Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
This is short-sighted. We need to entirely divert away from using cars as our primary mode of transportation.
Because if there’s one thing everybody needs, it’s to either triple their daily commute or live in a pod.
Cars are popular for a reason.
Now there’s an unpopular opinion
Not at all. Most German car companies know this and some have even said as much (focus on luxury cars, car sharing and subscriptions). The Greens (part of the government) have been pushing for better public transportation and now Germany has a nationwide ticket for just 49€ per month. We still need much more investment in infrastructure, but that opinion is shared by many town planners and politicians. An added benefit with reduced road traffic is that driving becomes easier and fun again.
That all sounds very German, lol. I’m mostly just speaking from my America-centric perspective. It would be nice to have reduced road traffic here and make riding more fun, but a lot of the people that support public transit typically hate motorcycles just as much as they hate cars so I feel like I have to oppose them even though I don’t own a car myself.
Better public transportation shouldn’t mean that cars or motorcycles will be banned. It’s a way to move more people more efficiently. Ideally, you wouldn’t want to own a car or motorcycle, because other modes of transport provide a better service. While it might seem very German/European, it’s actually not that straightforward if you consider that the modern car, truck and motorcycle were all invented in Germany (by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler) and that the economy of Germany and Europe as a whole is dependent on the automobile industry. However, other companies in other countries are facing similar problems, so it’s not unique to Europe either. The ones which adapt best will survive (probably).
‘just’ 49€, and that’s the problem.
What are you talking about, that is cheap in regards to monthly transportation costs.
Still much cheaper than owning a car.
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Naa, I think self driving cars will fix most of the negatives of cars.
How about spacial inefficiency? A car only carries 1-6 people compared to a train which carries dozens or even hundreds. Or a bus which carries dozens.
Explain to me how self-driving cars will fix that
Traffic and parking are the biggest issue i see with cars and space efficiency. Both can be significantly improved on with self driving. Especially if most people opt for public ownership of cars and not private. Something think will become more popular as self driving takes over and lowers the cost of taking the self driving equivalent of a taxi or Uber.
By the way i think self driving cars will make trains more popular. As trains suck at first and last mile transportation. Self driving solves the first and last mile issues.
If we’re going to opt for public ownership then why would you choose the less efficient single passenger method over already-established public infrastructure like trains and trams and buses which have been proven to work well in other countries?
Also please elaborate on how self driving cars will improve parking issues. And as for traffic, while self-driving cars will be less likely to cause accidents and jams, hundreds of independent low-capacity vehicles are in no way more effective than a single locomotive carrying those hundreds of people in a smaller space.
You’re allowed to like self-driving cars, but buses and trains are objectively more efficient in the large scale and all you have to do is acknowledge that. The more people realize this, the more room there is for us to make progress
Simple we have already chosen cars in the US. It is far easier to use the existing roads to our advantage then try and redesign the entire country to fit a train and tram and bus model.
In a public car the car will drop people off and drive away to pick up other people. There would be no need parking at all. Just a small drop off and pickup location.
Now this won’t work as well if we are talking about private ownership cars, but it would be better as the car can drop you off and then drive to a centralized parking location. This would remove the need for street parking or parking lots next to restaurants and stores. Or if your planning to stay a long time for exmaple if your going to work for 8 hours. I think many people might want rent out their car during the day. Car drops me off at work and I tell the car to join the “public car” network for 8 hours and it can go find some people to transport.
Oh sure it won’t be as effective but it will be much better then what we have now. And there are benefits cars have over trains. For example after a the world pandemic scare I find traveling in my own space a much more pleasant experience then sharing with many other people. Also I really like listening to music in a car as full volume very enjoyable experience that you just can’t do on a public train :). A car will be a single vehicle to my destination, I can get in a fall asleep if I want. Buses and trains are usually multiple vehicles and you need to be some what alert to know when your stop is.
what you say makes sense, not saying you’re completely wrong, but your whole argument is based off the fact that we have already chosen cars. But simply doubling down on a worse solution just puts us deeper in to the hole, instead of making the more difficult decision of redirecting some of our massive amounts of GDP in to larger scale projects (yknow instead of wasting billions on military spending & corporate bailouts) such as making the investment into the development of a proper rail network BESIDE our existing infrastructure, like china has done for example. (not supporting china but it is true that they have made massive progress in public transportation across a country equally large as ours, in a relatively very short time)
I just have no confidences in the US to make a national rail system. Every attempt it seems to have failed dismally for some reason or another.
Every other country that has succeeded in making a mass rail system is an order of magnitude smaller than the US.