The top one. I’m tired and I’d rather rest on my car seat in the warm interior than on one of those wooden chairs. I ride bikes a lot, 5000 km per year and I advocate for walk ability but nothing beats a coffee in my warm car on a 6am commute where it’s 6°c outside
I’d much rather make my own coffee at home. It’s pennies on the dollar compared to this shit, and I’m not spending an extra half hour or more out of my day for something I’ll consume in minutes once it reaches optimal drinking temperature.
I use an aeropress, which allows me to make concentrated coffee that I can store in the fridge. I pour a little into an insulated travel cup and just add hot water when I want to drink it - either just before going on a drive, or after I get to work. I take a proper mug with me to work along with it and pour into it out of the travel cup. It’s one of the highlights of my day.
I hate drive-through culture and am glad to not have anything to do with it, but I’m also not a big fan of sitting in public spaces amongst a bunch of strangers who actually like slurping down sugary caffeine drinks out of paper cups.
I know I'm not answering this question persay, but I do certainly touch on some benefits of not owning a car, and why this isn't true for everyone.
I don't want anyone dismissing this as some "pro-car" post. It's not.
I live in the northern most city in North America with over 1 million people (Edmonton, I technically live in an outlying community, but still). Edmonton is unique in a few ways.
The temperature ranges are huge, regularly on a yearly basis we range from 32 C (90 F) each summer to -36 (-33 F) each winter. I have seen it in my life reach 36 C (97 F) and -46 C (-51 F). There's not many places in the world whose extremes of temperature cover such a wide range, and not many in general that get that cold, In the winter, snow starts in late October, and is usually around until until early April, and it is typical to see a week straight or two of -30 C (-22) and basically from December through February it's often below -20 C (-4 F) for months straight at the warmest.
Edmonton is also one of the least population dense major cities around, even for Canada which is already spread out. Addis Ababa, Baghdad, and Brussels are all close in size (actually all slightly smaller) than Edmonton, and have 5, 6, and 2 million people respectively. Edmonton has 1 million people.
I work with people with autism, and visit over 30 different locations, and 20 different families across this big city, and our public transit systems are known for being bad.
So simply what are the advantages? I would die in the winter first of all. That's not an exaggeration, if you don't live in a climate like this in the winter, you just don't understand. Being outside for upwards of 15 minutes is dangerous.
Moreover, families in my line of work would suffer. Even with amazing public transit, the weather here is bad enough, and the city is spread out enough, that it would not be doable to safely visit everyone in a day or make it on time since they're often across the city. Notably since Edmonton is so spread out (unlike say, a Toronto), traffic and getting around quickly on roads is pretty good and we don't see the same level of slow moving traffic as most major cities.
Now with that said, for the naysayers out there, who think I'm biased: first of all, we all are in one direction or another. Secondly, if you suggested reducing how spread out my city is, and massively increasing public transit and train funding (which again, remember is tricky here, because just hanging out in a train or bus shelter, if not heated here is genuinely dangerous to your life), I would be all for it! I think the biggest thing is city planning, zoning rules that make living places so far away from your purchasing needs like grocery stores is the real bane here and in many areas in North America. But the fact is that, again in my (admittedly unique) situation, even if the city suddenly didn't become dangerously cold in the winter, magically more dense, and amazingly more transit friendly, I need a car for my daily employment, and many do (you can't haul construction equipment, bring large medical devices, etc.) on a bike or bring it onto a train or bus with you.
I think the "fuckcars" argument is simplistic and WILDLY privileged. This attitude towards places in difficult climates, with limited funding for public transit in poorer countries, where taking any job, even one that needs a vehicle to drive around is a necessity, when coming from a European metropolitan perspective if wildly biased. Should all cities be as bikeable and transit centric as it is in Europe, again, YES, I agree with this wholeheartedly. But such an aggressive stance as being angry at car owners, making arguments that it indicates some political leaning (I've literally seen in the subreddit that cars are inherently right wing, like get over yourself and politicizing EVERYTHING), and literally naming a subreddit "fuckcars" is not exactly solution focused, and doesn't take the complexity of the living situation many are born in, into account. While I am priveleged in my own country and city, my whole life is here and I would challenge anyone saying "just bike" to make the 50km bike ride across sheet ice in -40 (-40 F) here and not also argue for necessity of a car here.
