What about transit? Why do Americans always have to drive. We need real alternatives to cars.
The suburban sprawl makes building transit a lot harder but to fix that we need to increase density but then it’s hard to increase density when you need space for cars because you have no usable transit
Infrastructure alone to Bungalow jungle is never cost-effective: as Detroit learned, it never pays for itself with property tax.
I say we jack the property tax on low-dense residential to properly reflect a 20-year amortization and all the operating expenses of the infrastructure used, all the way back to City Hall, so that it does pay for itself (and the farther out, the more expensive to fix, the more expensive the tax).
At the same time, the city will
- wreck a park (wait for it)
- put up 40 storeys of mixed use
- offer to buy the shitty bungalows around the building, with an option to buy into ready condo space
- same for businesses, because #mixed-use
- use adjacent bungalow space for central square. Start with transit station underneath
- build 7 more towers
- offer same buy-up to adjacent bungalows
- surround with greenspace and one really ineffective laneway to connect garages under building with roadway out there
- begin offering more incentives for bungalow people to give up their home for agri space and move into mixed-use
- repeat until city is transformed to efficient walkable oases linked by transit
People think they can’t do apartments, but I’m sure a spacious 1200sqft place planned with an eye to sight-lines isn’t what they’re thinking. We love our (smaller) apartment near the mixed-use block that sprung up , and everything we need is within that block. From daycares and pet stores to restaurants and coffee-shops and take-out, and gyms (plural) and insurers and a market and a chemist and an insurer and a physio… it’s endless, and they’re still building out more commercial space.
But you have to build the new space, properly configured with GOOD (rail) transit, before you can get people out of their cars.
It’s really isn’t difficult
Our government just won’t spend the money to do it
If you want useful public transit then it needs to connect population centers where people are. People are lazy and don’t want to walk more than 1/2 mile to a bus stop so if you have a population density of 1000/ sq mi that means any one bus stop is only going to be able to provide adequate coverage to 250 people. With so few people per stop it needs to make a lot of stops to be useful which then makes it slow which further lowers use. At that density it also doesn’t make logical sense to have designated bus lanes so they are stuck going slow in traffic as well. So now you have an expensive system that nobody uses because it sucks
If you have higher density then you can justify more lines which makes them actually useful and can add things like light rails which really make a difference
Bike transit is usually easier in those lower density areas but due to the low density getting between places is usually a bit further away so there are usually higher speed limit roads that aren’t as good for cyclists so more expensive barriers need to be constructed or they have to follow less direct paths which causes cycling to be slow
Chicken and egg situation, Americans drive because that’s how their cities and suburbs are laid out (excluding NYC, for the most part).
They don’t rely on alternatives because they are slow, inconvenient or non-existent; alternatives can’t be built up as the costs can’t be justified based on existing patronage levels.
Plenty of US cities are built like NY, on grids, as circles, etc. The problem is that everything is far away.
It’s not so much about being built on a grid, but rather being built with a particularly high population density in mind - and further supported by a robust public transit network.
transit
“We mean electric cars, you commie! The next time you talk about that thing, you are going out that window.”
\s
I live in a mid-sized Canadian city, with a population of just under 400k with what is considered a pretty good bus-based transit system, with roughly 60 routes. Even way out in the boonies you can catch a bus. You can get from pretty nearly any point A to any point B on the bus.
And yet I and those who can afford to do so generally avoid the bus. Our streets are still filled with cars during rush hour (which, as someone who has 100% WFM for the last 15 years I’m happy to say I’m not contributing to). Reasons?
- If your origin and destination aren’t on the same route, you’re going to need to transfer. Possibly multiple times. And wait for those transfers.
- Buses are sometimes either late, or too full and don’t stop. Which means if you rely on taking the bus to get to work, you had better be up quite early to ensure you get to your destination on time.
- Bus people. Creepy old guys hitting on young (or even old) girls and women. People who haven’t showered in a while sitting next to you. The people who think their bag is too important and needs a seat. We bought my wife a car the week after some racist tried to attack her.
You know what doesn’t have any of those problems? My car. I can crank my music up if I want to. I get to pick who is in my car. I don’t have to get up extra early to make sure I get to my destination on time because the bus might be late, full, or because I have to make multiple transfers (at each point of which the bus could be late or full…).
I’m glad we have the bus system we have for those people who need it. I know we have people in our city who don’t have the privilege of owning a vehicle of their own — and for some people whose needs are simple the bus can likely work just fine. I’m glad we have that system for the people who don’t otherwise have a choice — but for everyone who has that choice, the choice is typically being in their own private vehicle where they can sing loudly, eat and drink whatever they like, control who rides with them, and go wherever they want to — heck, I can even change my mind about my destination mid-drive and go wherever I want to without having to switch cars.
I’ll admit, having taken transit in bigger cities (Toronto, Montreal, Istanbul) being able to take a train (subway, LRT, surface rail, streetcars etc.) can be pretty great. I think bigger cities need this kind of transit — even with its many, many problems it can beat out taking a car to a downtown core. But even when I lived in some of these cities I still had a car. But the size of my current home city just isn’t big enough to accommodate that level of transit. The cost would just be too horrendous.
Can everyone do better? Sure. But I don’t think such improvements are going to significantly encourage more people to take transit over their own vehicles.
There’s many smaller cities than yours in Europe with a tram network. Volchansk in Russia has a tram line with a population of 10k. Canada isn’t know for having great public transport… In a city like Hong Kong you don’t need a car, it’s so convenient.
Hamilton? Guessing it because of the racism
Honestly, it’s just so convenient to be able to get in the car and go (unless the destination’s parking situation is really bad).
Americans value convenience quite a lot. We even trade our personal data for it.
