Some mining towns had problems where their smelter fumes when mixed with the rain created an acidic rain that stripped paint off of cars. There was daily wind monitoring used to help settle the insurance claims.
I think much of north america is dug so deep into car centric planning that making drivers pay the full cost would be too expensive for a significant portion of the population and workforce. I think the alternatives need to exist before the taxation because many people are constrained to their car being their only reliable way to get to work.
Making that cost more could put huge financial stress on a family whereas building the rail before the taxation could provide a cheaper alternative before the taxation even begins.
Yes and i agree with that sentiment. 20 years down the line we will realize our cities are just as unwalkable and unable to be served by transit if we build them to exclussively serve the car. We should build cities so walking, cycling, transit and driving are all realistic options. For most north American cities we only prioiritize the car.
The only reason people in urban centers do not have transit is because governments neglected to build it. If they can build a 6 lane highway through your city, they could build transit.
We shouldnt use rural and spread out areas as an excuse to not build our cities and denser areas better and service them with transit.
The vast majority of people who are anti car are anti car centric urban environments. Noboby is expecting a small town of 300 people to build a tram, we are expecting places with congested highways to build transit instead of "adding one more lane to solve traffic forever"
We should defintely still make EVs, overall they are going to be better than ICE. We just shouldn't force/subsidize everyone to have to buy and drive an EV like we did with ICE cars.
Here is my reasonable argument against EVs. EVs only really solve the emissions part of the equation. They dont solve the massive amounts of paved surface, private ownership of thousands of pounds of steel and plastic, they still use massive amounts of energy to move that steel and plastic and building cities for cars is largely ineffecient and expensive to maintain.
We could do a lot more for the environment than EVs. Id rather see their subsidies go to things like electrified transit, cycling infrastructure or walkability improvements.
If one million seniors needed this support then clearly there is a larger problem with how we currently care for seniors. I am a young adult who could really benefit from this dental plan but I have to wait until 2025 to use it because the rest of our social services have already failed our seniors so badly they need this benefit too.
I almost worry that there won't be any money left for the dental plan program by the time I'm even able to apply for it.
You are public transit relying on the same infrastructure and priority cars are. High speed rail, trams with dedicated right of ways and removing right of way from cars all can speed transit up and make it more competitive with cars. Buses are one of the lowest tiers and lowest quality of transit.
This problem is less significant if the transit is free. Even if the transit isn't free if transit is roughly the same speed as taking a car it would be far cheaper than car ownership.
As a kid who grew up in a place like that, it kinda sucks. Yea the forest is cool, could make lots of noise and had lots of space, but I had only 1 kid on my street to share that with. I was dependant on rides from my parents to be social/work until I got a bicycle and could bike 10km into town to socialize with friends. Rural living can be very isolating for kids and turn parents into taxis.