Let car culture DIE!

[undergroundpanther]

Car makers gave us this pollution,the suburban sprawl and "car culture".The Auto makers RUINED public transportation and created Car Aparthied. I for one Am glad to see them FAIL.I hope they DIE.
People need to stop depending on corporations. We need to re-connect to each other.



Bail out General Motors? The people who murdered our mass transit system?

First let them remake what they destroyed.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/16-6





Analyses of the failure of all levels of government to prevent or effectively manage the Katrina calamity in New Orleans have generally missed a crucial point. Alongside bias against poor people and African-Americans is automobile apartheid, born of fifty years of suburban sprawl. First-class citizens drive motor vehicles, second-class Americans walk, cycle, or ride public transit. Certainly many of the latter are poor, but millions more are middle-class Americans.

When emergency response largely ignores the plight of second-class citizens, no one should be surprised.

Automobile apartheid means anyone who wants mobility through walking, cycling, or public transportation suffers discrimination in a built environment designed for automobiles.
http://www.walkablestreets.com/apart.htm

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Problem is that it will not die, replace GM for Toyota

and poverty wages

Hope you like that, a depression

And no, there is no sarcasm needed

The level of pain will make our CURRENT troubles look like a walk in the park

[cliffordu]

3. yep - We are going to be in a world of hurt here real soon.

I think those who made this happen through greed and avarice should pay with everything they own.

[undergroundpanther]

22. Agree with you 100%

these pigs MUST pay for the damage.

[undergroundpanther]

23. dammit, double post again

This bug is driving me nuts.

[undergroundpanther]

24. Depression will come regardless

of where you buy shit from.Because of the globalists.Greedy people and the cancer called capitalism.And because the world cannot maintain this lifestyle we have forever.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. So what is your solution? Kill them all?

eat the rich and go into a nice socialist communal economy?

That is going from ONE set of utopia to another

By the way here is a huge freaking clue... this ain't capitalism, Hasn't been for MANY years.

Hey at least I have read my Adam Smith and can tell the difference between the theory and the reality... by the by also read my Marx and Engels, a couple more dreamers in the same category as Smith

I am getting sick and tired of people who are blind to the fact that wishing for others to loose their jobs so their ideal world can come is not cool... nor liberal, or progressive

Changes have to come, and they will come... but what you want to happen is just freaking nuts

[imnothere]

66. And here's a radical concept, also:

We could design really good electric (or solar) vehicles. Bring them out sooner that the Volt is supposedly coming out. But nooo, they don't want that and try to obscure things by acting as if gas-powered cars are anything but dinosaurs.

[Grinchie]

185. Actually, GM did just that in the late 90's, called the EV-1

The commercial for it ran "ONCE".

Then they implanted a hit man in the California Air Resources Board that allowed them to scrap the entire product by refusing to lease this overwhelmingly popular vehicle, remove it from the market, crush them into pancakes, then grind them up into little chunks of metal.

Not one EV-1 remains intact, and the handful that were donated to educational institutions were gutted and disabled so they were not in working order.

There's you wonderful car companies for you.

Oh yeah, what did they offer the same year they removed the EV-1? You guessed it, The Hummer! Complete with tax benefits from the government as incentive to owning a nice shiny behemoth.

Thanks a lot.

They can go take a long walk off a short pier. I've had it with stupid directions taken by industry, and all the cheerleaders that defend those stupid morons.

[IsItJustMe]

79. God bless someone that has a fricking brain. Thank you.

[roguevalley]

102. I don't mind car culture going bye-bye at some point but for those

of us, especially in the west, who don't have HUGE mass transit, that would be a deal breaker.

[Hannah Bell]

145. toyota doesn't pay poverty wages.

[bluecollarcharlie]

151. I think you missed the point....

.....if all these people don't have jobs, any wage they get will be what they can get. And as desperate situations arise because stupid people seem to think mass layoffs won't depress wages, what you get will be whatever they want to pay because there will be 3,000,000 people lookng for a job and they don't need to hire you.

[cliffordu]

2. Well......I'd agree but I'm already in the crapper for an OP I started a while ago...

But I'll give you a K&R....


