To be fair, this is kind of a special case- it’s an area where it’s cheaper per square foot to build lots than buildings - but this is also a leftover of the 1960s-1980s. This aren’t done this way as much anymore, at least not in dense areas. You’ll never see this in New York City or in DC for example.
So much of America is so low density that it’s just a different set of issues than in other parts of the world. I went to visit family in West Virginia this weekend and it was literally 2 hours of driving through mountains and woods with no houses or towns in sight- no lots, no decks, no trains, you’re in the middle of nowhere.
You’ll never see this in New York City or in DC for example.
There are surface lots in Manhattan, though they are being developed into multistory buildings and no new surface lots are being constructed.
Some of the remaining surface lots probably continue to operate as placeholders for "future tall building site", while rights/price/building codes are being hashed out. In the meantime, you can charge a lot of money for a parking spot in Manhattan.
We all get it, this is FuckCars, but you can’t reasonable expect people to have discussions without talking about reality as it is right now. Knowing how much a parking garage costs/is worth on the market is great knowledge when arguing against building more car infrastructure.
I love how that clip has multiple shots of trucks absolutely full of boxes, while making the case for a vehicle that could fit inside the truck as it’s replacement.
I think you just missed the point entirely. You don’t actually have to load up as many items in a cargo bike, because it’s inherent advantages in urban contexts more than makes up for its inability to load up as many items.
If I own a grocery, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of bike trips to and from the warehouse to restock every day. Or I could employ an army of bikers. Or one truck.
Ok, so deliver food via truck. Choose the appropriate means of transportation for each type of last-mile delivery. The 200 gram Amazon package most certainly does not require a heavy truck to deliver.
One thousand stops within a five mile radius means that you’re definitely going to make it out ahead with bike delivery. So yes, the bikes would very obviously come out ahead in this scenario.
It seems I missed the point. I had deliveries in mind where the truck is mostly empty most of the time. Restocking with a truck or cargo tram (depending on the environment) would make more sense.
whatever is convenient, for short distances (shops right next to where the tram stops) you can probably just straight up use the same pallet trucks used to unload it (they’re really quite speedy and flexible), for longer distances cargo bikes.
Mmh in my experience actually not. Very distinct streets in the centre are shopping streets (with residential on the higher floors). Many neighbourhoods are just residential.
while you could argue the specialized electric buses and delivery vans are “Cars” they cannot drive on normal roads and do not produce pollution, in terms of emissions or noise, like regular cars. It’s more than possible to build a car free city, its been done before.
If idiot car journalists maybe didn’t test regular, everyday non SUV cars on test tracks and then criticize them for not stiff enough suspension, not precise enough steering, not supportive enough seats etc, maybe SUVs wouldn’t be the best selling vehicles. Regular people want comfy cars for everyday use and non SUV cars are increasingly not that. Also non SUV cars are significantly lower than 10, 20 or 30 years ago so much so that clearing a curb is problem. I have an Opel hatchback (Astra), out of 10 times approximately 3-4 times I scrape a curb because the car is too low. GTFO
I had an older (4 generations older) Astra, almost never scraped a curb. Also it was much comfier.
I’ve watched the car reviewers and they demand sooooo much. Much be sport! Must be powerful! Must have crazy acceleration! Must take 6 people linebackers and luggage! Geez how about talking for normal people.
I just want someone to make a bare bones light pickup with a single cab and a extended bed like an old ranger or S10 or something that I can haul furniture/tools/materials around on the highway with. I hate how all the pickup tracks out now are huge but they also have a short bed and tons of electronic BS I don’t need…
I’m still buying the old rangers and S-10s whenever I need a vehicle. I will continue to necromance those damn trucks back to life until someone starts making the damn things again. Until a couple years ago my daily driver was a 91 Mazda B-Series (literally just a ranger with a Mazda logo). Now I’m onto a far newer 2000 GMC Sonoma (Identical to an S-10). I don’t care how many trucks I need to weld together to get one that works; the auto industry can pry light trucks from my cold dead hands!
When the transmission in my s10 died I traded it in for a civic (which I still have and love) because i had no use for a truck at the time. If I had known they were going to stop making the damn things I would have gotten another one.
This is more than you’re asking for, but check out JDM (Japanese Domestic ic Market) kei trucks. They typically have low miles and were pretty well maintained vehicles. Some have dump and lift capabilities too. Oh and they get excellent mileage.
Am I reading this wrong? By all means plenty of people who don’t need trucks buy trucks.
But the majority of this list is sedans and compact crossovers? These are barely more than hatchbacks with a different name. Obviously the top few spots are dominated by pickups that have ballooned in size. Legitimate criticisms are easily made.
But after reading the title I was pretty surprised at the list because I expected lots of large SUVs. But most large SUVs are missing from this list.
Disclaimer: I am not a car person. I do not know the difference between a hatchback and an SUV, except that SUVs are bigger.
This is entirely anecdotal so take this how you will.
