[LarryDarrell]

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less.

WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

[tristor]

Same here, been WFH since 2015, however I did do a lot of driving for other reasons previously. Since 2022 however I drive less than 7000 miles a year, and that includes a family road trip each year for the holidays that is ~2500 miles round-trip. One thing that bothers me is that insurance is getting extremely expensive where I live, even though I hardly drive and my car is garaged year-round due to the greatly increasing amounts of vehicle theft. I've considered a few times just not having a car and renting a car regularly, but services like ZipCar have pretty much died out and I don't live in a city center where they still sometimes exist. I drive on average just once per week, if I could that for a fully-laden cost of less than $500/mo it would be cheaper to rent than buy, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone that's captured this market.

[LeifCarrotson]

I can call my insurance agent and take a vehicle (seldom-used winter beater truck in the summer, or seldom-used summer car in the winter) on or off the road at a whim, prorating my premium appropriately.

That sucks for usability, but I wonder if there exists a market for 'smart insurance' where I can log into a webpage or use an app to put it on or off a car.

But the real answer, I think, is getting a quote for your actual mileage. You're driving 7000 miles a year and being lumped into a risk group with people who are driving two or three times as much:

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

Unfortunately, I've found that mileage doesn't have a big impact on my premiums.

[njarboe]

Do you have full coverage on your car? You should consider dropping that. Vehicle theft should not be increasing liability costs that much.

[tristor]

I am required to carry full coverage because my car is financed. Even when I've paid a car off, I still carry full coverage, because liability-only policies tend to not help in my past experiences mostly due to the absolute epidemic of uninsured/unregistered cars on American roadways.

[thfuran]

Is it actually a win for the environment? Sure, not commuting is, but what about more people deciding to live in less dense areas?

[epistasis]

One of the biggest environmental impacts is driving, so the real key is to have mixed uses near by.

If you have a family and still need to drive your kids to school everyday, because schools are too far away to walk and there's no bus (typical in California), if you need to drive to go to the grocery store, if you need to drive to do everything in your life, then working from home in a less dense area might still involve a very similar amount of driving.

Once vehicle miles travelled is subtracted out, the biggest impact from living in less dense areas is deforestation, reduction of large fauna in ecosystems, etc. A classic example of that is the Santa Cruz Mountains, highly populated by low-density living, but getting in and out is so arduous that most people do not commute much, or even leave their houses for much. A good life for hermits, but it's not for everyone.

[SoftTalker]

I think it would still involve less driving. You don't get groceries every day if you drive to get them. You buy a few days or a week's worth of supplies at a time.

School may be hard to avoid driving if there's no bus or good walking/biking routes, but maybe you can carpool with neighbors who have kids in the same school.

But I think fundamentally a lot of people are just not accustomed to sitting at home. They feel cooped up, and bored. That's not me -- I'd rarely leave the house if I could get away with it. But I know a lot of people feel that way, if they didn't have to go to work they'd go drive somewhere just to be somewhere different for a while.

[epistasis]

I totally understand that, and we need to account for people with different desires and needs. I would go crazy in no time in an isolated setting, I really really crave having a lot of density and people around me. But despise driving to do anything unless it's purely recreational driving, which would be fun maybe once or twice a month.

I would love nothing more than to live in a walkable neighborhood, with very few cars, that lets kids roam free without fear of them getting killed by drivers. But that's really hard to come by anywhere in the US.

[hinkley]

My theory is that WFH will mostly contribute to creating secondary markets for more industries. Professionals will still want the services a city affords you but not want to pay SF or even Seattle prices. So they’ll end up somewhere under two hours from the nearest metropolis.

But if you get enough people in one place, you’ll get entrepreneurship.

[BobaFloutist]

If you get enough people in one place what you really get is a city.

[hinkley]

From a business standpoint that’s not sufficient though. You need a critical mass of people interested in your narrow little niche.

[LarryDarrell]

At some point one has to consider costs, scale and political expediency.

WFH and H-WFH would be broadly popular among the electorate and could probably take off with just some changes to the tax code.

Presuming everyone does want to live in a dense area (I do not), building housing and infrastructure is expensive and at the end of the day it has to be profitable to build. We don't really have the framework to zone municipalities at the Federal level. So now you are talking about leaving it to the individual states... and I think you can see where that goes.

Given all that, yes, fewer miles driven in aggregate is a good and easy win for the environment. Less gasoline consumed, fewer tires and brake pads consumed, less work clothes bought, less meals purchased at lunch, etc.

