We talk about fuel economy in miles per gallon, but fuel prices are shown per litre. And this is from 1980 - everything gets a bit weirder measurement-wise the further back you go.
Nah, driving distance is generally miles and speed is mph too. I think sometimes distances under a mile can be in metres (like signs that say, for example, no hard shoulder for 200m).
If you read the Highway Code, you’ll learn that it’s all over the place. Long distances on signs are in miles. But distance markers are placed in metres. But emergency phones are placed every mile. And distance markers, which are placed in metres and indicate distances in meters can also have a distance to the next emergency phone in fucking yards. One sign, two numbers, no letters, two systems. FUCKING HELL!!!
The only issue I have with this is there’s a British gallon (that is DIFFERENT from the American gallon) that is used to measure milk. :D. That was the only place I saw gallon being used.
Still british units :D. In 1826 Britain decided to redefine gallon to mean “10 pounds of water”. The earlier standard was 231 cublic inches (potentially meant to be 8 pounds of water). The US never adopted the new gallon.
Actually, as much as I dislike imperial units, when it comes to body temperature I do think in Fahrenheit. Mostly because that’s how my mum would tell if we were too sick to go to school. 99 - just a little ill, but you can have the day off. 100 - pretty ill, probably at least 3 days off. 101+ - super mega ill, off all week.
I don’t even enjoy driving full-size trucks or SUVs. Though high up, they’re hard to see out of… the giant hood is on your way when off-roading and you can’t tell if you’re about to drive off a cliff. Can’t see children in front of the car, or anything behind it without a rear view cam. Poor stopping and turning, harder to park, terrible fuel economy.
On the other side of the Atlantic, any human, horse, bike, motorised mobility aid etc. is justified to use the roads here (except highways unless it’s an emergency) even if there’s a perfectly good sidewalk. Just double-checked and the only suggestion is to wear something reflective or hivis if you choose to walk in the road.
Reminder that jaywalking was invented by car companies because they kept killing people who were trying to use the shared public spaces that were roads back then
Yah, a lot of people on this site are always posting links to reddit, I would not be surprised if we find out the developer of the site works for reddit. No other reason why linking to POS reddit is allowed and not blocked in site code from that URL from being posted.
I’m going to make the argument against trains for everything, despite being a huge fanatic for trains.
Trains are the most efficient transport method per tonne-km over land, yes. However from certain operational standpoints trains can make less sense than existing solutions.
When distance between stops for heavy rail becomes too short, you lose quite a bit of efficiency. Trains themselves aren’t a one-size fits all solution as there are various types that each need their own form of investment (which is a lot $), when roads are compatible with both personal transport and large trucks with little investment by the transporter (govt pays for road maintenance).
Rail companies right now are chasing profits and neglecting operational improvements. In the US, hauling a long, LONG, old and slow train loaded with bulk aggregate, oil, grain, chemicals is more profitable than aiming for JIT capability that is more feasible with trucks. A complete change in societal incentives is necessary to bring back the usefulness of railway in all types of transport. Second, the North American way of railroad companies owning the tracks dissuades a lot of innovation and new firms from entering the market, unlike the “open road” where there are many competing OTR freight companies. None of the Big Six would like my idea of a nationally controlled rail/track system.
Just to pick on one point, as a tangent, the government paying for roads with little cost to the freight carriers is a major, major problem. If the cost of transport is not factored into the cost of goods, it breaks the feedback mechanism of prices in the market affecting the supply of road transport, both per se, and in relation to other, possibly more efficient, means of transport. I came up with a reductio ad absurdum scenario to illustrate better: Imagine the government provided free air freight across oceans, without limit.
It’s pretty obvious what would happen: The logistics companies would abandon cargo ships, which cost them money, for the free air service. It would be horribly inefficient and wasteful, but that would not be their concern. We’d end up in the same situation that we are today with roads; our governments are going broke trying to pay for it. (In that world, I also imagine that people consider the service the normal baseline that they’ve structured their lives and businesses around, and can’t fathom ending it, just like roads in our world.
