Tried to post this yesterday, but lemmygrad was getting stuck on a bus in traffic with no BRT. I was a big fan of FuckCars on the other site, I wanted to create that community here. There’s also a lot of intersection of resisting capitalism and cars. Cars a prime example of capitalism extracting wealth from the working class and trapping them in wage slavery to maintain it.
Cars were popularized by Henry Ford, famous for being a good friend of Nazis. They kill thousands of people directly by collisions, and are a huge factor in killing everyone via emissions and climate change. Even EVs pollute either at a power plant, or the tires they use emitting particulate on the roads. Mining the required lithium to make every car electric would be incredibly extractive and difficult. They take up huge amounts of space to transport on average 1.3 people. Communities have been needlessly bulldozed to put up highways, and are then divided by them, causing more alienation and less community building. Cars also restrict mobility to those who can drive, both physically and monetarily. Someone without good eyesight or motor control is unable to drive, and that means it can be difficult or impossible to get around in car-centric cities.
On the other hand, we have human-centric cities. Look at China pumping out high speed rail while America plays in the mud. Anyone who can move can ride a good bus or train. You see people face-to-face on a train, making you interact and grow community. Public transit is often more affordable than a car, and can be made free (really should be). Trains are miles ahead on efficiency compared to electric cars even, and trains can be much more easily electrified without need for a massive battery. Bikes can be used to close the gap from a train to a final destination, or all by themselves for medium range journeys. Get an ebike and you can even further extend how far you can ride, for a fraction of the resources, monetarily, space, and environmentally, of an electric vehicle.
Down with cars, down with capitalism, solidarity to everyone on transit and foot, and extra solidarity to those forced into car ownership against their will.
On the other hand, we have human-centric cities. Look at China pumping out high speed rail while America plays in the mud.
I’d love to see an in-depth analysis on Chinese urban planning from a transit perspective. Usually those focus on Europe and America only. From what it looks like, China has been great with rolling out regional transit and mass transit in sizable cities but with Soviet-American road and housing characteristics. Also what are small cities like? Everyone focuses on the big cities, which to be fair there are like 100 of them.