[david-gpu]

> Presuming everyone does want to live in a dense area (I do not)

I wish we stopped subsidizing wealthy folks choosing to live in low density areas. It is intrinsically regressive that poorer people living in sustainable denser areas are subsidizing the infrastructure of the low density suburbs where richer people live. Low density suburbs do not raise enough taxes to support their own infrastructure, from roads, to water management, to electricity, etc.

Want to live in a single family home? Great! But don't expect people poorer than you to bear the cost.

[Spivak]

> wealthy folks choosing to live in low density areas

There's no way you're saying this with a straight face, right? People move out of the city because it's significantly cheaper. Rent in a nice two bedroom "downtown" is $3500. You move 15 minutes out of there and you can get 3 bedroom house for an $1800 mortgage that'll never go up.

Source: I did that. I got tired of paying such a huge chunk of my income for living.

[jwagenet]

It’s cheaper because not enough city housing is built and there are other costs associated with suburban living. IMO, property taxes should increase as density decreases because those less dense areas will cost a lot more to maintain roads, utilities, etc. down the road.

[weweweoo]

Higher property taxes for less dense areas might make sense for suburbs of big cities, but not beyond that. In the countryside road and other infrastructure is required for agriculture, if some people also choose to live there (and that way reduce prices in cities) it's a win-win.

[Spivak]

Look, where I live isn't SF or Vancouver that has the "NIMBYs oppose all new building" problem. If you wanted to build super dense high-rise apartments or skyscrapers both the city and state would throw money at you and give you tax breaks. It's still ludicrously expensive compared to even the closest suburb.

We've gotten more traction building apartment complexes on the edges of the burbs than in the metro area in recent years.

[kiba]

I live in a SFH. It's very unpleasant outside of my home. It's inconvenient, sometime outright dangerous to walk to my local grocery store. There's also constant noise from the cars and the ever present possibility of a car driving off the road. I see a bicycle tribute or two to small children in my local area.

I wouldn't even considering cycling given the speed of cars around there. The local road is used for through traffic despite being one lane in each direction. So it's very frustrating if I want to get somewhere during rush hour, and this is just cars!

If you want to walk to the local gas station, you might have to deal with muddy ground because of the ground being the bottom of a hill in order to get there, although the owner of said muddy ground have filled it in with dirt lately. The sidewalks if they exist, are discontinuous.

Yes, wealthier people live in SFH and the surburb, but it's a questionable in term of quality of life.

I visited the city. In some way, they are more convenient such as access to rideshare scooters and bikes, but also dangerous and automotive centric if less so.

[LarryDarrell]

My neighborhood and for miles around me is lower to middle-middle class. All people that wouldn't be able to afford to 1) move and leave their equity behind 2) afford the rents in the denser part of town.

You are painting with too broad of strokes.

[jwagenet]

No way there should be incentives for living outside dense areas. Utility, road, and service maintenance costs increase per capita as density goes down, and currently that cost is not borne by people in those areas.

[kiba]

Presuming everyone does want to live in a dense area (I do not), building housing and infrastructure is expensive and at the end of the day it has to be profitable to build. We don't really have the framework to zone municipalities at the Federal level. So now you are talking about leaving it to the individual states... and I think you can see where that goes.

It's impossible to build if there are restriction on permitting and construction. Also, I would expect land cost to be a significant factor in high density area due to high demand.

[thfuran]

I don't really see how any of this (aside from the brief mention of commuting again) has any bearing on the question of whether it's better for the environment.

[faeriechangling]

Does it follow if you don’t commute you’ll live rurally or in the suburbs? If you live urban you can just rid yourself of a vehicle altogether.

[thfuran]

As in does working from home require someone to move to the suburbs? No. But many people do choose to move into larger housing in cheaper, less dense areas once they start spending more time at home and aren't tied down by a daily commute.

[kps]

A house can be approximately net zero from solar panels. Much denser housing can't be.

[epistasis]

Denser housing can easily be net zero from nearby solar panels. Additionally, denser housing is much more energy efficient, requiring less overall energy, but this is kind of a minor impact. Once we get to solar + batteries powering most of our energy needs, cutting space heating energy needs by 20%-50% doesn't matter much.

[blargey]

When the topic is "tire wear on cars causes significant environmental damage, not just their combustion-engine emissions", praising houses for just their electricity consumption seems a little silly.

[kps]

The immediate context was an objection to WFH, not driving.