Anyway, passenger rail service has never been profitable. Railroads just operated passenger trains as a condition of being allowed to operate freight routes, which the government had subsidized with land giveaways. The question is whether passenger is more sustainable fiscally than roads for personal vehicles, and the survival of rail freight against massively subsidized road freight suggests that it would be. At least for longer, intercity routes.
Yes you’ve got a point. Part of this was an exercise to argue against something I really love and passionate about for the sake of “Change my Mind”.
But that’s part of the thing. If an organization paid for unlimited free air passenger and freight transport system, converting to better alternatives (on monetary cost, the environment and other bases) would be difficult to convince from people and logistics companies alike. If left alone, this sort of system would be unlikely to change until some devastating consequence made it unfeasible to switch at that point anyway. And in such a universe maybe we’d see more blimps in the sky.
So either road has to be regulated fairly and costs that were externalized get properly accounted for and renumerated, or railroad track has to be managed nationally, and provide fair access to communities large and small, in order for rail and wheeled vehicles to be on equal footing. Neither of these things I would expect to happen naturally, it must come from an organized effort somewhere.
Electric motors are now capable of >90% regen, so the braking energy argument against short stops doesn’t work anymore (and the energy during motion strictly less than a rubber tired vehicle with a worse aspect ratio so long as the trip is no longer).
The amount of rail needed for short distance distribution networks could still be prohibitive in regions designed for road though. Even then one could still argue that the total infrastructure costs are lower by moving the destinations slightly given how much roads cost to maintain.
Corporate has corrupted the train system in the US. People have become secondary to company profits. I watched this a while back and couldn’t believe the US has allowed this.
Man this sub is weird. i would block it but im kinda curious to see if it devolves into some kind of weird flat yearthy / vegany hybrid sub. god speed to you all, cuz you dont have cars i guess.
Plenty of regulars of this sub do have cars and no issue with using them, but instead just want cities to favor other methods of transportation. This would be a good example. Not sure what relation do you think any of this has to flat earthers.
It’s fine to be against cars and not use them. But then to be obsessed about it to the point you end up preaching it like hardcore vegans, it gets obnoxious and is counterproductive. The reason for the connection to flat earth is because there are plenty of valid conspiracy theories to be analysed (oil companies doing suspicious shit) and having seen multiple posts about how roads are not meant to exists indicates the early stages of a warped worldview. And i sont just mean “the current road structures are bad”, but rather it being porttayed as unnatural and therefore bad. Combining these factors makes me think these anti car communities are headed in that direction. But idk enough about it to know if it will happen, its just based on loose snippets i’ve seen from these communities.
having seen multiple posts about how roads are not meant to exists
Can you point to these “multiple posts”? Because I have never seen a single post here, nor on other communities including reddit saying “roads are not meant to exist”.
But idk enough about it
just based on loose snippets
You go on a lengthy explanation why you think there’s a “connection to flat earth” and fuck cars only to then concede that you have literally no idea what you’re talking about?
You know what “early stages of a warped worldview” are? Your posts here.
nah, ill just see what happens. i dont care enough about any of this to justify spending time defending my viewpoint. especially when the dude asking me to do so warps what im saying right out of the gate. good luck on your journey to ending cars
As a Subaru Baja owner, I disagree with your opinion. I’ve been able to safely haul 100 lbs propane tanks, as I feel much safer placing the tanks in the small bed than keeping it in the enclosed cabin of an Outback (or Odyssey). Upgraded the rear strut assemblies to mitigate the sag while carrying 20 bags of 40 lbs of wood pellets. The small bed lets me throw down a tarp and carry a reasonable amount of compost/manure without smelling up the cabin.
It also goes like a raped ape in snow. I find myself having a “snickers craving” during a winter snowstorm, just for the excuse to go driving to the grocery store (if they’re still open), hopefully finding someone to pull out of the ditch along the way.
I much prefer the boxer engine in the Subaru over the setup in the Honda (or Hyundai), but to each their own.
