Originally Posted by
3alarmer
...nobody needs 2 coolers, 2 tents, and a camp stove to go fishing. And I've gone fishing in some pretty remote places...places up in the Sierra where you can't legally drive into them. So I think yoiur initial premise is flawed. And I'm one of the people here who is perfectly fine with cars on a more limited basis. Thankfully, because of the restrictions, you and your camp stove and lanterns will never show up at some of the nicer alpine lakes in California. Using "fishing" as your excuse to drive 3,000 miles is just fishing in the LCF forum. You'll probably catch something, but it won't be anything worth keeping.
There's a serious issue I have thought about related to this, which is that I think many pristine destinations could be threatened if they were made easily accessible by car-free means of transportation. E.g. if there was a train or bus connection between major urban centers and pristine wilderness sites, people could flock to the sites and cause the kind of degradation that insensitive humans can cause when they trample around, litter, etc.
So is it possible that, although motor vehicles driving and parking cause unnecessary pavement, roadkill, etc. they may deter significant numbers of visits to pristine areas to protect those areas a little more than if they were convenient transit destinations from major population areas.