EVs are a distraction and driver funding from public transport options to spaces for cars. Cars need infrastructure such as traffic stops, crossings, parking, etc. And with metropolitan areas becoming increasingly crowded, all of this infrastructure takes up space and costs the city a lot of money as the land value rises.
For example, a car parking space where I’m from will cost something like $70/day. A shop double the size would be leased at $30k/month. Our rate money goes into subsidising the car parking spots because they need to sit somewhere where they’re not being used.
EVs (in car form) still use the same spaces as cars and use up money that could be better spent on other things to improve city accessibility. That’s a bit of the money part.
From an efficiency perspective, any kind of car (EV or otherwise), is extremely inefficient in Metropolitan areas because a large portion of the time is spent waiting in traffic. Any other type of transport moves more people per second than cars such as motorbikes, scooters, bicycles, trains, trams, buses etc. So, you’re allowing a significant chunk of infrastructure to be occupied by an extremely ineffective mode of transport in a city of millions. If you remove the entire aspect of private vehicles in Metro areas, you free l suddenly free up a lot of space and increase efficiency for the other modes of transport.
EVs or cars would be useful in low density areas where the efficiency would be higher than using any other type of transport and would have a much more minimal impact on the climate than if large cities all used EVs.
We have the technology and the smarts to build a better world but we need to rip the band-aid off and understand that the problems that arise in our day to day is of our own making and that we can absolutely rebuild it from the ground up so that it is more sustainable.
If you remove the entire aspect of private vehicles in Metro areas, you free l suddenly free up a lot of space and increase efficiency for the other modes of transport.
But we don’t HAVE those other means of transport, not nearly at the level to replace cars and not even at all in some places.
Your equation is basically “remove cars, replace with transit” but you’re totally hand waving away the second part.
All the government subsidies to benefit EVs are a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of retooling infrastructure to support public transit. It needs to be done, but it can’t be done quickly without a massive, exponential increase in funding, and EVs won’t cover that gap.
Being anti-EV is being against one of the most useful, efficient, and effective ways of lowering ghg emissions we have.
Your idea of “ripping the bandaid off” leaves millions of people stranded while they wait for transit to be built.
We can do both and must do both. EVs for now, transit for future.
In a single lifetime, we have moved into severe car dependency. Our cities are purposefully built so that only cars can be used. Don’t you see? This is a problem that we’ve created completely by ourselves. If we keep heading in that direction because it’s cheaper and easier, i.e. leaving the band-aid on, major investment into public transit simply will not happen because it’s ‘too expensive and too hard’.
I never said not do both, but I’m seeing time and time again that new roads are being invested rather than investment into other options. What usually happens in reality is one or the other. Look at Egypt, look at the US, look at Australia. Then look at places like the Netherlands.
Netherlands still have roads but in Metropolitan areas, there are a huge number of alternatives.
By the way, when you say you don’t have other means of transport, what locations are you referring to? What I was referring to was Metropolitan areas. Regional areas, where there is a lower density, should still be provided with roads as a means of travel. It’s ridiculous to think that Metropolitan cities don’t have pubic transit infrastructure in first world cities.
but I’m seeing time and time again that new roads are being invested rather than investment into other options.
This is politics more than anything else. I see loads of investment into transit in my daily life. But that’s because I live in California.
Say you could somehow largely remove cars from a conservative led area, somehow. Do you really think they would spend money on transit? Of course not, they would tell the poors to walk.
Transit spending is an absolute necessity in what you’re proposing, and all the band aid ripping in the world won’t force it to happen when the purse strings are controlled by conservatives.
There’s been this weird trend in young voters for a while now, along the lines of “if it just gets bad enough then it will turn good again, somehow!” If the Democrats lose badly enough they’ll start enacting progressive policies. If the economy gets bad enough we’ll increase the social safety net. If the climate gets bad enough we’ll start banning fossil fuels.
It’s some of the dumbest, most naive shit I’ve ever heard. There is no rock bottom. There is no wake up call. Ripping the band aid off likely just means we bleed to death.