I like the Baja, this “thing” is not a Baja. It is so far from anything like that that it confuses me that you think that they are even in the same category.
I’d like to know why you think they’re not in the same category as both are:
unibody, not body on frame.
four door crew cab
small bed
Limited capacity, compared to a “real” pickup truck
With the center console in the rear seat, the Baja can only seat four compared to the Ridgeline’s five. The Ridgeline can tow significantly more; bed weight capacity is a bit more as well.
Obviously the styling is wildly different: the Baja is based of a decades old gen station wagon, whereas the Ridgeline is following the modern big beefy SUV trend. Maybe that’s where you’re coming from?
Hello, interested in life without cars but not knowledgeable. How do you transport groceries? I buy in bulk and sometimes have boxes of things, not sure how I’d get that stuff home without a moving trunk
Hm so I’m American and haven’t really used public transport in this country. I have in some Asian countries like Singapore or Japan, where in the past few I’ve been specifically keeping an eye out for groceries and haven’t seen it. It doesn’t always seem feasible to have groceries though, sometimes trains are crowded.
I was more wondering if there were no cars at all, which I believe is the ideal. For environmental reasons I would say it’s best to reduce car traffic to near zero someday, though I understand this is not necessarily possible in America. In this situation there would be no taxis though.
Admittedly this question isn’t so much for myself, but it’s my understanding that many families have a single grocery buyer and lack the funds to buy smaller quantities more often. Bulk is usually cheaper. In the American culture of minimizing worker resources, I wonder if pay wouldn’t simply decrease if cars were no longer purchased, and they’d find themselves in the situation of equally low funds but no car. Maybe not the most rational concern but the American society is not overly reassuring.
Anyway as a person who needs to breathe and live on Earth I have a vested interest in a car free society, and am just wondering about the little details.
The thing with walkable urbanized area is that you don’t have to buy in bulk for groceries, because a grocery stores are just minutes away from home. I myself shop in a traditional market which is only 5 minutes bicycle ride away from home. Plus there are many convenience stores within 1km radius.
It really depends on where you live, the infrastructure and transit available to you, and any other circumstantial factors.
First off, a big part of what !fuckcars wants to fix is the problem that many communities are simply designed with the assumption that everyone will drive everywhere, which often means most people aren’t within walking distance of shops (because it’s literally illegal to build grocery stores in many residential areas). It also often means very shoddy pedestrian infrastructure, sketchy (if even existing at all) bike infrastructure, and little to no public transit.
If you live within walking distance of a grocery store, you’re in luck! Something like a granny cart (pictured below) can allow you take pretty heavy loads of groceries on foot.
If it’s too far to walk but you have decent bike lanes or paths that you feel comfortable riding on, you can attach pannier bags and/or crates to a bike (an e-bike makes it even easier) to carry pretty big grocery hauls home.
If neither walking nor biking are options but public transit is, you can take a granny cart on the bus or train easily as well. Of course, a limitation is none of these three options can take nearly as big a haul in one trip as a car can, but the idea is you can make smaller, more frequent trips. For example, I live a 5-minute walk from the nearest grocery store, so I can pop on over a couple times a week to get a few items, which is light enough to carry. Of course, if you need to feed multiple people and it’s a kind of long, onerous journey to get groceries by foot/bike/transit, this might no longer be feasible, unfortunately.
If none of those are feasible, there’s no shame in having to use a car. The villain here is the system that forces people to drive even if they’d prefer not to, not the people being force by circumstance to drive.
I do like the cart suggestion. In a more ideal world with completely walkable cities, perhaps even without cars, I still don’t see a great alternative for those who need to feed large families on a budget though.
At any rate, that’s not me, so I personally see the benefit. I like cars but I’d be cool with them primarily used for track days and have no love for regular traffic driving.
