Cars and generational shift | Hacker News Reader

Cars and generational shift

jseliger.com

24 pointsjseliger31 comments

The source of the unhappiness is not so much the commute itself as what it deprives you of. When you are commuting by car, you are not hanging out with the kids, sleeping with your spouse (or anyone else), playing soccer, watching soccer, coaching soccer, arguing about politics, praying in a church, or drinking in a bar. In short, you are not spending time with other people.

I don't think that's it exactly. The problem with driving, especially commuting in traffic, is that it requires your constant attention but offers little mental stimulation. It's a boring section of life that you can't zone out and fast-forward through. Walking and biking are also (often) solitary, but I'd expect that people enjoy them much more than driving.

Agreed about the "boring" aspect of commuting. If I have to commute, I prefer to walk or take the subway because I can listen to podcasts or read a book.

Living in Seattle a lot of my friend don't have cars. You don't need one to get around. The bus system will get you to and from work. They can walk or ride a bike to the grocery store. In short, it's not preferable but it's easily doable.

The issue I have with this stance is that not having a car is fully dependent on friends having one! I feel like I'm subsidizing my friends because they chose not to have a car, even though money has nothing to do with the decision. (they make $100k+ working at Microsoft)

Want to play board games? It'll take them 2 hours to bus, so only if I can give a ride. Want to see a movie? Sure, but the bus doesn't run late so only if I can give a ride. Want to go hiking? Want to go snowboarding? Go to a show? Get tickets for a sporting event? Can only do any of those things if I'm willing to pick up and drop off my friend.

I do it of course because if I don't then I'll never see these friends. Maybe it makes me an asshole but honestly I find it just a bit selfish if you brag about having no car but constantly require rides from friends.

Honestly I think this is an issue with your friends and possibly with where y'all live, not with living without a car. Do you live on opposite ends of town? The only trip I can imagine taking two hours one way is Ballard to West Seattle or something similarly silly. Going to movies? Going to a show? Even the Showbox in the middle of industrial wasteland is a 10 minute walk to the light rail.

Hiking, snowboarding, sure, that requires going out of town. (Zipcar or rent.) Staying in town doesn't need a car. (And try parking in Capitol Hill and let me know about preferable.)

Don't forget going between towns. Getting to Redmond from Renton is a 2 hour ride because there isn't a direct route.

Unless I'm missing something neither of them are Seattle.

I agree that if you need to go to Renton regularly you do need a car.

Of course we live on opposite ends of town. If you live in Capital Hill without a car then you live in a teeny tiny bubble. Getting out of that bubble requires a long bus ride or a ride from a friend.

It's 50 minutes from Capital Hill to Green Lake. Over an hour when you factor walking to the stop and waiting for the bus. That's over two hours round trip. Makes getting together for board games or dinner a huge pain in the ass.

Getting to Kirkland is 90 minutes one way. People and jobs are scattered all over the greater Seattle area. The vast majority of people I know have cars. The few who don't are rarely seen outside of their tiny bubble because it takes so long to get around.

I had interpreted your initial post as 2 hours one way for that bus trip, my apologies.

Other than that... I'm really at a loss, I don't know what I can say. Again, this isn't a problem with living carless or even living carless in Seattle, it's a problem with your special case with your specific social group. If your bubble induces you to make a 25 mile round trip to Kirkland with any regularity, yeah, you should probably find a way of getting there that doesn't involve bumming rides all the time. But everyone lives in a bubble, there's different kinds, sizes, and geographical dispersion levels of bubbles, and there's nothing wrong with living in a geographically concentrated one. Capitol Hill gets you to either U District or Lower Queen Anne with an easy 20 minutes transfer-less bus trip, it's 15 minutes to Belltown, and so on - it's really far from a teeny tiny bubble. (Not to claim Cap Hill as centre of the universe, I'm merely using it as an example I'm familiar with, not living in Seattle.) You don't need a car unless your social group dictates that you do.

I have three friends in this very predicament, though they don't gloat about it.

One of them honestly doesn't need a car. He lives in the middle of Seattle, bikes everywhere (or used to) and lives right next to work. I don't see him as much of a movie going guy; and, the only time he ever needs to really be driven places is when they're way out of the way (like all of us going snow-sporting in the mountains), or it's super-late. I don't really hear him gloat, it's just not something he uses except in the edge cases. He's adapted to that 1-2 hour wait time so far as I can tell.

A second one uses the buses to get to and from work and even when he comes over to hang out. We just plan for him to bus home at X at night, rather than X+2 (where X is the last bus). He misses his car and wants to get another one.

tl;dr, depends on the friends, some of them adapt to the restrictions.

That doesn't sound fair. My plan at least for weekend trips is to figure out a practical way to rent a car. Should still be cheaper than owning one all the time (being realistic about the number of times I really went on such trips).

Also the public transport system in your city seems to suck.

