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Comment by AlwaysRock | Hacker News Reader

I cant tell if this is a sarcastic comment or not. I have a car in Chicago. There are no parking spaces in my apartment building. Street parking is the only non $250+ a month option. I did not have a car here until we needed one to be able to travel during COVID (to avoid taking public transit during the pandemic).

I can not buy land outside the city to park my car. I can not afford a second car payment to rent a monthly spot. City parking is really my only option to avoid taking public transit and risk getting and spreading COVID.

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> City parking is really my only option to avoid taking public transit and risk getting and spreading COVID.

You didn't need to buy a car and avoid taking public transit to risk getting and spreading COVID. Likely every single one of the places you've gone by car have been more risky than taking the train or bus.

Multiple research articles have found no link between public transport and the spread of COVID, even when looking at places like Seoul and Tokyo where transit use is much higher. The risk of catching COVID is higher at the grocery store than on a bus.

I sympathize with why you thought you needed to do that and I genuinely hope you will dispose of the vehicle once the pandemic is over. Humans are terrible at evaluating risk, and people's sudden impulse to buy a car when that's not where the risk lies is an example of this.

Places like seol and tokyo probably have a much higher per capita mask usage rate. Ive seen bus drivers in Los Angeles with their masks around their chin. Even after LA times reported metro operators were dying.

There are 2.7 million people in Chicago city, it's total area is 234.21 square miles. Taht's 11,500 people per square mile

Are you really suggesting that 7% of Chicago's entire land area be given away for free to car owners -- because if everyone owned one car you'd need 1.7 million square feet to park them. That's in addition to the space used for those cars to move around which is at least as much.

If you don't own a car, how can you claim your free space?

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