[HN Gopher] Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted...
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Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
Author : perihelions
Score : 412 points
Date : 2025-04-12 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| perihelions wrote:
| https://archive.is/zWfzo
| jeffbee wrote:
| Barely even mentions the noise. Cities aren't loud but cars are.
| Paris 2025 vs 1995 soundscapes very different.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Yes, this was very noticeable during covid lockdowns too.
| altairprime wrote:
| I believe https://carto.bruitparif.fr/ represents 2022 levels,
| but my French is very rusty and I suspect that historical data
| review is more readily available to a speaker of it. Perhaps
| that site has lockdown data as a layer somewhere?
| williamdclt wrote:
| Yep, it says this is a map of noise levels, representing the
| Lden noise indicator over a full day
| paulgb wrote:
| Manhattan recently got congestion pricing and it's noticeably
| more enjoyable because of this, even indoors.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| There's this guy on YouTube that travelled to india and one
| thing stood out to me was the non-stop honking of cars and
| bikes. Just endless forever. What a nightmare!
|
| I wonder what that does to a population. How does anyone
| think??
|
| https://youtu.be/IFUIdcrgW6M?si=o6LkXK4MyS-PL7m-&t=661
| netsharc wrote:
| I think there's a few studies. E.g.
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-024-33973-9
|
| I used to live next to a big intersection with a red light,
| and the cars accelerating away when it goes green was
| annoying. I now live at the end of a cul-de-sac with a
| cemetary behind me. So much more peaceful!
| carstenhag wrote:
| Of course, noise on sidewalks is important and annoying. But to
| a German who is used to good (sealed) German windows, French
| and Spanish cities, just to name some, are just a pain.
|
| Be it in hotel rooms or regular homes, almost nowhere the
| windows are sealed. Just pressing gently on the window (more
| pressure on the sealing) reduces the moped noises by 30-50%.
| jeffbee wrote:
| [cries in American]
| dluan wrote:
| This it the most immediate and obvious change in any Chinese
| city now, they are practically silent. All electric cars means
| you can actually have a conversation with someone while walking
| through crowded downtown areas, and you never realize how much
| of a difference it makes until you experience it.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Those are some really awesome changes. If only we could get more
| of that for cities in the US.
| JasonBorne wrote:
| We can. Slowly over time we need to raise awareness of the
| benefits of this.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Just tax road consumption so people who use the roads
| actually pay for them.
|
| It is _amazing_ what this has achieved in Manhattan.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Poor taxes are not a great solution with respect to
| equality.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| https://www.mta.info/fares-tolls/tolls/congestion-relief-
| zon...
|
| Pretty trivial to discount/exempt people as is done in
| NYC.
|
| An even simpler starting point (which we should actually
| do for all road-related fees like tickets IMO) is to set
| fees by the KBB value of the vehicle in question. Let
| people contest them in court if they want.
| loeg wrote:
| The population driving into Manhattan is not poor. It's a
| consumption tax, not a poor tax.
| gre wrote:
| Right when covid started I drove around Austin to pick
| something up. There were hardly any cars on the road and the
| air looked pristine after several days of people mostly staying
| at home.
| xenospn wrote:
| Same thing in LA. It was nice!
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Immediately followig 9/11 in the US, there were a number of
| atmospheric scientists that were able to conduct studies for
| the first time without jet con-trails in the air.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| How much of this has to do with the policies highlighted -
| removing 50k parking spots, adding bike lanes and green spaces -
| and how much has to do with cars having better exhaust?
|
| How much less cars are on the road today vs then?
|
| The charts and title make it look like there's no cars in Paris
| anymore. That's not the case, at all.
| davidw wrote:
| Given that tires produce a lot of particulate matter, even EV's
| contribute to pollution significantly.
| actuallyalys wrote:
| This paper [0] suggests improvements in car emissions has
| played a big role in reducing emissions in European cities as a
| whole. Vehicle emissions of all kinds have fallen pretty
| dramatically across Europe [1], although this is total
| emissions for vehicles, so it includes policies to reduce
| driving as well as those to reduce each vehicle's emissions. So
| overall trends toward more efficient cars are certainly part of
| the story. Given these images are between 2007, when emissions
| had already been falling, and 2024, I'm inclined to think the
| policies highlighted in the article played a significant role
| as well.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259016211...
|
| [1]:
| https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/emissions-o...
| gniv wrote:
| Like another commenter in this thread I suspect it's mostly due
| to banning cars with Crit'air > 2.
| thatsit wrote:
| I'm currently visiting Paris for the second time in my life
| after 2008. I can tell you it's much cleaner now than it has
| been back then. There are many electric (cargo) bikes,
| scooters, cars and buses. The city is much quieter and there is
| way less crazy traffic. There are few cars parked on the side
| of the street. However these parking spots were cleared for
| bike lanes and bike sharing parking. Biggest polluter are the
| garage trucks, which are still diesel and noisy. If they manage
| to replace them by electric ones, many parts of the city will
| be really quiet.
| mjevans wrote:
| "Ban all the cars" does have noticeable effects.
|
| I wonder if something less all / none might have nearly the same
| effects with far less drawbacks otherwise.
|
| E.G. What if only emissions testing certified low emission
| vehicles were allowed? What if only electric? How about requiring
| quiet utility trucks for garbage / freight / etc?
|
| For cities that large / dense, adding in Caves of Steel like
| people-mover belts might be a great alternative too.
| iambateman wrote:
| Paris has certainly not banned all cars. Just reduced their
| numbers.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| > What if only electric?
|
| Then the streets would still be unsafe and congested, just with
| a bit less pollution.
| 10-1-100 wrote:
| With modern emissions standards, more than 50% of the harmful
| pollution comes from tires/brakes/road surface wear/resuspended
| dust:
|
| https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/non-exhaust-particulate...
|
| Moving away from privately owned cars entirely seems to be the
| only way to eliminate the health impact of cars on people in a
| city.
| stavros wrote:
| Are publicly-owned cars somehow not emitting anything? Or,
| how else will people get around?
|
| I live in a European city, where I rarely use my car to get
| around. Banning cars won't do anything, because I don't use
| my car because I can, I use it because I have to.
|
| If you want to get rid of cars, design cities that can be
| lived in without having to use cars.
| eesmith wrote:
| People wouldn't use publicly-owned cars, they would used
| publicly-owned buses, trams, subways, and other forms of
| mass transit, plus (as the article points out), making it
| easier to walk or bike.
|
| I believe the goal of limiting car use in Paris is as part
| of re-designing the city so it can be lived in without
| having to use cars, yes.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > With modern emissions standards, more than 50% of the
| harmful pollution comes from tires/brakes/road surface
| wear/resuspended dust:
|
| Sure, but what about compared to eg. 15 year old diesels with
| removed DPF filters? Those were the cars that were removed
| from paris (with the "eco stickers" and other regulation),
| and that brought the pollution down.
|
| New cars exhaust very little particulate matter, so
| percantages don't say a lot.
|
| I mean.. almost 100% of the polution of bicyles comes from
| tires/brakes/road surface/resuspended dust, but the total
| amount is very low.
| pama wrote:
| In modern cars, including EV, polution and noise come from
| weight and tires and breaks; the polution levels are a sharp
| funxtion of speed, but the speeds at which they dont matter
| much, dont offer benefits either. If we had magnetic/levitated
| cars maybe some simple solution could be found, but with the
| current designs where the tires hit the asphalt it seems hard
| to make things environmentally friendly in a city other than
| reducing or banning cars.
|
| I like the idea of people-mover belts. Maybe fast surface belts
| and escalators could help larger cities if cars were out of the
| way. Subway systems almost feel like people-mover belts
| sometimes, but their noise levels are incredibly high and they
| do damage metalic rails during breaking so not sure how low the
| contribution to air polution could be.
| stavros wrote:
| This is a bad-faith fallacy. We had cars that emitted X
| amounts of tyre/brake particulate and 10X amounts of
| combustion residue, we got rid of the combustion part, and
| now we hear "OMG! 100% is tyre particulate!!!"
|
| Sure, but people won't stop moving, and there's no vacuum,
| you should compare brake particulate to whatever else people
| would use if cars didn't exist.
| danieldk wrote:
| Or you could just make a city car-free. There are so many
| benefits besides fewer particles in the air. People can
| walk and cycle safely. Kids can play in the streets. The
| atmosphere is so much nicer, since people are not isolated
| by walls around them.
|
| I have lived in a city with a (nearly) car-free city center
| (+ separate bike lines for many roads outside the center)
| for most of my adult life [1] and it is just glorious. Most
| locals just walk or cycle. Longer distances by (electric)
| bus or train.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen#Cycling_and_walking
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Kids can't play in streets as now the new predators are
| cyclists who don't slow down or get down of their bikes.
| Besides, cars are a staple for families, and hardly
| substituable. Good luck doing groceries for 6 without
| one.
| fhackenberger wrote:
| Cargo bike?
| Saline9515 wrote:
| It isn't very different than a car if you want to reach
| the same level of features.
| andrepd wrote:
| It's mind boggling to me that this is a genuine comment.
|
| I suggest this yt channel as a start to open your eyes as
| to how yes, another world is possible
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
| Saline9515 wrote:
| I live in Riga, here cyclists ride on the sidewalk, along
| with e-scooters. I went out for a ten minutes walk with
| my son, I had to physically and verbally intervene three
| times to avoid him being hit by a cyclist or e-scooter.
| Last month our nanny was hit by a cyclist. In Paris it is
| very common and the main reason they banned e-scooters.
|
| So, while the US paradigm is toxic, I'm not convinced
| about the one you are proposing, given that, in my
| experience, cyclists are ruthless and never behave unless
| I physically intimidate them. And I would rather walk in
| peace.
| dublinben wrote:
| It's a shame that riders of bikes and scooters in your
| city feel so unsafe riding on the road, that they are
| forced onto the sidewalks. Blame dangerous drivers and
| the lack of protected bike lanes though, not your
| neighbors who are just trying to arrive at their
| destinations alive.
|
| Pedestrian collisions with bikes versus collisions with
| automobiles are utterly incomparable both in number and
| severity. If that cyclist had been driving a car, you
| would probably need to find a new nanny!
| jfengel wrote:
| It's not just about emissions. The entire character of the area
| changes. The streets fill with pedestrians and bicycles.
|
| Garbage trucks and ambulances still use the streets. But they
| face no traffic and are exceptions rather than the rule. They
| don't need to be either low emission or quiet, though those
| things are also nice to have, since those things are no longer
| the most pressing issues.
| wffurr wrote:
| Compare with the ULEV zone in other cities and control for
| other differences. You could possibly even publish that as a
| research paper!
| thrance wrote:
| I live in Paris, cars haven't all been banned. Some streets
| have been made pedestrians only and some lanes have been
| converted into bike lanes, but overall you can drive almost
| everywhere in the city (although that was always painful).
|
| We have that certificate you mention. Today in most large
| cities in France, some streets are forbidden to cars that have
| a bad "Crit'air" score. It's a sticker you have to order
| online, with a number from 1 to 6. What number you receive is
| dependent on your car's model and its age. You have to put it
| under your windshield or risk getting fined by the police.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the particulars of the Paris program but
| a "car ban" doesn't have to ban garbage & freight trucks.
