- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
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I regularly transit between Heathrow and downtown. It’s about 13 miles or so. Regularly 45 minutes to an hour and a quarter, and as much as an hour and three quarters if there was some event letting out at the time. For such short distances I don’t think I’ve seen any US city compare. Sure, some have bad hours or short segments of regular congestion, and I’ve driven from one side of the country to another, but London takes the cake for shitty driving most any hour of the day for such a short transit.
Never forget Top Gear’s episode racing through the center of London. Results as follows:
- Bicycle
- Boat
- Tube (public transit)
- Car
It wasn’t even really close.
This times 1000 any dense cities with sufficient transit should be car free.
with sufficient transit
That’s an unnecessary qualifier. Cities without sufficient transit should also be car free – and get sufficient transit.
Difference is that some metros are a car centric hellscape
If you banned private vehicle use in cities without sufficient transit, overnight such transit would, as if by magic, suddenly appear. Private bus services are a thing.
if you drive a car, you’re guilty of reckless endangerment, if not manslaughter. you are trying to kill me. nothing is unjustified in self defense, and if you’re moving, it’s not pre-emptive.
James May added: “The thing that really bothers me is road sectarianism. Quite a few people in cars seem to be somehow offended by people riding bicycles because they’ve paid all this money for a car and think therefore they should be rewarded for it, but often they’re just not using the car very intelligently.” 👍
I have to admit I’m a bit guilty of this, but from both sides. I bike more than I drive, and when I’m driving all cyclists are a menace and are in the way, but when I bike all drivers are reckless idiots who are trying to kill me.
well you’re half right.
The rule of the road is that any one going slower or faster than you is a menace, this applies to everyone with pedestrians being at the bottom of the food chain.
To be fair most cyclists in major cities have a death wish. I don’t have another way to describe wearing all black in winter with no lights driving against traffic in a car lane (where there is also a dedicated, separated bike lane), and ignoring all stop signs and traffic signals. It’s a death wish.
Yes it’s mostly doordash et al, but just because doordash doesn’t care about it’s workers doesn’t mean the workers don’t have to.
in my region the doordash type motorcyclists are the ones with a deathwish, they weave fast through traffic like they are immortal (and traffic laws don’t exist). needless to say they die a lot. the byciclists are rightfully afraid of our chaotic traffic, except when they install a motor on their bikes, for some reason.
there is no dedicated separate bike lane in the country im from.
sometimes they indicate them with paint on the pavement, but they’re always right on the edge and usually used for parking, and if you try to bike in those you’re going to have to merge into traffic quickly at some point.
He’s always been the one that’s not as much of a cock as the other two
Oh, right, I didn’t remember which one he was.
What did I miss about Hammond?
He tended to just ape the Orangutan. Heh. Ape. Orangutan. See what I did there?
Hes a cock
Oh, cock.
Constantly upside down when he gets in the driver’s seat
Actually he’s the right way up in the driver’s seat, he just rolled the car again
I know that James May was always the hippie of the group, but I’m still happy he said it.
Captain Slow will reach the correct conclusion…after some time.
Could not be more correct. Public spaces and transit, cities need to be for the people that live there. Not for suburban commuters
I just wish cycle theft wasn’t as prevalent as it is. If journalists can track down the shipping of stolen cycles, cops should be able to stop it.
Agreed theft is always a issue, there are ways to try and mitigate it. Proper storage, dedicated parking, lighting, cameras or security. Not all all 100% full proof though, not going to lie. Cars even get broken into when all these above listed items are in place.
Side note, I know in Europe it’s common to have a secondary “beater bike” in the city, you ride your bike to the train in your local town, then grab your beater in the city train station.
Trouble is when you need to keep replacing your beater bike…
The polar opposite to Jeremy Clarkson
Factually incorrect, because there’s proof May and Clarkson were both at the same pole.
Yes, but have you ever seen them in the same roo… Oh.
Obviously TV stars are the right people to ask about city planning. Because city planners and architects have given up the concept of automotive cities as recently as 1970 and nobody has been giving a fuck since then. On of the fathers of the original idea, Le Corbusier, declared the automotive city as failed because of the sheer number of cars . The automobile revolution had, in his opinion turned into an automobile explosion and no reasonable concept could handle the volume of traffic that were far beyond the estimations the original idea was based on. Nevertheless reasonable political reactions on the total failure of dealing with permanently increasing inner city infvidual traffic are still an exception. Because Hans Wurst and Joe Moron must have their car an arm’s length away from their sofas or they’ll either die from exhaustion walking to the convenience store or from acute lack of beer and potato chips…
What is Top Gear?
