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Comment by lucideer | Hacker News Reader

> and that I live alone with no kids

I live in Dublin, which is at least in Europe so better than many US cities, but certainly not very good on bike infra. I've never owned a car, and planned to keep it that way until... I got a (large) dog. Kids seem a reason many cite, but at least they're allowed on public transport, and the available child-carrying bike accessories are varied & plentiful. Large pets seem to be the seldom-talked about unsolved problem of a carless world - I was a bit shocked at myself at how many transport challenges I hadn't anticipated when we decided to get a dog.

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> I live in Dublin, which is at least in Europe so better than many US cities, but certainly not very good on bike infra.

I live in Dublin and maybe you're comparing it with Amsterdam, but having as reference 3 EU capitals I've lived in before, Dublin is bike path heaven. 100% of all the area I usually move around has bike paths, and even in areas without, drivers are generally aware of cyclists because of this.

If anything I'd complain about certain hostility towards pedestrians, rather than cyclists. Traffic light timing is abysmal and in some crossroads a pedestrian can be waiting for solid 5 mins while cars have had 2-3 rounds of green lights.

Dublin may be improving but I still find it extremely poor; I'm curious which capitals you're comparing it to.

One extra issues with Dublin is that it's not as simple as absense of bike lanes, there's a lot of very dangerous badly designed bike lanes (put in as an afterthought by mandate to meet some quota without consideration of how a cyclist might safely traverse them) - the whole grand canal area is this: e.g. there's two-way cycle lanes both sides of Beckett bridge with no safe way to access the bridge from either side. Lots of horribly planned similar examples aroundd the city - shared centre lanes, etc.

True that traffic-light management is a nightmare for all users - as someone who now has a car, and (unfortunately) drives a lot in the city, the experience is equally awful as a cyclist, pedestrian & driver.

Kids are one reason for a car. Hobbies are another, winter and water sports come to mind. Commuting to work yet another one, not every workplace is easily reachable by public transportation.

And no, car sharing ot renting is no real replacement.

I don't own a car. I have two kids. Car sharing and renting, in combination with public transport and bicycles are most certainly a real replacement.

It requires good public transport, and bicycles, of course.

But merely 'kids' is in no way a 'reson for a car'.

Again, depends on a circunstances. A lot of outdoor sports? A car makes it easier. Commute, kids or not, a car can even be a necessity.

> Commute, kids or not, a car can even be a necessity.

For most people this is only true in cases of infrastructural deficiency. I know someone who works in film who absolutely needs a car due to the remote nature of film sets, but niche roles like that aren't the "typical" commuter route. If you're commuting to an office, you shouldn't need a car unless there's been an abject failure to service that office with proper transport infrastructure.

> A lot of outdoor sports?

Which outdoor sports? If it's jetskiing, sure: you'll likely need some kind of truck/trailer to transport the jetski. But again, that's niche. I'm not aware of any popular outdoor sports with a strong vehicle need.

Objective failure? Let's take my three last jobs, door to door: currently 40 minutes by car, 1 hour public; the one before 1 hour by car and close to two hours public (and in the opposite direction of the current one); 20 minutes by car, 30 public. Then there were two where public was faster, with roughly one hour public and somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours by car (traffic can be bitch). All of those were in different directions from where I live, and my spouse works two. Then there are two kids, sports, as I said sports requiring bulky equipment, and all of a sudden are car turns into a really nice thing to have. And no, moving for work is not always an option.

Outdoor sports, with kids: kayaking (we are talking about three of those by now), skiing (you don't use the train carrying skiing gear for three). And then there is solid public transport were I live, easily reachable from home. It is the work end, and the middle point, were things get tricky.

It is nice so that live without a car works, it just doesn't work for me.

I'm not sure how you read my comment but just to clarify, I was referring to the public transport system being substandard. I wasn't implying in any way that this is your fault (nor that of any commuter), the criticism is purely being leveled at public infrastructure planning.

If the public transport journey takes longer than the car journey, the former has room for improvement.

Tbf, anything involving bulky gear like a kayak, etc, rapidly becomes impractical without an automobile.

I’ve tried load a kayak onto a cargo bike, it went terribly with anything larger than a very small play boat.

These are all decisions you make. You could live closer to work, work closer to home, or work closer to a train station. In Netherland, lots of office parks are close to train stations exactly for this reason.

Outdoor sports? Depends on which one, and on whether you want to bring your own gear. Cycling doesn't need a car, unless you want to do it in exotic locales. I used to take public transport to where I rented a sailing boat.

Of course every choice comes with trade-offs, but so does a car. It's good to be aware of your options.

I never had a car or a driver's license, but when my wife got pregnant, she insisted I get my license anyway, because she didn't want to be the only one to drive our kids everywhere. I didn't want to drive our kids everywhere anyway, but got my license. Now she always insists on driving whenever we use the car. I still rarely drive.

That said, I use public transport a lot less than I used to. When we visit my dad, we now drive, though my brother still uses the train for that. Our next vacation is by train, though.

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