I live in Australia and, here, regional residents have buses at a minimum and in larger regional towns, there are trains. In remote areas, there are roads connecting even smaller towns. ‘The poors’ here in our Metropolitan areas still have access to trains and buses but bus connections are not great, which convinces people to drive because cycling poses a risk on roads due to driver attitudes and lack of cycling infrastructure. Further, our public transport is still largely state owned.
I would say we’re in a much better position than the US in terms of PT accessibility, however, we do tend to follow your trends such as sprawling suburbs with no amenities, mega shopping centres, car centrism etc. In our Metropolitan cities, we absolutely do not need EVs because our cities are walkable with plenty of options to get around not in a car.
In fact, we had train lines going to the regional areas but past governments, as recent as the 90s, decided to shut them down because they wanted to cut back on public transport spending and increase investment into roads. In my state, there’s a monopoly on road infrastructure building and they’re in bed with our state government and dictate what projects can and cannot be put in. This means that our infrastructure budget is largely spent on new roads - that don’t actually need to be built - and provide arbitrary alternative infrastructure to tick boxes.
So from my perspective from down under, it’s possible to do away with both ICEs and EVs in Metro but we’re on the precipice of where you guys are at present - we still have alternatives but are actively gutting them in favour of roads. That and the giant SUVs are now our most popular vehicle because for some reason, our previous federal government decided to introduce a tax benefit to purchase them.
(As an aside, from what you say, sounds like your young voters are adopting the ‘let it burn’ philosophy possibly because they feel so helpless. Additionally, I honestly don’t understand how the Republicans are able to behave in such an insane manner and I absolutely resent it because our crazies here in Parliament have started to adopt the crazy in their arguments. Thankfully, there’s not many people here that would vote for a party that goes for policies like ‘ban trans people’ etc. and we have plenty of parties to choose from such as Legalise Weed, Animal Justice, Greens, many independents etc. So, our votes get distributed across a broad spectrum of views that better represent the country. Your voting system appears to lump all the crazies into one option and everyone else into one of two options which include the crazy group. It’s mad watching it from here.)
EVs are a distraction and driver funding from public transport options to spaces for cars. Cars need infrastructure such as traffic stops, crossings, parking, etc. And with metropolitan areas becoming increasingly crowded, all of this infrastructure takes up space and costs the city a lot of money as the land value rises.
For example, a car parking space where I’m from will cost something like $70/day. A shop double the size would be leased at $30k/month. Our rate money goes into subsidising the car parking spots because they need to sit somewhere where they’re not being used.
EVs (in car form) still use the same spaces as cars and use up money that could be better spent on other things to improve city accessibility. That’s a bit of the money part.
From an efficiency perspective, any kind of car (EV or otherwise), is extremely inefficient in Metropolitan areas because a large portion of the time is spent waiting in traffic. Any other type of transport moves more people per second than cars such as motorbikes, scooters, bicycles, trains, trams, buses etc. So, you’re allowing a significant chunk of infrastructure to be occupied by an extremely ineffective mode of transport in a city of millions. If you remove the entire aspect of private vehicles in Metro areas, you free l suddenly free up a lot of space and increase efficiency for the other modes of transport.
EVs or cars would be useful in low density areas where the efficiency would be higher than using any other type of transport and would have a much more minimal impact on the climate than if large cities all used EVs.
We have the technology and the smarts to build a better world but we need to rip the band-aid off and understand that the problems that arise in our day to day is of our own making and that we can absolutely rebuild it from the ground up so that it is more sustainable.
But we don’t HAVE those other means of transport, not nearly at the level to replace cars and not even at all in some places.
Your equation is basically “remove cars, replace with transit” but you’re totally hand waving away the second part.
All the government subsidies to benefit EVs are a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of retooling infrastructure to support public transit. It needs to be done, but it can’t be done quickly without a massive, exponential increase in funding, and EVs won’t cover that gap.
Being anti-EV is being against one of the most useful, efficient, and effective ways of lowering ghg emissions we have.
