• Kindness is Punk@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    We’re fighting the war on car dependence.

    Cars are fine but car dependance isn’t, our cities shouldn’t be built in a way that requires a car for everyday like.

    Requiring that your citizens own a $10000 - $35000+ depreciating asset just to live life is a tragedy that lessens economic mobility and punishes your most vulnerable.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      However, if you follow that train of thought, you’ll often get to the point where you’d need to get rid of cars as we know them today.

      If people weren’t depending on them, fewer would have one. And if only few people have one (they are expensive, after all), why build roads just for them? Why all this costly infrastructure that would only benefit 5% of the population? Why use everyone’s tax to fund them?

      The fact that cars are built like today - basically comfort cages - is only because all this infrastructure exists. They’re not used outside of that environment. So of people don’t depend on it, they’d probably vanish in a couple of decades, at least outside of their respective niches.

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        4 hours ago

        Recently saw something posted about how kids are actually cycling to school again in some parts of London where LTNs have been implemented. Reducing the number of cars makes it better for people.

      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Look up how the town Houten in the Netherlands is designed. A town designed for pedestrians and cyclists. Still accessible for cars and plenty of parking spaces and roads for them. And more than 5% of inhabitants have one. You don’t need to get rid of cars to make a city walkable and cyclable and not everyone wants to live in a dense almost car-free city like Tokyo.

        https://youtu.be/r-TuGAHR78w

    • mondoman712@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Cars still suck even without the dependence. I live somewhere that very much isn’t car dependant but there’s still too many of them and they still make places miserable.

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        4 hours ago

        They are everywhere, and often park on the pavement which must be really difficult if you are trying to move about in a wheelchair and there are cars blocking everything. Public transport isn’t much better as almost no where has level boarding here either so someone needs to come over with a fucking ramp - except they probably won’t so you need to change at the next stop when someone wakes up and lets you off and then go back to the previous stop to get off where you actually wanted to.

  • jaschen306@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I live in Taipei. It is one of the most dense cities in the world.

    We have an amazing subway system, but I still own a car. I also own a bicycle and a stand-up electric scooter.

    I take whatever transportation is the most convenient. Sometimes it’s the bus. Sometimes, it’s the subway. Sometimes it’s by car. My point is it’s a city infrastructure, not the mode of transportation. If you vote for a government that cares about infrastructure, you will live in the city you want.

        • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          15mph max is a bit disappointing, I’d like to see 20-25 to at least compete with my legs, but I’m down for something like this.

        • NotSteve_@piefed.ca
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          2 days ago

          Honestly, at first glance I kind of laughed at this thing but the more I think about it, the more I want it. I have an e-scooter that I don’t use often(I end up using rentals more often than not) just because I have to store it in my basement but this would fit by my door no problem

    • SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
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      2 days ago

      Not entirely - assuming you work in a building, aren’t the “return to office” mandates the same? The cubicle is just your particular pod out of a massive collection of them inside a larger metal shell.

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Can’t speak for others, but I don’t participate in the stereotypical mad rush from the suburbs to the city and vise-versa every day. My commute is about 7 minutes, provided I don’t feel like deliberately taking a detour to meander through the countryside on my motorcycle after work.

        Due to the nature of my work I do have to be in the office, though, to interact with… ugh… clients.

  • Duranie@leminal.space
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    2 days ago

    I work in hospice, traveling to patients homes. I’d be more than happy to work from home, but the logistics of getting dying bed ridden people to travel to me has been tricky.

    • Spezi@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      Imagine how smooth your travels would be, if the 70% that could work from home or use public transport would do so.

      • Duranie@leminal.space
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        2 days ago

        You mean like during the COVID lockdown? It was amazing. I wish people learned more lessons from that time.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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          4 hours ago

          I did, now I resent management that tries to push us backwards and actively encourage my coworkers to push back.

          We were ordered to go into the office today, some of us were (myself included) actively bringing it up in conversation and encouraged others not to turn up. None of us turned up.

          • Sc00ter@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            No. Theyre saying when everyone else was in lockdown, traveling was easier because no one else was on the road. Im also someone who cant work remote and i long for the days where a sprinkle of rain doesnt mean my 25 minute commute turns into an hour

    • I'm Hiding 🇦🇺@aussie.zone
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      1 day ago

      Apparently this is an unpopular opinion on Lemmy but - I like cars? Cars are fun. You can learn so much working on them and restoring them. Learn to weld, learn to build engines and gearboxes, learn to paint, learn how to do wiring. And at the end of it after all that blood, sweat, and tears - you have something fun you can drive about in!

      Why does everybody here hate on my hobby so much? Its like the one thing I have in this world. Let me enjoy it.

      • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        Same here. Especially going wild. I like windy narrow roads. When driving through the remote village in the woods I grew up in, I’m using about 37 liters / 100 km. It’s a one way road and pretty fucking fun to drive.

        Outside of that I’m down to 4.2 liters / 100 km lol

      • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Cars as a hobby are cool. A society built around cars is stupid. Billions of people using cars daily is pretty dangerous to us all.

        I like shooting guns. It’s loud, smells funny, and you get to train patience and self-control. It’s a cool hobby. A society built around guns is… well… just look at the US.

      • blarghly@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I feel ya. I’m currently waiting for a part for my motorcycle to come in so I can take apart the clutch again. But what makes it fun is that my entire ability to transport myself isn’t dependent solely on my motorcycle. If I needed it running in order to get to work every day, I would never take the time to work on it - I would be forced to take it to a mechanic to ensure the job is done right, and fast, because I can’t afford the luxury of making mistakes and learning on my own.

        The pushback against cars is pushback against car dependence, and the externalities that cars create in our shared urban environments. Not against hobbyists who just think cars are neat.

      • mondoman712@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Your hobby is fine as long as you don’t impose the externalities on other people. I don’t want to hear your loud engine, I don’t want to breathe your fumes, and I don’t want to worry about getting hit while just walking around.

  • fishy@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Jokes on you, I love my brainwash pod. I still take the train anywhere I can though, the Seattle light rail system is dope.

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Commuting to office (by car) daily is the real problem. Road trips by car are incredibly freeing and not miserable.

    • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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      3 hours ago

      Surely no one is choosing to go on a road trip through a busy town during rush hour.

      Don’t mind people going on a road trip. Its such a small minority of cars on the road its pretty much irrelevant.

  • Agrivar@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I don’t have a car, I ride my non-electric dope ass bike everywhere, and I listen to old Dead and Phish shows I downloaded to my rooted Android phone.
    We are not the same.

    • shiftymccool@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      This. I HATE cities. Crammed up against everyone else, smells, noises 🤮. I’m over 10 miles to the nearest grocery store and all these fuckcars weirdos will do some fucking mental gymnastics to explain a RURAL life without cars. I don’t think a single one of them has been anywhere where there is actual forest between cities/towns. They live in a city with great public transit so that must be how it is everywhere, right?

      • nomoretrdsssss@lemmings.world
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        5 hours ago

        And yes, that’s how it used to be before they destroyed everything. My country used to be covered in interurban trams that gridded the coutryside.

      • nomoretrdsssss@lemmings.world
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        5 hours ago

        The noise and smell mostly comes from idiots outsiders driving in here. Nobody cares you have a car if you live in the middle of the forest, but then don’t bring your pollution machine near population center and don’t whine you guys don’t have jobs next time the local coal plant closes

        • shiftymccool@programming.dev
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          4 hours ago

          Local coal plant? Is that all you think exists in rural areas? Maybe you fuckcars idiots need to do a bit more research before spouting your city-centric views all over the place. Some people just don’t want to be a sardines in your urine-smelling concrete noise factory.

          • nomoretrdsssss@lemmings.world
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            4 hours ago

            And finally, who do you think is buying all the food made in rural area? Rural life only exist because of cities, and vice versa. What you think is “rural life” is an unnatural expension of plot sise because you guys killed all the natives.

            • shiftymccool@programming.dev
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              3 hours ago

              I’m gonna deal with your ignorant ass in just one comment because i’m capable of coherent thought.

              First of all, you’ve never been to a Kentucky corn field so fuck right off with that. Your deafened city ears don’t know what quiet actually is. Paris is a city. Even if people are tip-toeing around and whispering, it’s going to be louder than any rural area just by pure scale of humanity moving around. But people don’t do that, do they? No, they drag their screeching offspring to the store, or drunkenly yell at each other on the street in front of a bar, or repair a sidewalk or 5 with jackhammers and cement mixers.

              Junkies? Who said anything about junkies? If you’re referring to the urine smell, look no further than the rampant liquor establishments infesting cities and fueling wall-pisses in alleys nearby.

              Humans used to exclusively exist in small rural tribes, it’s cities that are an unnatural concentration of people that only began as a central place for people to come, get rid of shit they don’t need, get some shit they need and leave as fast as possible to not be mugged, kidnapped, raped, or murdered.

              The food produced in rural areas? Again, that’s all you think is going on there? I work in tech and so do most of my neighbors. Get a better perspective. You’re the reason I hate cities.

              I’m done here, feel free to have your last, ignorant comment. I’ll never know

          • nomoretrdsssss@lemmings.world
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            4 hours ago

            The noise come from suburban idiot coming here to poison our air. I went to Paris since they banned cars. It’s as quiet as a Kentucky corn field