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Comment by jonathan_landy | Hacker News Reader

I like to drive. Edit: see also this pro-car, pro-toll note by Bryan Caplan.

https://www.betonit.ai/p/cars-could-be-even-more-convenient

This is a non-informational take which is just ahistorical, as evidenced by the fact that just 30 years a lot of European cities were very much car-centric and were much more awful by pretty much every metric than they are today.

About one in every two households in Amsterdam own a car. I would bet many that don't use taxi services themselves now and again, and almost everybody would indirectly rely on roads used for deliveries, workmen, emergency services. And that's about the best case for a European city. It's comparable to New York City.

Paris, London, Prague -- higher.

The reality is that these romantic notions people have of cities not relying on cars or roads is an unrealistic fantasy. Yes it's certainly nice if you have good public transport that many people can use for most of their transport. The reality is though that even in the very best cases of those like Amsterdam and Tokyo, personal car ownership rates are still enormous, and the cities would cease to function without small private vehicles for commercial operations, let alone removing the roads for garbage collections, busses, emergency vehicles, etc.

And yet, if you walk around Amsterdam or Rotterdam you see a lot of bicycles and trams and pedestrians, and very few cars.

Cars certainly exist, but they are clearly not used by default for everything.

Contrast with my recent visit to New Jersey. The hotel was surrounded on all sides by parking lots and multi lane roads). There was no sidewalk.

I haven't walked around those cities, I've walked around certain areas of London or Tokyo as a tourist mostly in central areas that are well serviced by public transport and are very dense, without any real understanding of what it actually takes to live, work, raise children, or anything else in those places. I certainly saw a lot of roads and cars, particularly when looking out the window of trains and busses into actual places people live.

> Cars certainly exist, but they are clearly not used by default for everything.

Sure, I've noticed a bunch of American cities I've been to are a more difficult to walk or get public transport than any big ones in Europe or Asia I've been to.

They're all automobile-centric though. You'll never get rid of cars, taxis, trucks, busses, or roads. Not in any of them. Better walking, riding, and public transport is great, it's just never going to do away with the car, nor is doing away with cars and roads ever going to solve any problems that cities have. There should be more honesty and pragmatism around this.

Everybody likes to drive. It's far more private, personal, and free than even the best public transport, which is why a country like Japan with some of the best public transport on earth has a car ownership rate of 1 per household, and even in Tokyo it's 33% of households, with a large taxi industry.

It astounds me that so many on the left seem to be converging on the opinion that it should be a goal to reduce, eliminate, tax private transportation for the common person.

Public transport is great and should be improved or encouraged, and road area usage should be as efficient as possible. But private transportation should be made cheaper and more convenient and accessible to as many people as possible. That is a great way to improve quality of life and expand opportunities for people.

I hate driving but every time I get on my bicycle I remember how fun it is... until a car starts driving behind me impatient to get somewhere a few seconds faster. I can bike to many places in my town faster than the drivers can drive if I put some effort into pedaling.

I don't mean everybody likes the act of driving, I mean everybody likes what driving [a private vehicle] can do for them. I didn't mean even that in the absolute literal sense either, but anecdotes from people who don't have a car or get driven by friends and never take taxis or uber anywhere would be interesting and will probably help us to understand why virtually everybody likes driving.

I don't think anyone literally likes driving. Some people like racing, some people like drifting. But who the heck likes getting in their car, waiting at stop signs and lights, staring down a road for hours, and wondering whether the oncoming vehicle veering left is going to turn on their turn signal or straighten their path.

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