If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the preference for foot or bike traffic? I don’t particularly prefer walking or biking over driving. I see the environmental impact— and that alone is enough for me to agree— but I was wondering if there was an actual preference for walking
For me at least, I like the simplicity of walking. Since I’m near the closest grocery store, I can just put on some shoes, grab my insulated grocery bag, and pop on over. You feel the weather, have a nice little walk where you can stretch your legs and not deal with traffic or parking at all. It’s hard to describe it, but being in a car just makes me feel disconnected from the world, like you’re putting yourself in this pod, moving at high speeds with other pods, then arriving at your destination. By car, doing groceries feels like a chore to me, but by foot, it feels like a treat.
Plus, by not owning a car, I save so much money it’s kinda insane. Sure, I don’t quite get costco prices (although I’m not at all paying Whole Foods prices either), but I’m not paying outrageous sums just to fill up the tank with gas. Overall, I come out way ahead monetarily by living car-free.
No argument there actually. Having lived my first couple decades in Texas, the idea of a walk for fun or to get groceries in the oppressive heat was basically unthinkable. Now in the Bay, where the weather is almost always nice, I get it.
Actually, how would people in those climates do it? Same way?
Yeah, I definitely understand the heat issue. I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, California, where the summers are also oppressively hot. Thankfully I’m living in Canada now, which is decidedly less hot (although it’s far more humid).
I think it would come down to smarter, more localized urban design. For most of the history of human civilization, where we didn’t have cars and air conditioning and the like, we had to be clever to carry out our daily life in a variety of climates. In hot, desert climates, cities were built more like this, building narrow alleys with tons of shade and designing for natural ventilation, keeping the whole city much cooler and more comfortable than the surrounding desert, even in extreme heat.
But what we have now is desert cities looking like Phoenix does:
But yeah, these are more long-term things of course. But if we’re talking about overhauling our car-centric urban design to allow people to walk to get groceries, we might as well talk about designing for the local climate, too.
Funny enough, I used to live near the SA River Walk. Well, not really near, but less than 30 minutes away which is kind of near in TX terms.
Thanks for the responses! The links go a long way to solidifying the point. I was always interested in the concept of this community and the Reddit one before it, but always had little questions that I hadn’t bothered to ask over there. Reddit wasn’t always friendly so I didn’t interact that much, life’s too short to get in online fights haha.
Same thing with central California in terms of distances lol. The city I grew up in is basically the armpit of California, and its main selling point is being “near” more interesting places like Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, SF, and LA. But in this context “near” means “within 4-hour drive”, of course.
But yeah, I think that’s an interesting difference between the community here on lemmy vs back on reddit. Here, it’s too small to get mostly fuckcars people, so we get a lot in from !all. The effect is generally a tampering of the circlejerk-y tendencies, although it does also sometimes mean getting more people completely opposed to reducing car dependency. In contrast, big subreddits can be so big that the main people who see content are those subscribed, so you get more of an echo chamber.
And as much as I love people who agree with me, it’s also refreshing (and healthy) to not be in a complete echo chamber.
I can answer this pretty well as I grew up and lived in a pretty car dependant Minneapolis until I was 23, where then I moved to NYC with no car in 2018 and have lived here ever since.
The TL;DR to this question is that you transport everything in a grocery bag on person, but the longer answer is that your buying and cooking behavior changes.
Back in Minneapolis I relied on buying in bulk, since I wanted to limit the number of trips in the 15-20 min drive between my apt and the Costco. Variability with the weather affected this too, as I would buy extra if it was in the winter time. I’d make this trip by car around 2-3 times a month. This also affected my buying and cooking decision making as well. Buying groceries first then figuring out what I wanted to cook.
Once I moved to NYC, I would always have a grocery store several blocks away from me. At most being a short 5-10 min walk. This changed my habits as I always had a grocery store I could quickly pop in without having to think about traffic, my car, etc. So although I would go more frequently (~ 2 times a week), I would also find this a lot easier and would buy less.
Nowadays, whenever I think of wanting to cook something, I either head over to the store on my way back to the office, after the gym, etc. and then cook that very same day what I bought.
In my mind, that big fridge I used to restock with my Costco runs has been replaced by having that quick grocery store within walking distance.