[kylebenzle]

The denser the housing the more efficient in almost every way. Even if we had the money the world already doesn't have enough resources for everyone to get a single family home with solar panels, batteries, a tesla and a well, most will have to live in dense cities to survive.

[MisterTea]

> It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level.

It's absurd that tech people seem to think that WFH is applicable to everyone. I'm in a shop right now and have to touch machinery on a daily basis. So do the rest of the workers.

[omginternets]

Surely the OP's point is that a significant proportion of the workforce can WFH, and that this would have a significant environmental impact...

[faeriechangling]

Jealousy politics are indeed an obstacle but the societal insistence that everybody needs to pollute the environment because some people have to pollute the environment is nonsense.

[Neil44]

As long as aggressively promoting WFH doesn't penalise people for whom this is not an option.

[lm28469]

OK but then how many people are penalised by having to own a car?

[crazygringo]

A lot of people simply can't work from home due to lack of space, noise and interruptions, etc.

It's a lot easier to buy a cheap used car than uproot your entire living situation to a new home where you can WFH, which you also might not be able to afford.

Not to mention you probably already own your car for other things like getting groceries.

[Spooky23]

There are lots of ways to adapt to that. For example, you can have localized telework centers or subsidize co-working spaces.

The current situation is far worse. People are literally trapped in a cycle of poverty or bad work experience because they cannot get to a suburban office park for want of a car.

WFH has lots of limitations. Distribute work geographically and you can lower costs and improve outcomes. Why have accounts payable reps in New Jersey in a giant office when I could rent a small office in Maine or Kentucky for 80% less and pay the workers 30% less, without the complexities of offshoring.

[JumpCrisscross]

> subsidize co-working spaces

These are called offices.

Look, I WFH and I love it. But in the process I probably quintupled my emissions. I might be able to get that down to quadrupling with an EV and full solar array. But the realities of suburban/rural living are simply much harsher on the environment.

[weweweoo]

It's not the realities, but people's choices. One can live in rural area and limit driving to the absolute minimum necessary, and build a small house heated using renewables rather than a big house heated with fossil fuels. Similarly, lots of city people increase their carbon footprint through excess consumption and travel.

I guess ecological rural living may not be easy if you enjoy lots of social activities. For an introvert like me it wouldn't be a problem.

[Spooky23]

The stated problem is some people can’t effectively work from home.

My goal is to get the best candidates. My reasons are selfish - I can get great people cheap if they have circumstances problematic for other employers.

So I got a 5 desks in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and about 15 people in that region utilize it.

Everyone wins: i spend almost nothing. The employee has a great job, doesn’t have to drive 90 minutes, and doesn’t have to disrupt the family life.

[paulryanrogers]

Co-working spaces are distinct from traditional offices because they mix workers of so many different employers. Sometimes as granular as to the desk. This can significantly reduce or eliminate commutes.

[lm28469]

> But in the process I probably quintupled my emissions.

What process ? WFH doesn't mean you have to move out of the city and build a huge house with all the modern bells and whistles

[lm28469]

Before covid I went to the office everyday, by bike, or public transport, owning a car where I live is a more of an annoyance than anything.

If we cared we could solve the bulk of problem somewhat easily, the 80/20 rule still applies but you could drastically reduce the number of cars on the road. Of course if all you care about is short term personal convenience and individualism then we're doomed, but if you care just a tiny bit about optimisation, pollution, long term sustainability, well being, the solutions are painfully obvious

[blueflow]

Blue collar jobs usually cannot be done from home...

[dleeftink]

How about a place closer to home than a daily two hour commute? WFH and remotely logging hours doesn't mean working from your home in the strict sense, just a place that works for you with a shorter commute (whether that's your attic, local library or other type of workspace).

I also wonder whether owning a car just 'for groceries' is that commonplace?

[r00fus]

I'd say the same for the reverse. Except that has been the history of office work for generations except we have the technology and economy where that isn't required.

[stonogo]

It not only already does, it always will.

[matsemann]

Yeah, the big focus on exhausts from cars has hidden lots of other problems they lead to.

EVs don't solve most of these problems. The cars are heavier, hence their tires spread even more micro plastic.

[c0nfused]

While micro plastics are a problem climate change is the train coming down the tracks at civilization as a whole.

I agree the EVs don't fix everything they are in theory buying us time to make the choices that get rid of cars in the long term.

[matsemann]

I just wish the 4 billion we subsidize EVs with every year here in Norway were put to other use instead. Could habe built a new metro line every year for that amount of money. Which would have had a much larger long term effect.

