaggerated, but tbh. areas where you have to use the car should be the exception, not the rule. Places where you have to drive to do stuff are a nightmare for everyone too old, too young or otherwise not able/allowed to drive or to afford a car.
I would have to drive about 45 minutes to get to any form of public transport that isn’t a school bus.
Wow, that sucks. We should definitely build some transit near you so you aren’t so isolated. You need some freedom.
yeah I think its aimed to help fix the high traffic areas, for me when I was able to take the train from near my home to near my work it was amazing, it went pretty much parallel to the highways so you could drive and maybe get there a little faster but riding the train made it so you had time to play game boy or read a book instead of staring at the bumper in front of you in traffic. more trains and public transportation for commuting and cars for leisure like going on a road trip to go camping
All we honestly need is a few community shared self driving cars in each neighborhood to fix the last mile issue with mass transit, but the fuck cars absolutists often would rather have trains built to every houses doorstep than admit cars could still hold a purpose.
Well see the problem with self driving cars is that most of them put out PM2.5 pollution that gives asthma and lung cancer to little kids.
Young people often have the tendency to be both ageist and ableist at times.
Hi, I’m disabled and I can’t drive. Stop fucking calling the transit and walkability movement ableist. The transit and walkability movement has been life-saving to people like me.
I understand and I’m glad you’ve benefitted from it, but you’re ignoring the large number of people with disabilities that cannot walk any significant distance, while they can still drive. Old people also have an easier time driving than they do walking long distances and using public transit. Hell, I personally know plenty of people who choose to drive because they can’t walk for long without someone actively assisting them, even though they can still drive. My sibling, in fact, is one of them; the ‘transit and walkability’ movement doesn’t give two shits about them, however.
I’m not against more public transport and foot access; in fact, as an able-bodied young male who doesn’t want unnecessary debt or to be stuck in traffic, I’d prefer it. However, let’s not pretend that a lot of people haven’t been completely forgotten by the ‘lul fuck cars’ crowd.
Dutch style microcars are a greener and safer solution to physical disability and aging than full size full speed cars. Especially when you’re talking about elderly people with deteriorating eyesight and slower reactions. Car dependency helps a precious few disabled people while leaving the rest of us up shit creek and contributing to the extinction of the human species. The transit and walkability movement has a solution for everyone.
Yeah, cuz people don’t need to shop. Also, I’m sorry if people like my sibling fall into a ‘precious few’ but you’re gonna need to get everyone on board if you’re selling accessibility.
The transit and walkability movement has a solution for everyone.
Clearly.
I don’t know who told you that you couldn’t, but you can park a microcar at a shop.
People need space to put stuff, and there’s only so much that can be put into a dinky-ass microcar’s boot. Not to mention, people travel in groups too.
Couldn’t agree more. Being single in my twenties presented very different needs and capabilities than being a pregnant mother, or an aging single mom taking care of even more aging parents.
There are few topics that reveal privilege and ignorance faster than this one. It’s a hallmark of immaturity to think there’s a simple answer to ANY social problem.
Yep if you’ve been around for several decades, and traveled around a diverse selection of urban and rural areas, you will likely reach the obvious conclusion that cars are a significant magnifier of personal freedom. If you don’t have a car, you can’t just leave your home and get in the vehicle and go anywhere you want. But when you do have a car, you can immediately travel, and go anywhere that roads do. And with certain vehicles, you don’t even need roads and you can go anywhere the terrain doesn’t physically block your path.
If you get a referral to a specialist, you cannot reach them with public transpo from my town. And our bus circuit encompasses three small towns and the nearby military base.
You have to have your own transportation to make it to either of the metro centers 30-45 minutes away.
I’m too disabled to drive, I don’t live in a city, and I only bike between 0.5 and 1 km per day. I don’t have the slightest need for a car and I can still do whatever I want.
Be nice if we had trams tho
I’m flattered that you think I am young or an urbanite.
Because then they keep the “freedom” of driving, but without the guilt of pollution. That and, I mean, the community is called “fuck cars.” Obviously someone not taking a closer look at the true root of what this community wants (city planning that isn’t car-centric) would just think “but electric cars ain’t bad.”
Bicycles are one of the most energy-efficient ways to travel, and electric ones even more so. But absolutely no one refers to them as “vehicles”…
Of course they’re vehicles. When you’re riding a bicycle you are operating a vehicle in traffic, like any other. What would you call them otherwise?
