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by CM30
803 days ago
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No, they definitely make a society more free. The difference between being able to drive somewhere and having to walk or take public transport is huge. You can go places at your own pace rather than what's 'best for the majority', reach areas more quickly, go to areas that aren't worth connecting to the rest of the transport system, etc. The issue is that some places (like the US) are designed around cars rather than just treating them like another form of transport. Having shops and businesses miles from homes is bad design regardless of whether cars are a thing or not. Designing on the assumption every person will drive and having thousands of parking spaces is bad design for similar reasons. The difference between driving and not driving is between going where the government deems it worth going/getting there in a far longer timespan and getting to wherever you want at roughly your own pace. The issues come from the assumption it's the only way to travel and societies designed around that idea. |
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This is leaving out a lot: your own pace is heavily impacted by traffic, the system is enormously expensive (around where I live, it’s tied with food as the second greatest household expense), and in many cities that freedom was constructed by removing other people’s freedom to have healthy neighborhoods.
Driving can seem like freedom but that’s because it’s heavily subsidized: not just for things like road infrastructure but also the less obvious things like not having to compensate the millions of people whose health is seriously impacted by car pollution or being allowed to carry grossly inadequate levels of insurance which mathematically ensures that the hundreds of thousands of people injured by cars every year will not be adequately compensated. That freedom is the illusion caused by shifting the costs to other people’s health and quality of life!