One of the most successful and popular global TV shows of all time.
Very famous show about cars. They made model compete against each other or other transportation mode in various racing contest and discuss a lot about mecanisc. It is British but also famous in France.
@pseudo @jagged_circle It had a pretty good viewership in Australia too. I think it did pretty well in a lot of countries.
The British version is more popular in the US than the US version they tried after Clarkson punched a producer.
Yeah. I could guess it. It was a very interesting show. I never was into cars but it is a nice thing to watch in the evening.
@jagged_circle @Global_Liberty
11-52.
?
@jagged_circle sorry, 11-52 is, historically, the top gear of a road bike…
Oh, sorry, I ride a brompton
@jagged_circle ah so sorry, top gear is 50/11*1.33 … Err something like that?
Yeah idk. I have two sets of planetary gears and one cassette
I had a 11-54 for a while… That was the bike I hit 60mph on, combination of downhill and drafting. Could have gone faster if I’d had more gears. That’s what prompted me to buy a Sachs 3x7 hub, so I technically had a 63-speed. But I never had the confluence of conditions to try again.
Bit too absolutist imo, people with mobility issues exist, i’d say most cars don’t belong in cities, and it would be solved by good design, traffic restrictions etc.
when I was a kid almost all kids took the bus and walked to school, now I live opposite of an elementary school in a “socialist block” in middle europe and in the morning there is a huge line of cars dropping off kids, the school literally has a roundabout in front of it’s entrance to make it easier, it’s awful design, not to mention there is literally a bus stop on the other side of the school.
There is 0 reason for kids to be driven to school.
Children going to school need bike trains, folks with disabilities need good accessible public transport, some might need adapted or well designed personal vehicles, everyone else needs cycles with theft-proof storage and great, cheap public transport
Mobility issues are the first dog whistle of car pros, and the first point to be dissected entirely.
Handicapped people have tools they use to navigate an office floor, and they use those same tools to cross from their apartment to the corner store. Building pedestrian-friendly cities and encouraging low-speed transport like bikes and trams helps them too.
Many handicap users also can’t drive cars, meaning public transit options suited to their common routes are a godsend. Advocates of bikes often encourage having that whole setup, so people can pick between walking, biking, or trains as needed.
With you first point i disagree. I think public transport is often just fine or even preferable for people with mobility issues. If they are wheelchair bound then they cannot drive. And public transport has come a long way in terms of supporting disabled people such as most trains trams buses from were I come from now support wheelchair access.
Although I would be interested if there are any examples were taking public transport is infeasible or unhelpful to specific situations.
Wheelchair bound people absolutely can drive, there are a lot of retrofit vehicles that support a wheelchair and have alternative controls.
Maybe not ideal, but in some parts of the US not having a car is a real problem.
Why would wheelchair bound people have to pay so much more to get car they can use, when they can pay the same price as everyone else for a ticket to ride with public transportation?
Also there are blind and other handicapped people that can easily ride public transport on their own, but would have to rely on others to ride with their own car.
Public transport is especially useful for the handicapped and elderly compared to personal cars.
why would they buy a car when they can pay the same price for public transport
They answered that
In some parts of the US not having a car would be a real problem
And truthfully, for a not insignificant part of the country, it won’t be. Population densities just wouldn’t support it.
why would they buy a car when they can pay the same price for public transport
They answered that
Basically, because they have no choice. More public transportation is choice.
Yes it’s definitely 100% a reasonable choice for people who don’t even technically live in cities. Absolutely
@Lv_InSaNe_vL @Malfeasant I’m happy to limit the ‘no personal cars’ to areas that are 1/4 acre blocks and below. (Remembering that a 1/4 acre block gets back a substantial amount of useful land when you delete the driveway, so blocks all become ‘bigger’ in such a system)
Places that are substantially less dense than that do benefit from cars. But that isn’t that large a % of people, while it is a very large % of the land mass.
My local public transit only commes by five times a day, and if the bus is already full, they’ll not let the wheelchair user on. Ostensibly they’ll send a van to pick them up, but those don’t adhere to a schedule and can take hours to arrive.