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say nobody refers to vehicles as bikes
Because a train isn’t going to drive me from home to anywhere that’s not a train station.
instead of creating more car infrastructure we could make more train or tram/metro infrastructure to make sure there’s always a station a walkable distance from where you want to be
For planning future communities, sure. It does not make sense to try to shoehorn trains into many parts of the cities we have today.
why not
How about shoehorning roads? Do they make more sense? Cause that’s what’s happening in a lot of places. My town had electric trams and big green spaces downtown in the 50s, but they’ve extinguished the tram lines and demolished the green spaces to build freeways cutting straight through historic neighbourhoods.
Of course not. If neighborhoods are being built with proper transit in mind, why would I ask for unnecessary roads…
not above ground.
Works for cities, doesn’t work outside cities or for small countries.
That is not entirely correct. Look for example at Switzerland.
Sure, there are limits, you probably won’t have a train station at every farm 50 miles from everything else, but you also don’t need large cities to make it work at all.
So because the infrastructure doesn’t exist at this moment, it can’t ever exist?
Are you arguing trains will one day stop wherever they want because those are called trams not trains
I’m arguing that public transit can expand from where it currently is.
And I’m agreeing but saying that’s an innovation we already have lol
It seems a lot of this argument comes from an idea that trains need tracks but cars can go anywhere. This is patently untrue.
Are roads cheaper than tracks? I don’t think so, but I would love to hear what evidence others have.
I mean, trains -do- need tracks. When they don’t, they become cars/buses, for all intents and purposes.
As to prices, from a quick search, tracks are more expensive per mile, but I didn’t see anything talking about maintenance cost. Hopefully these sources are reliable:
- 3-4 million USD per mile (~2020 prices) for train tracks, assuming flat rural terrain - https://www.freightwaves.com/news/commentary-do-you-want-to-build-a-freight-railroad
- ~2 million USD per mile (2014 prices) for highway, assuming flat rural terrain - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-a-mile-of-road-actually-cost
As someone who works in rail infrastructure management, answer is yes, roads are cheaper than railway network. Hell yes actually, by a factor of at least 10 for electrified railway. A poorly maintained road is uncomfortable and you might damage your car, a poorly maintained railway means derailment and fatalities.
What if there were more than one type of railroad?
I don’t think that’s the right metric, tbh. Even if you swapped out every paved road with a train track, they would not have anywhere near the same utility as trains. Trains have much higher capacity and efficiency but much lower granularity than cars, they fit into a different part of the problem domain of logistics. And while yes, using cars as a one size fits all solution sucks, the same is true for trains – hell, at least while inefficient AF, cars do actually function in this environment, while trains are flat out incapable of addressing our modern day logistical needs.
Also, fairly sure dirt roads are hella cheap.
My point isn’t that we shouldn’t reduce cars, it’s that reduce and eliminate are different things. And as long as cars exist, it’s hella stupid to object any improvement in them. (The self-driving thing is in fact stupid though, but that’s because it’s proven to be a ridiculously hard problem that we do not yet have adequate solutions for, not because it’s not something that would be helpful if we managed to crack it.)
You’ve got legs, and if you can afford a few hundred dollars you’ve got wheels. By all rights, anywhere you need to go ought to be walking distance from a train station. The reason it’s not anymore, is that Americans demolished their cities to build parking, and now everything’s too far away.
European here. This is so ridiculously wrong and dismissive.
For one, no, even a country with far higher population density than the US doesn’t cover everything with rail. That’s a highly privileged city-dweller take (and I do live in cities and feel kinda uncomfortable in rural towns because it feels like there’s nothing to do). Because yes, in a large city you do have a ton of options within easy walking distance from subways and light rails, but that’s not even close to the case for everything else. Once you leave the big city everything is also too far away in Europe, for more mainstream things you’re stuck with lower quality local establishments (or you luck out and have one of the best ones nearby in your proverbial backyard, but it doesn’t apply for everyone) and for more niche things, everything is just prohibitively far away.
For two, “anywhere you need to go”? How do you decide that? Like do you not have friends or relatives who live a little further away, or in a logistically hard to reach place? Do you not have hobbies for which the locations are just hella hard to reach by public transport? Hell, with the design those networks can get sometimes even nearby places can be super far away – for example, here in Budapest lines for getting into the inner city and out are very well built out (although, minor nitpick, they’re often buses, not trams or trains), but moving laterally along the outskirts of the city is next to impossible. There’s a pretty good supermarket near me with many different options that I’d need about 1.5 hours to get to, one way. It’s about 15 minutes by car.