|
| I'd argue these, along with private or public transit,
| emergency vehicles etc, are the best uses for the internal
| combustion engine or just vehicles in general. The problem with
| ICE/car/vehicles, isn't that they exist or are useful, but that
| at some point we over-indexed on their utility and ignored
| their externalities & subsidies.
| bill38 wrote:
| There's still a lot of cars driving in Paris. And motor scooters.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Shhhhh, we're trying to pretend we know what we're talking
| about here.
| ismailmaj wrote:
| It's mostly in the west of Paris i.e. 8th, 15th and 16th
| districts, the other districts not so much if at all.
| bri3d wrote:
| Worth noting that 50-60% of passenger cars in France are diesel,
| but Paris have been gradually banning older higher emission
| diesels (Crit'air 3, 4, 5) from Paris. Banning cars outright also
| works, of course, but I suspect a lot of the reduction can be
| attributed to getting particularly bad diesel cars out vs. the
| limited areas where cars are entirely restricted.
| 10-1-100 wrote:
| Also worth noting that with modern emissions standards (and
| transition to EVs), over 50% of handful particulates come from
| tires, brakes, road surface wear, and resuspended dust:
|
| https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/non-exhaust-particulate...
|
| I don't think there's any healthy level of private cars
| coexisting with humans in a city, without even considering the
| more immediate harms from crashes, etc.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Wonder if anyone is working on ways for breaks and tires to
| be less harmful, or polluting?
| dmckeon wrote:
| Regenerative braking would tend to reduce particulates from
| friction braking.
| Swizec wrote:
| Most European cars already have engine braking. EV
| regenerative braking just maintains the behavior that
| folks only used to automatics forgot about. Automatics I
| think are still not super common in Europe.
| beardyw wrote:
| In the UK about one third are automatic but make up three
| quarters of new registrations.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't know if EVs and hybrids are very popular in the
| UK but they are all automatics.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Hybrids are surely not all automatic, unless the one we
| own suddenly changed.
| trollbridge wrote:
| But spews forth more rubber (and plastic, since that's
| what tyres are made from these days), which is an ongoing
| problem for Tesla EVs when owners discover their tyres
| don't last nearly as long because they're transmitting
| power both when starting and stopping, not just when
| starting.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I don't understand this concept. I would expect an ICE
| and an EV vehicle with the same weight, speed,
| deceleration, tires, etc to have the same wear on tires.
| The difference being the energy to stop an ICE being
| transferred to the brake pads and rotors, rather than
| recharging the EV's battery.
|
| What am I missing? Why wouldn't the tires experience the
| same forces in both scenarios?
| trollbridge wrote:
| It's due to the regenerative braking, which transmits
| more power via the wheels when decelerating. Most ICE
| cards don't have regenerative braking; hybrids tend to.
| bri3d wrote:
| This doesn't make sense. Energy in the system is
| conserved. On an ICE car, brakes convert the energy to
| heat. On an EV, motors convert the energy to electricity.
| The tires experience the same net force.
|
| EVs wear tires more quickly, in general, because they are
| very heavy and produce more torque (and drivers are more
| likely to request that torque, also).
| flomo wrote:
| I'd guess an ICE transmission provides some deceleration
| too. But right on, apples-to-apples you would need to
| compare a Tesla to a Mercedes or etc and not a Corolla.
| They are sold as a luxury/performance car.
| chowells wrote:
| But the _brakes_ experience less work, and so there is
| less combined brake and tire dust for distance traveled.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| If the stopping distance is the same (same accel/decel),
| I don't understand this statement
|
| > because they're transmitting power both when starting
| and stopping, not just when starting.
|
| bri3d's adjacent post is what my thoughts would be on why
| EV's consume more tires.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I don't understand this concept.
|
| It's because it's wrong. If you decelerate the same
| vehicle at the same rate, the tires can't even tell
| whether the deceleration is from regenerative braking or
| friction braking, so the only difference is less brake
| dust with regenerative braking.
|
| If anything it's the opposite because regenerative
| braking is more effective when braking is gradual, giving
| the driver a direct convenience and financial incentive
| to brake less aggressively (better range, buy less gas or
| charging), which generates _less_ tire wear.
| gruturo wrote:
| > I don't understand this concept.
|
| Because it's completely wrong. The tires indeed
| experience the same force and don't care where the energy
| is dumped. As other posters wrote, the increased tire
| pollution from EVs is because they tend to be heavier,
| and because their considerable extra torque is likely to
| be (ab)used by their drivers. Yours truly included,
| guilty as charged, though I do practice restraint...
| often.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| You're only considering braking, and for that case you're
| right. You're not considering acceleration, where EVs
| supply near maximum torque instantly when you press the
| accelerator pedal. This causes increased wear in tires,
| I've seen estimates of 20%.
| philjohn wrote:
| Which can easily be sorted with a more gentle throttle
| curve.
|
| My EV has three modes - Eco, Normal and Sport. In Sport
| you get shoved back in your seat from the instant torque,
| and the fast 0-60 times. In Eco you take off like in a
| normal car.
|
| You also need to remember that traction control is
| inherrently easier and faster in an EV as the ECU has
| fine grained control of how much power to send to the
| tyres and can effect it near instantly.
| detaro wrote:
| > because they're transmitting power both when starting
| and stopping, not just when starting.
|
| For the tires it doesn't matter if the energy from
| stopping is transferred into brakes or back into a motor
| though?
| FredPret wrote:
| It's because they weigh more
| thehappypm wrote:
| "They weigh more" is something I kinda have a problem
| with. People act like EVs are these behemoths, but your
| typical EV is hardly an outlier. The Tesla Model 3, for
| example, weighs as much as a Honda CRV. Yes, that's a
| different car class; but nobody looks at a CRV and
| complains about its weight and the environmental impact
| of that weight on air quality nearly the same way.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| People who care about the externalities of unnecessarily
| large and heavy vehicles do complain about compact
| utility vehicles, aka "I want to sit higher up".
|
| A model Y would be the comparison to a CRV (model Y is
| 400 pounds / 10% heavier).
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| You don't even have to go to a different class. A Model 3
| weighs about as much as a BMW 3 series and both weigh
| slightly _less_ than the average new car.
| rangestransform wrote:
| This is as much of a criticism of bmw as a compliment to
| Tesla, the new M5 weighs more than a similarly fast lucid
| air
| FredPret wrote:
| I just looked it up and wow, you're right. A Cybertruck
| weighs less than an F250 depending on specs
| NightMKoder wrote:
| I don't know about tires, but for brakes we already know
| how to make lower dust brakes - use drum brakes instead of
| disc brakes. The friction material is enclosed on drum
| brakes so much less of it just flies away.
| dharmab wrote:
| Ever driven a vehicle with drums in the front? Even on a
| light vehicle they take a long time to stop.
| oblio wrote:
| Can drum brakes be used for all kinds of vehicles?
| sokoloff wrote:
| They were for many decades...
|
| Even if there's 5% of vehicles that couldn't use them, it
| would still be a large decrease in local particulates.
|
| (I don't expect this to happen, of course, absent
| draconian particulate emissions laws.)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's also EVs that generally do most of their braking
| on the regenerative whatsit, which causes no wear on the
| brake pads. A lot of it can be prevented by education /
| driving style, and improving road designs to allow for
| smooth driving.
| cure wrote:
| Pretty much every EV does regenerative baking, because it
| (greatly) extends range. Even hybrids have done this
| since the very earliest mass-market models (the 1997
| Prius has it). EV brakes see a lot less wear and tear
| than ICE brakes.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Some electric vehicles use drum brakes on the rear
| wheels, like the ID.Buzz.
| usrusr wrote:
| Lighter cars, really, that's it. Make vehicles that match
| the transportation case in question instead of palaces on
| wheels that carry battery sized for solving some once in a
| year use case.
|
| And/or make them go slower.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| You can use harder rubber compounds but that's a non-
| starter because longer stopping distances.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It is common for electric cars to use harder rubber
| compounds in their tires. Not because of particulates,
| but because tire noise is particularly noticeable in an
| otherwise quiet electric car, and because tire life is a
| concern for EV drivers.
|
| Luckily, both reduced noise and increased life are fairly
| well correlated with reduced particulate emission.
| netsharc wrote:
| Huh, imagine EVs that have removable add-on batteries
| that you'd only plug in for the longer trips..
|
| Like the Thinkpads with the "bigger battery" humps:
| https://sm.pcmag.com/t/pcmag_ap/photo/l/lenovo-
| thi/lenovo-th...
| jopsen wrote:
| A battery trailer might affect the speed limit your
| allowed to drive.
|
| But it would be cool to just rent the extra 500km when
| needed :)
| netsharc wrote:
| Obviously a trailer would not be a clever idea, but Nio
| already has cars with swappable batteries, for short
| distances you could just install a battery pack which is
| maybe 20% battery and 80% empty space
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's enough of a pain in the ass to swap summer and
| winter tires, and that's something that (some) people
| only do twice a year. I can't imagine people wanting to
| swap battery packs (either themself or by making an
| appointment at a service center) before and after every
| long trip.
| illiac786 wrote:
| If it's faster than filing up, why not.
| dboreham wrote:
| It won't be.
| illiac786 wrote:
| Low effort reply, really, try to put in some arguments at
| least.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ljf wrote:
| Ideally they could just come to my home or workplace and
| swap the batteries out there while I am doing something
| else (if it is going to take longer than 30 mins)
| dboreham wrote:
| Having done a long trip in an EV, in a very inhospitable
| location (the USA, without access to Tesla chargers), I'm
| not convinced there is an EV range/charge time problem. I
| think it's mostly in the minds of the public. Hence I'm
| skeptical that the changeable battery pack is a solution
| to any problem.
|
| My experience was that you end up stopping to charge a
| bit more often than you'd stop to fill up gas, but
| factoring in stops for bathroom and food, it's really not
| a significant difference. There just needs to be more
| chargers (to avoid queuing for an open one), and chargers
| that are more closely spaced (every 50 miles like gas
| stations instead of every 100+ miles). Then today's EVs
| will be just fine for long trips. Not completely perfect,
| but perfectly adequate, to the point that it won't be
| worthwhile buying an ICE vehicle just to have it for long
| trips.
| wtallis wrote:
| Speed limits for towing smaller trailers mostly derive
| from safety concerns about overloaded or imbalanced
| trailers being unstable at high speeds. A battery-only
| trailer with little or no cargo space, designed and
| certified in conjunction with specific tow vehicles,
| could easily be safe enough to operate at highway speeds.
|
| I think the main reason why we don't see anyone seriously
| pursuing the battery trailer idea is that it would be an
| expensive niche product. It would have to be mostly a
| rental-only product, and offer few advantages over simply
| renting a more suitable vehicle.
| rangestransform wrote:
| This is a stupid idea because you'd have to make
| fasteners and high voltage interfaces that can survive an
| order of magnitude more cycles than they have to for a
| fixed pack. It would also be significantly more difficult
| to use the pack as a stressed member of the car
| structure. It's better to just have less batteries and
| use them more efficiently through weight savings.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| Don't the charging ports already have to do that?