It does--it's mostly bus, though as the light rail system expands hopefully it'll serve as a functional backbone. The main problem will be to get more light rail lines inside the city so it can function as a subway, rather than the current focus on expanding to neighboring suburbs that don't want it.

Naturally, this is a result of a dysfunctional political system with overlapping jurisdictions between city and county and a focus on consensus building over getting anything done. About ten years ago we were supposed to build a system of monorails, of all things, but instead of actually building them the relevant authorities spent several years arguing and bringing it to a vote, so while the people of Seattle voted for the monorail twice, by the third time they were just frustrated and gave up on the whole thing.

In addition to the bus system and the light rail line--mostly because Paul Allen owns most of the neighborhood and really wanted one--South Lake Union has a trolley with a rather colorful nickname.

My plan at least for weekend trips is to figure out a practical way to rent a car. Should still be cheaper than owning one all the time.

I'm shopping for cars right now. After 4 years of owning one, I've conceded that that has not turned out to be the case. At least, not entirely - I've found it isn't apples-to-oranges.

When I last owned a car, I bought it new. It was a fairly nice car, so of course I was paying for comprehensive insurance. I also thought nothing of driving it everywhere, making frequent weekend trips, driving out to the state park to go mountain biking after work, etc. etc. I dumped a lot of money on it, but much of that money was on what I have now come to view as unnecessary luxury.

Having not owned a car for 4 years, I had gotten into the habit of walking or taking the bus/train or riding my bike anywhere. I did have a membership to a car sharing company, so I could rent a car by the hour whenever I needed one, but I had gotten into the habit of only using it once every other month or so. Trips out of the city, Chicago, could generally be made by rail (the commuter rail system is extensive, and it's an Amtrak hub).

Then I moved to a different city, and a lot changed. The city's transit system is quite good, but the inter-city transit isn't so good. Renting cars began to happen much more frequently; we're doing it about once a month now. It also became more expensive - this state does not require rental companies to include the mandatory minimum coverage with rentals, and both non-owners' insurance policies and the daily rate insurance offered by the rental companies are priced exorbitantly.

So the new calculus is, owning a car can be quite a bit less expensive, under certain conditions: The 'new' car is actually quite old, and has some dings and dents, so it didn't cost much in the first place. And since it's not beautiful anyway, there's not much call for paying for comprehensive insurance. And we're walking, biking, and taking the bus in all the situations where we would previously have walked, biked, or taken the bus - this car is not for commuting, it's not for driving out to the mall, it's not for burning gas (and money) just because I don't want to get rained on. It's for visiting folks in other cities, and perhaps also for trips to Costco. Under this new calculus, the break-even point should be only about 2 years out, assuming no major repairs.

I have actually never owned a car so I am not sure how much it costs. But I think where I live insurances are quite high. I have read something like 200 to 300€ per month that a car costs (where initial price and expected duration of ownership is factored in). I suppose if we were to take a trip every day of the weekend, it might be a breakeven.

Also I admit that at lest when I was younger, it seems the kids who owned a car were a bit more spontaneous. They take trips to the sea at a whim or whatever.

Since I have not yet sorted out the renting thing, I can't say how easy it would be to just jump into a rented car on a whim. I already ran into problems trying to organize holidays, for example going most of the way by train and renting a car at the destination train station. I had imagined there to be a much better infrastructure than there really is. Hoping that will improve, though.

I actually consider it a luxury that I don't need a car.

Why don't they just sign up for Zipcar? When I lived there, that was the usual strategy.

I think youth culture may have something to do with it as well, not just commuting; especially since the original article based its statistics on the rates of teenagers getting licenses, and I'd be surprised if those are primarily based on commuting preferences. In my dad's generation, having a car at 16 was socially a big boost, while I think it's just not as important anymore for teenagers. There was a heydey of "teenage car cool" in American culture with drive-in theaters and the like, and a long plateau where other car-centric things (like suburban malls) were at the center of teenage social life, but it's not clear that's (as) true anymore.

    > In my dad's generation, having a car at 16 was socially a big boost, while I think it's just not as important anymore for teenagers.
    > [...] other car-centric things (like suburban malls) were at the center of teenage social life, but it's not clear that's (as) true anymore.

I'm a teenager. For what it's worth, being able to drive is still important for me and the majority of my peers. I think that you're right, teenage culture has changed since your father's generation, but cars are still a huge factor in teenage social life. Being able to drive is still important because of what it allows: a huge amount of personal freedom.

EDIT: formatting

I really think the poster has missed one important difference between the baby boomer generation and their kids. The baby boomers have gone through a period of life where a car is absolutely necessity because they were raising families whereas to people under 30 a car is an increasingly 'nice-to-have' that affords personal freedom and social status both of which are becoming more questionable. The abovementioned 'period of necessity' changes your view on cars.

