McBTC

I think they outlawed riding on the tops of trains... too many deaths.

cooker

The Forbes article said the growth slowed quite a bit in the previous year. I don't know what the subsequent trends have been. Obviously starting from next to nothing they could have double digit growth for quite a few years and still be way behind the US, but they also have put on the brakes with some pretty draconian restrictions in their large cities: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/world/asia/china-beijing-traffic-pollution.html They're also investing massively compared to the US, in alternate transportation.

McBTC

The use of 3-wheel rickshaws powered by smelly, smoky 2 cylinder 2-stroke motors is apparently the way to go, go, go... If you want to make a big difference there you'd build electricity-generating capacity to power sewage treatment plants and put electric motors in the rickshaws. As it is now too many LCF people crap outdoors which in turn severely sickens the children.

cooker

Yep, the US has owned 'cool' for a few decades. You might be on the brink of losing it now....

McBTC

Looks like overhead trollies would very difficult to build in this crowded LCF section of India...

McBTC

Times change. There used to be such a thing as paperboys but that was too gender-specific and it was too dangerous to have 14-year old girls delivering newspapers at 5A or after school and collecting door-to-door every month so... no more paperpersons pedaling their bikes as a part of a job (self-employed business)... everyday.

McBTC

...of course, no one reads anymore except maybe to drive a car to Starbucks to Twitter on their computer.

jon c. 

I think a lot of people like the idea, it's the cost of implementation that would stop them in their tracks. You can't rebuild the old world and creating anything that would function similarly while serving market demands would be beyond impractical. On a small scale in some areas you see organic facsimiles that arise, but they tend to be serving a young market in the transition period before they start families. And these tend to involve gentrification, which presents its own host of social problems.

I don't think trying to rebuild cities into the model some might wish had been followed in the last century is really the way to plan for the next century. Better now to look forward to the next model, in a world where fewer people all need to congregate in the same place every day.

cooker

Actually that creates an interesting quandary. If people get a virtual office and don't need to drive to work, then they can live anywhere, and they won't need a car to drive to work, but they still want to go other places like the store or hockey rink or whatever. So will more people move out to the woods, but with less driving, or will a lot of people still want to live in cities to be close to other stuff, even if they don't need to be there for work?

cooker

Cities are still growing and being reshaped. The point that the Mississauga video made, is that there has been a huge under-appreciation of the cost of implementing and maintaining the city form we've been building for 50 years, and the chickens are coming home to roost.

Mobile 155

We shall see. But you do realize if they double the car sales by 2020 or even 2030 they will have 40 million new cars on the road that year. Not counting the ones bought between this year and then. They buy just over 20 million now compared to our just over 17 million. If they reach 40 million it wouldn't matter if no one in the US bought a new car the total car sales will go up 6 million cars just by Chinese consumers alone. Looking at their building plans and increased building of cement plants I doubt if they are following the Copenhagen example do you? But as I said we shall see. I bet they will look more like the US however because even they are no longer the Kingdom of the Bike, even if some are trying to get people back on the bike there. Some in the government are not it seems, https://www.travelchinaguide.com/chi...aking-bike.htm They have lots of room and are becoming an economic force. They have been waiting to be like the west for a very long time. I am betting on cars and can only hope for EVs.

Dahon.Steve

Wow! The thread I created is now sixteen pages long! Incredible.

It's amazing how many twists and turns the conversation changed over the weeks but that's part of the enjoyment on bike forums. Maybe I should create more carfree threads to keep everyone happy.

In a separate subject, the gas powered motorbike or rickshaw are pervasive in Asia and are frowned on by the carfree movement. They are just as toxic as a fleet of trucks. Personally, I'm not against them but I've never seen 200 motorbikes stopped at a light either!

I spent the past hour using Google street view on the city of Oslo. I really like the town! It didn't seem crowded like New York or London and wasn't too populated. There were street car tracks everywhere and not many bikes either. The downtown wasn't bumper to bumper traffic so going carfree isn't going to be as painful as one might think.