Transit around here is so bad that I’ve had multiple jobs tell me I’m not eligible for hire if I rely on the bus.
@faythofdragons @pineapple shitty PT is not the goal. Yes there are PT systems that are shit, that doesn’t mean good PT is worse than good individual car ownership (something I’ve never heard of), it just means shitty PT need to be less shitty.
Shitty public transit is the goal around here though. Its being run by fucking NIMBYs that don’t like that the bus that goes to my town also services a reservation, and just whine whine whine that the fully packed bus is too expensive and should be cut.
Phoenix area by any chance? Or Oklahoma?
Western Washington, surprisingly enough. I thought the area had fantastic transit before I moved, but outside the cities it sucks. I’m currently waiting for a taxi because my MRI finished after the last bus home. It’s only 5:30pm.
Sure no problem, let’s say you live in a village that’s next to a small town and then you are sent to an appointment to another doctor that’s only found in a nearby city, doing all that stuff is a lot of travelling, exhausting
Let’s say you live on the moon and need to reach earth for the funeral of your Aunt who rules the underground city of Uthrangon.
You are discussing edge cases. Urban planning should consider edge cases but not base the code design of a city after them.
I disagree. I think disability access should be one of the most important things considered when designing public spaces.
Its something that I (an American) honestly took for granted until I spent some time in Europe. I’m fortunate to be completely physically and mentally (for this conversation lol) capable, but I have friends who are not. But going around Europe, especially outside of big cities, it was shocking to see how many buildings aren’t wheelchair accessible, how roads crossings aren’t designed for people with vision impairments, how little braille there was, bathrooms without mobility bars, and countless other little things.
And the argument I heard a lot was either “but they’re old buildings” or “it’ll cost too much money” and honestly those are some BS answers.
Idk the US does a lot wrong, but the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) really does seem to be the global standard. And it’s an incredibly good thing.
I am not discussing edge cases I provided the example asked for, I agree with James May that cars in cities suck and we should plan cities better and reduce their numbers as much as possible, I just dislike the absolutist nature of the headline it’s the exact type of headline that opposers of good urban planning will point to when accusing people of wanting to taker freedum and their cars
I don’t really see any circumstance where a mobility-impaired person would prefer a car inside a city over just a motorized wheelchair…
i would like to answer.
What is, human settlements outside city where people also live but have to go into the city sometime?
bro you are on fuckcars, commenting shit like this either means you’re here in bad faith or you’re just ignorant.
Bro it showed up at the top of /all, get over yourself
I didn’t notice it’s fuck cars and I don’t really care, I will not make shitty absolutist comments that I don’t agree with, I believe in cities needing much better designs and better public infrastructure and disincentivizing cars as much as possible.
They could drive to a transit station then take mobility friendly transit to their destination.
I AGREE BAN CARS INVEST IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT 250 MILLION EURO IN ONE EAR SERVED 1 MILLION PEOPLE FOR 20 YEARS!!!
BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN
Getting your opposition to do that while remaining calm is a great rhetorical tactic. Especially if they rage out with little that directly ties their outburst to you being “unreasonable”.
Calm down
Agreed. Also dog’s do not belong in cities.
They can if people clean after their dog and keep them on leash in public spaces. The problem is always the people in the end.
I rhink dog owners should pay a tax that would pay for weekly poop cleaning.
Only new dog owners though, as to not penalize current ones.
Bold claim. I’ll tack onto that and say cats don’t belong in cities.
correct, because cats don’t belong outside at all, they should be kept indoors for their safety and the safety of the ecosystem.
What if you are in a country with native cats?
sure, if you live in africa then go ahead!
Yeah, I am sure all the Scottish wildcats live in Africa.
Depends on where you live I guess. But the ecosystem can adapt to threats
Cats kill rats.
Dogs need a large space to roam.
Dogs need a large space to roam.
No they don’t, they just need their owner to not be lazy SOB’s and be taken out for half decent walks.
People tend to only take them to the nearest field for ten minutes so they can take a dump, and even that has do be done staring down a smartphone screen 80 percent of the time. You could live on a farm with a large plot of land but that’d still be inadequate engagement.
Some people should’ve just straight up not gotten a dog at all, regardless of where they live. If you adequately engage your dog it could live with you in one of those glorified New York broom closets.
Agreed, humans do not deserve dogs.
Agreed.
@the_elder @PowerCrazy join your local TNR squad
