So don't take this the wrong way, but I do like cars. I am also against car dependency. I just wanted to make this post here to start a discussion about the benefits of lower speed limits in cities and towns, investment in effective public transit and non car-centric infrastructure, and other "anti-car" policies for car people. My goal with this post is to list the benefits of these policies for car people as I see it, and to hear other opinions on this topic.
- Stroads suck. I am a car person and would rather bike on a well-designed street than drive on a stroad.
- Congestion - I like to drive. Most people I know would rather not and would take other forms of transit if there were viable alternatives. If people who just want to go from a to b had viable alternatives, roads would be free for the people who want or need to be in cars.
- Safety - I don't want to kill pedestrians. I don't want to wreck my car. I'm fine with driving fast on a country road where I can see for miles and know that there is nothing in front of me to hit. If I do crash, it was my fault, and it doesn't endanger others. However, cities should have lower speed limits to keep pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers safe.
- Traffic flow - Where I live, there is a 45 mph speed limit down one of the main roads, but I rarely reach 45 during peak usage times because of traffic. Lower speeds would make traffic flow more manageable and allow car traffic through at a higher average speed.
I feel like the name "Fuck Cars" presents a false dichotomy between well thought out urban design and cars. Good urban design opposes car dependency (which I am against) not cars themselves. With that, I would like to leave you with a few questions: What role should cars play in an ideal world? How would or do you talk to car enthusiasts about this stuff? Do you hate cars or car dependency?
Also because this is fuck cars, fuck some cars. Fuck cars with shitty modified exhausts in built up areas. Fuck cars that run catless exhausts. Fuck big ass trucks and SUVs that run over children to dodge environmental regulations. Especially fuck squatted trucks. Fuck the car manufacturers who lobby to create car dependency and manufacture the child-crushing SUVs.
This isn't always a choice, especially for those with families and those who own their homes. Moving is expensive, risky, time consuming and harms children's sense of place. And that's assuming moving would actually reduce the amount of commuting. If the individual and their partner both have jobs moving might trade one commute for another. Maybe the kids are really heavily involved in a local club or activity that they'd have to leave or commute to after moving. Maybe the commute makes sense because one stops at a friends' or family members' place on their way home from work.
Honestly, your opinions seem to be based on very limited sets of experiences and have a lot of externalities that you don't seem to have considered or have simply accepted without challenge. I appreciate your bold vision and encourage you to keep envisioning bold change for the world, but please do try to consider alternate viewpoints and experiences so you can create a vision for the world that more people can share in.
My opinion on commuting is we simply have way too many office workers commuting 5 days a week without good reason. We saw in 2020 the kind of incredible improvement for everyone that remote work provides, rapidly improving air quality, reducing congestion, making people happier and reducing costs for the masses. I think its an obvious solution to institute a road use tax for employers of office workers and combine it with an equal tax break for remote work scaling based on how many days a week employees are allowed to work remotely. This would push employers who might not otherwise allow remote work to embrace remote work or pay for the negative externalities they create
Hey now, I'm not creating any visions for anyone to share in - I'm not that level of self righteous narcissist?
I just like the name of a forum called 'Fuck Cars' so i don't feel bad about bitching about stupid shitty unsustainable ways that they let their societies get "organised".
Good luck to all these people raising new generations of children in their "no choice but to commute" image though. Thankfully I'm blissfully unaware of all the externalities, so it doesn't bother me that they're all stuck without any . . ahem . . choice.