Hacker News Reader

Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

> From my perspective it's not "hoodwinked" so much as 70 years of car dependent infrastructure development and car companies practicing capitalism.

And Cuba has cars because...? Every country where people can afford cars, they buy them. If they can't afford them, they make a car they can afford.

Parent brought up people spending $700/mo to own a car. You can get a car much cheaper. Why do people buy nice cars? The person who hates mowing their lawn doesn't buy a fancy lawnmower. People buy nice cars because they like nice cars and want nice cars.

Personal vehicles solve a lot of problems that public transportation doesn't. If you only view cars as a way from point A to point B, you won't ever understand why cars are so critically important, desired and fought for.

View on HN

I think we're talking past each other a bit. I think that the degree to which America is car dependent is ridiculously stupid for our safety, solvency of our cities, and enjoyment of everyday life. In Europe, many people are comparably rich but there are far fewer cars. There is also significantly better public transit.

If your entire city is designed for cars, and there are some buses that sit in traffic with everyone else, I'm not surprised that people buy cars. It doesn't mean that's what they want - it's just the only option.

In the end I think viable alternatives should be available. I think it's stupid to drive 15 miles into a city on the same 8 lane highway as everyone when 1 or 2 train tracks could meet the same demand and function (and a streetcar/subway/walk for the rest of the journey).

I do not think cars shouldn't exist. I think they're completely necessary for tons of people at the moment, but I think we should invest in other options that are working extremely well in other places.

> when 1 or 2 train tracks could meet the same demand and function

They can't.

You are treating cars as a way to get from point A to point B. Trains and buses are ways to do that. If cars were just a way to go from your home to downtown, you can in fact replace them with a train.

Yet if you build even very nice, very expensive trains that run frequently.. a bunch of people will still use cars. The train does not replace the car.

A car is both a set of abstract things (freedom, status, privacy) and practical things (storage, functional space, a moddable thing).

Build all the trains you want. Have high quality protected cyclist lanes. Have functional bus programs.

None of those things will replace personal vehicles.

> None of those things will replace personal vehicles.

Unless you mean in an abstract sense, They do, and they have. By replacement I mean "if there were a train to get me to work, I would take it instead of driving". I don't feel as free or private in a train, but I am using one instead of a car, and I would call that a replacement.

I am treating cars as a way to get from point A to point B because this is what they are to most people, and it's exactly why many people would and do use viable alternatives as a replacement: because getting from point A to point B is a more valuable function in many cases than freedom, status, privacy, storage, functional space, and mods. Europeans do not have 830 cars per capita because they have other methods of transportation that are a replacement for cars. I feel like this goes without saying, but just because a car is more private than a train etc does not mean trains shouldn't exist, which has essentially been the development ideology in America for the past 70 years, and what I'm arguing should change.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com