| bcrl wrote:
| Do you realize that one of the reasons for the swappable
| batteries on various Thinkpads is so that you can hot
| swap batteries without powering down or rebooting?
|
| I've never had an issue with the connectors for the
| batteries of the ThinkPad, and being able to swap in a
| spare fully charged battery has been very helpful many
| times when out doing field working all day long. What is
| an issue are the little plastic tabs on the batteries
| that break off over time. However, usually the batteries
| have already lost a lot of their lifespan by the time
| that happens, and since the batteries are removable they
| can be replaced without opening up the system or melting
| glue with heat as is the case on most modern cell phones.
| Seems like a win to me!
| sightbroke wrote:
| I could be wrong but the currents and voltages for EVs
| are rather bit more dangerous and taxing than that
| typically found used in laptops.
|
| Which I think the person you replied was partially
| attempting to point out.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It would be incredible if somebody invented a light car,
| that would transport one or two people and some
| groceries. Maybe with two wheels instead of four to take
| up less space. Hmmm why has nobody invented this?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Crash test ratings.
| andrepd wrote:
| Maybe even some sort of pedal-powered contraption.
| Perhaps we could even build lanes for these bi-cycles
| instead of 22 lane highways.
| Krssst wrote:
| While bicycles are quite convenient for commuting, I am
| not sure if there is a way for transporting groceries for
| an entire week for multiple people. Is there such a way?
| The only solution I see is doing groceries every day.
| const_cast wrote:
| Groceries every day (or every few days) becomes viable
| and common in cities like Paris. It's a lot easier to do
| when you don't have to take a car, and the culture then
| shifts too to fresher food.
| gorbachev wrote:
| My mom used to this year round, in every weather and
| temperature (incl. -20C), when I was a kid several
| decades ago.
|
| Honestly I don't know how she did it, but she did. It
| helped that we had separated bike lanes pretty much
| everywhere. It is entirely possible if the infrastructure
| supports it.
|
| This sort of thing is why I'm personally a big fan of the
| 15-minute city concept.
| gnatolf wrote:
| Plenty of Europeans have cargo bikes and make do with 2-3
| supermarket trips per week for families of 4-5 peeps.
|
| Only bulk drinks (crates of beer/soda/...) are
| challenging. But for those, very often delivery systems
| are in place that surely are more efficient than
| individual trips anyways.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| I regularly carry four cases of water (48 cans) on my
| standard bicycle without a problem.
|
| Whenever I go grocery shopping I mount a milk crate to my
| rear rack (this takes about six seconds) and put the
| cases in vertically. I can also carry a 4L jug of milk in
| the handlebar-mounted basket.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| We can do it, but it's going to be two trips. However,
| there's like half a dozen grocery stores within a 10
| minute bike radius where I live (modern suburb). Others
| who live out in the countryside will need to travel
| further, but that's generally the tradeoff; more
| comfortable / quiet living in exchange for longer
| distance to amenities.
| spockz wrote:
| We just get the bulk groceries delivered. Only fresh
| vegetables and fruit we get during the week in case we
| need some that last a week.
| Reason077 wrote:
| In London we had multiple supermarket options within 10
| mins walk. And even more within 10 minutes cycling
| distance.
|
| Usually we'd just stop on the way home from work or
| whatever to do small, quick shops for whatever we needed.
|
| But on the rare occasion where we did need to do a "big
| shop", we just ordered groceries online for delivery the
| next day. All the major UK supermarkets offer this, with
| free or very cheap delivery, delivered by
| environmentally-friendly electric trucks.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| We do most of our weekly groceries with a grandma cart, a
| cargo bike fits much more.
| tirant wrote:
| I've been doing that for years on a cargo bike. I shop
| for a family of four once a week and everything fits in
| one cargo bike without any issue.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Cargo bikes or bike trailers are two of many solutions to
| this dilemma that immediately sprung to mind. In the
| Netherlands I have seen grocery stores deliver large
| deliveries in big tricycles.
|
| There are billions of people that manage their shopping
| without a car. Millions of them live in North America.
| Surely, some of them have solved this problem for a
| family without having to go shopping daily.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's a bit futuristic, but I heard the Italian company
| Givi has some great solutions for transporting cargo on
| two wheelers:
|
| https://www.givi.it
| ncruces wrote:
| Why does it need to be either/or? I make do almost the
| entire week without a car. Schools within walking
| distance, then mass transit to work.
|
| So what if I own and use a small family car, to go
| shopping and take the kids places?
|
| Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
|
| My neighborhood is a real life 15min city, and most
| people of all ages _choose_ to walk. We don 't need to
| prevent families from owning a car and taking it grocery
| shopping once a week.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The French have got you covered there [0].
|
| There's also plenty of other, more practical / affordable
| microcars [1] on the road around where I live, they're
| considered equivalent to mopeds in terms of legality /
| requirements but you don't need a helmet, they seat two
| people and some groceries, etc. They used to be mainly
| popular for elderly people but they seem to catch on to
| other people too. Great for local traffic.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcar
| dkga wrote:
| I'm delighted to introduce to you the amazing
| microlino.ch
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| EU is introducing limits for this as part of the Euro 7
| standard, which is spurring various tech improvements.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Regenerative braking helps with brake dust, but is probably
| offset by extra tyre wear on EVs. I go weeks without using
| the brakes and usually don't even touch the brake pedal.
| FredPret wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if we make great strides in this at
| the rate that materials science is barrelling along
| jeffbee wrote:
| Normal car designers who aren't drug-addicted sociopaths
| have already more than solved this problem. If you put
| hard, narrow, high-lifetime tires on small diameter wheels
| you get a car that it more efficient, quieter, cheaper to
| operate, and pollutes less in terms of particulate matter.
| If you are Elon Musk you sell a car with totally
| inappropriate summer racing tires on 20-inch wheels and the
| owners have to replace the whole set every year.
| ethagknight wrote:
| I flipped through the summary of that report, and I would
| think there is almost surely no way this is true, unless
| focusing on worst case assumptions like aggressive driving
| styles and very poorly maintained vehicles.
|
| Your conclusion that there is not "any healthy level of
| private cars coexisting" is heavy handed. There is a balance,
| but I suspect it's more of a jealousy/equality issue. Heavily
| taxed and high quality requirements can surely lead to a
| healthy coexisting. Limiting trips to when they are truly
| worth the cost is an equation to be solved.
| SequoiaHope wrote:
| If EVs don't emit tailpipe emissions then 100% of their
| emissions will be those things. They're also heavier and so
| have more tire wear. It seems not unintuitive to me that
| their emissions might push the boundaries of strict modern
| emissions standards.
|
| For taxing cars, you're still leaving so much car
| infrastructure out there. It swallows the world. Six months
| ago for the first time ever I got a job where I could bike
| to work. The world is so much different from a bike. It
| becomes clear how dangerous cars are to humans, and how
| they chop up our cities in to little rectangles. I'm
| constantly at risk of being hit by cars that don't stop. I
| love being on my bike. I feel like I'm part of the world. I
| ride rain or shine thanks to nice gear. We give up so much
| to have a world with cars. We could move our road budgets
| to trains and bike paths and have so much more space and
| health and life.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| My desire not to inhale brake & tire particulate, not to be
| killed while walking to the store, and not to subsidize
| others expensive lifestyles, is not rooted in jealousy.
|
| I owned a car once, it was sometimes convenient,
| interesting & fun, but it was also often infuriating,
| terrifying and expensive. If I can pull it off, I'd prefer
| to never own one again. I don't really care if anyone else
| owns them, I just don't want to subsidize them or have
| their externalities imposed on me.
|
| An alternative to outright bans is to make some good faith
| attempt at estimating externalities and internalizing them,
| and reducing subsidies such as free, or below market rate
| public land for private vehicle operation & storage. But
| this is difficult and it's not clear the politics of it
| would be much better than an outright bans. If a good faith
| effort determined that operating a car while not being
| subsidized and not inflicting externalities on others, cost
| a significant amount of money, then the whole effort would
| be castigated as limiting driving to the very rich, and
| probably wouldn't go very far. So it feels like we end up
| with either "everyone drives everywhere all the time for
| everything and it's the govt's job to shovel public funds &
| land at it" or outright bans in popular areas.
|
| Cars, oil, and the internal combustion engine, are all
| tremendously useful, and we would be foolish to pretend
| otherwise. But all tools have their ideal uses and all
| tools can be misused & overused to bad ends, both for the
| tool user and for others.
|
| A world of 100% gasoline car ownership where the car was
| simply a fun toy for kick ass weekend road trips, and
| cities had never been bulldozed to make room for them as
| substitutes for our legs, would be a pretty great world,
| even if it involved a bit more
| pollution/externalities/subsidies than some utopian car
| free world.
| fragmede wrote:
| public escalators and moving walkways are a concept for
| cities from a century ago that we largely missed out on.
| andrepd wrote:
| It's not "jealousy"... I've lived in a city where having a
| car was virtually mandatory, and I've lived in a city where
| you could safely bike everywhere. There's NO QUESTION which
| one I prefer.
|
| Even my most reactionary and car-loving extended family
| members had this opinion when they visited :)
| stavros wrote:
| With EVs, 100% of particulates are from tires, etc! It's a
| disaster!
|
| Except, you know, the amount remained the same, we just got
| rid of the other 98% that used to be there.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Well IIRC ev are significantly heavier than ice in average,
| which has a direct consequence on amount of stress on the
| tires and brakes pad.
| MPSFounder wrote:
| Just not true. I favor EVs, but it is incredibly misleading
| to say 98% comes from other sources. In many places,
| natural gas and coal are still used to generate the
| electricity needed. That must be accounted for in your life
| cycle analysis. In fact, once you remove the Musk
| propaganda, Tesla's EVs are by no way greener (draw a
| boundary around his other company SpaceX, and the rocket
| fuel it uses, and you immediately see what I mean. Worse
| than Exxon I would bet)
| adonovan wrote:
| True, but even in Wyoming, where you EV is really a coal-
| powered vehicle, the coal is not burned in the city.
| timewizard wrote:
| Are you sure about that?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_W
| yom...
| sokoloff wrote:
| What you linked seems to me to support GP's text.
|
| What content on that page do you read as refuting those
| claims?
| dboreham wrote:
| Fun fact: there are no cities in Wyoming.
| rascul wrote:
| There are a lot of different ways to define "city".
| Wikipedia list 19 in Wyoming, but I'm not sure what
| criteria they use.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_W
| yom...
| adrianN wrote:
| Since EVs are heavier and accelerate better they probably
| produce more tire dust.
| tirant wrote:
| Not necessarily. EVs have also an almost perfect traction
| control due to immediate torque control by the electric
| motor, so it's very difficult to spin wheels in
| situations of low traction, which reduces tire wear and
| emissions.
|
| On ICE cars, it's much slower with way higher latency due
| to the mechanical inertias.
| ahaucnx wrote:
| It seems that there has been fundamental mistakes and
| overstatements in the amount of particles from brakes in much
| of the secondary research in the last decades.
|
| Details: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00792
| bornfreddy wrote:
| One would also expect that EVs wouldn't emit that many
| particles from brakes since the brakes typically wear much
| more slowly than with ICE cars.