:popcorn:

[madeline_con]

4. Then how will I carry all my Chinese crap home from WalMart?!

[CRF450]

5. HA! Good luck with that...

Sorry, not giving up my two auto's.

[undergroundpanther]

11. can't run that thing forever

There will come an end to oil.

And in Europe,cars do not dominate everything.The towns were built before cars existed, so they are people friendly,and so, over there they don't have the addiction to fucking cars like you do.
The auto industry killed public transport for PROFITS.

[CRF450]

42. Your forgeting how wide spread the US is compared to others.

People live real close to each other in paces like Europe and Japan, and the vast majority live in cities thats one reason why that have such good public trans. A big number of the population here live in cities too, yet a huge number also in live rural areas like I do who have no choice but to drive a car.

Your "death to car culture" preaching will only fall on its face here. The solution is not just more public trans, we desperately need alternative fueled autos. Thats more important as of now.

[Marrah_G]

50. I laugh when people compare the US to Europe.

Totally different places. Small, densely populated, with an infrastructure dating back far before the car.

[CRF450]

That fact alone should be obvious.

People like the OP are clearly not thinking these things through.

[PVnRT]

65. But....it's EUROPE!!

And Europe is, like, totally awesome in every way!

[tammywammy]

127. LOL!

Thanks for the laugh. :rofl:

[Indenturedebtor]

141. Ever been to New England?

If you want to live in the country you can take the train to the city and use your horse for your authentic country lifestyle for shorter distances.

Personally I'll live in a city and take the subway thanks ;)

[Hannah Bell]

147. yes, most dating back - to the train.

the population density in the EU = 112/k2

the population density of new jersey, rhode island, mass, ct, md, del, ny, fla, oh & penn is the same or higher. That's a big chunk of the US population in those 10 states.

austria = 98/km2, spain 89/km2, greece 84/km2. that gets you another couple of states.

mexico, with a somewhat extensive rail system, has about 50/km2. that gets you half the US.

The US has a low pop density because it has some big spaces with few people; but the bulk of the population lives on the coasts, in urban areas.

My state has 36/km2, but that's only because the counties east of the mountains each have only a couple of thousand people in them. Most people live west of the mountains on the I-5 corridor: very high density & ideal for a high-speed line.

everyone i've ever known who's actually experienced european & japanese trains - even red-necks - wishes we had them.

[Indenturedebtor]

166. About that last sentence... REALLY?

Everyone I've known who has does wish that we had such fine systems. Riding a sleeper train is the only way to travel :D

[Hannah Bell]

200. didn't i say that?

[Leopolds Ghost]

192. Don't confuse the New Democrats with the facts. Europe is not to be emulated, EVER!

And neither is Washington DC with their awful, awful Metro system that should never
have been funded and is a classic case of imperial money-wasting by politicians.
:sarcasm:
After all, it's not New York. No place is New York and therefore no other place
can justify a subway. The New Yorkers on liberal blogs say so routinely!

Nobody else deserves to have a Metro (like say Kansas City where they have a chalk bedrock)
because nobody else is the nation's capital, a puny city of 500,000 with a low population density!

[Leopolds Ghost]

194. People live real close to each other everywhere. Transit is not designed to serve peopleless areas.

[Hannah Bell]

202. i think younger people don't realize this "empty" land used to be much

more extensively served by rail, both long distance & local.

people who haven't experienced it can't believe it would work.

the first time i went to europe, i insisted on getting a schedule to tell me the times the trains on the french metro arrived. i was quite obnoxious about it with my friend who'd been living there.

i didn't believe him when he told me they arrived every few minutes, my reference point being seattle's bus system & its hour between connections - imagining that to be quite a sophisticated system (this was 20 years ago).

[Touchdown]

74. You need a photographer.

What color is the Firebird? Black? I can't tell.

Other cars in you frame of shot on the truck? And you couldn't find any green grass to park it on for this one shot? And really? How hard is it to kick that pine cone out of the shot?

Your photography/Art teacher! :evilgrin:

[Indenturedebtor]

140. Those two cars look like they get great mileage

Way to go friend. My children's children thank you for putting their future over your ego and happy fun time.

