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Comment by dgfitz | Hacker News Reader

> People should be walking or cycling around town.

This. Is a very out of touch opinion. I could write 20 paragraphs disagreeing, but I doubt it is worth my time to write or anyone else’s to read.

Not every person is able-bodied enough to walk and bike. Also, people happen to need to get from A to B when it is cold, dark, raining, extremely hot, snowing, or just some kind of shitty outside. People need to drive to a store for food or supplies that cannot be carried or biked back to the destination. People have multiple children that simply cannot walk or bike. Old people cannot simply walk or bike.

This concept of a car-less world is just so completely out of touch with reality, saying it louder isn’t going to change anything.

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Alright, I'll respond.

>Not every person is able-bodied enough to walk and bike

And the same goes for cars, except kids can ride bikes, so car accessibility is actually just worse.

>Also, people happen to need to get from A to B when it is cold, dark, raining, extremely hot, snowing, or just some kind of shitty outside

You can walk or cycle in all of those conditions. In fact, I have walked or cycled in all of those conditions in the past 6 months.

>People need to drive to a store for food or supplies that cannot be carried or biked back to the destination

There's very little that can't be carried on a bike or public transport, but you can always rent a car for a couple hours if needed. Let's be real, that's not why 99.9% of people are driving cars.

>People have multiple children that simply cannot walk or bike

Where I live it's common to see mothers cycle with their kids on child seats in their bikes.

>Old people cannot simply walk or bike.

And a lot of them can't drive either.

> You can walk or cycle in all of those conditions.

YOU can do that, sure. You need to look past your own nose to objectively weigh in on these topics.

The vast majority of trips are taken by foot or bicycle where I am. Statistically speaking, YOU can do it too.

The fuck do you think “statistically speaking” actually means? Your anecdote of 1 does not a statistic make.

My "anecdote" is the fact that I live in Tokyo where we get extreme weather regularly and yet the vast majority of trips are taken by public transport, walking or biking.

Stop pretending the rest of the world is like Tokyo, it isn’t.

The rest of the world can be like Tokyo, that's the important part.

Weather is not a good enough reason for why we need cars in cities.

No, it’s can’t. Full stop, end of argument. You clearly are not well-traveled if you believe this.

Why not? What is so special about Tokyo/Japanese that it can’t be emulated?

I can’t bro, it’s not worth my time. Look it up.

I don’t even know what to look up.

You could start with a list of things the rest of the world would need in order to emulate Tokyo, which basically means turning the entire world into a walk-able city only involving the temperate band hf the planet. If you would like me to hold your hand though generating this list of material and labor costs, I'm not going to do that. If you want me to put on a PM hat and give you a sample schedule and estimated costs, I'm not going to do that either.

If you can't even figure out how to look up _anything_ about how to implement your plan, how the fuck do you expect it to ever become a reality?

This is nonsense. It will not happen.

You seem to not understand the point of this conversation. You admit Tokyo is a walkable city. And you think it’s impossible to convert existing infrastructure to be like Tokyo. The point of this conversation is existing infra is the way it is because of various influences and choices, some of which can be called “car culture.”

Car culture is not a foregone conclusion. Claiming 100% of the world has to be converted to Tokyo and if that is not possible then we should give up is hilarious. What an illogical, sad and pitiful argument/attitude. Cities are being changed every day, and those ongoing investments can be made to make cities more car dependent or not.

Not to mention there are A Lot of cities more dependent on cars than lots of other cities many with nearly identical climates. Tokyo isn’t the only one lol. It’s not some magical unicorn.

> The rest of the world can be like Tokyo, that's the important part.

Someone else said this. This isn't possible. Stop.

I agree that thinking the entire world could be replaced with Tokyo style infrastructure is incredibly unreasonable. But that’s a very fringe idea. And rejecting the rest of the conversation from that and thinking the entire conversation is about that just as silly. And frankly you haven’t even been able to engage enough to understand what they mean by it. For all you know they mean something much more reasonable than you’re imagining, but you’re so quick to jump to thought terminating cliches you can’t have a productive conversation. I don’t know why you bother to participate if you won’t participate. Try being curious and finding common ground, you might learn something.

Guess you ran out of arguments? Hahaha

> The fuck do you think “statistically speaking” actually means?

I think it means "The vast majority of trips are taken by foot or bicycle where I am." Which was, from another (very) nearby comment, Tokyo.

> Your anecdote of 1 does not a statistic make.

No, but the vast majority of trips in Tokyo does.

