[thedaly]

I agree that the fixation on cars in urban/population dense areas is a problem and the overall use of cars in these areas should be offset by public transportation.

I feel like the one in five Americans that live in rural areas is left out of the conversation though. You can't eliminate cars for those 60 million or so people.

[frumper]

When you suggest 80% of people live in urban areas, that statistic has a threshold of 2,534.4 people/sq mi. That isn't very dense. You're leaving out a lot more than 20% from the conversation when you talk about eliminating cars.

[ghaff]

And, really, that understates it. I'm technically urban per the Census--ex-urban per ESRI. But the idea that anyone near me could reasonably get by with just public transit is laughable. And I actually live quite close to a commuter rail station and there is a small regional bus system.

[ttfkam]

Sounds like you and your fellow community members should vote for folks who will prioritize public transit rather than widening stroads. Poor transit options are a policy choice, not an inevitability. The best time to start advocating for livable cities was a decade ago. Second best time is now, so that ten years from now, you and yours will have more options than they have today.

Folks need to be transported at higher and higher densities as a city's population grows. Cars are the lowest density carrier available. Think of how many cars fit on a four-lane road on a mile stretch. How many people are in those cars? How many trains or busses would be needed to move that many people? Now visualize the space taken up by those cars versus the space taken up by busses.

That's how you solve traffic problems with a growing population, even for the folks who still need their cars because their destinations are sufficiently irregular. Mass transit helps those who need their cars too!

As a byproduct, you don't need so many and so large parking lots. Think of all the parking lots around you, which I'm sure there are many. Imagine 80% of them were replaced with housing, retail, office space, parks, meeting places, etc. Then convert the remaining 20% to multi-story parking.

Urban sprawl is a choice. Choose different.

[ghaff]

I am 50 miles outside the nearest major city. I'm on a busy but 2-lane total country road where my two nearest neighbors are on 10s of acres. There are no nearby businesses (much less stroads) until you get to a nearby small (20K) person city. I don't know how you solve that with mass transit. And it's considered urban as the US Census defines it.

You may not approve that such places exist but they do. And folks like to live in them.

[ttfkam]

Okay, so where you live is classified incorrectly. That's fine. Mass transit doesn't work without the "mass" part, which you clearly don't have. I have no problem at all with your vehicle ownership or your choice of place to live.

[ghaff]

Well, the census has a binary definition and, for different purposes, it makes various degrees of sense although I can fairly easily go into one one of the largest US cities for a day or evening. I'm not in the boonies but I'm also clearly not in a location where car-less public transit can remotely work. And I'm not sure there is a reasonable mid-definition because at that point you're judging what degree of inconvenience is acceptable--which is pretty much the case with the regional transit system around where I live.

[frumper]

Houston and Phoenix are 2/5 top 10 cities in America and both have a lower population density than the small farming city I live in of 50k people. America is just huge.

[ttfkam]

Yes, car-centric land use is horribly inefficient and the core of the problem. You can either throw good money after bad as a matter of public policy, or you can start strategically increasing density.

But it's a choice. There are a lot of folks out there in the "good money after bad" camp who focus too much on what is and what was rather than what could be.

[dcow]

We’re also only talking about “good weather” regions. There’s no way an autonomous vehicle is capable of handling diverse weather, gravel roads, especially snow and ice, at the moment (my Tesla does not). The conversation is very myopically optimistic at the moment (which is fine, it should be, just pointing it out).

[lamontcg]

Bet you we could make an autonomous vehicle that handles snow and ice conditions better than the average Seattle driver. Most people aren't any good at driving under those conditions. And half of Seattle forgets how to drive in wet conditions after the summer is over.

[sib]

My favorite thing about Seattle drivers & traffic (lived there for 15 years).

[rains] Radio traffic announcer: "It's slow out there because it's raining."

[cloudy] Radio traffic announcer: "It's slow out there because of low visibility."

[sunny] Radio traffic announcer: "It's slow out there because it's sunny."

[ttfkam]

This feels like a straw man to me. If someone who works in construction, works a ranch, tows a livestock trailer, manages a farm, etc. wants an F-150 or F-250 or whatever, I don't think the vast majority of us will even question that decision. Rural residents and (sub)urban residents on average have very different needs and goals, and I have no problem with that. I for one am not fixated on the 20% because by and large, they aren't the problem. They don't greatly contribute to overall traffic congestion, traffic accidents, or even emissions. They also shouldn't block policy directed toward the 80%.

I'm talking about segments of the other 80% that wants a dually truck because it makes them look "alpha". Folks buying huge SUVs to feel "safe" while being more prone to rollovers, less able to avoid collisions, and far more likely to kill others—especially pedestrians—in a crash in addition to monopolizing greater and greater proportions of limited land resources.

You live three miles from your nearest neighbor? Feel free to indulge in a raised pickup with 3 tons of bed capacity and 5 tons of towing with my blessing.

You live in one of the major metropolitan areas in the US? Don't buy a Hummer, Lexus SUV, or F-150, especially if safety is your goal. In fact, those large vehicles should require a new class of drivers license due to their size and performance characteristics just like school busses require a class B and motorcycles a class M due to their different structure and place within our highways. Buy a transit pass. Per capita, folks simply don't die in car accidents when they ride the bus or take a light rail. Don't have good/fast public transit infrastructure where you live? Time to vote for folks who will make it a priority.

Because widening stroads has been tried. It doesn't work. They have never worked. They don't make traffic better, they don't make us safer on the road, they don't get us to our destinations safer, and they certainly don't make the most efficient use of land. It's time to move on. Dump all the stupid, oversized, single-level, paved parking lots and replace them with mixed-use housing, retail, and office space with a public transit hub.

Make just enough parking so that the 20% folks who actually need their daily-use vehicles can visit easily. Preferably they can park in the park-n-rides at the outskirts and hop on a train to the city center so the parking fees are as cheap as possible. Let the 20% decide whether they want self-driving vehicles or not. The 80% should leave them alone and embrace the self-driving busses and trains for themselves.