[CRF450]

143. Generalize much?

The car gets decent fuel milage averaging me 22-23mpg, and has gotten 31mpg on the interstate. I didn't buy it for an ego boost:eyes: I bought because I like it, and I'm a bit of a performance car nut. The truck I bought because of a summer job, other utility purposes and recreational use of my dirtbike. It gets 16mpg BTW.

[Indenturedebtor]

144. I believe that I covered the other reason - "fun"

Applying the "minus 4" rule will generally give you an accurate number on your percieved gas mileage ;) though 16mpg for a 4wd dakota is possible and yet still abysmal.

I'm not trying to single you out, but our entire car fetish needs to go away... starting with buying cars for fun or "sexiness". It's not even just the mileage, but all of the fuel and pollution that goes into producing them.... Hybrid or not.

[CRF450]

146. Um, thats actually what I'm getting out of the truck, even with a 4.7 v8.

Thats from half rural, and half city driving. The best it ever got was 18mpg, and thats when I had to do a crap load of driving back and forth from the Outerbanks. Now my brother has the same exact truck as mine (same 2004 year model too) and on a interstate trip he got 19mpg without stopping, it could have been much better if he wasent going 80mph the whole time.

For now I'm not driving it much untill next year.

[Indenturedebtor]

165. Yeah that's about what they're rated at

Most of my dakota and other vehicle-type clients got about 4 under whatever they said they were getting. Everyone thinks they're doing 3-5 over whatever gas mileage they tell you.

[CRF450]

191. In my experience I'v always gotten more than the EPA ratings on any vehicle

Its 100% city driving, and shitty driving techniques that kills fuel milage. I dont do much driving in town.

[obiwan]

153. I'm a gearhead, and those are two serious gas hogs.

The truck is excess sheet metal unless you use it commercially and haul stuff all the time. The trim level indicates that's not so. And do you haul the full capacity of people in it all the time? Sorry, my friend, this vehicle is serious self-indulgence at best. No excuse for one person in a vehicle that weighs over 4000 lbs and gets maybe 14mpg.

And the Firebird? Give me a break. This car was obsolete when it was introduced. It makes no sense as a means of personal transportation, except as a penis extension. Maybe 18 mpg. I love cool cars, but I collect diecast replicas to satisfy my lust.

I'm not meaning to flame you, but think about it. Do you really need these to get around? If you keep them purely for personal satisfaction, man we are way beyond that now. Unless you are rich, cars aren't toys anymore. If you gotta have them, then don't bitch to me about GM and the rest of the big three going under. Don't bitch about high fuel prices or outrageous insurance rates, or how hard they are to maneuver because of their size. GM builds them because ignorant and self-indulgent people keep buying them. I refuse to support this largesse by bailing them out.

The days of pulling up to the drive in solo in the Firebird are long gone. In reality, that kind of lifestyle was unsustainable and it's long gone except as a memory.

Sorry, behemoths like these are why Detroit is where it is now. I don't want to give my hard earned tax dollars to companies who keep spewing out irrelevant shit like these two cars. I worked too long and hard and I love the Earth too much. No offense to you personally, but please think about the bigger picture.

It's not 1970 anymore, it's 2008. Cars should reflect that. Engineering has moved on.

BTW, why do you need two cars? Especially cars such as these?

[CRF450]

159. Dude, did you read my other posts??

I bought the truck because of a summer job, and when I work, its LOADED up with pool cleaning equipment and some tools, even most of the back seats would have stuff laying on them for the job. I also need use it for other utility purposes back at home. Once or twice a week I have it loaded up with friends when we go out. It'd have a couple dirtbikes (usually with friends) in the back sometimes, or just mine alone. I bought it because it provides me the convenience and practicality I require of it in my lifestyle. The truck is a midsize, smaller than the full size pickups and averages 16 to 17mpg, I can atleast reach over that bed when I cant do that with the bigger trucks.

The Firbird gets much better than 18mpg. Try 22-23mpg on average, and it has gotten 31mpg on the interstate. Thats about what most cars except econo cars get anyways.

I'll buy a more efficient or alternative fueled car/truck that performs the same affordable, and looks as good as what I have now. In the mean time, do not tell me what I can and can not drive! They are both payed off, and I'll be keeping them for a good while.