[c0nfused]

That's the dream here in the states too. Our issue is that we have built our cities as enormous suburbs with such a low density that rail/transit isn't viable from a cost/person perspective. We tend to think of public transit a a business rather than as a service and our tax payers don't want to spend billions on not driving especially as our cost per mile is insane[0]. So, for the states EVs are basically the only way for us to ease out of 4000+sqft home on 4 acres and a 40 mile car commute and back into an built environment that does not require a car for all trips

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-g...

[kiba]

They should be buying EVs for those who needs them such as rural area. For the rest of us, our quality of life would improve if we get rid of cars and densify areas.

[renewiltord]

That's 3000 miles too many. Consider cutting that down to zero. I suggest an e-bike, a normal bike, or just walking. Think about how many tire particles you put into the environment, especially if you didn't just stick to controlled city environments and went to the woods. Our plant and animal life will thank you.

[_yb2s]

Consider all of the shoe tread debris you create by walking or riding bicycles. Consider only walking barefoot, or just stay in one place and stop moving your body around. Judgemental strangers on the internet will thank you.

[pfdietz]

Indeed, we need personal aircars!

[michael9423]

"we need to prioritize driving less."

I doubt the majority of the world population wants to be included in your "we".

[faeriechangling]

I’m not so convinced that people are so foolish. Maybe they don’t want to be the first ones to stop driving but I think most people recognize the problems we face as a society.

[michael9423]

India, Africa and China are just waking up economically. Hundreds of millions of people waiting to buy cars to improve their quality of life by being more mobile.

[bilsbie]

I say we let adults make their own decisions on how much they want to drive.

[p_j_w]

As long as they're willing to pay the actual costs borne by the rest of us for their decisions, sure, why not? The problem is they're generally not, and when you suggest that they need to, they have a very not adult-like temper tantrum.

[pie420]

Let’s not control others. If people want to use lead paint, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to use leaded gasoline, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to build with asbestos, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to cook with trans fats, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to do fentanyl, let them.

the entire basis of society and progress is controlling others for the prosperity of the human race.

[bilsbie]

The world would be a sad place when we we need to apply for a permit to visit family. That’s where all this ends up.

Good intentions and all that.

[2024throwaway]

That is one hell of a leap. That slope must be very slippery indeed.

[polygamous_bat]

Does your libertarian attitude extend to your neighbors burning tires in their backyards?

Individual actions can incur communal costs. “Freedom” doesn’t mean “freedom from the consequence of your actions.”

[bch]

This, (and/)or start charging for the true costs (externalities).

[kylebenzle]

We could replace all the synthetic rubber with home grown natural rubber right now. It would last longer and be of much higher quality but it would double prices or more, so instead we burn oil and dump pulverized plastics into our waterways, because its a little cheaper.

[Nasrudith]

Unfortunately there are all sorts of other material properties to worry about beyond raw durability/'quality'. Natural rubber tires react quite poorly to hydrocarbons and greases, let alone traction issues. And that is putting aside the logistical issues with getting sufficient natural rubber.

There may be some sort of "compromise" material that could be developed that would lack the toxicity or microplastics issues without compromising safety, but I'm going to defer to experts in that field.

[SoftTalker]

Then the obvious answer is to price those externalities into the cost of the synthetic rubber tires.

Of course then you'll have a lot of lower-income folks driving around on dangerously worn-out tires because they can't afford new ones.

By the way I thought it was the synthetic rubber tires that lasted longer, but certainly possible that I'm mistaken.

[AJ007]

Yes, synthetic should be more durable than natural rubber.

Once the petrochemical supply is exhausted, or what is left is extremely expensive to extract, they won't be able to afford new tires either. (Tires, and personal passenger vehicles, could be some of the least important of the "missing" consumption from the loss of petrochemicals.)

[bennyhill]

Interesting, but wouldn't using only natural rubber result in a huge amount of land clearing and then a monoculture, similar to the environmental issues of palm oil?

[SoftTalker]

We have a lot of already-cleared farmland that sits vacant or could be used more profitably. I don't know if it's suitable for growing rubber trees, but I doubt we'd have to do a lot of clearing.

[oivey]

It’s not. We use synthetic rubber because natural rubber is expensive and can’t be cultivated easily in the US.

