Originally Posted by tandempower

Having such a tree in every other parking spot like that would indeed be good. Then, maybe some treed islands/medians in the center lane as well . . .




So it's a starting point for a two-way dialogue.




So your saying that should-ers should 'should' others less? What gives you the right to tell them what they should do if you don't like them doing it?





Yes, of course but once you see through that little rhetorical nuance, it doesn't really matter because they are basically just ways of conveying the same idea.




I'm not trying to marketing LCF, per se. I am analyzing what is going on with the culture and why all these transportation options are possible and even deployed by investors and then what happens to stifle their widespread adoption. If there's not a conspiracy behind it, it sure could pass for there being one.




You could start with an SUV and engineer smaller or start with an electric scooter and engineer larger. Either way the challenge is to find the smallest possible sized motor-vehicle that uses the least pavement and encourages the least sprawl and thus driving-dependency. The problem with making smaller cars is that things like crash protection regulations inhibit innovation. Tiny cars like the Tata aren't only unpopular because of stylistic norms more or less governed by the industry, but they are also just regulated out of the market.




I point this out all the time: that cars and trucks are more complex machines with more parts that require more factories, workers, etc. and so they cost more and thus generate more revenue. You can't make a simpler vehicle produce as much revenue and jobs as a more complex one. It would be as if everyone owned a million dollar helicopter and you tried to convince them to all give up flying and drive $20,000 cars instead. Who would produce cars for $20,000 each if they could invest in helicopters at $1,000,000 each? It's an economic bias based on automotive norms.




Plenty of people know a bike every day and they don't trade in driving for biking. Logic actually works better than role-modeling in some cases. Saving money and saving the environment is more of a motivator than "that guy over there does it every day and you can be like him." People want to be themselves, or at least see themselves as being their own people and not followers of others. The idea that they would be seen as or feel like a follower of someone doing something non-normative is probably more of a deterrent than a motivation for most people.




It's just what I feel I have to do. If I was just trying to set an example with my actions, I would feel like I wasn't doing as much as I could; i.e. that I was shirking.