Purely anecdotal, since I know some other people in the US may be living different than a single guy living in an apt in NYC, but this is also how it is in many cities I’ve traveled to in Asia and Europe.
Thanks for the in depth answer! This has me wondering whether I can live without a car here in the bay already, but our infrastructure is not nearly as good as NYC’s. Anecdotally, things here are a lot more compact than Texas so I do find myself going out more for smaller trips anyway.
Curious, did buying groceries more end up costing more?
I lived in Boston for a while (with a car, but putting low miles on it)
Curious, did buying groceries more end up costing more?
When I switched from buying in bulk periodically to buying small more often, I can say that my first few weeks definitely cost more. I had a mindset about buying for X weeks out instead of X days out that took a bit to shake. In the process I realized how much food waste I was having by purchasing in bulk and not fully using everything, and I naturally switched to purchasing less at the grocery store. Both because it meant carrying less home but also because it was cheaper. Now I buy more or less exactly what I need and I can say on average my grocery spending is less now (avg monthly) than it was when I was buying in bulk.
Hmm on my end the answer is tough because it really matters haha
In Minneapolis I was exclusively going to Costco and Cub Foods. Costco, things were cheap in bulk, while Cub Foods you always had good deals in coupons.
Estimated bill from Costco being 80-100 every 2 weeks, Cub probably 60-70 every 2 weeks (this is in 2017, so pricing has changed quite a bit haha)
In NY, my bill shifted based on where I shopped.
When I lived in midtown Manhattan on 54th and 7th in 2018, I went to the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle and would leave with a bill around $60 a week. But back then when I first moved, I was also eating out a ton.
Nowadays, I live in LIC in Queens and go to some local grocery chains and cook a whole lot more. My weekly spend is around $120 or so a week. But I’m also cooking a whole lot more than I used to and eating out a lot less.
I forgot who said it, but someone said it best “if it weren’t for rent, NY would actually be very livable cost-wise.”
A few ideas, which may or may not work out for any given situation:
Bike with panniers/baskets/trailer or a fully fledged cargo bike - these can pack a surprising amount of stuff
Order your groceries delivered
Skip buying in bulk - it’s not necessary in a context where the nearest grocery store is within walking distance.
For reference, I live in a country with decently well designed urban environments, and my nearest grocery store is less than 200m away by foot. I could just do all of my shopping there, but it’s a bit more expensive, so I bike to a cheaper store that is 3.5km away, taking me less than 10 minutes. There I fill up a basket and maybe a pannier, which gets us enough groceries to last for a week or so.
If I need to transport anything larger, I primarily look to have it delivered, or as a last resort, I rent a car. Renting a car is almost never necessary, though.
I haven’t seen this option mentioned yet but you can also order your groceries online, and have them delivered. That’s what I do at the moment, because I live outside the city and my nearest grocery store is 2 km away. I could bike or hop on a bus, and I do sometimes, but ordering online is just really convenient.
I like the convenience too. It’s almost “back to the roots” to the times when your local grocer/trader would deliver the goods to the local citizens, since he was the one with the car, though today this dude is replaced by a faceless webshop. And even though this option includes cars, it reduces the number on the road, since one delivery vehicle will (potentially, though not necessarily) replace one car for every household it’s delivering to. This vehicle (theoretically, at least) drives the most time/fuel-efficient route, instead of every household driving to the store(s) and back again. Funny how this is moving traffic of the roads and turning it into digital internet traffic!
If i want to buy something. The closest shop is around 10 minute from my house. If I buy in bulk put everithing into my bicicle and walk home. Its just me not everyone want this I understand, but if we didnt have cars we just solve it in other ways
I used to take the subway to work, and usually walked past a grocery store or two - one downtown, and one a block from my apartment.
Because the overhead of shopping was lower (it was at most thirty seconds out of the way, on foot), I’d stop in a couple times a week, and picked up a bag or two of groceries that I’d just carry home by hand. It made it easier to be spontaneous.
