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cars specifically make life hellish for parents trying to take baby/toddlers on the subway, because absolutely enormous amounts of public money are spent on roads and highways, versus expanding, maintaining, and improving infrastructure and service standards on transit. many or most of your subway complaints, man alive, are really issues of investment in these things, not innate to the transportation mode. as it is, the deck is stacked, so, yeah, no surprise that driving works really well for some people; we've made it that way! we've built huge swaths of the country entirely around this mode of transportation! but at the expense of so much else.

I think man alive's points did implicitly address yours, Deflatormouse?

this?

, our society (at least in the US) is structurally set up to privilege driving in a way that's beyond most individuals' control.

which is why i am griping about ebikes upthread instead of cars

the subway in new york objectively sucks in a million ways compared to pretty much every other underground metro system i can think of. that’s not an argument for cars it’s an argument to stop starving the MTA of cash. a point you pretty much made with your bike lane story to be fair.

when you think of the number of people subways serve and the economic function of moving workers and consumers from place to place it’s just astonishing how poorly they’re funded. businesses ought to be donating large sums to their upkeep and improvement.

bordeaux - a famously conservative city! - has been working on a tram system for about 20 years now and at this point it is extremely good. it’ll take you to and from the airport, the train station, the universities, the outlying suburbs, etc. In fact, there is apparently a plan to ban cars from the entire urban centre (unless you live there). which will drastically reduce the hassle of driving for locals, and make it a nicer place to be for tourists and well, everybody else too

xxp yep cars make every other form of transit more miserable, if not extremely dangerous

xp to Dr Casino: that was kind of my point. Only I think structures drive individual behavior much more than the other way around. NYC is only as car-oriented as it is because of top-down decisions, and it only has as good a subway as it does for the same reason. You can brow beat people all you want, but they're just never going to take the 2 hour sweaty train or bus trip over the 45 minute air conditioned car trip if they can afford the latter, because that's just how humans are.

It's not "people driving cars" that make transit miserable, it's structural investment in car infrastructure and lack thereof in transit.

xp, right, so like it seems to me the way to address that in a place like nyc would be to give over the vast swathes of public space devoted to cars back to new yorkers by banning them

thereby making bicycles much safer, buses much faster etc etc

so that we can have green space instead of walking out the door into a concrete hellscape

so that we don't have to carry groceries across roads designed to accommodate bridge traffic etc etc

Pedestrians much safer.

yeah see ymp's post about the scooter, we are sharing the sidewalk with ebikes now, and even the occasional motorcycle because they feel too unsafe in the road

I kind of thought that was the way policy had been going in the last decade or two. E.g. a bunch of bus and bike lanes have been created, citibike, reducing parking in a lot of parts of Manhattan, pedestrian corridors, etc. But they need to also do things to make buses and subways much more user friendly - better maintenance, create spaces for strollers and/or grandma carts of groceries, make the buses easier to board, etc.

I was living in Queens when they built the bike lanes on Queens Blvd, which were tbf not terribly designed or terribly unsafe - they were separated from the main road and seemed fine. At the time we left they were still not getting much use and I don't really know why. For us they just didn't serve any purpose, because there weren't a lot of scenarios where we'd be going down Queens Blvd - everything was pretty much either local in the neighborhood and we walked to it, or we occasionally drove or took the subway for longer trips, but there weren't a lot of trips where "let's bike down Queens Blvd with the kids in a tow cart" would have been a feasible option. Maybe part of the problem is that patterns of living and working need more time to adjust.

TBF, aside from when you have a stroller or a lot of stuff, I think buses are actually a massively underappreciated mode of transit in NYC. In a lot of ways they're much more pleasant and easier than the subway.

if they were more frequent and didn’t feel about a billion years old and falling apart people would probably use the more. agree on the general superiority of the bus for many kinds of trips.

where I live, your public transportation is a really mediocre local rail (Sunrail) that doesn't even fuckin' operate on weekends or run anywhere near late enough to be effective, and covers only a tiny fragment of the city.

we finally have high speed rail between cities (i.e. like Orlando to Miami), which...fuckin' finally, but local transit? a joke, man.

or a bus system (Lynx) that doesn't remotely adhere to its schedule and makes 5-10 mile trips take hours, and half the time you get stranded mid-way through because you have to change buses so many times and invariably one of them either doesn't show up on time or blows by the stop. it's a complete joke. I once had my car towed and trying to take the bus to the tow yard took two hours, and it was like...5 miles away. this was pre-Uber.

eight years ago, my roommate tried to go car free and take the bus 3 miles to work each morning, it showed up so late every day that he was late to work constantly and they threatened to fire him, and the path to work is not well accommodated for cyclists at all (no bike lanes, and one of the most unsafe roads), so he wound up buying a car he couldn't afford.