[obiwan]

199. Not telling you what to drive. Freedom of choice. Just curious,why?

I will reevaluate my thoughts. I drive a 2007 Honda Fit. (It was only $16,000 brand new and the insurance is reasonable, too. I own it free and clear; I agree with you. It's a nice feeling).It only gets 35-38 mpg. I'll post a picture when available. I am 6'3" and 250 lbs and this car fits fine. It will also haul anything I care to. I play electric bass, and I routinely haul around my amps, instruments, and accessories, no problem. I don't know about dirt bikes cause I don't have any. I can barely afford gas as it is, because I'm 100% disabled and live on $1300 a month here in southern California.

The car makes sense to me on a practical level as I worked in mechanical engineering until becoming disabled.

[flvegan]

6. Cheering potential death of American car makers? Epic.

:popcorn:

If anyone thinks that Americans will abandon their love of the automobile? Congrats on your ignorance.

[undergroundpanther]

15. when gas was over 4 bucks a gallon

There was a reduction of driving...What if gas was ten bucks a gallon?
I bet there would be alot less driving. I bet that there would be more scooters, bikes and walking.I bet people would be looking for jobs closer to home.I bet there would be many changes.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

33. With all due respect

you're a tad shortsighted.

Sure, there'd be less driving, but by whom? Only the poor will ultimately pay that penalty. The hummingbird-tongue canape crowd doesn't care if gasoline's $20/gallon. Only poor folks and working folks do. So they'll drive less. Less driving to work. Less driving to stores.

Where do you live? I don't live in McSuburb America. It's six miles to the nearest grocers, one-way, over a mountain. What's your solution for the America that has NO public transportation infrastructure and no hope of having one?

I understand your point and generally agree with it, but it's generally best not to kill the lame horse you're riding till you find a hale one to mount.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice

[bluecollarcharlie]

152. Oh my God a voice of sanity here. For a while , i thought i was on FREEP.

[PVnRT]

49. Uh-huh. People still need to get to work

I'm sure you live in a large city and can't understand this, but many of us live nowhere near public transportation. Kind of hard to save up for a new means of transport when you suddenly have your budget eaten up by ridiculous gas prices that ivory-tower idiots think is a good idea.

[obiwan]

205. Can't afford a fuel efficient auto cause you live in the boonies and gas is a fortune?

Which came first, gas gobbling cars or high fuel prices?


When I went to Europe about 5 years ago, gas was already over 4 bucks U.S. I took the hint and rented a Nissan Micra. It hauled three of us (good sized people) and our stuff all over Ireland and averaged a little over 40 mpg.

[undergroundpanther]

16. Sorry, double post

[tama]

43. I sincerely believe

what you say, that Americans will rather die than abandon their love of the automobile. Now, what does that say about Americans and their future...?

[Touchdown]

75. As long as Sonic makes good burgers...

People will need cars to eat them in. :fistbump:

[obiwan]

206. Maybe fuel efficient cars so you can afford Sonic Burgers.

Personally, I like their mile-long chili-cheese dogs. Yum!

[Leopolds Ghost]

168. "Their" love?

Aren't you including yourself?

[MadHound]

7. Can it be cut back drastically, sure

But we're always going to need some sort of individual transportation. Some of us live out in rural areas, where mass transit will never go. Some of us need to to carry large loads on a regular basis. Not saying that we can't cut down, but we'll just never eliminate it.

[undergroundpanther]

14. lack of oil and cost of gas

might end it for you.

[MadHound]

48. No, there will still be that need for farmers,

Who in turn will need to haul large loads over long distances. All that an end to oil will mean is simply a shift in the mode of transportation, either going to electrical, or going back to animal power.

[spoony]

8. Yeah we can all "re-connect" in the fucking soup lines.

:eyes:

[undergroundpanther]

19. Yep

and you know what,unless we stop bowing to the boss, buying what we are told to buy,and quit being so damn obedient and corporate dependant and if we fail to force the rich to share there will be loooong soup lines.

[TheWraith]

9. Sorry, but the idea of pure mass transit is utter fantasy.

Yes, we need and should have more mass transit, particularly long-distance. However, nobody can look at the rural areas of this country and say that people there don't need individual vehicles. This isn't Europe: the US is a whole lot bigger and a lot less densely populated. That means individual vehicles to get from point A to point B. And frankly, people who complain about how we need to get rid of "car culture" strike me as more obsessed about an arbitrary point of philosophy than the real world.

