Because they didn't have to pay for that land, the city plows and maintains it, the city repaves it, your partner doesn't complain when your project car leaves oil stains on the curb. So basically entitlement to public land is what they insist on.
Because the garage is full floor-to-ceiling with trash and the household owns 3-4 cars. There are numerous houses on my street that do this and, at times, the street is so choked with cars on both sides that it makes it very unsafe to drive and cycle through. Especially if they park trailers or boats out on the street. Extremely limited visibility and like a hands-width of clearance on either side.
My family of 5 owns 4 cars (I've moved out and ride a bike). I'm so sorry families like mine exist lol. They know my feelings on cars and even agree with a lot of what I say because it's pretty incontrovertible. But in the end they don't really care. They metaphorically pat me on the back for riding my bike and continue to live their privileged life style that makes life worse for the rest of us.
Rich people literally don't give a fuck about anyone else. They donate to charity and feel genuinely sad for unprivileged people but will fight tooth and nail against anything that remotely threatens their way of life.
Biking has nothing to do with being poor, there are $5000+ bikes and many people who buy them. Go to any EU country, and people of all socioeconomic status bike. Rich, poor, old, young, pregnant etc.
If you wanna support them during this time, they have a second location at Western/Montrose in Lincoln Square. The staff there is always really nice :)
I thought they were completely insane but losing their parking because of poor planning is a good reason to be mad.
The city planners created a town that wasn't walkable and then took away parking from a few people knowing that a minority of complainers can't fight back.
If the council wants to take away a few citizens' parking, how about they bulldoze the council members yards for parking lots. Even better is eminent domain the council members homes to turn it mixed use urban design to make the town walkable. Then they can have more bike lanes and everyone is happy.
It's not their parking, it's street parking on public land. If the public decides through a council that the safety of the citizens is more valuable then a couple peoples parking spaces they can choose to reallocate that land. These people still have private driveways and garages to park there car whereas bike lanes can only go in certain places.
The city planners who made the decision to make the neighborhood car dependent are long dead or retired. These council members are trying to make it less car dependent and you want to bulldoze there houses for trying?
If we want to move away from car dependence we'll never get anywhere if we have to stop and consider every minor inconvenience that motorists may suffer and conive someway to put that cost on the people trying to change things.
Logistically yes, again there's only a certain amount of places a bike lane can be and still be effective. If we put it only in front of council members houses it wouldn't be a good bike lane. Same if we bulldozed their houses and put up a parking lot, the people who lost parking would probably not be close enough to even park in those lots.
We as a society recognize that to complete certain projects some people may loose out on previous privileges. If we don't we descend into nimbyism and nothing ever gets done.
This is a bit of a reach but bike lanes are most effective when they connect directly. That means they are built on major roads, not cul-de-sacs that go nowhere.
Who buys roads in front of major roads: the poor. Because the expensive homes are in cul-de-sacs far from the heavy road noise.
So the law is equally just to rich and poor in the same way it is equally just to rich and poor by making sleeping under a bridge illegal.
Everyone benefits from the bike lanes, but only the poorer homeowners are inconvenienced.
Bike lanes can totally be helpful if you have a single street that serves as the entrance for several groups of houses. If you have bike lanes all the way from the houses to the street, you will significantly lower the amount of people who drive
The reason they complained wasn't specifically the bike lanes but the loss of parking which affects them and causes a ripple effect on their neighbors. Adding parking fixes the overcrowding that the bike lanes caused.
Your populist "solution" was to demolish councilor property. How many councillors are there? How many parking spots did you create? 20? 30? Wooptie doo. Venting is not public policy.
Sometimes people do need a car, and if they do I would prefer it to be a small little thing like this rather than something larger.
These kinds of car are quite popular in Amsterdam, for instance
Metro unfortunately isn't a solution in urban sprawled, urban planning disaster Flanders. It's dense yet too spread out. Metro is good for very dense urban cores like Brussels. But it's not the one big end all problems solution. Metro is part of what cities need, but not the only thing.
i mean that just sounds like stockholm lol, also if you can't quite justify a metro then you just build a baby metro, otherwise called light rail (or fuck it, actual tramlines)
looking at the map, light rail seems like it should work fine? It's not that sprawly, there are pretty clear urban clusters that you could just slap some rail onto the roads going between.
i think you're presuming the transport has to be profitable? which obviously will only ever justify some subway lines in metropoles and train lines connecting major cities.
Here among other reasons it's a historic consequence of few building regulations for 150 years combined with a dominant Christian party 150y actively trying to keep as many people as possible sprawled out in villages around cities because they thought masses moving to the cities would turn them into revolutionary heretic communists.