Your idea of “ripping the bandaid off” leaves millions of people stranded while they wait for transit to be built.
We can do both and must do both. EVs for now, transit for future.
In a single lifetime, we have moved into severe car dependency. Our cities are purposefully built so that only cars can be used. Don’t you see? This is a problem that we’ve created completely by ourselves. If we keep heading in that direction because it’s cheaper and easier, i.e. leaving the band-aid on, major investment into public transit simply will not happen because it’s ‘too expensive and too hard’.
I never said not do both, but I’m seeing time and time again that new roads are being invested rather than investment into other options. What usually happens in reality is one or the other. Look at Egypt, look at the US, look at Australia. Then look at places like the Netherlands.
Netherlands still have roads but in Metropolitan areas, there are a huge number of alternatives.
By the way, when you say you don’t have other means of transport, what locations are you referring to? What I was referring to was Metropolitan areas. Regional areas, where there is a lower density, should still be provided with roads as a means of travel. It’s ridiculous to think that Metropolitan cities don’t have pubic transit infrastructure in first world cities.
Many cities in the US have only nominal bus lines. Buses that run twice a day, etc.
This is politics more than anything else. I see loads of investment into transit in my daily life. But that’s because I live in California.
Say you could somehow largely remove cars from a conservative led area, somehow. Do you really think they would spend money on transit? Of course not, they would tell the poors to walk.
Transit spending is an absolute necessity in what you’re proposing, and all the band aid ripping in the world won’t force it to happen when the purse strings are controlled by conservatives.
There’s been this weird trend in young voters for a while now, along the lines of “if it just gets bad enough then it will turn good again, somehow!” If the Democrats lose badly enough they’ll start enacting progressive policies. If the economy gets bad enough we’ll increase the social safety net. If the climate gets bad enough we’ll start banning fossil fuels.
It’s some of the dumbest, most naive shit I’ve ever heard. There is no rock bottom. There is no wake up call. Ripping the band aid off likely just means we bleed to death.
I live in Australia and, here, regional residents have buses at a minimum and in larger regional towns, there are trains. In remote areas, there are roads connecting even smaller towns. ‘The poors’ here in our Metropolitan areas still have access to trains and buses but bus connections are not great, which convinces people to drive because cycling poses a risk on roads due to driver attitudes and lack of cycling infrastructure. Further, our public transport is still largely state owned.
I would say we’re in a much better position than the US in terms of PT accessibility, however, we do tend to follow your trends such as sprawling suburbs with no amenities, mega shopping centres, car centrism etc. In our Metropolitan cities, we absolutely do not need EVs because our cities are walkable with plenty of options to get around not in a car.
In fact, we had train lines going to the regional areas but past governments, as recent as the 90s, decided to shut them down because they wanted to cut back on public transport spending and increase investment into roads. In my state, there’s a monopoly on road infrastructure building and they’re in bed with our state government and dictate what projects can and cannot be put in. This means that our infrastructure budget is largely spent on new roads - that don’t actually need to be built - and provide arbitrary alternative infrastructure to tick boxes.
So from my perspective from down under, it’s possible to do away with both ICEs and EVs in Metro but we’re on the precipice of where you guys are at present - we still have alternatives but are actively gutting them in favour of roads. That and the giant SUVs are now our most popular vehicle because for some reason, our previous federal government decided to introduce a tax benefit to purchase them.
(As an aside, from what you say, sounds like your young voters are adopting the ‘let it burn’ philosophy possibly because they feel so helpless. Additionally, I honestly don’t understand how the Republicans are able to behave in such an insane manner and I absolutely resent it because our crazies here in Parliament have started to adopt the crazy in their arguments. Thankfully, there’s not many people here that would vote for a party that goes for policies like ‘ban trans people’ etc. and we have plenty of parties to choose from such as Legalise Weed, Animal Justice, Greens, many independents etc. So, our votes get distributed across a broad spectrum of views that better represent the country. Your voting system appears to lump all the crazies into one option and everyone else into one of two options which include the crazy group. It’s mad watching it from here.)