• Kindness is Punk@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    We’re fighting the war on car dependence.

    Cars are fine but car dependance isn’t, our cities shouldn’t be built in a way that requires a car for everyday like.

    Requiring that your citizens own a $10000 - $35000+ depreciating asset just to live life is a tragedy that lessens economic mobility and punishes your most vulnerable.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      23 hours ago

      However, if you follow that train of thought, you’ll often get to the point where you’d need to get rid of cars as we know them today.

      If people weren’t depending on them, fewer would have one. And if only few people have one (they are expensive, after all), why build roads just for them? Why all this costly infrastructure that would only benefit 5% of the population? Why use everyone’s tax to fund them?

      The fact that cars are built like today - basically comfort cages - is only because all this infrastructure exists. They’re not used outside of that environment. So of people don’t depend on it, they’d probably vanish in a couple of decades, at least outside of their respective niches.

      • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        Look up how the town Houten in the Netherlands is designed. A town designed for pedestrians and cyclists. Still accessible for cars and plenty of parking spaces and roads for them. And more than 5% of inhabitants have one. You don’t need to get rid of cars to make a city walkable and cyclable and not everyone wants to live in a dense almost car-free city like Tokyo.

        https://youtu.be/r-TuGAHR78w

    • mondoman712@lemmy.ml
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      23 hours ago

      Cars still suck even without the dependence. I live somewhere that very much isn’t car dependant but there’s still too many of them and they still make places miserable.

  • jaschen306@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    I live in Taipei. It is one of the most dense cities in the world.

    We have an amazing subway system, but I still own a car. I also own a bicycle and a stand-up electric scooter.

    I take whatever transportation is the most convenient. Sometimes it’s the bus. Sometimes, it’s the subway. Sometimes it’s by car. My point is it’s a city infrastructure, not the mode of transportation. If you vote for a government that cares about infrastructure, you will live in the city you want.

        • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          15mph max is a bit disappointing, I’d like to see 20-25 to at least compete with my legs, but I’m down for something like this.

        • NotSteve_@piefed.ca
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          1 day ago

          Honestly, at first glance I kind of laughed at this thing but the more I think about it, the more I want it. I have an e-scooter that I don’t use often(I end up using rentals more often than not) just because I have to store it in my basement but this would fit by my door no problem

    • SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
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      2 days ago

      Not entirely - assuming you work in a building, aren’t the “return to office” mandates the same? The cubicle is just your particular pod out of a massive collection of them inside a larger metal shell.

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Can’t speak for others, but I don’t participate in the stereotypical mad rush from the suburbs to the city and vise-versa every day. My commute is about 7 minutes, provided I don’t feel like deliberately taking a detour to meander through the countryside on my motorcycle after work.

        Due to the nature of my work I do have to be in the office, though, to interact with… ugh… clients.

    • I'm Hiding 🇦🇺@aussie.zone
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      1 day ago

      Apparently this is an unpopular opinion on Lemmy but - I like cars? Cars are fun. You can learn so much working on them and restoring them. Learn to weld, learn to build engines and gearboxes, learn to paint, learn how to do wiring. And at the end of it after all that blood, sweat, and tears - you have something fun you can drive about in!

      Why does everybody here hate on my hobby so much? Its like the one thing I have in this world. Let me enjoy it.

      • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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        23 hours ago

        Cars as a hobby are cool. A society built around cars is stupid. Billions of people using cars daily is pretty dangerous to us all.

        I like shooting guns. It’s loud, smells funny, and you get to train patience and self-control. It’s a cool hobby. A society built around guns is… well… just look at the US.

      • blarghly@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        I feel ya. I’m currently waiting for a part for my motorcycle to come in so I can take apart the clutch again. But what makes it fun is that my entire ability to transport myself isn’t dependent solely on my motorcycle. If I needed it running in order to get to work every day, I would never take the time to work on it - I would be forced to take it to a mechanic to ensure the job is done right, and fast, because I can’t afford the luxury of making mistakes and learning on my own.

        The pushback against cars is pushback against car dependence, and the externalities that cars create in our shared urban environments. Not against hobbyists who just think cars are neat.

      • mondoman712@lemmy.ml
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        23 hours ago

        Your hobby is fine as long as you don’t impose the externalities on other people. I don’t want to hear your loud engine, I don’t want to breathe your fumes, and I don’t want to worry about getting hit while just walking around.

  • Duranie@leminal.space
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    2 days ago

    I work in hospice, traveling to patients homes. I’d be more than happy to work from home, but the logistics of getting dying bed ridden people to travel to me has been tricky.

    • Spezi@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      Imagine how smooth your travels would be, if the 70% that could work from home or use public transport would do so.

      • Duranie@leminal.space
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        1 day ago

        You mean like during the COVID lockdown? It was amazing. I wish people learned more lessons from that time.

          • Sc00ter@lemmy.zip
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            23 hours ago

            No. Theyre saying when everyone else was in lockdown, traveling was easier because no one else was on the road. Im also someone who cant work remote and i long for the days where a sprinkle of rain doesnt mean my 25 minute commute turns into an hour

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Commuting to office (by car) daily is the real problem. Road trips by car are incredibly freeing and not miserable.

  • fishy@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Jokes on you, I love my brainwash pod. I still take the train anywhere I can though, the Seattle light rail system is dope.

  • Agrivar@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I don’t have a car, I ride my non-electric dope ass bike everywhere, and I listen to old Dead and Phish shows I downloaded to my rooted Android phone.
    We are not the same.

    • shiftymccool@programming.dev
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      22 hours ago

      This. I HATE cities. Crammed up against everyone else, smells, noises 🤮. I’m over 10 miles to the nearest grocery store and all these fuckcars weirdos will do some fucking mental gymnastics to explain a RURAL life without cars. I don’t think a single one of them has been anywhere where there is actual forest between cities/towns. They live in a city with great public transit so that must be how it is everywhere, right?

      • nomoretrdsssss@lemmings.world
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        33 minutes ago

        And yes, that’s how it used to be before they destroyed everything. My country used to be covered in interurban trams that gridded the coutryside.

      • nomoretrdsssss@lemmings.world
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        34 minutes ago

        The noise and smell mostly comes from idiots outsiders driving in here. Nobody cares you have a car if you live in the middle of the forest, but then don’t bring your pollution machine near population center and don’t whine you guys don’t have jobs next time the local coal plant closes