| domoritz wrote:
| But they are heavier. Not saying it offsets the effect
| but it's just not straight forward to assume either way.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| They're not inherently heavier. They're only heavier if
| you put a long-range battery in them, even then it's not
| by very much, and even that may not persist as higher
| energy density batteries are developed.
|
| Or to put it another way, the difference between a small
| car and a large SUV is _far_ greater than the difference
| between an electric car and a gasoline car.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| It's true they are not that much heavier in terms of pure
| numbers. But road wear is a proportional to the
| difference in axle weight to the fourth power.
| pornel wrote:
| But this also means that almost all of the wear is from
| trucks.
|
| This whole meme comes from junk science
| (https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-
| wear-...)
|
| > we found that the car emitted 5.8 grams per kilometer
| of particles. Compared with regulated exhaust emission
| limits of 4.5 milligrams per kilometer, the completely
| unregulated tyre wear emission is higher by a factor of
| over 1,000.
|
| They took plastic shedded by a gas car on non-EV tires,
| and compared it _by weight_ to safety limits for gaseous
| emissions. This makes as much sense as saying that a lump
| of coal has 1,000 times more carbon than the safety
| limits for carbon monoxide.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| What meme? The article you linked talks about tire wear.
| Not road wear. I didn't even touch on tire wear. Road
| wear is well studied.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
|
| I really can't place your comment, you simply start
| talking about something completely unrelated to what I
| was talking about.
| merman wrote:
| Size for size they're heavier. Maybe someday not but they
| are.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| The Standard Range model 3 weighs 3,582 lbs, while the
| Long Range and Performance trims both weigh 4,065 lbs.
|
| The BMW 3 Series has a curb weight ranging from 3,536 to
| 4,180 pounds
| philjohn wrote:
| But the fact that EV brakes don't wear at nearly the same
| rate as ICE brakes still stands.
|
| My EV6 (pretty heavy car) manual explicitly says "you
| should probably do some hard breaking from moderate speed
| to prevent corrosion on the brake discs".
|
| Because 90+% of the time when you press the brake pedal
| the friction brakes aren't being used at all, it's all
| regen.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| [delayed]
| djaychela wrote:
| But the brakes don't get used 90% of the time,it's all
| regen.
| Reason077 wrote:
| EVs have very low brake wear because you simply aren't
| _using_ the friction brakes at all most of the time.
|
| A lot of EVs even have smart "blended" brake pedals that
| preferentially apply regen braking when you press the
| pedal. Only in particularly hard stops will the friction
| brakes get used.
|
| An easy way to test/observe this is simply to check for
| wear on the brake pads of EVs compared to combustion
| vehicles of similar mileage.
|
| _Tires_ , on the other hand, do tend to wear out quicker
| in an EV. Partly due to weight and also due to higher
| performance/acceleration compared to combustion models.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| In the US, the average car weight and the average EV
| weight are basically identical. (4300 pounds vs 4400
| pounds). When you compare similarly sized models the EV
| tends to be about 10% heavier, but gasoline cars tend to
| be larger than EV's.
| gambiting wrote:
| My Volvo XC60 T8 is not even a full EV but after 5 years
| of ownership the brakes on this 2200kg, 400bhp SUV are
| only 10% worn - it's all thanks to regenerative braking
| with the EV motor. It definitely makes a massive impact
| on how quickly the brakes wear out(as in - much much much
| less than in a normal car).
| bornfreddy wrote:
| It doesn't matter though? Less braking material used
| equals less particles emitted. So if we accept that
| brakes on EVs last longer (and are otherwise similar in
| size), then they pollute less.
| Kuinox wrote:
| Then from what the pollution in the subway come from ?
| philjohn wrote:
| most subway trains are decades old - newer fleets have
| regenerative braking[1]
|
| But also ... almost a century of brake dust because
| nobody is going through and vacuuming the tunnels.
|
| [1] https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-
| informa...
| robocat wrote:
| Greens seem to deceive in the same way as green-washing
| except with greener deceptions (whereas green-washing is
| capitalists pretending to be green).
|
| Example: a report on the cost-benefit of using bicycles,
| that comes out with a fantastic positive number for
| introducing a cycle lane. Except the number depends on a
| monetary estimate of the benefits to society for health
| improvements. I'm sure the health improvements exist, and
| it wouldn't surprise me that the health benefits to society
| were well estimated. The problem is that by cherry-picking
| benefits you can simply ignore all monetary benefits of
| cars (no benefits for cars were mentioned as I recall).
|
| I've seen it in other articles which talk sacharrinely
| about the benefit of some green tech. But ignoring real
| costs and certainly not being balanced. The ultra-
| idealistic greenies are not helping their cause when
| rubbish is repeated.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| It would be great if you could cite the report you're
| talking about, so we can judge for ourselves whether
| you're steel-manning or straw-manning its methodology.
| basisword wrote:
| There are lots of things in cities that are unhealthy for
| both ourselves and others but we allow them. It's possible to
| make big improvements while still enjoying a certain amount
| of the benefit of something.
|
| For example - if you use the London Underground the air you
| breathe in is significantly worse than the air above ground
| in busy traffic. Significantly.
| telotortium wrote:
| > I don't think there's any healthy level of private cars
| coexisting with humans in a city
|
| Concentrating humans together into a small locality, which is
| what a city is, will inherently have a significant
| environmental impact. Cities before private cars were still
| quite polluted, because transportation still has to take
| place just to keep the city running. Electric vehicles are
| the _best-case_ scenario for truck deliveries, construction
| vehicles, and everything else you need to keep a city running
| on a day-to-day basis.
|
| Moreover, you have to consider _all_ cities in this analysis,
| not just posh, post-industrial cities like those in the US
| and Western Europe. Manufacturing has to take place
| _somewhere_ , and logistics considerations imply that most
| manufacturing will be located next to transportation
| infrastructure. Just like any other economic activity,
| manufacturing benefits from talent clusters (a major reason
| cities exist), so manufacturing will tend to concentrate in
| cities as well, or at least the suburbs, which you can easily
| observe in China.
|
| If you really hate air pollution, move to the country and be
| willing to sacrifice the advantages of cities.
| illiac786 wrote:
| Cities have a positive environmental impact when you
| compare it with spreading the same population in villages
| across thousands of miles.
|
| It would be an insane amount of roads, cabling, water
| pipes, etc.
|
| Cities are bad for human health, but good for the
| environment.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Are they bad for human health compared to other ways of
| living like rural or suburbs? iirc rural people get the
| least amount of exercise because you just sit inside all
| day.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| What if the cars were made really light?
|
| Four bicycle wheels, as many batteries as you can safely put
| on something supported by four bicycle wheels, an aerodynamic
| CFRP bubble for the driver etc?
|
| I think such a vehicle can be better than one thinks, with
| acceptable range, acceptable particle emissions, acceptable
| noise levels; and I think they could easily get to 80 km/h
| safely.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Seeing as we're talking Paris, there are plenty of Twizys
| around. Not light light, but a third the weight of even a
| new Renault 5 EV.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Mm.
|
| Now that I see it in real life I don't know how I feel
| about it. It doesn't feel safe when I see a Twizy, but
| when I see these cars in my mind I see them on Swedish
| bicycle roads.
|
| The whole thing would probably require a total
| transformation of city travel.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| The regulatory regime will take a minute to figure out,
| but with tiny vehicles like this + good transit + closing
| streets to regular big cars, we'll figure it out.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Cotroen ami
|
| https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami
| HPsquared wrote:
| 50% number of particulates might not amount to 50% of the
| health risk.
|
| Not all particles are the same. Diesel exhaust particulates
| are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, i.e. pure carcinogen.
| Whereas I really doubt tire and brake dust has the same
| health risk "per particle".
|
| Granted it may even be higher! But comparing two different
| things by simply "number of particles" isn't helpful.
| pornel wrote:
| Heavy particles and gaseous emissions are not comparable in
| such a simplistic way. If you take a dump on the street it
| doesn't mean you caused 50 million times more emissions than
| the EPA limits for ICE car exhaust.
|
| For example, iron from brakes is heavy but ecologically
| pretty harmless. OTOH NO2 weighs almost nothing, but is
| toxic. You can eat 30mg of iron per day _to stay healthy_
| (just don 't lick it off the asphalt directly), but a similar
| amount of NO2 would be lethal.
|
| Heavy particles don't stay in the air for long, and don't get
| easily absorbed into organisms. OTOH gaseous emissions and
| small particulates from combustion can linger in the air, and
| can get absorbed into the lungs and the bloodsteam.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| the break pad and tire particles in question are not so
| large they precipitate immediately. They aren't iron but
| rather real/synthetic rubber and other organics. There is
| research on them being bad for human health.
| epolanski wrote:
| I lived in downtown Rome, Italy. By far the biggest pollution
| you get in your house, it's...dust from brakes. It's a tragedy.
|
| Not saying diesel ain't bad, but even now that diesels have
| been largely banned or reduced to euro 6, it has changed
| nothing about brake dust.
|
| My flat would fill with it in a single day. It's everywhere.
| And I lived on a third floor, not even at street level.
| FredPret wrote:
| How do you know the dust was specifically brake dust?
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Only electric vehicules are allowed inside the ZFE.
| TheBlight wrote:
| Doesn't answer the question though.
| MilaM wrote:
| I live in a house next to a moderately busy street with car
| traffic and also some public transport (bus lines). I
| noticed that the windows (and frames) facing the street get
| dirty much faster than the windows facing the garden. The
| dirt on the street side is also pretty gross, sticky and
| hard to clean. It's just an anecdotal observation, but I
| could not come up with a better explanation so far.
| FredPret wrote:
| I had a balcony overlooking a highway in Toronto once,
| and it got super grimy as well. I think all the different
| kinds of car emissions combine into some sort of super
| bad tarry crap that then collects every kind of passing
| dust particle.
| epolanski wrote:
| Good point.
|
| I'm quite sure it was brake dust because during COVID 19
| lockdowns everything was the same (heating etc) but streets
| were void of cars.
|
| Then I've read some scientific article about brake with
| pics and it looked exactly as what I got inside my house.
|
| I can't conclude 100% it was it (or just it), but it seems
| to be the most probable cause along tires.
| FredPret wrote:
| Ah, that's interesting. Although I imagine cars kick up a
| lot of old-fashioned dirt dust from the road and swoosh
| up some more of that from the sidewalks as they drive as
| well.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Many cities in Europe have introduced climate zones in the past
| ~20 years, mainly to ban older smoky diesels like that. Petrol
| cars have also gotten more efficient; smaller engines (1 liter
| 3 cylinder ones are the norm now for smaller cars), smaller
| cars, more efficient engines, stop/start systems, hybrids and
| EVs (especially good for city traffic), etc.
|
| That said, when I was in Paris last there were a lot of motor-
| scooters; while they also have small engines etc, I can't see
| them being much cleaner than well-designed cars, only due to
| their smaller size. Given time, I'm sure the range on their
| electric counterparts will become good enough as well to become
| a practical replacement.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| It makes sense now why they burn cars every protest (besides
| being fun). Pollution for a day, clean air for a lifetime
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Ah yes, the joy of destroying your neighbor's property just for
| fun. Is he a working-class guy, struggling to pay his bills?