I don't particularly love being beholden to a car, but man some cities give you little choice. and at this stage, the cat's out of the bag, so I don't see Central Florida getting much better in that regard, esp with Republicans in charge.

xxp i lived off Queens blvd in forest hills at one time
crossing was notoriously dangerous with many pedestrian deaths
i used to use the subway underpass just to cross the street for basic errands like grocery shopping.
bike lanes on Queens Blvd should be protected by concrete barriers from buses and ambulances etc, with no private cars.

Neanderthal for some reason i thought you live in the burbs.
i'm not familiar with your area, and i don't know how feasible banning private cars would be in most places but def think it is very feasible in nyc and especially Manhattan and this is absolutely the right place for it to happen

xxp i lived off Queens blvd in forest hills at one time
crossing was notoriously dangerous with many pedestrian deaths
i used to use the subway underpass just to cross the street for basic errands like grocery shopping.
bike lanes on Queens Blvd should be protected by concrete barriers from buses and ambulances etc, with no private cars.

― A street taco cart named Des'ree (Deflatormouse), Thursday, March 7, 2024 2:35 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, that's where I lived. Crossing QB was definitely dangerous (I had to do it every day to take my kid to preschool) and I sometimes used the underpass too, but I don't think safety was the reason almost no one used the bike lanes - they were in the service road and not in the main road, which was much less dangerous, and they had those yellow divider thingies between them and the car lane (cars would occasionally still double park or use them to go around other cars, but it didn't seem like a major issue).

Interestingly, I could hypothetically commute to my job on a single bus that stops relatively near my house. It's around 1 hour each way. But the car takes 15-20 minutes. It's hard to justify losing that time every day. Maybe I'll try it sometime just to see how it goes.

WRT Manhattan, I agree a near-ban on cars is plausible but I don't think you can do a complete ban. There are too many legit commercial uses, people with limited mobility, people with tons of stuff to transport, etc. And then it becomes a question of how you would limit cars to only those uses, but I assume that's part of the reason a lot of parking now in Manhattan is commercial vehicles only most of the time.

For me, the game-changer was being able to bring a bicycle or scooter ONTO the subway train. Making the last mile easier has been of significant benefit. Yes I can walk, but it's way faster on wheels.

i spend a lot of time in Vienna and i adore their investment into public transit. between the subway, street trams, buses, rail and drivers that actually respect the pedestrians/cyclists it's such a pleasure getting anywhere in that city. plus, they don't check for fares on the public transportation - only downside is if you haven't paid for the fare and you caught by patrol you're getting a heavy fine.

xxp do you remember when they put the bike lanes in? i'm fairly sure it was after i moved out (i def have no recollection of a bike lane on qnz blvd, and when i visit the area now i head straight for metropolitan ave, invariably)

buuut you also have to consider that for most people, part of their trip is going to require cycling down a road that doesn't have one. for me personally, and i'm sure many others- i would totally ride a bike if i didn't have to share the road with cars, but getting to and from the bike lanes is scary enough to put me off it completely.

some of the proposals to ban private cars in manhattan would still allow for taxis and rideshares, though i have mixed feelings about it. i can tell you that my health insurance covers door to door transportation to doctor visits (they'll send a shuttle if i request it in advance, not that i ever have). i feel like there are workarounds to everything you're saying, and that some of them are obvious if we don't privilege driving.

i think of the vehicle ban in ancient rome, how deliveries were required to be made overnight.

they don't check for fares on the public transportation - only downside is if you haven't paid for the fare and you caught by patrol you're getting a heavy fine.

this is many nyc buses now

cash strapped mta can't afford the fare evasion tho

i spend a lot of time in Vienna and i adore their investment into public transit. between the subway, street trams, buses, rail and drivers that actually respect the pedestrians/cyclists it's such a pleasure getting anywhere in that city. plus, they don't check for fares on the public transportation - only downside is if you haven't paid for the fare and you caught by patrol you're getting a heavy fine.

I lived in Switzerland for a while and the public transport there sounds similar to Vienna. Yes, Swiss Nazi gold lol but shit was so efficient and clean and well planned - and run on a similar trust system. Once a month, inspectors would be out in force dishing out fines. Even getting out to rural areas was well-planned. You'd get a train to a remote mountain area and there was a bus there waiting to take you the final step of the way (said bus would inevitably double up as a post bus as well).

