> Why can't we support and encourage cycling without vilifying cars in these threads?
Because cars pollute the air I breath, car horns constantly stress me, because politicians and city planners will use cars as a justification to develop cities as asphalt wastelands, because pedestrians and bikers are killed daily by unruly car drivers and so on. Plus somehow cars manage to bring out the worst in every person. Road rage is a thing.
> Everybody has a car and bicycle (at least one) and uses whatever fits the purpose at the time.
I don't have a car. I either bike, walk or use public transportation. I don't even live in an area where public transportation is great.
> scooters and motorcycles are often a better compromise
Still deadly in accidents and still polluting. The only thing that would make sense is low speed electric scooters, but those dont work well either in suburban sprawls like the US and Canada have.
One absurd but conventionally normal thing is that cities have to build wider streets just because car drivers will inevitably transform them into parking lots, on both sides, halving their width. Old streets often seem narrow, but they aren't really narrow when they aren't full of parked cars.
It would be lovely to see parked cars disappear if autonomous cars become common enough. However, that would also rely on people deciding against car ownership and moving over to a shared vehicle model.
The problem is when public transport doesn't match with the people's requirements.
If I were made world leader, I'd subsidise public transport so that it's more or less free to use for the public in an attempt to wean them away from private cars. It would then make sense to expand the network as more and more people choose to use it.
Autonomous electric cars solve only some of the problems cars create while exarcebating others. In a world where semiconductors and rare minerals already cause a lot of geopolitical tensions, do you really think it is feasible to migrate most of the world cars to autonomous electric?
There is only one solution that solves all of the problems car create and has several other benefits. Rethink the urban and infrastructure development for walkability and shorter travels. We can't avoid it, like it or not.
I do agree. Electric cars were invented to save the car industry, not the planet.
I consider that the main problem with cars are their size and weight, so simply electrifying cars doesn't solve issues such as congestion or pollution from tyre wear (which can be comparable to the emissions from an ICE). Here in Bristol, UK, we've got a lot of people using hired e-scooters (the privately owned ones aren't allowed on public roads without a license, insurance etc.) and I think they're a great way to get people around cities. As they're small they don't need huge batteries and thus they're much lighter and carry far less kinetic energy into collisions. A large percentage of the batteries in electric cars are used to move the batteries around, rather than just moving the passenger(s) and vehicle. E-scooters and e-bikes are great for delivery services as they can avoid getting stuck in traffic congestion and the batteries can be swapped out for fully charged ones in a matter of minutes if needed.
Because cars pollute the air I breath, car horns constantly stress me, because politicians and city planners will use cars as a justification to develop cities as asphalt wastelands, because pedestrians and bikers are killed daily by unruly car drivers and so on. Plus somehow cars manage to bring out the worst in every person. Road rage is a thing.
> Everybody has a car and bicycle (at least one) and uses whatever fits the purpose at the time.
I don't have a car. I either bike, walk or use public transportation. I don't even live in an area where public transportation is great.
> scooters and motorcycles are often a better compromise
Still deadly in accidents and still polluting. The only thing that would make sense is low speed electric scooters, but those dont work well either in suburban sprawls like the US and Canada have.