And where I live it's 110F+ for three months of the year. No one sane is biking or walking anywhere as it's too dangerous. Not everyone lives in some temperate small European city.

First off, you're exaggerating. There is no place on earth that averages 40C for 3 months.

Second,I live in Tokyo, where the summer has been miserable with average temperatures of 32C, with regular highs of 36+ with 80% humidity. And yet I walked and biked everywhere and was just fine, and that's true for most of the 40M people that live here as well.

Third, it sounds like you live in a place that's not suitable for humans, you should probably move instead of making the planet even hotter for everyone else by living in your steel boxes with AC.

> Second,I live in Tokyo

And this is where you need to remember that the rest of the world is not Tokyo. I have faith you’ll get there.

Ok, so it's a city planning problem, not a weather problem. I'm glad we agree.

It can be more than one thing - it's both, and more.

No it's not

You’ve convinced me!

Awesome! I'm glad we could come to an agreement

> First off, you're exaggerating. There is no place on earth that averages 40C for 3 months.

I dunno about 3 months exactly, but some areas of India are pretty close. And Delhi has 15-30 million people, depending on how you count

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Delhi#Climate_data

The daily mean pretty much everywhere sits around low 30s because the night temperatures bring it down. That's intense though!

I didn't say average, and the highs are higher for many days. It sounds like you've never been in extreme heat, there's a huge difference between 89F and 110+F. More people are moving here than are leaving.

Why would I assume you meant the maximum when you didn't specify?

And would you mind not being a condescending prick? If you had taken a second to google you would know Tokyo had highs of 40+ this summer.

Sounds like you're just trying to make excuses for your awful city.

In Spain they use shutters and have siestas during the midday heat. Maybe don't try to shoehorn British culture into Spanish climate?

> Not every person is able-bodied enough to walk and bike

This is true, but it also true that not every person is able to drive a car. In fact the inability to drive is way more common than the inability to walk.

And the ability to be driven somewhere is ubiquitous. Cars can hold more than one person, generally.

Literally nobody is arguing against public transport. If you actually take the time to look into the issue you'll see it's private vehicles that are the problem. Able-bodied people using private vehicles make it significantly more difficult for those less able.

So you think most people are incapable of walking or cycling? And you're saying I'm out of touch?!

As for cold, dark, raining. Boo fucking hoo. If you had to go somewhere you'd deal with it. Cars have made people into weak, incapable little creatures. It's honestly pathetic.

I cycle with food and supplies in my panniers all the time. What exactly are you buying every week that can't be transported back without fossil fuel assistance?

You don't think children can walk or bike? Are you crazy? A healthy child doesn't want to sit still. They're capable of locomotion from about age 3.

Old people can get around too. Sure there are some who can't but it's not a majority. Again, cars have taught us this helplessness.

I just wish I could take car people outside of their reality for just a week or so. Once you see it from the outside it's so apparent. But I guess some people aren't ready to leave the Matrix. And some will fight to protect it.

> As for cold, dark, raining. Boo fucking hoo. If you had to go somewhere you'd deal with it. Cars have made people into weak, incapable little creatures. It's honestly pathetic.

You clearly have no respect for Mother Nature if this is your stance. Take care.

I do, so when I'm in the mountains I check the forecast and keep an eye on the weather. But when I'm in town? You think people are getting caught out by the weather and stranded in town? Where exactly is this "town" you speak of?

> You think people are getting caught out by the weather and stranded in town?

Maybe your issue is reading comprehension. I never suggested anything about anyone getting fucking stranded, stop putting words in my mouth.

You really think it's not possible to buy food without a car? Classic American, claiming X thing is an impossible pie-in-the-sky dream when there are loads of other countries that do X thing just fine.

I had groceries delivered today actually… a car drove them from the store to my home. What the fuck are you on about?

I walked to get groceries today, so I guess we're even on the anecdata

In cities that aren't completely car-centric and have mixed-use development, you don't need a car to get groceries, because everything is close enough to walk. Again, plenty of countries do this just fine, proving it is not impossible.

Never said it was impossible.

It’s not the reality that we live in. Most of the world is not a town or city of temperate climate where everything is within a half hour walk or bike ride.

I will never understand how this point is just glossed over and excused away. Ignoring the boundaries of reality doesn’t make said boundaries magically go away.

You seem to be assuming the way it is cannot be changed when much of the relevant factors are human choices that can be done differently. I love my car but I’m really confused why you’re so aggressive about thinking cars are the only way to live.

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