It's not "people driving cars" that make transit miserable, it's structural investment in car infrastructure and lack thereof in transit.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, March 7, 2024 2:17 PM bookmarkflaglink

agreed! i think we're on the same page in terms of the basic issues here.

but how do we get from A to B? what's going to drive a change in structural investment/disinvestment? there are probably a lot of steps, but i think part of it has to be a culture shift around driving, the status of cars, how our social problems are defined. many, many drivers have to start seeing the landscape they live in, and the way they're made to live in it, as a problem (social, environmental, economic, etc.). because car people are going to have to get to where they will vote for things that are not 100% gigantic giveaways to cars, car people, and car usage.

like to take one example: "build more bike lanes" ---- great! however: the car people are going to vote against this. they come out to every local government meeting to rail against the ones that are already built. they oppose Departments of Transportation being led by people who would support them. they won't let it happen.

so the structural disinvestment continues; as we're all recognizing, the lanes themselves end up being ad hoc, partial, not networked, not really designed as if they're truly a key part of the transportation system. and that severely limits the safety, utility, and pleasantness of biking, so the lanes don't serve the people who need them, and don't shift anywhere close to the needed numbers away from driving. either the car people have to change, or everybody else has to out-organize them, or both.

the car people are going to vote against this.

boy wait until you meet 'vehicular cyclists'

so the structural disinvestment continues; as we're all recognizing, the lanes themselves end up being ad hoc, partial, not networked, not really designed as if they're truly a key part of the transportation system. and that severely limits the safety, utility, and pleasantness of biking, so the lanes don't serve the people who need them, and don't shift anywhere close to the needed numbers away from driving. either the car people have to change, or everybody else has to out-organize them, or both.

― not the one who's tryin' to dub your anime (Doctor Casino), Thursday, March 7, 2024 3:55 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This model just seems incorrect to me in terms of how politics and development work. Our society is organized around the car because of car and oil industry lobbyists, not because of some voter preference. The voter preference is only at the micro level -- people who are already stuck for work and affordability reasons living in car-oriented exurbs might make "ease the traffic" a factor in their votes. So what do you think is going to fix that, punish the "car people" with even more traffic? No, you need large-scale structural changes that are beyond the purview of individual voters' immediate preferences in an election cycle.

I think Measure HLA passed in Los Angeles yesterday?

man alive, i agree about the industrial lobbyist thing up to a point. but now that those lobbyists have created this car-centric world, there are millions of people who have bought into it, both ideologically and literally/economically. and those people absolutely show up to support the conservative car-centric policies of city, county and state DOTs, and to yammer on in the comments under every article that so much as mentions a bicycle, a congestion tax, a train, etc.

they may be parroting industry BS talking points, but they are part of the political landscape. they block good things from happening.

yeah true that there are always the knee-jerk anti-bike types. I just don't think "make driving harder" is the solution, unless making driving harder is a mere byproduct of making another form of transit easier. And I also find a lot of myopia in the bike/anti-car activist community to the lifestyles of childless young office workers.

My region is extremely bike-friendly, there are extensive trail networks that are all interconnected. However, we also have to deal with some pretty dramatic altitude changes. I feel like if I lived someplace flatter, like Illinois, biking would be more pleasant.

u kno whats cool to keep on track?

threads

^ uncool conservative belief

man alive i just finished The Pushcart War w my 12-y-o and this thread is giving me flashbacks lol. you MUST have read it.

i'm on the same page about structural reform
and also changing attitudes
that is to say i actually think you're right that making driving harder won't solve the problem

what galls is that you seem to regard mass transit use as a kind of martyrdom

when in fact driving is an immense privilege that many people can't enjoy
and makes things worse for everyone else
maybe not where you live now but certainly in forest hills
and you know this

Making driving harder might not solve "the" problem but it absolutely makes life better. ie low-traffic neighbourhoods like in London

https://madeby.tfl.gov.uk/2020/12/15/low-traffic-neighbourhoods/

yeah i am pro-making driving harder tbc

i have a cousin who lives in Port Washington, a few mins walk from the LIRR station there
giving her as an example because that is probably the most comfortable commuter rail line in and out if nyc and the one with the best service (i've ridden most of them)
i mean you can't make public transit much easier than that

she also hates driving, she us a very nervous driver

this is why she takes the railroad in to visit me:
not enough public parking spaces
too much $ to park in a garage

that's the only reason

Port Washington commute is a dream. I remember taking the train in from a college friends house there. Compared to my hour and 15 minute trip from past Babylon, it felt like you blinked and were in penn station.

i mean the essence of the issue is that driving has been made way, way too easy! its attractiveness is propped up by its real costs being socialized and externalized, from the POV of the driver. so the solution kinda has to involve "make driving harder," or it's not a serious solution imho.

thank you, yes!
the core issue is def that driving is way, way too comfortable and easy

where i agree with man alive- i think- is that it is SO easy and SO comfortable that making it incrementally more difficult isn't going to discourage it effectively enough

i really do like the solution of banning it outright

i like the idea of candidates proposing very radical reforms that at first seem too radical to most people but bring the problems to wider attention over a few election cycles, with the goal of ultimately "out-organizing the car people"

this is admittedly half-baked

I love going on public transport, great bunch of lads

The main issue with travelling by bus in London are the constant roadworks.