| Too bad. Because nothing says "let's build a better future"
| than a riot.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Sadly, that is mostly how it happens. Wars/riots and strikes
| are the only proven mechanism for effecting systemic change
| to power structures. It's how you got most of your freedoms.
| const_cast wrote:
| I don't know why you're getting downvoted, it's literally,
| objectively true.
|
| The only reason Carnegie built 1500 public libraries is
| because he knew otherwise there was a good chance some
| vigilantes would take things into their own hands and he
| and his family would hang.
|
| Yes, it sucks that the only way to reach the rich and
| powerful is to harm women, children and property. But at
| least the rich and powerful of old knew this, and
| preemptively prevented it.
|
| New billionaires are far too cavalier. They believe
| themselves invisible, and it shows in their utter
| disrespect onto the average people. Where is our
| philanthropy? Why do you not fear for your life?
|
| We have become too civilized, and allowed the evil to laugh
| in our faces.
| goatlover wrote:
| > Yes, it sucks that the only way to reach the rich and
| powerful is to harm women, children
|
| I would consider that evil, much as I want the current
| administration and it's allies to have some healthy
| respect (and thus restraint) for the power of the people.
| const_cast wrote:
| Of course it's evil, it's just that historically that's
| what we've done and historically that's what effective.
|
| It's largely good that we, as a people, have become more
| civilized and don't resort to that. The unexpected
| downside of that, though, is that we are much more
| susceptible to being exploited. It's a sort of naivety
| trade-off.
| orwin wrote:
| I will note that car burning is rare during protests. It
| mostly happen during riots, which are quite rare (i think
| 2005 were the big ones, and some light ones started last
| year). What can happen is a luxury car finding itself on its
| own roof (those racing cars are light).
|
| During the yellow vest protest, "unsafe" property destruction
| started, destroying an apartment and putting in danger
| bystanders (the only death was due to a police grenade shot
| trough an open window, but the protesters put in danger
| bystanders too, and only luck prevented any deaths). Which
| triggered an interesting response from old punks/antifas (and
| also active ones): They joined facebook yellow vest protest
| groups to teach "how to" destroy property properly: spot
| danger points, how to find a target, how to avoid side
| effects, when to avoid using fire (99.9% of the time), when
| not to, how to deactivate teargas grenade (it is surprising,
| but a lot of people do not know how to), and instilled in
| some very theoritical points about secrecy and
| compartmentalization that were passed down from like the
| "groupe Barta", which, to be honest, is quite funny.
| Kavelach wrote:
| Massive strikes that are hard to contain got use the 8 hour
| work day, weekends and a lot of labor rights. Civil right
| movements won only because a huge portion of them were
| militant (back then even the National Rifle Association
| supported banning guns). A violent status quo necessitates
| violence to achieve change.
| eesmith wrote:
| The suffrage movement in the UK also had a militant
| component:
|
| > The tactics of the [Women's Social and Political Union]
| included shouting down speakers, hunger strikes, stone-
| throwing, window-smashing, and arson of unoccupied churches
| and country houses. In Belfast, when in 1914 the Ulster
| Unionist Council appeared to renege on an earlier
| commitment to women's suffrage,[27] the WSPU's Dorothy
| Evans (a friend of the Pankhursts) declared an end to "the
| truce we have held in Ulster." In the months that followed
| WSPU militants (including Elizabeth Bell, the first woman
| in Ireland to qualify as a doctor and gynaecologist) were
| implicated in a series of arson attacks on Unionist-owned
| buildings and on male recreational and sports facilities.
|
| This influenced the US suffrage movement, like https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_Unit... , even
| during WWI: "groups like the National Woman's Party that
| continued militant protests during wartime were criticized
| by other suffrage groups and the public, who viewed it as
| unpatriotic."
| thrance wrote:
| The comment you resond to is obviously a joke, and so is
| yours (in a way) but owning and driving a car in Paris almost
| certainly places you in the upper class. Most Parisians don't
| own cars, most don't use them to drive around the city.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| I am highly confident that a sufficient percentage of those
| whose cars are burned go on to buy another car that the net
| impact of the act you describe is negative on all counts.
| jfengel wrote:
| Er, aren't the cars in question electric cars?
|
| That has little to do with the pollution or traffic, and more
| about the extreme actions of their manufacturer. It's symbolic,
| albeit largely ineffective and ignored by the target.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| it's always shocked me how diesel reliant Europe is, smells
| absolutely terrible coming from the states
| pjmlp wrote:
| Way cheaper than gasoline, that is why.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| That's all a matter of taxation. Modern refining does not
| produce diesel/kerosene as a leftover unless you want it.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Indeed, just like buying EVs is a matter of subsidies.
| fragmede wrote:
| What's interesting is that the price of electricity in the EU
| makes EVs not competitive on that basis.
| pjmlp wrote:
| EV are still not competitive when most of us live in flats,
| and most would never even consider buying one given their
| prices if it wasn't for the subsidies.
| julosflb wrote:
| Diesel engines are also more efficient.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Diesel motors last 2-3x longer on average. It shocks me that we
| don't use diesel for everything.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| You get what you incentivize.
|
| Europe chose to levy big fuel taxes and punitive displacement
| taxes. Diesel cars are some of the best when it comes to
| driving experience and fuel economy for a given displacement.
| What followed was perfectly predictable.
|
| The road to hell is paved with public policy implemented with
| willful ignorance to obvious 2nd order effects.
| tpm wrote:
| Yes but sales of diesel passenger cars are falling fast, so
| this will change in a few years.
|
| https://robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/
| kgwgk wrote:
| There are many more gasoline cars than diesel cars in the
| European Union. The latter are used more though and heavy
| vehicles are also diesel so there is a higher consumption of
| diesel than gasoline.
| grg0 wrote:
| Cars in cities, let alone designing cities around cars, is one of
| the greatest tragedies of modern life.
| jfengel wrote:
| It is, though the problem predates the cars. At the time cars
| were seen as a huge win over the vast piles of horse poop.
|
| Cities do need to be reconsidered for more public transit and
| more opportunities to walk, but other issues (delivery,
| emergency, disability, etc) have to figure in.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Not just horse poop, but dead horses that were quite the
| chore to remove back in the day, and the danger posed to
| pedestrians by a bunch of quite large and easily panicked
| animals.
| 1over137 wrote:
| We still have that danger. But the animals are homo sapiens
| and they are surrounded by 2 tonnes of metal. :)
| EA-3167 wrote:
| This is true, but from the perspective of the time,
| automobiles were far from "2 tons of metal" and quite a
| bit slower. They were also a rich man's conveyance, even
| more so than a nice carriage, and I doubt people
| understood early on just how widely adopted the
| automobile would become.
|
| A lack of foresight is also very human.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| >A lack of foresight is also very human.
|
| Let's call it what it really is. The stubborn
| unwillingness to consider _scalability_ in our designs
| and planning -- even in an era where a machine can do
| calculation for us.
| Tade0 wrote:
| One of the early examples of the Poisson distribution was
| the rate at which soldiers in the Prussian army would be
| fatally kicked by horses.
|
| Translates to a little over 30 deaths per year per
| million, so not a lot, though I suspect the number would
| have been much greater adjusted for distance travelled
| and even without that it's more than some countries
| achieve with their traffic.
| oblio wrote:
| Let's be real here, a huge chunk of car traffic in cities is
| purely for convenience.
|
| Once that's reduced by say, 50%, everything becomes much
| better, but nobody gives up convenience voluntarily.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The problem is that, among casualties, you create an
| environment that is hostile for families and disabled
| people.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Only if you just remove the cars without replacing them
| with good public transportation (family friendly,
| accessible, with special modes for disabled people).
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Which doesn't exist and is hardly possible in Paris.
| chadd wrote:
| i'm not sure this is true, for instance NYC ranks as the
| second most disabled-friendly city
|
| https://www.amny.com/lifestyle/new-york-city-ranks-2nd-
| in-a-...
| Saline9515 wrote:
| In Paris, 90% of the metro transportation system isn't
| accessible to wheelchairs and strollers. Buses are
| overcrowded and slow. Who doesn't enjoy to see someone
| cough on their newborn while fighting for a space for
| their stoller ?
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| Buses are perfectly accessible in Paris. They are crowded
| but acceptably so for a city of 10 millions. It's not
| fair to expect the collectivity to accept the
| externalities of cars so rich people can avoid some
| slight discomfort.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Paris is not a city of 10 millions, it has only two
| million habitants. And cars are not reserved to rich
| people, why would they be? I grew up in Paris, my parents
| weren't rich, we were living in public housing and we had
| a car.
|
| Families are not second-tier citizens, and currently the
| public transports are not suited for them. On top of the
| other problems, such as the pleasure of having to deal
| with crackheads and various homeless people in the metro
| when you have a baby.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Paris
| jltsiren wrote:
| When it comes to traffic and urban planning, Paris is
| best understood as a city of 10+ million people. The
| administrative subdivision called Paris has only ~2
| million people, but the city doesn't end at its borders.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Yes, however there is little urban planning for whole
| metro, and the administrative level we are talking about
| here is the intra-muros one. When the mayor decided to
| reduce the speed on the outer loop, she didn't notify nor
| discussed with the rest of the metro, for instance. And
| the measures discussed in the article are specific to
| Paris.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| > Yes, however there is little urban planning for whole
| metro
|
| Paris biggest infrastructure project for the past 20
| years is called "Grand Paris" and revolve entirely around
| the whole metro. Actually there is literally no urban
| planning not involving the whole metro. And yes, lowering
| the speed limit involved multiple consultations with the
| prefect and the region because it impacts the whole
| metro.
|
| Considering Paris without its metropole doesn't make
| sense. Paris intra-muros is ridiculously small, one
| eightieth of London, 80% of San Francisco.
| flomo wrote:
| Surprising, considering the NYC subway has been ignoring
| the ADA as much as possible.
| oblio wrote:
| Shocker, both disabled people and families are easily
| identifiable and can be exempt from such measures.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Well, they aren't exempt. Many French greens will tell
| you anyway that having children is bad for the planet and
| that you should abstain. And, as our population grows
| older, the accessibility problem will be larger and
| larger.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| A lot of car drivers will respond with "good" and
| Darwinian arguments about their lack of fitness for the
| harshness of life.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| If there are fewer cars on the road, there is a lot less
| traffic, and driving because much easier for those who
| are car-dependent. Example: the Netherlands.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Netherlands have as many cars as most the developed
| nations.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes, but they're used less frequently. Most middle class
| people have a car, but they're often only used for
| irregular trips. Commuting and errands use alternative
| means at much higher rates than elsewhere.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Point is, they still need cars if they have them. And
| Netherlands are very far from Paris, infrastructure-wise.
| In Paris, for instance, leaving your cargo or e-bike
| outside for the night means finding nothing when you wake
| up (I got two bikes stolen already, and they were the
| cheapest available).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The topic of the original post is air pollution. Unused
| cars don't cause air pollution. The topic of this thread
| is inconveniencing the disabled. Unused cars don't cause
| traffic that inconveniences the disabled.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Paris tackled the problem by making it very hard to own a
| car. It's the same for Amsterdam, too. We all hate
| pollution, it's just that the solutions available in the
| Dutch countryside are a bit different than in Paris.