Having lived in another nation for a few years, the cars you are calling “compact crossovers” are huge compared to the sort of cars sold in other nations. I don’t want to give too many details about where I used to live, but in that nation, roads that we would consider to be one-way, one lane roads were used as two-way roads. If you meet oncoming traffic, the rule is the smaller vehicle pulls aside for the larger one. This is in urban areas. There is no shoulder to pull onto, there is a building there. If everyone with a car owned a huge American-style car or SUV there, it just wouldn’t work. Many parking places just don’t accommodate for them.
Another anecdote: Despite every house on my street having a two-car garage, there are huge vehicles parked on either side of the road, making our road wide enough for one lane of traffic. These two-car garages were built in the 70s and are too small to fit two vehicles now. Either one car is in the garage and one is on the street, or both cars are now on the street and the garage is full of misc stuff. Why would a road with with two car garages for every house have such congestion problems?
IMO, More people are buying SUVs than they used to. And their “cars” are simply much larger than they used to be.
I appreciate your perspective. I’ve spent enough time in other countries now to vouch for your anecdote generally speaking. Though to be honest sizes are increasing in places outside the US as well. It’s noticeable on repeat trips over years. Still not as big on average, but it feels like the trend is upward. The gap is not what it used to be. Something like a Corolla Cross or CR-V is taller than what you see in Europe but the footprint really isn’t much larger.
Some of it I think is people being actively unreasonable, some of it is larger safety and crumple zones on newer cars, some is the simple fact that the market has shown people like bigger vehicles.
In the end though I guess my point was just that of all the vehicles on the market in the US, it looks to me like the top 25 list is dominated by those in the midrange and smaller categories relative to other vehicles on the market. Whether these are still too large objectively is a topic that can be fairly debated but the fact remains that people are buying things on the smaller end of what is available to them which runs a bit counter to the title of the post.
Only speaking to the garage thing, I think a lot of people like to think of their garages as a unfinished part of the house, rather than car storage. Same for the basement. So it’s sort of luck of the draw which one gets a TV, old refrigerator, and selection of tools and craft projects and which one is used for storage.
Unless you work in construction, or have a similar need for a pickup, fuck you for buying one.
Here’s a fun anecdote: I live in California, where these vehicles are (mostly) limited to those who need them. In 2018, I visited family in the midwest. We played a game of counting the pickups while walking a short trip from a hotel to a chain outlet. We hit 99 pickups by the time we got to the doors. I was irritated that we got to 99 and not 100 cause that would have been so awesome, but seriously. 99?! In just several minutes. People drive them for fashion, not for practical need.
Every pickup driver that doesn’t “need” a pickup is my enemy.
My brother had a huge truck for a while. Strangely, this size actually affected his driving. All the sudden he felt justified cutting the half-mile long line to get onto the highway and cut in at the last second. “Might is right” he said. “They always let me in because they are scared of this truck.”
Ugh. I hope this isn’t typical but I feel like it is. I told him that was awful and he just shrugged.
How do you know what people need? Also, who are you tell people what they need? You don’t need to be in construction to get a truck. They are the best selling because they are the most versatile. You don’t need different vehicles for different situations.
I know they don’t need a truck bed when it doesn’t have a scratch on it because they are not using it. I don’t know what they need, but a truck is clearly not fit for purpose in that case.
A bunch of people started buying larger vehicles for “safety” reasons, believing that if they were in a larger vehicle, they’d fair better in an accident. I’ve heard people say their spouse isn’t a great driver, so they wanted to get them something bigger that they’d be safer in. Which only makes the rest of us more unsafe. My personal wish is that we would require a separate license for today’s bigger trucks and large SUVs similar to what we have for motorcycles, but require an annual test to keep the license. Make it just enough hassle to keep the license, so people without a real need start to question if it’s worth the effort.
… why don’t they? Europe goes from skyscrapers to block of flats to apartments in the suburbs and very few houses on the very outskirts. The US seems to go skyscraper - single family house
Because the entire US has a “missing middle” and a suburb problem brought on by big corporations. You get into you car, burn gas for 20 minutes to go to their 1 super mega everything mall. They also banned the idea of having local store in a “residential area” to force you to go to the everything store.
Not sure where you got “appartments wouldn’t work there”.
The entire video is about the missing middle, the midrises /appartments missing between the suburbs and the city. As pointed out in the video, the missing middle comes from the fact it’s illegal to build midrises in most “residential areas”
There’s a huge amount of parking garages here, but many of them are also disguised to not be super obvious. There is so much parking, and it’s never enough for the cars.
It’s also going to depend a bit on the city. More suburby sprawling places will probably not build as many parking garages.
I know a lot of folks on cummunities like this who do not like parking infrastructure of any kind. Personally I like efficient garages like this and lots of incentive to keep the cars parked. Also laws to allow condo owners and such to put in a storage pod in the space.
Any parking is too much parking imo. If people know that they are going to get easy parking where they go they are incentiviced to use the car instead of using other more efficient transport methods.
Travel time and overall comfort/joy are also big factors in travel habits. Unless in a specifically car free area it seems unreasonable to have 0 parking available. A significant reduction in parking could make parking still far from easy while promoting other methods of travel if they are actually funded and exist in the area.
I would love to see a car free area of my citiy. The downtown has this great area blocked off by a river on two sides, a lake on one, and an expressway on another. I wish they would close it to any traffic except busses and retail delivery.
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