I get the points that you are trying to make but those micro cars are shit for the consumer for those prices. Yes, you have a small car that isn't powered by fossil fuels, but
You can't transport jack shit. I've sat in the Opel thingy and while it's comfortable for the two passengers you have literally no boot.
If you consider one of those most likely you live in a densely populated urban area an can use public transportation as well. And one of the last things public transportation sucks, is transporting unwieldy stuff with you. And your mini car doesn't provide a solution to this, so you have to pay a rental again.
Those things are waaaaayyyy to expensive for what they offer. Atm you're paying the early adopter premium to drive in a speed restricted, range restricted, and payload restricted vehicle for 10k.
I've been riding public transportation almost exclusively for the last 10 years or so and only had to consider getting a car for long distance travel and transporting shit. And at that point you'll be better off spending 4-7k for an older station wagon than those things.
Also I'm not entirely sure how eco friendly it is to buy a brand new mini EV rather than driving around with a 15 year old car where nothing new has to be produced. Depends for sure on the yearly mileage. Which isn't high in my case, but you for sure won't be driving 15000 km a year in a mini car.
If we compare new regular and new EV? Sure, but then I'll wait until real competitive alternatives in the low-price sector pop up.
Most people on most trips a vehicle carries jack shit. When you need that, you rent a larger vehicle.
Yes, urban area. No, public transport is shite. Very poor, very unreliable. It's either car or bike for most people.
The here abundant big luxury cars ain't cheap either. A porsche cayenne is not at all a rarity here. I'm quite sure it's not the financial reason being the big one holding wider adoption of microcars back.
The government subsidizes the purchase of new vehicles in different ways here. It might not be economical to you at this point, but it all trickles down the market in 5-10 years time and then it will be very cheap and very available bottom of the second hand market if it's what's being supported with subsidies in the upper end of the market. For society as a whole in terms of eco friendliness, it for sure does make more sense people buying small new EV instead of big new luxury SUV-EV.
Man, your argumentation is all over the place. Adressing your points in the same order:
How often do you expect a person to resort to rental cars when they already invest 10k in a micro car with all running costs on top? A normal person that spends that amount of money doesn't want to pay additional 50-200 Euro per trip for 5-10 times a year.
Generalizing that public transportation is shit doesn't cut it if you want make a serious point. There are A LOT of people that could use public transport with minor habitual changes.
I'm talking to you that micro cars are too expensive compared to old station wagons and you jump to "big luxury cars are expensive"? Yeah no shit, Porsche drivers are for sure the general population and what micro cars are aimed at lmao. It is the financial reason for people with normal incomes: Nobody pays 10k for a glorified scooter with a roof.
it for sure does make more sense people buying small new EV instead of big new luxury SUV-EV
Yeah no shit, maybe you read my post again and see that I didn't refute this point.
It might not be economical to you at this point, but it all trickles down the market in 5-10 years time and then it will be very cheap and very available
You do you. I'll wait until proper low-end cars are out that are worth paying 10-15k. Shouldn't take that long now that China has claimed this market and Europe and the US scramble to push out cheaper EV-cars instead of only selling bloated luxury EVs.
It is really cheap to have stuff delivered to your doorstep, by the way. You often don't need to rent a big vehicle, what you need is to get something brought to your home.
Public transport just really is shit here. I'm sorry, it is. It sucks and everyone knows it. It's used by underage pupils, poors and disabled people. Company is called DeLijn, you can look it up if you want to. It's dirt cheap to use it, yet still very few people use it. It's way too unreliable. Busses don't show up unreliable.
I’m talking to you that micro cars are too expensive compared to old station wagons and you jump to “big luxury cars are expensive”? Yeah no shit, Porsche drivers are for sure the general population and what micro cars are aimed at lmao. It is the financial reason for people with normal incomes: Nobody pays 10k for a glorified scooter with a roof.
There are extensive subsidy regulations in place here, for example "salariswagen" with which employers can almost taxfree pay employees with a car in stead of money. This enforces an already strong way in which the "top of the new market" trickles down to the second hand market in 5-10 years. The cayenne is just to point out that this is not a poor region. Many people are wealthy enough for 8000 € to not be a very big spend. The government does subsidize other large SUV-like vehicle through this salary-car scheme. That trickles down very much. After 3 to 5 years of leasing the cars get second hand sold for still a decent price. 5 years later again. Another sale further down the road, it's the station car you'ld currently rather buy than the microcar. The vehicles the government chooses to subsidize are a big influence in what will be available here in the second hand market in 10 years time from now. So yes, subsidizing small efficient cars over big SUV-style vehicles does make ecological sense.
