this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2021
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TBF I am not fond of Motorcycles, but they are more cost and space efricent than cars.
They might be just as environmentally bad as cars, but they tear up the roads less, cause less traffic, use less fuel, and force the rider to be more conscious of their surroundings.
Also if you daily driver a motorcycle, grocery store runs become a lot more strategic and frequent, which saves money (per trip) and forces the buyer to think about what they're buying, which helps with dieting.
If people have to use private vehicles (and, given that electric vehicles aren't quite to a point that they offset environmental effects enough and are built using industries that benefit from immoral working conditions), I'd far prefer if people bought motorcycles for their daily driving and tried to only use four-wheeled vehicles if they have a disability, have multiple people to transport, or need to haul a load further than it's economically viable to rent a van.
Plus a decent bike costs about as much as a bad car, and it's honestly easier to learn to ride than it is to learn to drive. (or, at least it was for me, your mileage may vary)
Electric bikes make motorcycles pure vanity methods of transport nowadays.
I hate cars so fucking much it's unreal. There are not enough bestemmie to describe how much I hate cars
I think that in general any personal motorized vehicle is becoming more and more absurd. There is no way to the future with this concept. The future by definition passes through public transport in conditions and individual rental transport. In view of what a car costs and the expenses it entails in insurance, taxes, maintenance, parking, etc. it is becoming a luxury that has nothing to do with its usefulness of having a 1-2 ton thing to move a 75kg ass.
In cities, maybe.
Most people also want to be able to leave the city sometimes.
TBH in places where public transport is sufficient, most people don't use cars - they don't need to.
To go on vacation or go on an excursion, I prefer to go by train, bus or plane, before getting into traffic jams on the highways, apart from that it is cheaper. And more comfortable. Apart from arriving rested and I don't need 2 days to recover from the car trip. I even have the possibility, if I prefer to go by car, for whatever reason, to rent it for this ocassion, which is also much cheaper than a car of my own.
Yes, everybody does!
Most people do not drive because they enjoy sitting in a car in traffic jams. Most people don't enjoy driving at all. They do it because there is no realistic alternative.
Even in places I've lived which claim to be "eco" or whatever, the public transport is overcrowded, unreliable, and does not reach enough places.
We blame drivers for driving, when we should be blaming transport planners for not providing enough public transport.
We blame drivers for driving, when we should be blaming transport planners for not providing enough public transport.
That's a vicious circle, people need cars because the transport offer is insufficient, taxpayers don't want to give more money for transport because most people don't use them as they already have cars.
A transport planner could argue that alright. He doesn't have enough money or power or time to do his job properly, or he has other pressures on him. He doesn't have enough training. There could be plenty of excuses, and even legitimate ones.
I do have higher expectations from transport/road planners to fix the transport/road mess, than from transport/road users.
Are you claiming the point is that there are people whose job is to plan the public transportation, who have enough money to have more of it working but who purposefully decide not to? Why would they do that?
No of course not.
I've never worked in one of those offices. I don't know why things are so often badly done. I'd guess they are like everyone else. They do things a certain way out of habit, and don't think enough about why they are doing things that way, or whether that approach is appropriate to each job.
But I don't know. I'm like everyone else. I just see the results when they bollox their job up.
If poor transport planning is the reason, then it means that there are times where too much transport offer is set at places where it is not needed, and they would be better set somewhere else instead. I don't tend to observe that (but of course, this is a single person's experience!), which makes me think that they lack financial means to improve their service.
Here's an example I read recently. They were trying to make a change, with good intentions. They have the money to implement it.
But they did it in a way that was illegal. They didn't have the competences or thoughtfulness or guidance or whatever to plan the project correctly.
It's not always a shortage of money to fix the roads. It's often just incompetence from the competent body of people.
I notice these things a lot. Where roads and junctions are expensively over-engineered. They add granite road insets, or fancy paving, or traffic lights where they're not needed, etc.
Humans have a tendency to over-engineer. They tend to spend their entire budgets, even when they are quite big budgets. They optimise too much for a single metric and forget other important factors.
There's nowhere near where you live that's been unneccesarily changed around several times in the last few decades, while other places that need imporvements have been neglected?
I notice these things a lot. Where roads and junctions are expensively over-engineered. They add granite road insets, or fancy paving, or traffic lights where they're not needed, etc.
Ok but we're talking about the public transportation. This is actuallly consistent with the idea that public transportation be underbudgeted in favour of more projects who are directed towards car drivers.
Oh, you're just talking about buses and trains, not urban transportation in general? In that case your argument makes a lot of sense.
In thinking more about the whole thing - prioritisation of different types of vehicle, road layouts and rail connectivity, and the interconnections.
I think the problem is that this global vision of transportation is quite a long term one, so the politicians who need to be reelected within half a decade will tend to fund the issues that concern more people
Honestly I don't really like any private motorized vehicle. (even if I think the world is never going to quit these.)