For the record for anyone who might otherwise dismiss my view on some erronious basis, I am a left wing environmentalist, vegetarian for environmental reasons, have owned a Smart Car and other "eco" vehicles, detest the giant truck and SUV culture that is awful to basically everything here (while understanding that a fairly small minority actually do need a truck), I own an E-bike and love in my small outlying town (population 4000) that I can bike to everything I need here, and would also use this when I lived in Edmonton at times.
you save a lot of money. People easily forget how it all adds up.
you save a lot of space. Cars take up a huge amount of space and are just sitting around 90+% of the time. Imagine what you could do with a garage if you didn’t own a car.
you save a lot of time. A car needs maintenance, it needs to get cleaned, etc. All of that takes up time.
less worries. About money, about it getting stolen or damaged, etc.
you don’t need a driver’s license per se if you don’t own a car.
you don’t have the sunk cost forcing you to use it. Say you buy a car and then you end up barely using it. You might feel obliged to use the car to go shopping or to go on vacation, because it would be ‘wasted’ otherwise.
Thing is, if we’re conflating hate for other drivers with hate for other cars, the absolute worst thing on the road is buses because bus drivers absolutely never obey certain traffic laws like “drive in one lane at a time” or “no changing lanes without signalling”, and when they park by the side of the road, it’s way worse than when a mere car does it.
Seriously, bus drivers are the exact opposite of 18-wheeler drivers. They’re the bullies of the street.
Where the hell is this coming from? In my city buses are the bullied ones, if anything. I feel like drivers have some minor degree of empathy towards other drivers but that totally goes out of the window when they have to let a bus pass.
Also, buses are generally operated by the city administration so it makes zero sense that the city would let its own employes violate traffic laws.
The thing is, buses are 30x more important than most cars and should be prioritized as such, in the same way that emergency services are infinitely more important than every other vehicle. Buses are (morally)allowed to drive like aggressive twats and every other vehicle needs to get out of the way.
Unfortunately, some car drivers have missed the memo and think their time is more important than 30 other people’s. Those are the people that should be shamed, not the poor underpaid bus driver that’s trying their best to get a whole busload of passengers to work on time.
Very true. But I would still get rid of either mine or my wife’s (and only keep one for trips) if we had public transportation… or fucking sidewalks at least.
Is there no cycling infrastructure in this city? I mean I support people to cycle in whatever way they can but this seems like a dangerous way to ride.
This was filmed in London, which actually has some of the best cycling infrastructure in the UK (though that’s a low bar to pass). It seems, however, that he’s taking a route that happens to not have much of that infrastructure on it.
Though as you say, people should be able to cycle however they please, and it is enshrined in UK law that cyclists are not required to use cycling infrastructure. In this case I’d say he’s going fast enough that he’d be a danger to the slower cyclists and pedestrians on the cycle paths and multi-use pathways, so riding on the road makes more sense anyway.
There’s definitely some bits of that with a shared pedestrian/cycle path on the left.
While it’s perfectly legal to ignore that, I’ve seen how people drive in this country. I’d fucking use it. I don’t really want “But I had right of way” on my headstone, while some van driver gets a £60 fine and a two month ban.
Shared paths require cyclists to stop at every side road, which is bullshit. They have right of way on the road itself so they will obviously use it instead.
Also, pedestrians don’t read road signs so they often think you’re not allowed to be on the shared path. I’ve seen cyclists get assaulted for using them and had plenty of people shouting at me for doing what I’m allowed (but not legally required) to do.
They’re just a cheap and lazy way to pretend there is cycling infrastructure when there isn’t, really.
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