| alistairSH wrote:
| That's not a given. Nobody here is talking about outright
| bans on all vehicles. Limited access for taxis and
| commercial use is a thing. Buses can be built with
| wheelchair access. Etc.
|
| And with less space reserved for cars and only cars,
| there's more space for wide/accessible sidewalks. Less
| chance of being run over by a car. Less air and noise
| pollution.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Well if you have less space for cars, parking spots are
| more expensive as a result. In Paris it's around a year
| of living wage. And currently, sidewalks are getting
| smaller due to the need to build bicycle lanes.
|
| My initial post was that in Paris, they removed cars but
| did not improve public transports, so buses are
| overcrowded and hostile to strollers.
| seszett wrote:
| > _an environment that is hostile for families_
|
| I don't understand this part, I read it quite often
| but... well, we _are_ a family with young children, and
| although we do have a car we only use it once a week to
| go to the grand-parents that live 100 km away from here.
|
| A city with less cars is great _especially_ for families
| (though I would argue that cities themselves are not so
| great for children, but the comparison here is between
| cities that are car-centric or that are not). It makes
| going out easier and more spontaneous.
|
| It's much less of a hassle to hop in the cargo bike and
| go wherever (including stopping en route if you see
| something interesting) than having to use the car, sit in
| traffic, hope you can find parking space at your
| destination, and pay for it.
| enaaem wrote:
| In the 60s, Dutch anti-car protestors had the slogan
| "Stop the child murder!". People were used to traditional
| cities where children could safely cycle around, but then
| cars came and started killing them.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I can assure you that there are disabled people who
| really don't like car oriented environments since so many
| disabilities preclude driving.
| SequoiaHope wrote:
| There was a time in between, where electric streetcars
| (trains) were a common mode of transport. But those got torn
| up for cars. That's a real tragedy in hindsight.
| flomo wrote:
| That's the myth. Streetcars were actually torn up because
| busses were much cheaper, there was no conspiracy. The
| streetcars were also old and cold and ppl hated them.
|
| (I lived in a streetcar part of SF, and loved it, fwiw. But
| the only reason it's still there is a tunnel.)
| oblio wrote:
| Many other places just... upgraded the trams.
|
| You know, the less radical solution.
| jmward01 wrote:
| That is a statement that really needs citation and
| qualification to back it up. I'd argue that 'cheaper' is
| used in a vacuum here. By that I mean that the point of
| mass transit isn't how much it costs, but how much value
| it provides. By that measure the bus services that
| replaced streetcars and other mass transit really doesn't
| stack up. Busses have led to much lower ridership which
| has led to a massive amount of bad secondary effects.
| Looking at how congestion pricing in NYC has increased
| mass transit use AND economic activity it is pretty clear
| that 'cheaper' has led to secondary effects that far
| outweigh any narrow operational gains from switching to
| busses.
| flomo wrote:
| The citation is every American transit system in the
| 1950s. Even SF only kept the streetcars where they
| couldn't replace with a bus line.
|
| I think you're making a different argument, where trains
| attract a more well-heeled commuter. Which is why many
| cities have brought back LRT as part of a redevelopment
| plan.
| jmward01 wrote:
| The argument I am making is that you can only say
| something was cheaper if it provided the same level of
| service or better for less money. In the case of the bus
| transition it provided worse service as indicated by
| utilization dropping. I am also making the argument that
| evaluating the value of transit shouldn't rest entirely
| on the cost of that service and ridership but on the
| value as a whole it brings to a city. I mentioned NYC
| because the evidence there (and in other cities that have
| implemented congestion pricing) is that as ridership goes
| up the economic, environment, and social health of a city
| also goes up. Point being, the bus transition had a very
| negative value impact. I will also add a final argument,
| as your ridership drops things like busses may appear
| less costly per ride simply because you are loosing
| volume and low volume routes are likely easier to service
| by bus so, again, cheaper but not an apples to apples
| comparison.
| flomo wrote:
| Yes, I like trains and wish we had better transit. I'm
| responding to the claim streetcars were "torn up for
| cars", which was not really the case (and frequently
| subject to a conspiracy theory).
| adrian_b wrote:
| Establishing a new bus service in an area where public
| transportation had not existed must be indeed much
| cheaper.
|
| However it is impossible for the operational and
| maintenance costs for a bus service and for the roads on
| which the buses go to be cheaper than for an electric
| streetcar, unless some prices are fake.
|
| It is true that I have seen enough cases where electric
| streetcars have been replaced by buses, but I cannot see
| other explanation except bribes, because it was extremely
| visible that the buses were more expensive, both because
| of the fuel consumption and because of the much more
| frequent repairs both for the buses and for the roads.
| flomo wrote:
| It's interesting, in San Francisco, the streetcars got
| too heavy for the old tracks so they replaced them with
| about 4 feet deep of concrete. That is actual
| infrastructure and not "fake". (along with all the stops
| and handicap ramps and etc. obviously, a paved street is
| going to exist either way.)
|
| Bribes and the mafia may have been a factor[0], but
| that's how American cities do things.
|
| [0] eg. https://www2.startribune.com/streetcars-buses-
| minneapolis-st...
| isametry wrote:
| Trains are expensive upfront, which might favor buses
| when expanding into _new_ areas. But if the
| infrastructure is already there, a train line will always
| be more economical in the long run than the equivalent
| bus line.
|
| So ripping out existing serviceable train tracks is
| stupid (or alternatively: evil) if you think in the long
| term.
| flomo wrote:
| As I said in another post, train tracks don't last
| forever and are expensive to replace. And trains really
| only benefit from dedicated ROW, a streetcar is worse
| than a bus in many respects. (Except appeal.) People back
| in the 1950s were not stupid or evil, they made a
| decision which made a lot of sense at the time.
| ximeng wrote:
| Just like the promise of EVs to replace the exhaust from ICE
| cars is seen as a win.
| epolanski wrote:
| And it's one of the biggest promoters of inequality.
|
| I am an European who studied at OSU in Columbus for a semester
| and it was absurd to me how on one side there was lots of work
| downtown, yet you could live 20 miles of it and it would take
| you two hours by public transport to get there, an odyssey.
|
| People without a car, insurance, poorer parts of the society
| were cut off from the job market for not having a way to
| connect.
|
| Suburbs are cute, but they are a tragedy of city planning, let
| alone the tragedy they are on a social level, where people will
| put everything in their houses including movie rooms,
| entertainment rooms, anything to avoid having to go out and
| socialize. Terrible.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Suburbs are fine. We are in 2025, not 1925, there is no
| reason why work from home isn't an option for information
| workers and others who don't need to be physically on
| premises. You are completely ignoring how much that cuts down
| on traffic and would lower the cost of real estate, so more
| people who aren't millionaires could live downtown. We also
| have electric cars that have basically zero emissions, there
| is a technical solution for this; not everyone wants to ride
| a bus or train.
| clayhacks wrote:
| Work from home is great, but there's more to life than
| work. Being walking distance or public transport distance
| to the rest of life's activities is also great. And EVs
| aren't saving the planet they are saving the car industry.
| They still cause tire particulate pollution, noise
| pollution, light pollution, and need tons of rare earth
| minerals
| bluecalm wrote:
| Don't forget the most important scarce resource they
| require: space. We waste so much space for parking and
| other car friendly infrastructure there often is not
| enough left for a a bike line or even a sidewalk let
| alone some actually pleasant peaceful passage people
| could use.
| afthonos wrote:
| I understand a large amount of car pollution these days is
| due to the tires.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I drive an EV. I am not under the mistaken impression that
| it's zero emission (or even close).
|
| It emits particulates locally and power-generation-related
| emissions at the fossil fuel plant that provides the
| majority of my grid power.
|
| Is it better than an ICE? Probably. Is it "basically zero
| emission"? Nope.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Private cars are an economic sinkhole. They make no
| financial sense. My town in the exurbs used to have rail
| service and stagecoaches. The necessity of private cars is
| a marketing triumph. Not a choice.
| goatlover wrote:
| I like the freedom a private car gives me. I can go
| anywhere at anytime. I have nothing against public
| transportation and want it to be good. But you can't go
| everywhere at anytime. Here I'm including the country
| side and smaller towns.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| That's fine, take your private car and drive it away from
| the city.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > But you can't go everywhere at anytime
|
| This is a solved problem in countries with modern public
| transportation. In Japan for example you can go across
| the entire country without needing a single car, and
| indeed it's both cheaper and more available than doing so
| while driving. If you need to go somewhere really far out
| of the way that is not reachable by foot or bicycle, then
| you can rent a car.
|
| All of this results in a system that is far cheaper for
| you and far more open for the average individual.
| dublinben wrote:
| Nothing says freedom like being required to spend
| thousands of dollars just to get around and participate
| in society. Imagine how "free" the roughly one-third of
| folks who are too young, too old, too disabled, etc. to
| drive a car feel when trying to go about their lives.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0MVCyOjvtk
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Not everyone has to ride a bus or a train. They can stay
| home if they want.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yet RTO is in full enforcement all over the place, sadly.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Posts like these reverse cause and effect.
| andrepd wrote:
| Suburbs are also financially subsidised by the city centres.
| See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
| flomo wrote:
| In the USA, the working poor generally don't work downtown,
| and it's really the industrial areas where there is awful
| transit service. So cheapo used cars are a must for these
| folks.
|
| There is some awful HN bias here where young healthy well-
| paid tech workers live in some boogie part of
| SF/NYC/Boston/etc and enjoy the "car-free lifestyle" (and
| I've been there), without any idea how the other half lives.
| skort wrote:
| I've seen this "car free utopia" idea dismissed as an idea
| by and for "elites" (see Transportation Secretary Sean
| Duffy's comments on people who ride the subway in NYC)
| plenty of times as a tactic to avoid doing anything about
| reducing dependence on cars. It's quite a counterproductive
| argument in my opinion. Even if there are well paid tech
| workers who are able to enjoy a "car-free lifestyle", why
| should it end there?
|
| Just because the system we created means that currently the
| only affordable place for the working poor is in suburbs
| where they must rely on cars doesn't mean that it needs to
| continue to be that way. You can support building infill
| housing and adding transit to eventually reduce the need
| for so many people to have cars.
|
| It's one thing to call it "bias" and use that as an
| argument to not make things better instead of coming up
| with ways to help make car independence available to
| everyone across classes.
| flomo wrote:
| Because the truth is nobody has any real idea how to
| retrofit the last 70 years of American suburbia so that
| mass transit is actually effective and useful for people.
| "Transit-oriented development" really only helps downtown
| workers and doesn't get you to the grocery store or
| daycare. (And even in NYC, the subway is not great out in
| Queens/etc, so people own cars.)
|
| But it is nice to live in the Mission and take the
| techbus to Mountain View and handwave all the hard
| trillion dollar problems and say let the poors eat cake.