I'm almost 30 with a pregnant partner and I've watched my car usage steadily increase over the last 12 months as my life is changing. I used to be a bike-to-work, walk-to-buy-groceries sorta guy who spent a period only using zipcars, taxis and public transport at necessary times and loved it. I really wanted this life to continue but...

Throw having kids into the mix and all of a sudden you're visiting your own elderly parents a lot more, going to the hospital regularly, and I'll bet the car that as the kids are growing up they'll need ferrying to extra-curricular activities, friends places and driving holidays become much more economical. At first I tried to get by on a clunker but issues like your families safety come to the fore and I caved and bought a brand new car.

It's just impossible to live close to everything. You'll have such a diverse range of destinations and reasons to go to those places (a lot of times at short notice which makes zipcar unappealing) that even if you take public transport to work or walk/bike you'll still _depend_ on a car unless you live somewhere as dense as Hong Kong, Tokyo or Manhattan

Living in central London I do not need a car to get around. I commute to work using the London Underground, and I have to say, it is the most unhappy time of my day to be a part of that system. I've lived in Tokyo for five years and have never been annoyed at public transport there, but after one year of London I've had enough. I'd gladly move to an open and wide space where I could get around by car. Unfortunately there is no such place in the UK (or anywhere in Western Europe) that offers sufficient employment options. Cars, public transport, it's a mixed blessing really.

We live in the "now" culture where everything is at our fingertips (at least online). Yet the one place we truly need (or at least should) get offline is when you are driving. Walking and biking also force you to get offline but you receive something worthwhile in return - physical stimulation. I think our generation is about efficiency and multi-tasking and driving (especially on long, traffic-filled commutes), does not allow us to do what we do at all other times.

Nowhere in all of this do I see enough real data. Sure, there are statistics about purchases of new cars in the atlantic story and how that's decreased since a couple decades ago... Where's the data for used car sales?

Where are the alternative explanations? Demands for disposable income are greater now, while actual earnings are lower. Student debt is at an all-time high and must-have devices like laptop computers, smart-phones, etc. didn't exist or didn't see the adoption rates that they do now. As for license rates dropping – if you knew you couldn't afford to get a car, wouldn't you be less motivated to get or renew your license?

Further, America is growing more and more urban in population distribution – all of these things could conceivably roll in to a marked decrease in new car purchases without saying that it's an outright u-turn in "car culture".

I may well be wrong, but the assumptions and unexplored alternatives make me less than convinced.

The problem with owning a car is that it takes so much time just to maintain it. Too many weekends have been spent taking my car to the mechanic, changing the oil in the car, preparing it for bad weather, ect.

I own a car but I don't have time to actually use it. I will never be inclined to spend a lot of money on one.

Pretty much this. I own a car that I essentially inherited. The cost of it to me in gas, insurance and tax is borderline unacceptable for the use I have for it. I can't imagine spending significant amounts on a new car because I can't see how the use it offers me would be worth it.

I don't know if that's a generational shift, but I don't have a car, don't want one, and actively look to live in places where I don't need one.

I like driving. I like power; I like going fast; I like cornering just right; I like well-designed highways. But I can't imagine $200+ monthly loan payments or regular maintenance or breakdowns or getting ripped off on insurance because I am a male for the time being still under 25. If the vehicle I'm on breaks down, they bring in another one. If I want more freedom, a nice bike is the price of a beater car and a hell of a lot cheaper to run. If I want to go out of town, bus or rentals or shares will do the job.

I don't know if that's generational. It seems common sense to me.

I live the burbs and commute to the city by train - but out here I love my car... I never need to drive in traffic.

Community trumps commuting!

s/cars/houses/g

I stand on the other side of this continuum. I'm 25 years old and I own a car. I _love_ my car; and, I often enjoy driving. I will often drive just to drive, even if this means being in relatively heavy traffic. Actually, I find that point where heavy traffic isn't a deadlock to be an especially fun time to drive because it hones my driving skills. I like feeling my car and being a part of my car as it goes down the road. When I'm alone, I like the privacy being in a car gives me as I can sing at the top of my lungs and no one has to hear me when I'm driving at free-way speeds.

I'm even looking to the future where I can buy a new car that I'll be able to use on race tracks and in rally races for my own personal enjoyment.

So, I like cars.

> I find that point where heavy traffic isn't a deadlock to be an especially fun time to drive because it hones my driving skills. I like feeling my car and being a part of my car as it goes down the road.

For the well-being of the grumpy, late, and overworked commuters sharing the same stretch of road, please consider taking an adventure driving class instead of playing Need4Speed during rush hour.

You misunderstand me. I don't swerve between traffic at high speed, but I consider experiencing all of those cars around me and being mindful of even more things at the same time than normal while driving quite a bit of an experience :)

Get to learn more about other driver's patterns on the road and all else so I can react even faster before poor situations come up, etc.

Definitely a good concern, though.

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