[curtis]

> We are cleaving into two nations—one where daily life revolves around the car, and the other where the car is receding in favor of walking, biking, and transit.

Walking, biking, and transit are not actually the same thing, except that they are "not driving". So it's more accurate to say that there are two kinds of commuters, those that take cars and those that don't. There's absolutely nothing new about this though. It's likely true that more people are not driving these days, but that's got more to do with the fact that more of us are living in large cities where it's simply not possible for everyone to drive, and where transit is more practical because of the density.

This notion that at some point in the future there will not be people commuting in cars is just dumb, and kind of tiresome. There's a lot of noise being generated by people who think driving a car is flat out immoral, and I'd contend this isn't a moral issue it's just a practical one, and I really wish it were treated this way.

[the_gastropod]

Ignoring all the other problems, like car crashes, urban land-use, infrastructure spending to support them, etc, their emissions alone should be a clear moral issue when talking about cars. When the alternatives (walking, public transit, and bicycling) are orders of magnitude more efficient, it's absolutely a moral issue.

[pedantsamaritan]

From the math I've seen, bicycling is 1 order of magnitude lower CO2 emission than driving. Here is one source https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycli...

I was surprised it wasn't a bigger difference myself.

It also appears buses are in the 1 order of magnitude range: http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/dwhs/info/Pages/OzonePublicTra..., https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/11/can-we-please...

[kiliantics]

I don't trust that this calculation went into sufficient depth. People who drive cars still eat food.

[briandear]

Walking, public transport and biking are orders of magnitude more inefficient if you have kids or have to transport anything bigger than a backpack.

[bobthepanda]

As someone who grew up in New York, kids are actually much easier with walking, public transport, and biking. I was able to go out to school, head to team sports, go to restaurants and shopping, hang out with friends, etc. all independently.

When I went to college, all of my suburban friends hadn't done too much of any of that, because being in the suburbs before driving age requires a parent available to be your chauffeur. Anecdotally, they were also more prone to underage drinking before college, because they just couldn't go out and do much.

[JackFr]

As someone who raised three children in Manhattan, walking and public transit are fine with small children. Biking, while a great source of recreation, is simply not an option for transportation with small children. And the ability to fall back on a cabs or Uber on rare occasions is also sometimes necessary.

That being said, at an older age, I never had to take my children anywhere. Like you said, they walked, rode or took public transport.

Finally in my experience, city kids are just as prone to underage drinking as their suburban counterparts, possibly moreso because of the increased opportunity. What they don't do however, is drink and drive.

[ndnxhs]

You can get bike trailers for very cheap that carry small kids.

[ndnxhs]

Living in the suburbs meant I met up with friends outside of school so few times I could count it on my fingers. Everyone was ~20km away and the bus system only comes during school start and end times.

I'd say this is one of the main reasons for the popularity of video games and child obesity. Kids have no way of getting around so they are stuck at home.

[ilaksh]

I think the issue is that most cities are nothing like New York. The density is just completely different.

[bobthepanda]

I didn't live in a very dense part of New York; I lived on the border between Queens and Long Island, and pretty much my entire neighborhood, and all the neighborhoods for miles, basically consisted of single-family detached homes with small yards and backyards.

The main ingredient that you need for carfree kids to work is usable transit. And by usable, I mean it was frequent; if I missed my bus I would only ever be waiting 10-15 minutes for the next one. Everything I could want to go to would be reachable by bus in 40 minutes or less.

If you were to take a map of most American cities' bus networks and only showed routes that ran every 10-15 or better throughout the middle of the day on weekdays, an awful lot of them would be mostly blank. Even more if you were to require that for Saturdays as well, and pretty much all of them for the entire week. Provide the transit and people will ride; it's how Seattle managed to buck a national trend of declining bus ridership.

[ilaksh]

Queens has a population density of 20000 per square mile. The average US urban area is 283 per square mile.

[the_gastropod]

Millions of New Yorkers (and billions worldwide) have kids, no car, and get along just fine. Subway trains are quite capable of carrying virtually anything you can carry. And bicycle trailers are pretty impressive specimens. And when you need to haul anything truly massive, sure, rent a Uhaul. But to pretend you need a 2-ton vehicle because you've got a couple little kids and a load of groceries for the week... c'mon.

[souprock]

It could work for a kid or two, but that family size isn't enough to prevent extinction. Somebody needs to have more kids.

For me, a load of groceries fills 3 shopping carts in the store (packed to the top and overflowing) and 4 once bagged. That seems to be about 42 cubic feet (1.2 cubic meters) of food, with weight likely approaching a ton. I still have to buy a bit more during the week, since we go through about 2 gallons of milk per day and I'm just not going to attempt bringing home and storing 14 gallons of milk.

I use a 3-ton vehicle by curb weight. It can be a 5-ton vehicle when filled. The 5.4L V8 gets 11 MPG in the city. It's actually fuel-efficient on a per-person basis when I fill most of the 15 seats with people; think of it as 3 times a 5-seat vehicle that does 33 MPG.

[rayiner]

There is no way you can fit a week's groceries for a family of four in a bicycle trailer.

[the_gastropod]

...yea https://bikecart.pedalpeople.coop/gallery.html

Most people fit their week's worth of groceries in a grocery cart, and manage to push that around the store. I really don't understand why it's crazy to think you could tow them home with a bicycle. Plenty of people do this. It's a bit out of the norm in the U.S., yes. But don't for a second think it's impossible, or even particularly challenging.

[zjaffee]

Those 600 dollar strollers tend to work pretty well for dragging kids around, also at least in manhattan, you can get virtually anything delivered.

[bobthepanda]

I think that walking, biking, and transit are a lot harder to cleave apart than car/non-car; many transit users also walk and bike, many cyclists also walk and take transit, etc. This is even more true once you expand this out to all trips, e.g. I take transit to work but walk to the grocery store, I take transit to work but bike to the park, etc.

So they aren't the same, but they do go hand in hand quite a lot. I don't think there's any implication in the article that they are the same.