| Which is effectively how these discussions seem to go.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I find it fascinating how the debate around cars in
| cities evolves. Initially counter arguments always are
| that reducing cars is not desirable "nobody wants less
| cars in cities, people need to do their weekly groceries,
| nobody wants to bike in bad weather...". Once these
| points are refuted it always evolves into "yes it would
| be great, but it can't be done, because it's too
| expensive, politically controversial...". It's almost
| like there is an irrational fear of less cars in cities.
|
| Regarding it can't be done I encourage anyone to read up
| on how the investment into public transport transformed
| Bogota. Which is both much poorer and in a much more
| challenging geographical environment than most US cities.
| So if they can do it, why can't US cities?
| flomo wrote:
| You are putting a lot of pointless words in my mouth. As
| I said, I have actually lived the San Francisco car-free
| bike and streetcar lifestyle, and quite enjoyed it. So I
| have the perspective of why it does or does not work (for
| Americans). I would love to see some concrete solutions
| proposed here other than just the usual Cars Bad/Cars
| Good handwaving and downvoting.
|
| (I just looked at Bodega in Google Maps, and it is
| significantly more dense than all but the most "boogie"
| American cities. Compare it to say Chicago.)
| im3w1l wrote:
| Self driving cars will make it much more viable to use
| cars for last mile on either side of a public transport
| trip.
| Zigurd wrote:
| A friend of mine is writing a history of the Massachusetts
| Hill towns. The Strathmore paper company plays a big part
| in that history the mill owners built housing for their
| workers within walking distance of the mills.
|
| I also know of a tourism industry company that is buying up
| older hotels that are no longer competitive in the local
| market to use as seasonal worker housing.
|
| There are solutions other than having someone drive a
| beater for 45 minutes to get to a low paying job.
| flomo wrote:
| Yeah, "company towns" were another issue that cars
| solved.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| On what planet do you think that people living in company
| housing could afford cars? People living in company
| housing were the poorest of the poor.
|
| Please just....stop. Stop trying to talk about how poor
| people lived or live.
| flomo wrote:
| Correct, it was a terrible situation despite the lack of
| cars.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Speaking as "the other half": this is wildly condescending,
| ignorant, and ironic. The irony of declaring that HN
| doesn't understand "how the other half lives"...
|
| ...while also declaring that "used cars are a must" for
| poor people (if you can afford a car in a city, you're
| substantially above a huge number of people, and car
| ownership rate goes up dramatically with wealth. It rises
| higher than 1 car/person once you start hitting the single
| digits. A huge number of service industry people, not to
| mention students, get around on foot or bicycle. They just
| don't commute 9-5, and they don't live in your
| neighborhoods, so you don't see them)
|
| ...while also making wildly sweeping generalization about
| where transit does and doesn't go (in my city, poor people
| get busses, rich people get trolleys and light rail and
| commuter rail, and it's pretty clearly purposeful that it
| is very difficult to get to the rich residential parts from
| the poor residential parts)
|
| ...while also making wildly sweeping generalizations that
| working poor don't work downtown, and only work in
| "industrial" areas in cities. It really goes to show how
| invisible we all are to you....even when you're wagging
| your finger at the rest of HN for not understanding people
| like us, lol.
|
| Downtown, who exactly do you think handles all the
| cleaning, maintenance, repair, delivery, food service,
| retail, etc in the "downtown" area of a city?
|
| Who do you think delivers the paper towels and bottled
| water and k-cups? Everything around you in your office -
| every single fucking thing down to the carpet you're
| standing on - is there because a poor person put it there.
|
| Who do you think is driving the busses and taxis and trucks
| and vans?
|
| Who do you think works the "gig" "jobs" delivering
| everything from dry cleaning to laundry to a fancy lunch
| for to those "young healthy well-paid tech workers"? (and
| FYI, your boss/admin assistant/office manager, when they
| order that big lunch from the fancy place across town?
| They're shit tippers. And bad communicators. And take
| forever to show up to grab the order.)
|
| Do you realize that even in the "boogie" (sic) part of the
| city, the guy running the cash register at that hip coffee
| joint is making as close to minimum wage as the company
| thinks they can get away with, which is likely, at best, a
| buck or two an hour more than average?
|
| Who exactly do you think fills all the entry-level jobs,
| including in tech companies? What do you think the front
| desk receptionist is paid? The desktop support person?
|
| I feel like you all think that someone who cleans the
| offices for the big dot-com or white-shoe law office...or
| someone who dishwashes or busses or does prep work for a
| fancy restaurant where a plate costs $50, is getting paid
| anything remotely proportional to the difference in cost
| from a restaurant a plate for $18 or the hourly rate of
| that law firm.
|
| It's the opposite - the fanciest places and the biggest
| name corps squeeze people the hardest. That's how they got
| to where they are.
| flomo wrote:
| Criticism accepted, I am not trying to generalize
| everyone. I am an urban dweller from back in the days
| when that was the cheap (and less desirable) way to live.
| So I obviously wish we had much better transit and more
| affordable housing, and all of the good things. Its not
| like people want to spend an hour in traffic in a beater-
| ass car, they do it because they have to. (Because all of
| the shit you mention is even worse in the suburbs.) I
| would just like to see some real solutions which don't
| involve taxing the fuck out of the little guy or nuking
| the suburbs or the usual Cars Bad handwaving. It's a hard
| problem which nobody has a real good answer for.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| When I look around on the subway here in NYC I see every
| type of person imaginable. There are wealthy people going
| to work and unhoused people and everyone in between. There
| are certainly transit deserts and I have friends that live
| in them who do have cars -- largely out in Queens, East New
| York, etc -- but many of the people I know in the city with
| cars are financially doing just fine.
|
| It's also important to note that the extreme cost of living
| in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn is relatively recent. My
| friends that grew up here in the 80s, taking the subway to
| school, were far from bougie. They were living a car free
| lifestyle then and now just because that's how the
| environment of many parts of NYC is built. It's not like
| NYC was constructed as a walking paradise only for wealthy
| people in the 19th century.
| flomo wrote:
| True, I'm an old urbanite/suburb-hater. But because of
| ppl like me, I don't think there's any place left in the
| USA which has 'good' transit and isn't expensive. (And
| solutions like congestion tolls only work because of the
| boogieness.) What's done is done.
| epolanski wrote:
| The working poor struggles to find work and stays poor also
| because mobility.
|
| By the way that's not something I'm making up, it was
| literally told me by several people in struggling
| neighborhoods, lacking a car can be easily make a
| difference for many between being able or not to have
| different opportunities in life.
|
| Might be different elsewhere but it made sense to me.
| flomo wrote:
| I've heard the same thing, because there's a lot of jobs
| out in suburban industrial parks and etc. (Some local
| transit agencies have tried to solve this, but the
| situation still isn't good.)
| Vinnl wrote:
| Wasn't GP specifically complaining about the other half not
| being able to enjoy the "car-free lifestyle"? (/not be
| forced to use the car to live their life.)
| flomo wrote:
| I'm not unsympathetic, but I don't think a "European who
| studied at OSU for a semester" really knows what they are
| talking about.
| itsmartapuntocm wrote:
| It's all by design. Car dependent suburbs with no transit
| access make it easier to keep "undesirables" out of your neck
| of the woods.
|
| Robert Moses infamously made great use of infrastructure and
| urban planning to reinforce redlining.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Just one example. He required bridges be built too low for
| buses to pass, limiting access to parks and beaches to
| those who owned cars...
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-
| mo...
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Here's the sub-heading from the article you linked to:
|
| "The story: Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the
| Southern State Parkway's bridges extra-low, to prevent
| poor people in buses from using the highway. The truth?
| It's a little more complex"
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| If you read the article, and not just that line, the
| author goes on to confirm the bridge anecdote by using
| the actual measurements of the bridges.
|
| I'm not actually sure what that sub-heading is referring
| to, except that it does mention that Moses built
| facilities for black people in Harlem, despite his open
| racism.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| "to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway"
|
| No evidence whatsoever for that motivation. You could
| take the bus to the beach.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Paris didn't improve its public transportation system, as it
| made it impossible to own a car. It ends up as pure sadism for
| the inhabitants who are not childless, affluent 20/30 years
| old, and who have no alternative than having to take the piss-
| smelling cattle trains with no access the disabled people, or
| strollers.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > A city improved the air quality
|
| "Pure sadism!!!"
|
| Yeah I'm sure everyone is real miserable, which is why they
| just voted in a referendum for more car-free streets.
|
| Amazing how out of touch with reality the car-dominance types
| are.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| You clearly have a non-existent knowledge of French
| political life. This referendum had a participation rate of
| 4%, and only 62% of the voters voted yes. So around 2% of
| the total voters.
|
| By the way, the French metro's air is highly polluted, due
| to tire degradation and brake dust, making it unfit for
| children or pregnant women.
|
| So yeah, it's manageable for young people. But when a baby
| arrives, it's hell. Same if you are old. Or disabled.
| andrepd wrote:
| Dutch people seem to do just fine with baby seats on
| their bikes, or bakfiets if you have lots of kids.
|
| Anecdotally, kids are also much happier when they can
| just bike to school/sports/activities with their friends
| instead of having their parents drive then everywhere on
| the back of the family SUV.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Dutch people using bikes for everything is a meme, they
| have as many cars per inhabitants as most of the
| developed nations. Anecdotically, they are a small,
| dense, flat country, with an oceanic weather.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_ter
| rit...
| sensanaty wrote:
| We have cars here, but you're not _dependent_ on them to
| get everywhere unless you live in the countryside (and
| even then, I knew plenty of kids who lived up in the
| North who biked 10+ km 1 way to school) or one of the
| super small cities where the sprinters are sparse. And
| isn 't that the point most people make? It's not about
| complete eradication of cars, it's about having viable
| transport alternatives and the infrastructure to support
| those. It's just that we live in such a world where it's
| unthinkable to not have half our countries paved in
| asphalt to make sure cars can get places, so things like
| these always end up falling into a 2-sided extremist
| camp.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| But...you still have cars fr when you need one. What many
| commenters argue here, and what the Paris administration
| is arguing is that you shouldn't own one.
| sensanaty wrote:
| I mean if you live in a city like Paris, then yeah I'd
| say that's legitimate. I see nothing wrong with making
| such dense urban centers car-free other than what's
| necessary like deliveries or ambulances and such, but for
| the former these days you've got tiny electric trucks
| that even fit on bike paths without causing a ruckus,
| usually you'll see those grocery delivery services use
| them.
|
| Yes, people outside of urban cities like that (which,
| basically by definition means the majority of people in
| the country) still need cars to get around most likely,
| but at least we can ensure that inside the cities
| themselves, there are good alternatives for people to get
| around that benefits every single person who finds
| themselves in the city not inside a car, which will be
| the overwhelming majority of people.
|
| I live in Utrecht in the Netherlands, and the single best
| thing the gov't did a few years ago is rip out the
| highway that was in the city center and instead turned it
| back into a canal surrounded by parks [1]. Literally
| nobody who has ever been to Utrecht would argue we were
| better off with the highway.
|
| [1]
| https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/09/16/utrecht-
| correc...
| com wrote:
| But those cars, as has been explained to you, don't do
| nearly as many trips per year.
