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	by zip1234 1214 days ago
	Cars are a classic "tragedy of the commons" due to how much space they take up and the infrastructure they take up. The places where it might've been 'nice to go for a drive' are not that way anymore because they have changed by everyone having a car. The windy country roads without anyone living on them are now filled with people that 'want to live in the country' but ironically do not because everyone wanted that.

2 comments

yamtaddle 1214 days ago

Yep. There was once an Ivan Illich (first I'd encountered him!) piece about cars linked on here some years back, which piece claimed that due to the effects of cars on infrastructure and cities they were only generally beneficial early on, when few had them, and later, if you can pay to have a driver (so, on average, they're now only net-beneficial to the rich). This is for city and suburb dwellers, mind you, not rural folks.

He claimed that the sweet spot for actually-liberating transit technology was bicycles.

I ran some conservative numbers and, sure enough, take out the time worked to pay for my car and make some reasonable (but, conservative) guesses about how much closer my house would be to where I need to go if you cut out all the stuff that's only there for cars (really wide margin-zones and medians for highway, huge interchanges, gigantic parking lots far bigger than the building they serve, front lawns generally, et c.) and, despite my living only a medium-distance from the city center and making way above median income for my city... I'm roughly at break-even versus that alternative bikes-mostly world where cars are just for emergencies, deliveries to businesses, and public transit buses & elderly assistance and such, and aren't owned by individuals near the city.

The numbers get worse fast if you live any farther out, or if you make closer to median income. Like, plainly-negative-value from cars being widespread.

link

nayuki 1214 days ago

"Ivan's Car": https://www.deautovanivan.nl/eng.html

> We think that the car due to its speed saves time. But when you are traveling by car, you not only lose the time it takes to go from A to B. You also have to work many hours to pay your car tax, insurance, maintenance and fuel.

My addendum: Also the capital cost of the car, whether it was bought outright in cash or with a loan.

link

yamtaddle 1214 days ago

Oh, yeah, I forgot to add that was with a paid-off car so I didn't even count that. Bike-world would still leave me with more money and the same commute time, worst-reasonable-case. Plus the commute would also be exercise. And that's with personally making well north of 2x median household income for my city. Car-world works out much worse for the vast majority of 'burb-dwellers in my city.

[EDIT] FWIW, I was skeptical, is why I ran the numbers. He's so right, for the average person in (I'd bet) most US cities, that it's not even a close call, it turns out.

link

BeFlatXIII 1214 days ago

> The windy country roads without anyone living on them are now filled with people that 'want to live in the country' but ironically do not because everyone wanted that.