They're also ugly as shit, which unfortunately will affect adoption more than people care to admit. But then again, the PT Cruiser and Nissan Cube sold, so maybe I'm wrong.
Very few people in the US would buy this car. We can look at how unpopular EVs were until Tesla made them "cool."
Like or not, outside of car and anti-car communities, most people only want what's trendy and these aren't trendy. I appreciate that people in this community like the car, but we're not exactly a majority in the US, and I live in the US so that's the market I care about
You'd have a much easier time funding mass transit here than getting the average American into one of these.
Ah fuck, I keep foegetting that the world = US. My bad.
Thanks for representing "the average american".
Saying "These are ugly, that's why no one's going to buy them" is rage-bating.
The american fragile-masculinity-compensator-3000-supertruck enjoyers might hate these, but they're just a minute subset of a subset of the drivers in the world.
Feel better? Any more strawmen you'd like to dress me up as?
It's very humorous that you think I'm talking about large trucks as the alternative to these micro cars when I'm talking four door sedans and wagons; 4dr wagons are the most popular body style in Europe btw. Seems I'm right about the US market and the European market too. Best to not act holier than thou when your market isn't clamoring for these vehicles either.
Your logic is that people outside of the US will buy these. Yet they sell like shit in Europe. No, you brought up trucks. I and the person I responded to we talking about sedans and wagons. Fuck off troll
Not only are there a lot of EVs, but they're mostly smaller cars, compared to everything the USA is pumping out. Less fuel / batteries. Less road space which gives more room for walking & biking.
The goal should never, ever be to eliminate the car. For those who have mobility issues for a start. We need less cars, smaller cars, shared cars and more public transport, yes. The vehicles out of China are filling a niche that North America seems to refuse to address.
Oh look there's a ton of new room with these smaller vehicles! Whatever should we do with that space left after adding three more lanes to all freeways??? It's like 3 inches left! Let's add a bike tire lane!
What i don't understand is how fuel efficiency does not seem to be a concern of an average buyer? It is a large factor for me, and I'm proud to have highly efficient car for its class. Are those large trucks somehow more efficient than older, smaller models? Or are average buyers just not concerned with efficiency?
Well not everyone has seen the light of factorio, so i might be over-fixating on efficiency.
Oh, they don't care. Didn't you know the price of gas is always the fault of the opposing parties last or current elected president??? That's the AMERICAN way! Blame everybody else, and never accept the consequences for your own actions.
At least cars from China are predominately electric, which is the lesser evil in the short term. And they are mostly smaller than the absurdly large trucks that dominate the US market.
What systemic problems are you referring to? Seoul has some of the best public transport in the world and the vehicle was a sedan. The driver either was drunk/high or had a stroke.
9 dead people don't speak for themselves in your mind, I guess. Why are you on this community?
I'd love to go through it with you, step by step, using crayons and simple wording if I must, but alas! Not one of the 19 articles I looked at provided an exact location or pictures clear enough to figure that out.
My logic here is very simple: If a car can hit pedestrians, then the infrastructure is bad. 9 people died to prove this point and you're acting as if this is a freak accident that happens once in a decade. It doesn't, people die all the time because of inattentive drivers or faulty vehicles. Bollards save lives.
Looking at the second photo in the article it looks like it bent the bollards over, which I would guess mightve launched the car into the air...
I think the bigger systemic problem would be the 8 lane roads in the area which enabled enough space for the car to get up enough speed to do that sort of damage to a bollard: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aHDmVJMPt3LKvAeL9?g_st=ac
Another systematic problem is the enbiggening of vehicles in the name of occupants saftey(larger pillars for better rollover protection, and extra passenger cabin rigidity, which also harms visibility for the driver due to wider pillars)
The systemic problems are a stroad which seems designed for high speeds, yet with many dangerous points of interactions with pedestrians and other drivers. There seems to be no infrastructure to protect pedestrians and no design features to limit speeds. As you point out, this wasn't caused by a tank of a vehicle but a standard sedan.
This is in stark contrast to Vision Zero, a strategy where it's nearly impossible for vehicle collisions to cause fatalities. It doesn't matter if a driver is impaired, we have the technology to engineer away these deaths. From the images in article, the road seems to follow almost none of the tenants of Vision Zero.
So he starts each of his post with an emoji showing which language he's posting in. I know there's also a language tag built into Mastodon, but he's chosen to use the emoji
Fuck Cars
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