Interesting Read, Some of it Obvious . . .
 

his political analysis is interesting but don't think they are complete & I'm not on board with his conclusions, in spite of that particular reference to the "mayor Rob Ford's “urban elites” waging a “war on the car”. a lot of ppl now accusing others of being "elites" can't seem to see themselves in the mirror. & when someone’s arguments take the form of name-calling it’s a clear sign they don’t have anything valid or worthwhile to say

I'm not at war with anyone. We are all people living the life we chose (or if not chosen, in a way that we can at least tolerate). The linked article, while well-intentioned (perhaps), only serves to convince people that polarization is significant and that there is no hope for middle ground. Cars aren't dividing America, it's the folks that demand the "us or them" allegiances who are.

I'm not at war with anyone either. I feel sorry for people who've become obese and unhealthy and depressed because of a lack of any kind of physical exercise. And I also feel sorry for poor people who have no other choice but to spend so much of their money on their car and gas and insurance and all the rest because there's no other way for them to get to work, or do anything else, where they live.

Beyond that, just to be clear, you're saying that an article which attempts to explain the role car infrastructure plays, and has played, in our divided society is itself divisive. I might actually agree with you if I were handing out leaflets or something, but isn't this the right place for a piece like this?

Heard a piece on the radio the other day which noted that there was a strong correlation between the rise in the number of PhDs awarded in Civil Engineering and the increase in the amount of Mozzarella imported to the US.

The point being that correlation does not demonstrate causation.

P&R is the more appropriate place for posting this sort of sociological/ideological dogma.

Guess I never went farther than a BSCE degree because my preference is for Parmigiano-Reggiano. :D

The article is quite good; however IMO it over-simplifies things in a way that demands false polarization. The issue is complex. Cars and traffic problems are the result of many years of aggressive marketing, poor planning, and perhaps excessive exuberance towards attaining the "American Dream". We as citizens of our communities should not be assigned bins based on our life choices. Each of us could have ended up in the opposite bin had we made, or been compelled to make, a slightly different choice in the past. For my own example: before I retired, I commuted routinely to work by bicycle. I love to cycle, and because I lived a reasonable distance away, it just made sense to me. I also love rural living, so had we decided to buy acreage 30 miles away, I would have been in my car/truck every morning. In either case, my overall satisfaction with my life would be equivalent. In neither case would I feel antagonistic about any other road user.

Splitting people into bins seems to be a popular way to get newsy attention; however I don't like it much.

I thought it was a ridiculous pile of babble.

It seems to me it's likely that most of the points raised in the article could be objectively demonstrated to be valid. Apparently some feel these points just shouldn't be brought up.

The most famous (or not) of all!!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaan.../#12bbb6033a67

I wouldn't go that far, but I don't think the author really used the space to say anything definitive. And I don't think that the small sampling of the posters in this thread really get it either. Including you: car dependence is not sustainable. Period. I don't want to debate it. It isn't a Liberal issue or a Conservative issue. It is an existential one. Neither is it something for a future society to deal with. Single driver 5,000lb+ conveyances trundling thither and yon over the landscape are a clear and present danger.

I look it this in terms of energy expenditures. A car at 25mpg consumes 1250 Kcals/ mile. A motorcycle at 40mpg 775, A Tesla 258 KCals. A bicyclist, 65 KCals/mile. Energy expenditures= extraction of resources= environmental impact. I think putting every form of transportation on the same scale helps highlight the impact or our transportation choices.

Of course the above assumes single occupancy: A car with 4 passengers is 314, a MC w/2 is 387, Tesla 65, and a bike is kind of stuck at 65.

This is something that I have been thinking about. Why do we need 5,000 lb plus vehicles? Well to protect us from other 5,000 lb plus vehicles, right? And as speed in creases the force of impact increases, so we need more protection which usually weighs more, and so on. It is kind of a viscous cycle. At the same time the vast number of car trips are short (under 10 miles) and probably never hit over 30 MPH.) You could design an electric car that would easily go over a hundred miles on a charge if it only weighed 1000 lbs. and didnt go over 30 MPH. What if urban areas turned their roads only into "SOV-lite" vehicles with speed limits of 30 MPH with designated transit roads and (of course) increased in transit offerings? There is in fact a rough equivalent of the vehicle in question: Arcimoto (https://www.arcimoto.com/) Its KCals/mile is 120, better than a Tesla not quite a bicycle. I think this vehicle or its something like it may be the future of transportation for single occupancy, and with two occupants is 60 KCals/mile or on par with a bicycle.