For bigger trips, you could use a cargo bike or panniers. But I rarely felt the need. Buying in bulk was much less convenient than just buying an amount I could carry by hand, because it requires a special, deliberate trip.
For trips like that, I have a fold up cart and a strap backpack thing that lets me carry the folded up cart on my back. The second part is optional. You could just pull the cart both ways.
I’m not sure there’s much evidence to support this claim. It certainly will be extremely hot but probably not more than some of the hottest cities on earth today. For example, the average temperature in Kuwait City is 10 degrees hotter than Phoenix in July, and people have found a way to live there. People will likely adapt, though it definitely will have an impact on walkability during those hot months.
At least it’s not Kuwait. 🤓 Development in Arizona, I think, isn’t happening to meet a demand but rather being funded by eccentric people and being met with a government with less taxes and regulations.
Maybe but the amount of water needed to sustain human life is quite low. If water is prioritized for human use over agriculture and non-functional landscaping there should be enough. Right now much of it goes to non-essential things.
People in Phoenix treat their grass like they treat their guns, you can take their grass from their cold dead hands. There’s no reason there should be year-round mosquitoes in a desert city.
Where in the Midwest? Much of the Mississippi River region is predicted to have some really nasty wet bulb temps. But areas around the Great Lakes (maybe not Chicago) sound like a safe bet. But yeah, when I first heard of this project I was shocked they put it in Tempe of all places.
So, it does have to be a mask that will actually protect you.
If you didn’t pay, a pretty steep price at the time, for the right mask (like something that will protectv you from paint fumes) then you were wasting your time.
Source: When I mask up I use N95’s. I use best judgement, haven’t gotten covid. Not too late to protect yourself. I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it up forever, but I’m banking on new vaccines kicking covids ass.
Fun fact. None of those things are perfect except staying away from everyone and your entire household doing so as well. Cloth masks work better when both/everyone wears one; that lowers the chance of getting infected to 3%. If only one person wears a mask, there’s a much higher risk of infection. The vaccine and booster are great, but again, not 100%. It is good to stack things in your favor, but stuff still happens. To take the small percentage where people still get sick and use that to decide masks don’t protect anyone at all is ridiculous.
Literally the only person I know that didn’t get it was my mom and we were all masking, vaccinated, washing hands, etc. All those precautions did nothing but delay the inevitable.
I mean, sure, but if you hadn’t used those precautions you would have gotten it sooner, likely spread it to more people who would have them spread it to more people, ect. The point wasn’t to prevent infection for eternity.
Getting it sooner would have gotten it out of the way sooner and the whole ordeal would have been over with after it ran it’s course instead of dragging it out for 2 years.
Don’t you know the famous communist cities of Amsterdam, Tokyo, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Singapore, London, Madrid, New York (where Wall Street has been recently renamed into Stalin Street), Beijing, Chicago, Milan…
I’ve been to Amsterdam before. Can confirm filthy communists. Biking is also commie behavior and it’s getting more popular in EU. Especially in Germany… Very concerning
Population growth is in fact slowing down and have been doing so for quite some time. But we’ll eventually run into the problem where there won’t be enough working age people to take care of the elders.
Many countries (nearly all of the developed countries) are having too few kids to maintain their population and it can only be increased/maintained through immigration. Most experts believe that we will top out at around 10.5 billion in 2100 and then there will be a decline.
People are having less kids, it’s just that older people also live longer these days, which means it takes longer for the population to decline, still, is happening in a lot of countries, for example, Japan lost 200,000 inhabitants last year due to low fertility rates
What about the psycho neighbor who questions everyone’s identity every time they get off the elevator, aggressively blocking the hallway?
No, she doesn’t work for the building. Yes, the cops have been involved multiple times. She is compulsively obsessed with monitoring everyone who moves through the hallway.
Anecdote of course, and the suburbia part of the meme sucks. But humans are the most dangerous thing around and I’m so happy to not be in that building any more (friend still lives there so I’m aware it’s still happening). More space please! (But no monoculture, limit impact, reduce car usage whenever possible (gogo bike trails)). That’s the ideal balance.
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