And speaking of, for three, you fail to account for time constraints. Scheduling is a major issue, I have literally never faced a situation where going by car wouldn’t have been nearly twice as fast as it is with public transport. I’m lucky enough to only be a single train ride away from my workplace, no transfers necessary, but my commute is still an hour one way, while it could be 30 minutes by car. That’s an hour every office day (thankfully we’re hybrid) that I’m never gonna get back. Similarly, while yes, you can get nearly everywhere by some form of public transport (very unlikely that you get literally everything covered by rail though, unless you live in a large city), there are a lot of places that take a ridiculously long time to get to, and the further out you live from the city center the more you’re exposed to that effect.
Trains are awesome, but they’re not a one size fits all solution.
The logical conclusion for all the problems you’ve listed is: build better public transport infrastructure. All those are arguments against car culture, not for it.
Yeah, we sway toward cars way too much, and the US is even worse in that regard. My points were just that
- being dismissive about people’s concerns won’t win us any favors, and
- cars cannot yet be displaced entirely, so making them greener is always a benefit
We can have multiple solutions working in parallel to address these issues. In fact, that’s the only way we’ll see any result, since the problematic systems weren’t built one by one either. And we also need to be on the lookout for people pitting us against each other: it’s one of the oil lobby’s favorite pastimes to push people toward solutions with less and less real-world viability in a reasonable term, and convince them that the actually short-term viable solutions are dangerous because they only half solve the problem and society is going to get stuck with the half-solution.
We need better public transport, and we need electric cars, and we need both yesterday. You can be against car culture while accepting that car culture won’t disappear overnight so having it fuck up the earth less over its remaining lifetime would still be a benefit.
We can have multiple solutions working in parallel to address these issues.
Exactly, that’s the whole point I’m making. Just because cars can’t be displaced entirely doesn’t mean they can’t be displaced where possible. And it’s possible in many more situations than current car culture would lead you to believe.
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Another similar thing that I hate are countries that require bicycles to have pedals and be power-assist only.
This is fair I think. In Europe, to be classified as a bicycle, you have power/speed limits and assist requirement. However you get to ride on paths that are designed for bicycle speeds (often adjacent or mixed with pedestrians), don’t require any license or training, can go against traffic in many one way streets etc. It makes sense to limit the use of all that stuff to bicycle like vehicles.
However you can have other types of electric bikes, they just aren’t bicycles by law any more, which makes sense in my opinion. Want to go scooter/motorcycle speeds and twist throttle and all that stuff, you also need the correct license, insurance and have to drive on the road that is designed for higher speeds.
Granted, one could argue about the specifics of the distinction, but in my opinion there definitely needs to be a distinction in the law and you have to draw the line somewhere.
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If it’s about limiting it to bicycle type speeds, that could be done separately.
Yeah, but at least in some legislations, there already is a class of vehicles that is limited to those speeds but isn’t classified as a bicycle. In Germany, a Mofa is a motorized bicycle but requires a helmet and a simple license and insurance.
I guess the idea was to include electric bicycles into the bicycle category only with some strict distinctions to avoid blurring the line to already existing motorized two wheelers. And I do like that I can ride my electric bike everywhere I can ride a non assisted bicycle and without any stricter rules for equipment etc.
As an aside, IMO riding a bicycle or any vehicle on roads as opposed to a vehicle specific path for any considerable length of time should require having to get a permit and maybe even a license and insurance, because participating in it is much more about the flow of traffic than the characteristics of a particular vehicle.
That would be a huge loss of freedom though, insurance and thus license requirements would raise the barrier to entry massively which is exactly the opposite of what you want. Same with requirements for helmet or permit and it would seriously limit the independence of teenagers. There just isn’t a separate path away from car traffic everywhere.
It makes sense to have requirements on maximum size, weight and speed to go in the bike lane. But having rules about the design or operation of the vehicle is just unnecessary bureaucracy. In the Netherlands you can’t even ride an electric skateboard.
But having rules about the design or operation of the vehicle is just unnecessary bureaucracy.
Actually, it is probably just to fit in with existing legislation. A motorized vehicle with a top speed of 25 km/h in Germany already exists (Mofa), you need a simple license and wear a helmet. And you can’t use cycle lanes etc. So to make electric bicycles distinct from that category, they needed to add some differences.