[njarboe]

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

[ramblenode]

That's basically how driving was sold to the American public in the 1950s. The reality is that transportation is a network, and driving is only efficient for the individual driver at a relatively low level of density. The bigger the population and the more people who drive, the less efficient the network. If you try to keep the network efficient, then driving acts as a constraint on the rest of societal development and you end up with sprawl and long transit times. Driving doesn't scale beyond a certain point (as you know, by suggesting expensive tunnels).

As for the freedom aspect, to get anywhere in an American suburb-styled society you are required to own and maintain a car, a major personal expense. When you travel somewhere, you have to find a place to safely park your car, and your person is tethered to where you park your car, usually needing to return there in a reasonable amount of time the same day, or else paying for long-term parking. You have to have a license from the government to use the only practical source of transportation, and if you don't have that license, you are effectively shut off from any autonomy. Cars certainly do increase the freedom to move and experience the world in some ways, but that is at the cost of other freedoms.

[lm28469]

> freedom

It's also stupidly expensive for most people, and made us develop a car centric approach to a lot of things, a lot of problems it solves are problems we wouldn't have if we designed our cities in other ways

Replacing the current 2b vehicles on earth by electric vehicles will buy us a few years at best but it won't solve the deeper issues

[mitchbob]

> freedom

Including the freedom to spend the equivalent of weeks every year stuck in traffic:

https://thecitypaperbogota.com/bogota/bogota-tops-tomtoms-gl...

[Spivak]

Travel time is travel time, you would have a similar tally on the train/bus/walking. This isn't really the best argument against cars because people buy cars because it's a massive improvement on "waiting for the bus time."

[thefaux]

I don't really understand this statement. Do you genuinely think that there is no difference in QOL between a 30 minute drive on a packed freeway vs a 40 minute walk on pleasant streets? Personally, I'd leave 10 minutes earlier and choose the latter every time. Even better, walking time is remarkably consistent. On foot, I essentially never have to worry about my travel being disrupted by road conditions which means I know when I arrive based on when I leave which is not the case at all with driving which has a much higher variance.

[ben-schaaf]

Time on the bike or walking is time spent improving health and well being. Time on the train can be productive, relaxing or entertaining. There is an enormous difference between these and the stress of driving.

[soperj]

It's really not. You can actually do stuff waiting for the bus, or riding the bus. You can't really do much while driving. Walking is incredibly good for you, unlike driving.

[marcosdumay]

> Driving is an amazing.

As long as everyone isn't forced to do it at the same place at the same time.

Driving less goes a long way into making it more amazing.

[trgn]

Driving is great for the one-offs and other people aren't doing it. It's awful anytime else.

[persnickety]

> keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has

We've had the answer for longer than we've had cars. Put on the helmet and pedal away!

[NewJazz]

Driving is an amazing.

Your car brain got so excited about driving that it forgot basic grammar.

(It's okay, it happens to me too sometimes).

[latortuga]

Yes, please may I have some more of the unmitigated freedom to pay a ballooning portion of household income toward a depreciating asset; the absolute pleasure of having to buy government-mandated insurance; the utter relief of participating in one of the most dangerous daily activities; the free choice of being able to salt the earth with CO2 emissions and tire particulate matter; and who can forget the ~socialized~ capitalist federal- and state-built roadways that cities are going bankrupt trying to keep up with funding.

[lonelyasacloud]

Not to mention the sheer joy of listening to the roar of traffic pretty much everywhere, the cost of sound insulation so that I can sleep at night, the increased medical costs (pollution/obesity/stress), drive through litter, being bullied off the road if you're not in a car, and having to either give way to metal box owners or cross roads at locations intended purely to enable them to move freely. All the while watching endless ads that'd make the Marlboro man blush - endless empty roads and vehicles that wouldn't harm a fluffy bunny. Yep, freedumb.

[alamortsubite]

> Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom

Your definition of "everyone" excludes children, many seniors, people who can't afford a personal vehicle, and those who can't drive due to disabilities or health conditions. You're also naively ignoring that just the infrastructure needed to support cars on its own often greatly impinges on these groups' freedom of movement.

[trgn]

It is definitely and/and.

Cars are best for the stuff they show on the commercials; driving to the weekend cabin, hauling a thing, impressing a date, going on the family trip.

So yeah, keep the driving, but for the one-off things where they are great at. That's really the only time when a car represents freedom. They are not freedom when it's the only option to get a loaf of bread or get to your office.

[avidphantasm]

Cars are our worst invention, second only to agriculture.

[jjtheblunt]

did you forget gunpowder and religion?