... and stupid car drivers, of course.

im beginning to think posting is too easy tbh

Late to the convo but specifically where I lived in a UK city, the bus was regularly easier than a car with a stroller - could just wheel it onto the bus (not at busy times, and sometimes it's a gamble as to whether the two stroller/wheelchair spaces are full) but buses were frequent enough that not bothering with parking, strapping into car seats, dismantling and folding up the stroller was totally worth it.

I bus to work for two main reasons: bus lane that zips through most of the INSANE rush hour queues (drivers hate it because it makes more rush-hour queues for them) and cost of parking near my job. I could apply for a permit but not really worth it. Downside is you need to allow several times over your journey length which is not always possible when you have childcare pickup deadlines, meetings, etc. Also, the bus is currently subsidised so costs me £4 a day but would probably double when this ends. And the biggest downside is the bus between my town and the city only goes one route and stops in the centre. If you need to be far from that route your bus issues double so that is when it becomes not worth it.

There is also a Clean Air Zone charge but would not affect my car - I think people tend to go round rather than public transport.

I love going on public transport, great bunch of lads

― Daniel_Rf

this to me is the biggest challenge with public transport... i live in a city with a fantastic public transportation system. it's less convenient than driving, particularly in a culture built around everything happening at a _precise specific time_. the buses often don't run on time. i'm privileged to _not_ have every second of my time monitored, but when i was younger, when i wasn't working the "professional" job i do now, i was monitored that way... what's important to a lot of people is _perfect attendance_, being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there, even if there's no particular need for it. that kind of thing was a lot easier when i had a car.

the bigger issue is that you do regularly run into... i don't know what the proper word is for it. like i'm not wanting to stigmatize anybody for being mentally ill - i'm chronically and seriously mentally ill myself. people whose behavior is scary. yes, i'm a middle-aged white woman, and that definitely colors my responses, but to be clear "scary" isn't code for "black". the people who behave this way are nearly always white. if you're white you're pretty unlikely to get shot for behaving that way. a couple of weeks ago it was someone ranting about how he was being farmed for meat. when that's people's experience with public transport, yeah, people are going to avoid riding public transport. i don't have a solution, but that's probably an uncool conservative belief. it's totally understandable that people would avoid public transport because they feel uncomfortable around people loudly saying scary things.

so many liminal exurbs would have to be razed to the ground to make a car ban work. Let’s do it!!!

you know, we could start with Manhattan, and extend to much of Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens

xp aaaaand we're back on track!
i think "there but for the grace of god", that could be me in 10 years. but so far i have only yelled scary shit at home

i mean the essence of the issue is that driving has been made way, way too easy! its attractiveness is propped up by its real costs being socialized and externalized, from the POV of the driver. so the solution kinda has to involve "make driving harder," or it's not a serious solution imho.

― not the one who's tryin' to dub your anime (Doctor Casino), Thursday, March 7, 2024 7:13 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I fundamentally disagree with this. Making driving harder does not cause viable transit options to appear, and banning cars outright is significantly politically harder to achieve than building better transit options. Make transit attractive. Going back to Berlin again, not that I tried it with kids, but the transit and bike options were both so pleasant and enjoyable that just taking trams and trains around the city was a good experience for its own sake. The NYC subway by contrast is fucking unpleasant. Don't pretend that's just some kind of privilege thing, you know it is, everyone knows it is. I'm not saying it's the worst thing - I relied on it for many, many years. Cities all over the world have more pleasant and humane transit systems, even some US cities (the DC metro, e.g.).

Even in my suburb, virtually everyone who works in the city commutes by train (NB: I don't work in the city anymore, I work 20 minutes from my house in another suburb). The only reason to drive into the city is when you're going somewhere that takes way longer by train than it does by car (e.g. Brooklyn). Making driving from here harder is not going to rectify anything, it's just going to mean people making fewer discretionary trips into the city, which I don't really think is the goal, and is in fact bad for the city.

It really sounds like some of you just resent cars and car owners and want to punish them, and that is not really effective policy.

I guess to qualify that, yes, the solution may "involve" making driving harder, but that should be as a byproduct, not as the focus in itself. E.g. enact congestion pricing for the express purpose of funding a specific transit project and tell the public that.