The design of US cities has reinforced this.
Nobody actually lives anywhere near the places they need to work and shop so driving is the only option. Because everything’s so spread out public transport is terrible because it’s not possible to provide a decent service.
You have as a much denser population in Europe than the US by land area, so everything’s closer together and it’s easier to build public transport infrastructure in that scenario, because every stop serves a greater number of people. Plus there isn’t such a great distance between the suburban areas and the urban areas. Personally I can get from suburbia to urban the area with a 1-minute walk. I don’t understand why Americans have to be 10 miles away from their cities.
Ah that makes sense. Personally, I tend to avoid urban areas if possible. Too much air pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, people… Maybe it’s a sensory thing. I could see how it’s much easier to build a public transit system when everyone’s so close together though
Stupid article. You don’t need 240 V , you can charge with a regular wall plug. For a lot of usage patterns this is more than enough.
Couldn’t be that most Americans can’t afford new cars.
Because they keep buying shit they don’t need and hording it in the garage, while their car sits outside in the driveway exposed to the elements.
Hyperinflation and incoming recession aside, Americans have been using their garages for junk storage for many decades.
pretty sure it’s the lack of money that’s hurting ev adoption.
There can be multiple factors.
People with garages big enough for a nice car that also have it stuffed with things probally have money too. Right?
I have a garage that could hold 4 cars if you parked 2 rows of them…
My single income household of 3 is just barely above the national poverty level.
Money and options are hurting my adaption rate
That’s irrelevant because as far as I know you don’t actually have to have the car in the garage to be able to charge it you can put the charger on the outside if you want.
Also I don’t know how it is in America but my garage is literally too small for the car, I can just about get it in there but then I’m stuck because I can’t open the door far enough to get out.
This guy knows how to do it.
Many Americans have huge garages, some with room to park 2 or even 3 vehicles with plenty of space to walk around them. But even single garages are large enough to park cars.
Cars are much wider now than they used to be. Garages that were built more than 50 years ago likely are thinner.
Sure, though the UK has a much larger proportion of those old houses than the US.
I’ve seen in newer slapped together constructions where yes, wide enough for two cars but they skimped on depth and the average sedan or larger won’t actually fit.
I moved in to a house with a garage and my in laws are constantly trying to give us crap to fill it up.
I don’t even know where they’re getting this stuff, they just show up and are like “oh, we’re getting rid of this dresser, we thought you’d like it” or “or, I bought this antique trunk at a yard sale, can you hold on to it”.
Yeah, my bfs dad is constantly filling his house, garage, and yard with a bunch of crap that he’ll never use. It just sits there and gets forgotten and deteriorates. Took us 6 years but we got like 90% of what he was storing out of our house too.
Same here. Luckily our basement flooded and we were like “oh well, guess it’s all ruined and has to be thrown away 🤷”
Too real
Weird. I haven’t had a garage in a most of the places I’ve lived as an adult and I drive electric and charge at home just fine.
If you need to top off with 200 - 300 miles of range every night, you commute sucks giant donkey balls.
We have a one-car garage and two cars. I have a table saw, therefore we have a no-car garage.
Pretty sure it’s the range and charge times. Especially in the Midwest. I need a car that can take me to Florida in under 16 hours. Also I own a EV
The real problem is having to go to Florida so regularly. I feel for ya.
My parents have a garage full of junk. It used to drive me crazy. We have strong storms where we live and a tree/branches falling are a real possibility of damaging their cars. Plus hail storms sometimes.
It’s mainly my moms stuff. Some of it is worth money but it’s not being sold or anything.
If they used the garage as something other than storage it would be one thing. Instead it’s full of stuff for no real reason.
Some of it is worth money but it’s not being sold or anything.
My mother refuses to admit she’s a hoarder, and none of her things are really valuable. She’s clean, it’s not like she lives in filth, but she lives in 4000 square feet (main floor + basement) and has three full wall closets plus a room in the basement all filled with every item of clothing she has ever owned. I can barely fill a small closet with all my clothing. Her closets aren’t small, either. They are about 15 feet wide, each. So three 15 feet wide closets absolutely crammed with shit, and each one of them has storage space broken into three sections, about three feet tall each above each closet. Everything is crammed full. None of it is ever pulled out to be used for anything. She has all these things from her family she has kept for “memories” but 1. they mean nothing to me because I hate my extended family and 2. I won’t be able to afford to store them and won’t have reason to when she’s gone.
I don’t fucking get it, it’s a massive house, and it’s just stuffed to the fucking brim with crap crap crap!
There are lots of factors that lead to people of her generation ending up like this. It’s really common.
One factor for some people, is not wanting to face how wasteful we are. It’s putting off the reality that it’s all landfill. Just one of many reasons. And I think it might be common with people who are not exactly hoarders, but also manage to hold on to so much.
Sure, they could donate it… but the rationalization could spin up again knowing that’s just another cope, because most of it will go from the donation place to the landfill.
The big thing I see in my mom is she grew up with almost nothing, and all this stuff keeps her a little further from ever being in that situation again. I get it, but it isn’t a healthy way to deal with that fear, and you’d be better off saving the money instead. But she doesn’t trust banks, so that’s another negative. 🤷♂️
you don’t even need a garage to charge your EV, just install it on the exterior.
Yeah lemme just do that on my apartment
Does your apartment have a garage? No? Then what does this add to the conversation?
They wanted to supply some negative charge.
I’m sensing a lot of resistance.
this article is about junk filled garages, so clearly not talking about apartment dwellers.
I don’t have a driver’s license, so I don’t have to worry about that! :-)
lol, this totally makes sense to me. It can’t be the only reason. But my lived experience tells me it’s not insignificant.