|
| Mobility in families is actually higher, since each
| individual has sturdy legs, and highly likely, a bike
| after they're about 5 years old. Kids often travel to
| school, after school events etc on foot, bike or public
| transport, not dependent as in many car-centric places on
| parents and their cars.
|
| Grandma is as likely to bike over for dinner with the
| grandkids as drive.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Yes, but they still own them. In Paris, and many
| commenters here argue that you shouldn't own one.
| com wrote:
| That's certainly not being posited in this particular
| thread.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Rome wasn't built in a day.
| numitus wrote:
| 85% of travels in Netherlands happens using car https://e
| c.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TRAN_HV_MS_PS...
| isthatafact wrote:
| While disappointingly high, that figure ignores walking
| and cycling. There is no need to misrepresent the data to
| make your point.
| garbawarb wrote:
| So only 1.5% of Paris voted against this? It sounds like
| they're going by the will of the voters.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| No, the vote was pure communication by the mayor, it
| didn't have a budget, nor a list of the streets, nor any
| details. Paris' administration is rife with corruption
| and mismanagement, so voters weren't very mobilized for
| another PR coup.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| Mismanagement is (very) well documented but corruption is
| a very serious accusation. Do you have examples ? ( that
| don't go back to Jacques Chirac )
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _French metro 's air is highly polluted, due to tire
| degradation and brake dust, making it unfit for children
| or pregnant women_
|
| These sound like...car problems.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| True, but the metro space is closed, so pollution can
| attain a very high level there.
| rangestransform wrote:
| I can insulate myself from these problems in a car with a
| hepa air filter
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The improvement in air quality is overwhelmingly a result
| of banning _diesel_ cars. It is, of course, possible to ban
| diesel cars rather than all cars.
|
| The people who live in the city don't want cars because
| it's the people who can't afford to live in the city who
| need them to get there.
| masklinn wrote:
| > it's the people who can't afford to live in the city
| who need them to get there.
|
| What are you talking about. Paris's public transport
| reaches out 60km away from the city, and that's not
| including mainline trains (including high speed). The
| people who can't afford to live in the city have taken
| public transport to get there for 50 years.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| A lot of economic activity requires cars. Delivery,
| workers coming with equipment, waste management, and so
| on. Every construction worker in Paris will tell you that
| it's very difficult to work there, and that they have
| doubled their prices as a result.
| const_cast wrote:
| These people are HELPED by anti-car legislation because
| it clears the congestion for them to run their business.
|
| Most small, and large, businesses would happily pay a
| small fee if it means half the transportation time. And
| it does, because traffic isn't linear. Just a few more
| cars can be the difference between coasting at 30 or not
| moving at all.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| If it's really only a difference of a few cars then there
| should be a dozen other ways to get a similar effect
| without enacting a regressive tax.
|
| Meanwhile doing it through financial deterrence requires
| that someone is actually deterred. And then is that going
| to be poor people and small businesses or rich people and
| major companies?
| const_cast wrote:
| It's not a regressive tax, and it primarily assists
| commuters and small businesses, and I've already
| explained how.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The infrastructure changes required to get cars out meant
| to reduce the flow speed of cars. As a result, even
| buses, who have dedicated lanes, are much slower.
|
| [EDIT]: since I'm being answered that it isn't true, here
| is a chart made by the city hall about the decreasing
| speed on Paris' roads:
|
| https://cdn.paris.fr/paris/2024/07/12/original-4ee2d20daf
| dc9...
| const_cast wrote:
| This is just not true, sorry.
|
| EDIT: Okay, to expand, it's true that speed limits in
| progressive cities have been falling for a while. This is
| meant reduce the number of pedestrain fatalities and
| overall make the cities safer and more pleasant.
|
| HOWEVER, this does not mean that traveling by car is
| worse. These, in combination with anti-congestion
| legislation, make driving faster. The thing about driving
| is that broad roads and clear visibility encourage bad
| behavior, like speeding and tailgating. This actually
| increases traffic. It's counter-productive, but reducing
| speed can improve flow.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The ones who live directly adjacent to a rail line
| weren't generally the ones in cars to begin with, unless
| they were the ones using a vehicle to actually transport
| something.
| timewizard wrote:
| There are cities not designed around cars. We just call them
| "rural." You could not have had your urban city without cars.
| There is absolutely nothing "tragic" about this.
|
| Meanwhile you live in a world where petty wars are fought over
| resources to enhance the wealth of an extreme minority of the
| population. That's an actual tragedy.
| freen wrote:
| It seems we have very different definitions of "city".
|
| I am very curious to hear yours.
| timewizard wrote:
| It seems you want to ignore half the problem.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make...
| you claimed cities can't exist without cars. Yet London
| and Paris and Rome and damn near every big city in Europe
| did predate cars by centuries.
| masklinn wrote:
| Not just Europe either. Tokyo was not named after the
| Tokyo Motor Vehicles Ltd.
| masklinn wrote:
| > There are cities not designed around cars. We just call
| them "rural." You could not have had your urban city without
| cars.
|
| That is literally the opposite of reality.
| oblio wrote:
| The first "urban city" predates the car by about 5000 years.
| rebolek wrote:
| I lived car-free life in a (European) city without any
| hassle. I moved to "rural" and can't imagine I would be able
| to live there without a car. In city, you can afford to have
| public transport on every corner going every ten minutes. In
| the rural area it's impossible.
| paulcole wrote:
| At least in the US people absolutely fucking love their cars.
|
| They will lie about how much they hate them but ask them to
| actually change their behavior and you get nothing but a litany
| of excuses.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I walk to work. In the suburbs.
|
| My wife rides a bike. In the suburbs.
|
| We chose a home that has grocers, schools, and dining within
| a walk or bike ride.
|
| We own cars because there are things beyond ~2 miles and
| transit options aren't good.
|
| Sadly, doing this usually requires money. Lots of it.
| beastman82 wrote:
| I love mine and so does everyone else, and I don't feel
| ashamed at all. They're incredible.
| Vinnl wrote:
| There are probably more reasons for that, but if it's the
| only thing that allows me to get somewhere, of course I'd
| love it.
| jmilloy wrote:
| I hate cars. Not using my car wouldn't change any of the
| things I hate about cars or car infrastructure. It's not
| lying.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| I'm not going to lie about it. I feel safest of all in my
| car. I can lock my car doors. It's the only way to live. In
| cars.
| cryptopian wrote:
| I think you're getting cause and effect mixed up. Save for a
| few petrolheads and train enthusiasts, people use whatever
| happens to be the most convenient method to get around. In
| North America, most cities prioritise infrastructure for
| private cars to such an extent that any other mode is almost
| useless
|
| Since private cars scale badly, you want to encourage people
| to take other modes, but in order to change behaviour, the
| alternatives need to be attractive - cycle layouts that are
| safe, buses and trains that are frequent and reliable, city
| layouts that don't involve a long drive to buy food. You
| can't convince people out of taking the rational choice. You
| have to build it
| pluc wrote:
| Don't have to ban cars - the UK has adopted a speed limit of
| 20/30 mph in cities and I'm sure it helps. Surely helps with the
| noise and the safety
| jfengel wrote:
| A lot of the problems occur where you couldn't go 20 mph.
|
| The City of London famously has a congestion charge, which also
| helps lot. A similar plan just got started in Manhattan and
| already has big wins.
| foldr wrote:
| The congestion charge applies to a zone within London that's
| much larger than just the City of London.
| graemep wrote:
| It can make pollution worse. ICE cars are most efficient at
| around 50mph.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| > ICE cars are most efficient at around 50mph
|
| ... when driven continuously without stopping, like a on
| cross country limited access highway.
|
| When driving in the places people live, with cross walks and
| stop signs and children playing outside requiring frequent
| slowing & stopping, there's no efficiency benefit from racing
| 0 to 50mph every block then slamming on the brakes, only to
| repeat for each block after.
| graemep wrote:
| I frequently drive through 20 mph areas with little stop
| start traffic. I rarely drive at busy times.
|
| There is nowhere in the UK I can think of that has had a 50
| limit in my lifetime that requires frequent breaking. 20
| mph limits are invariably reduced from 30.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Since then, many city have enforced the same kind of rule where
| polluting car are banned from center of town.
|
| 2 week ago, deputies were discussing the global ban of 'car free
| town center' because it doesn't really work and it exclude part
| of the society...
|
| https://www.lefigaro.fr/automobile/zfe-50-deputes-defendent-...
| Praviste wrote:
| Parisian here, that article is bullshit. There's mostly as much
| cars in Paris now as there was in 2007. Probably more actually.
|
| And the comparison between the two Eiffel Tower photos ? highly
| manipulative: what you see in the 2015 picture almost never
| happened. Someone took the photo because it was extraordinary, a
| combination of factors.
|
| So is the data false ? no, probably not. The analysis is false.
| linschn wrote:
| You are talking out of your ass. Paris was a hellhole twenty
| years ago. The dedicated bike lanes along the major axis have
| cut car traffic in half, and are a godsend.
| Praviste wrote:
| Parisian here, that article is bullshit.
|
| There's mostly as much cars in Paris now as there was in 2007.
| Probably more actually.
|
| And the comparison between the two Eiffel Tower photos ? highly
| manipulative: what you see in the 2015 picture almost never
| happens. Someone took the photo because it was extraordinary, a
| combination of factors. And by the way, it still happens now on
| rare occasion.
|
| So is the data false ? no, probably not. The analysis is false.
| People have switch to better car models over the past 20 years,
| that's it. That's the only explanation. I don't even think there
| has been new green spaces, all the parks I know have been there
| since before I was born.
| callc wrote:
| You can edit your previous comments on HN. At least for a
| certain amount of time, and then they become un-editable.
| greatgib wrote:
| This article is so full of bullshit!
|
| Car are still a lot in Paris and there are conflicting studies
| about the air quality evolution in Paris, some days it is better,
| some days not. But the Parisian regulation on car as no real
| effect so far.
|
| Paris is like at a bottom of a curve and it is said that the car
| might account only for less than 20% of it, the biggest
| contributor being industry in the region.
|
| What had a big impact on thin particules are the evolution of car
| technologies. Now every engine in France has to be equiped with
| efficient catalytic exhaust pipes and efficient engine to reduce
| this kind of bad particules.
|
| In this article, you can see a very deceptive image comparison.
| There is a picture of the Eiffel tower long time ago and now.
|
| The picture of before has a strong fog, but it is just because
| being taken on a foggy day but the article would like you to
| think that it is how a picture would have been everyday due to
| the popultof the air...
| saltysalt wrote:
| Airparif is an NGO run by environmentalists and funded by the EU,
| not sure how independent they are?
| stouset wrote:
| Who, exactly, would you like to monitor air quality and who,
| exactly, do you think should be funding it?
| saltysalt wrote:
| Someone without bias, obviously.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| "Someone without bias" is indeed obvious, and therefore
| unhelpful. Can you be more specific? Who, precisely,
| doesn't have a dog in the climate change fight?
| saltysalt wrote:
| How specific am I supposed to be, do you want names,
| resumes, potential investors?
|
| Not my problem to solve.
|
| However, I no longer accept published reports at face
| value, unless I check who the authors are, and who funds
| them. They even have a Cruchbase page, it's easy to check
| for yourself.
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