Stadjer

Maybe it's got something to do with people bringing home an experience rather than ideas. They enjoy a different environment without breaking it down into the individual important differences and how they are made. I'm from cycling city in a cycling country, but when I'm abroad I don't really notice a lack of bikes for example. And that's not just me, I can't remember any of my friends or family or anybody else who have travelled a lot or lived abroad ever mentioning it, it's just part of the overall experience. I think we tend to notice the little differences, and the totality of all the differences, but not the differences in between or the ideas that are behind them.

wolfchild

What about millions of people who don't work in an office and need a vehicle to get to work ??....This fantasy of virtual offices isn't going to magically transform the whole world into a car-free society.

wolfchild

Nothing is impossible with LCF pipe dreamers.

McBTC

Like... a plumber? For millions of LCF, they have no running water and simply crap outdoors. Problem solved.

cooker

Of course not. However more people will be able to "telecommute' in a few years than can now. Do you think more of those people will take advantage of that opportunity to not have to live within commuting distance of an office, to 'escape' to more isolated locations, where they still need a car, even if they don't have to drive to work every day; or will some of them see it as an opportunity to avoid car ownership, in which case they would still need to live in a somewhat urban area in order to take advantage of public transit, walking, cycling, sidewalk cafes, Uber, etc.?

McBTC

Why LCF advocates thrill about Uber makes no sense-- takes two people to do what one person can do.

cooker

I'm not a fan of Uber, and if somebody uses it daily in place of a car they haven't reduced their car reliance. But if they occasionally use it, along with walking, cycling and public transit, in order to not own a car, then they have become at least less car dependent. So it can play a role in living car light as of course you understand.

McBTC

Of course? Not really... not if it means not being able to do something you otherwise would like to do but cannot, simply because of an earlier decision to eliminate a host of options due to a lack of personal transportation. It makes no sense unless it's a trade-off, e.g., LCF to save the world from runaway global warming or refusal to buy into the idea of being a part of a car cult. What's car heavy... owning two cars?

cooker

People can make their own decisions on what tradeoffs are acceptible to them. If someone decides they don't need to own a car, that's up to them. Why would that be problem for you?

tandempower

Gun sales went up a couple years ago because of a rumor that the government would be restricting them soon. When change appears on the horizon, it causes a certain pre-emptive nostalgia to form for whatever is expected to be phased out or reduced by the change.

Likewise, if automakers suspect decreasing demand on the horizon for whatever reason, it is logical for them to increase output and press for as many sales as possible before demand starts dropping. It is a logical response, but it's a response that undermines the ability for consumers to rationally overweigh the option of going car-free.

I think with automation and factory efficiency, more cars can be produced and shipped than can ever be exported, scrapped, or otherwise wasted. If policy-makers ever really want to reduce the number of cars on the roads, they'll have to restrict the number of cars that can be made and/or imported. Such a move would trigger huge lobbying efforts to preserve auto markets, however, so I think the best strategy for reducing driving is to continue promoting ride-sharing and otherwise reducing auto demand. It might also help to charge more for disposing of old cars.

I-Like-To-Bike

Doncha know that some pipe dreamers believe the hysterical/over-the-top hype about self driving motor vehicles ready for prime time any day now and that Uber won't need no stinkin' drivers at all!

Of course who will buy, insure and maintain these vehicles for Uber's use is a question that hasn't been figured out just yet.

Mobile 155

Just as a point I think you must have missed that we are talking about China and India at the moment? China was once the LCF paradise you so often say is ideal. China today is the number one consumer of cars. They reached that position 5 years faster than anyone predicted. They now have started several auto plants and have started a plan to produce after market factories to support those car sales. The two sites I posted are simple business projections but even politically China doesn't have to curb any building at all till after 2030. So 40 million cars in a nation with 5 times as many people as the US is reasonable. They went from practically no personal cars to 20 million cars in record time. And now in the second link I posted they are making it very hard to ride on a train with a bicycle. None of that is addressed in your response that I can see. Except the idea they are working on ride sharing.

cooker

Nobody has said anything like that in this thread. This is just your usual fictitious retelling of what goes on here, never backed up with quotes, because there aren't any to be had.