Just an add here … Pedestrian fatalities are up, largely due to huge vehicles in general. But EVs tend to be very heavy because of the batteries. So collisions tend to be very unpleasant.
Can confirm. Rode a 1000w electric bike to work every day and couldn’t wait to get a car after all the near-misses I had. It’s even more dangerous than a pedal bike cause no one expects a bicycle to be going almost 30 MPH. Almost got hit at least 3-4 time from people turning right cause they didn’t expect me to be inside the intersection so soon.
They’re a lot of fun for recreation but not as a daily driver, unless you have a suicide wish.
Had a friend die doing 60mph on a pedal bike down a hill. He got hit by a car, people blamed the car but he was on the wrong side of the road around the bend and the car was only doing 15mph. I just want to live, we are all headed underground. Just a different speeds.
It’s almost as of going 50kph with a bicycle isnt a good idea to begin with
I know a guy who hit a pothole on an electric bike, bounced him off…he broke his neck on the landing.
He’s doing alright now, he reffed basketball for decades and the community really is rallying around him to support but he’ll never recover to 100%.
There’s a risk with these things that should be factored in to the cost benefit.
It sounds like the only reason they’re dangerous in this case is that cars are on the road. Since cars are unethical and should be banned, I don’t see why electric bikes would be any problem in a sensible society.
No, e-bikes with these specs are considered vehicles just like motorcycles (in the EU) and need to follow the same rules.
For example, you can’t overtake people on the right, because it’s stupid and dangerous (and illegal). And assuming the other guy meant he almost had near-misses while riding on the bike path - e-bike hauling ass at 30MPH has no place on any bike path, it’s dangerous for everyone around.
It sounds like the person above lives in one of those countries where they drive on the right, so the bike lane would be to the right of the cars. So that person is just using the bike lane normally and cars are turning through the bike lane without looking, which is illegal.
If you’re going 50km/h on a bike line, absolutely no one driving car is expecting you to arrive to the crossing in 3 seconds from 50 meters away.
You absolutely have to slow down to a crossing on a bicycle, motorized or not. And this is coming form an cyclist who doesn’t own a car or a license.
Edit: also if you’re speeding like that on bike lanes where others are going on average less than half your speed, you’re causing danger to others.
Ride like maniac and die like maniac
America has high speed multilane roads with as many turnoffs and driveways as a street. They’re called stroads. Maybe the person above is having problems with those.
Plus I heard there have been a lot of battery fires.
I feel like the EV business got ahead of itself, cars, bikes, trucks. Some of these companies that went public are heading for bankruptcy.
Then there’s the usual disrespect for bike riders. I ride mostly off-road. But I’ve been nearly run over by both cars and horses.
Sodium Ion batteries can possibly solve all of our major issues with EVs and even solar / wind power storage. They are starting to be commercially available already.
The advantages of Sodium Ion batteries are that they don’t require the rare earth minerals like lithium and cobalt that LiPO / LiFePO batteries do, AND they are non-flammable. They have slightly less energy density than lithium type batteries, so they need to be a bit larger for the same capacity, but not as much larger as old-school lead batteries would be for the equivalent capacity.
I was ignorant of this technology. It gives me hope.
Larger physical body - that has a higher impact point on a human - has a much greater chance to kill someone, than if it was a lower impact point.
Not to mention the reduction in visibility.
Sauce: https://twitter.com/FreckleEars/status/1624137853872574475/photo/1
The line of sight numbers are telling. Thank you for providing this information.
See and I get the opposite problem.
I wanted to buy an electric motorcycle since I use my old gas bike to make the same trip for work two times a month. The trip is 215 km and only goes though one town (about 45 km from one end). This is easy with most gas motorcycles and I thought that an EV version of a hwy cruiser should have no issue with say a 250 km range (since I stay the night I can charge from a slow plug).
Well let me tell you how frustrating “city” brain is about EVs. I mostly got e-bikes (like a bicycle) tossed at me, and the few that make the cut (Damon HyperSport, for example) are geared like a rocket and all the stats are based on city riding. 200 km max speed and no hwy gearing is stupid, but hey CITY CITY CITY! Where are the non insane vehicles? I don’t want to ride a 0-60 in <3 second monster, I don’t want to be curled up for 3 hours on a crotch rocket, and I don’t want to deal with an app just to charge. We don’t all live in your cities, some that do need to leave said cities, and until a normal non toy like EV vehicle hits the market the wider world will lump it all in the same bullshit pile.
