cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26368144
Anons argue in comments
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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Fuck Cars
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To create a pedestrian first world I think we need to legitimately understand what advantages a car has. A car is a true source of empowerment.
Sure, I can ride a bike, but I could never ride a bike 300 miles for a weekend trip to any arbitrary destination. I can take a bus but not at any moment, and not the middle of the night. I can take public transit, but not to the place I need to go.
A car is a portable personal space. I can eat lunch in my car, I can take a nap.
A car is a space protected from the elements - I'm not getting rained on. Protection from wind, snow, sun.
Its locked doors are a barrier between me and potential (and sometimes imagined) threats.
I don't need to list out for this community all the negative things associated with cars. I just list these pros to highlight it's a challenging task to displace cars. It's a list of benefits to replicate.
A car is a way of seizing power from those who cannot afford a car, have a disability that prevents driving, etc.
How is it seizing power?
There's definitely an opportunity cost. If you build a road or a parking garage that's taking space and funds that could go to something else. The same could be said of a park or firehouse or factory. And I'd agree that in many cases something better could have been done than car centric infrastructure.
But an individual owning a car isn't taking something from someone who doesn't own a car.
Besides, my point is that cars should not be prioritized over pedestrians, cyclists and public transit. Just that to displace cars we should try to understand what people see in them, contra the last line of the OP image
One individual, no. But collectively, you take so much, you just don't understand. Everything is so much harder for me because everyone with means has to be able to drive EVERYWHERE door to door. You are empowered? I am disempowered.
This comment made me sad, because it's a reminder of just how bad a shithole most of the United States is: You need a car to go 300 miles at a whim because transit is bad or non-existent, and driving sucks. I know people who refuse to do that distance in one day. You need a car to go longer distances to bars, stores, restaurants, because ~~racism~~ zoning makes everything far away and a pain and a half to access.
You need a secluded, personal space to eat lunch or take a quick nap because the U.S. hates homeless people so much that there's nowhere to do either of those things in public, and you'll get abused by the police if you try. A car is a less-than-ideal spot to do either of those things comfortably; a picnic table or a park shelter would be better.
The best protection from threats is crowds, the "eyes on the street" principle. In fact, a lot of assaults happen in parking lots because there's nobody around to intervene. But Americans are scared shitless of each other for no reason, and our society is collapsing because of it.
Oh, also, a car isn't even a good place to eat or nap if you're poor. The cops will hassle you to no end if you look like you don't belong. (Hence, the prevalence of setting up a van for stealth camping.) It's not a source of empowerment, if you're poor. I would never have dreamed of jumping in my car and driving 300 miles on a whim when I worked retail. If the car broke down, or got damaged, I would've been supremely fucked, unable to pay to repair it, and without access to any alternative transportation.
But, frankly, I think that's the point: Car dependency is supposed to hurt poor people, by physically excluding them, and providing a social marker of affluence so the not-quite-so-poor can feel good about themselves. (Why else bro dozers?)
You're right there are a lot of negative things about the U.S. And even if it became a biking/public transit utopia, it would still suck to be homeless. We'd still need to address wealth inequality.
I'm addressing the last line of the OP image, why do we hold up cars as a symbol of freedom? It's because they do provide personal empowerment. They provide specific benefits.
It's possible for a situation to have terrible outcomes without it being a conspiracy. Some people, like Robert Moses, did design certain places to be accessible by car but not by bus. But I'd argue the main reason the car is dominant in the U.S. is because individuals who saw benefit from their own car use pushed and bought into that system.
Imagine we're playing chess, we have to understand the pieces on the board, what their abilities are. I get it's a fun thought experiment to list all the ways a bike is great. I'm just saying it's useful to understand what people see in a car if we want to create an alternative.
Well, let me tell you...
Just kidding. I agree with all of that. What I'm pointing out is how some of those advantages of cars are actually just masking larger issues.
Ok that's a leap. We do, in fact, have parks with benches.
Instead of going on an in-depth exploration of where those parks are located, I'll say that if need a car to have a spot on the landscape where you're allowed to do basic, human things like eat and nap, then that's not an advantage of cars.
You don't.
Yeah, the main advantage of cars is that they do a lot of things (kinda badly.) We need to do a lot of work to replace cars, and that work definitely doesn't start with ignoring why cars are so prevalent. We need to empower people through other avenues a lot before most people will switch over.
I see what you did there...
I am ashamed to say that I didn't even see that. That's lithium (or possibly cobalt.)
Por que no los dos?
You don't need to fully replace cars to have a positive impact. I'm sure many people in the US could commute via bike if the infrastructure was there. Even if not every day, just sometimes. Also the public transit comment is definitely true in the US, and is not true many other places.
I see the benefits, and don't disagree at all! Just saying that not all boxes need to be checked to offset some car use
You're right, not every box has to be checked before it starts making sense for some people to switch to bike. I just commented because the original post was saying "why do we say cars are the ultimate symbol of freedom?" If someone can't see why people like cars, they may have a hard time creating an environment where people move away from them.
Work out. You can do it if you simply get thighs of steel.
You need to be introduced to cargo bikes and rain tents on bikes
You don't know about my thighs!
Jokes aside, it's one thing to say it's possible to recreate some aspect of car ownership with a bike. But it's making the individual responsible for something that requires a societal solution.
Suggesting impractical alternatives to what are easy benefits with cars isn't a serious alternative. And we won't fully replicate everything a car does. But understanding where the trade-offs are is essential to approaching the problem.