The other 5000 lbs vehicles that we all fear getting hit buy in our car are either other 5000lb SOVs or delivery vehicles. of some sort. So if we get beyond all having 5000lb 140HP + cars then the remaining issue is delivery vehicles. Now the theoretical 1000lb electric vehicle wouldn't be going on the freeway so no issues with trucks there- the issue would be to either end or manage the co-mingling of delivery vehicles in the "last mile" from getting off controlled access roads to delivery. I do not really have an answer for that. But I do agree that continuing on our present course is not sustainable.,

My own pet/fantasy idea is that cars and trucks should have to have speed governors, variable ones that would work with a GPS to restrict the vehicle's speed according to where they are. For instance, if they're driving on a highway, they can go 65; on a road in town, 30, or whatever. Not a new idea, but my guess is that it would reduce the number of people killed in accidents by half (but really, who knows, maybe more than that). What it would also mean, though, is that you could actually have small, light vehicles for driving on local roads without the fear of being hit by some car doing 50 in a 25 zone.

Of course drivers--and car companies that are trying to push the fantasy of illicit speed in their sport models--would scream bloody murder; and police departments and local governments wouldn't want them either since they make so much of their revenue by handing out speeding tickets. So we'll all just keep going the way we're going, and another 40,000 people will die in traffic accidents this year. What a world.

Watch the lightweight cars on a freeway/highway sometime when there's a strong crosswind. Just like bicycles those lightweight cars often get moved quite a distance sideways by those winds especially if the crosswind is not steady but is gusting.

Cheers

Semi-trucks get blown over all the time, so do many modern (heavy) SUVs. Those situations are pretty uncommon, though, and definitely not a reason to not go with lighter vehicles in general.

40K people (plus) dying in accidents is very regrettable, especially if you are one of them or cared about someone in that cohort. But lets get serious. There are well over 300M people in the U.S. We can spare a few ten thousand annually for the sake of the almighty GDP and its 2% growth year over year. What would really suck is for the U.S. (and by extension the world) economy to crash and burn because Texas is inundated by floodwaters from sea level rise. If we don't start getting aggressive about limiting the size of vehicles and changing their energy source to plug-in electric we will be measuring population loss in the hundreds of thousands per climate event. You should have to RENT large pick-up trucks and SUV's. Vehicles like that should not be for direct sale to the public as personal transportation.

What lightweight cars on the highway? Yours is a very scary opinion. Reminds me of my father (b.1923) talking about the "roadholding" ability of large Buicks and Cadillacs. So that's why we have Cadillac Escalades now that weigh over 6,000lb. Plenty of roadholding you betcha but you have 40 sq. ft of surface area on the sides for the wind to act on. Can you say 'zero sum' boys and girls? Back to 'lightweight cars' ... you mean like a Mazda Miata? A Toyota Corolla? Something dinky like that? I've got news for you. Even those toys (~2,000lb) are monstrously overweight by my standards and if we are to survive as a species the weight of those things has got to get to the hundreds of pounds for a two place vehicle! If the side-winds are a problem, active electronics can take care of it. How ever did we make it to the top of the food chain? Some days I wonder.

There are something like 8 billion people on the planet now, (don't know the exact number). Everyone of them wants a nice house and a car. Going by the "Rule of 72", however many autos and trucks are on the roads today, at 2% growth there will be twice as many in 32 years. This indicates that twice as many road miles will be needed, or something near that. In an anti-science environment such as we have today where some people believe the Earth is flat, I'm not confident we will be able to solve the high consequence problems facing the planet.

No, as vehicles become lighter and lighter these situations become more common. Think about the SMART CAR and how many people with them won't drive them on a freeway because the vehicle is so susceptible to side winds and wind gusts.

Cheers

"think about"... I know lots of people with SMART cars, and they drive them on the freeways/interstates all the time with no issues. Not sure about who you know.....

If I have a choice about it I would rather rent a Chevy Malibu vs a Kia Rio for a trip to the coast (once every two or three years!) but it isn't the sidewinds I am worried about. I can certainly do it in a Rio, and have. I DOUBT the people avoiding the highways with their Smartcars have ever experienced a dangerous sidewind! They likely have, however, had to bail on a freeway merge when a semi was in the slow lane. They may have been buffeted while trying to pass a tractor-trailer rig in the slow lane. May have, anyone that nervous probably doesn't attempt too many big rig passes, if any at all. Winds have to get pretty brisk (>40 mph gusts) before they issue small vehicle advisories in my area so I just don't know what you are talking about. We downsize (cars) or we die. It's really that simple.

I drove VW buses for 20 years you dont have to tell me about crosswinds. I am talking sub 1000lb vehicles for intra-urban transit going 30 miles an hour. Yes people may have to slow down in heavy winds, but apparently the entire planet becoming uninhabitable for human civilization is OK so that once or twice a year you might have to slow down to say 25 MPH.

On a side note I spent years as a motorcycle only commuter in the NW. You can handle crosswinds on the freeway at speed. That's a 500lb vehicle at 70 miles an hour.

I'm not arguing about lightweight vehicles nd gusting cross-winds. I'm just stating what I saw or heard. BTW, I had a friend who had a Volkswagen bus and he said that on any elevated road like the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto Canada, or the Burlington Skyway in Burlington Canada (near Hamilton Canada) that he was often scared driving it because it'd move so much in strong cross-winds. YMV it seems. It'l be interesting to see whta happens as vehicles do become lighter and lighter.

Cheers