I don’t have the option for a public transit, hell they killed the trains and buses off even if I wanted to do the milk run.
This made me curious; but I feel like there’s two issues.
One, the whole demographic for motorcycles is lugnuts revving their engine. Generally, they’re not all that practical, and more of a personality/lifestyle choice. The closest thing in other countries is scooters, which are a cheap and common option but not viable for highways.
The second is fuel density. Electric cars can slip battery into all the hidden corners, but bikes have less room.
It doesn’t seem like an impossible problem to solve, but it might come slowly just because of the first one.
I was avoiding cars as the OP was talking everything but. EVs in that market are just as bad for silly issues. I would like to see a basic as shit EV but the market seems to be the other way (Hummers and Model Xs etc). I was also more angry that all the EV motorcycles lie about range as they are set up for city (geared low for that EV power but can not maintain Hwy speeds).
I used a motorcycle for many years as my only transportation and in many places in the world it still is a mainstay. I think we agree that the EVs now are built for as you put it “lugnuts”. The density issue is a red herring as a EV Motorcycle is just a motor bolted to a massive battery (other then the rider there is no wasted weight). But the issue is they are made with no gearing and a over sized motor. The gas burning 37 year old Honda I ride now had when new 42hp and is more then fast enough for modern roads whereas the EVs now are all over 100hp without gearing, its annoying to see range charts like this:
City: 187 miles (301 km) Highway: 55 mph (89 km/h) 114 miles (183 km) — Combined: 142 miles (229 km) Highway, 70 mph (113 km/h): 93 miles (150 km) — Combined: 124 miles (200 km)
This is for a Zero SR/F and they advertise 301 km range. The real world range is 150km.
I would love to say take the train, but my destination does not have FM radio let alone any options not on a road.
I am thinking I will have to do a conversion of something if I ever move to EV and that sucks!
I can’t wait for the REM (bottom left picture) to open, it’s in less than a week!! After so many years, at last.
I just bought an electric motorbike, design is like a Vespa. I love it. Top speed kinda sucks but I love it. I’d love to take a train or bus instead but there is literally no line between my work and home that doesn’t involve a longer walk than the ride itself.
Care to share the one you’ve bought? 🧐 I’m also considering one
I bought a Segway/ninebot e300se. It has a range of wltc ~85km (or ~130 with a 3rd battery) and a top speed of 100km/h and it cost as much as an high end electric bicycle.
https://eu-en.segway.com/products/segway-escooter-e300se
Note, apparently, that former US brand doesn’t sell in the US. .
This video explains really well exactly why transit is better than cars: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=j4s9WDDRE2A
This one too: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=WiI1AcsJlYU
I also like to point to this graphic:
Cars are just an insanely inefficient way to move people around in cities.
I would like to provide this XKCD in case the last graphic was too helpful.
I take issue with this graphic. It is disingenuous to imply that foot traffic isn’t the highest density form of transit. You can’t load a train with other trains. People have to walk.
You forgot to account speed. Trains go something between 20-40+ times (or far more if you account carriage) faster than average person walking. This increases the throughput of the lane massively.
Odd take. You don’t load trains from the front, you load them from the side. A suburban rail lets you turn ~5 3.5m wide “lanes” of pedestrian traffic into a single equivalent lane of rail.
Wouldn’t things like trains and buses be more dense because you can design them to have multiple floors?
This is, of course, not true for all of them but it’s definitely the case in many places.
But you can’t disrupt an industry without cars! The shareholders won’t like that! /s
To everyone reading this comment. Remember that all “disrupting” ever meant was using venture capitalist’s money to undercut the prices of existing services with a crappy mobile app tacked on. No “disrupting” startup has proven to be sustainable or profitable in the long term. That’s one of the factors in the most recent wave of tech massive layoffs. AirBnB, Uber, the millions of food delivery apps, even Netflix, their value proposition dies when they have to charge for the actual costs of operation.
Wait, what about autonomous bicycles?
are you actually seriously addicted to hard drugs ?
→→ \s ←←
Sometimes people try to make jokes.
Accusing people who said something you didn’t like of drug addiction isn’t very poggers
its a joke
No, jokes are funny
ok well sorry, liberal, its called dark humour.
(again this is an attempt at a joke ok.)
![[meme] Why do people only seem to mean cars when they talk about electric and/or autonomous vehicles?](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8b4f07d2-ffe9-468c-a7da-0e970998b67f.png){kind=link}