[undergroundpanther]

13. umm oil is not in endless supply.

regardless of what you call my fantasy, car culture is a fantasy,because it is unsustainable in the real world.
People in rural areas may have to become more'dense' and form small communities.
People lived without cars before.Eventually we will have to learn to live without them again.That is reality.

[dysfunctional press]

35. electric cars, plug-in bio-diesel hybrids, and other alternative-fueled vehicles...

THAT is reality.
what you seem to desire is a total fantasy.

[tama]

45. You can't

build enough renewable energy to replace falling oil production - when it starts to fall, next decade - only small fraction of.

There may be energy for some electric cars and bio-diesel - perhaps enough for some trucks, tractors, busses, trains etc., most vital transportation. Some toys for the few rich. But no car culture.

[MadHound]

95. Actually there is enough renewable energy to replace oil

Michael Briggs out of University of New Hampshire has calculated that we would only need 15,000 sq. miles of water to grow enough algae for biodiesel feedstock in order to fuel our transportation needs at their current levels. That's not much space at all.
<http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html>

Back in '91 the DOE calculated that there's enough wind power in only three states, N Dakota, Kansas and Texas to power our entire electrical grid, including the growth factor, through the year 2030. That doesn't mean that we're going to pave over these three states with turbines, but it does go to show you that we've got enough clean, renewable resources to maintain our current lifestyle and still not use one drop of oil, coal, nuclear, etc.

We have the means, what we're lacking is the national will to make this transition.

[tama]

120. From what I hear

scientists studying algae growing have not been able to solve the EROEI problem. It's not the space, it's the energy that harvesting a system requires to produce a positive EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested). And that equation, the crucial one, remains unsolved.

Wind is more promising, but the level of investment required (including and especially investment of remaining fossile fuel energy to build wind power) does not seem socially feasible. It's still all insanity and pure consumerism instead of any attempt to invest remaining fossile energy into renewable energy in any serious way. Especially so with global recession and depression where all efforts go to bailing out the bottomless pits called banks and some crumbles into mindless consumerism.

Sorry to be a realist.

[MadHound]

121. Umm, I don't know where you're getting your information

But you generally harvest algae with large skimming nets:shrug: The EROEI problem is really nonexistent.

And actually Obama is promising a major push into using wind power and renewables, along with constructing the energy grid to service them, which would provide us with a new manufacturing sector and boost our economy. A good plan too, similar to that which Clinton devised concerning the high tech sector.

[tama]

122. My information

is from a professional studying the EROEI aspect of "second generation biofuels".

[MadHound]

124. That's cool, but that's also the difference between the ivory tower and the real world

My information comes from a neighbor down the road who is into niche crops. He raises edible algae and harvests it via large skimming nets. This same process, with some mechanical modification, could be used on a large scale operation for oil bearing algae.

And somehow I doubt that it costs 5000 gallons of oil per acre to harvest algae. In fact algae can be, and already is, grown as part of the first stage filtering of wastewater, no need for fertilizer.
And small scale, small farm production of algae is also easy on the EROEI
<http://oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm>

I think that your professional friend needs to get out of the ivory tower and into reality more often.

[dysfunctional press]

101. you are mistaken about that- but you're certainly welcome to your misguided opinion.

:hi:

[Leopolds Ghost]

177. Are you an oil industry professional or an energy engineer?

I'll take the words of experts in the field and in the laws of thermodynamics, thank you.

[dysfunctional press]

197. neither of those...

but the ones i get my info from, are.

you're welcome. :hi:

[Leopolds Ghost]

189. What is "pure" mass transit? Sorry, mass transit has nothing to do with intercity rail

The two issues are separate. Intercity rail competes with plane and auto travel.

Mass transit is a means of connecting 80% of the US population who either live in
densely developed urban areas or their surrounding suburbs (which were designed by
US engineering code to restrict alternative means of transit as much as possible,
by design, as anyone who has studied the subject professionally understands.)

[Two Americas]

218. not true

There was once rail service to every small town all through the Midwest, and in every part of the country.

[readmoreoften]

10. Not everywhere in the US is a large city. Not everyone can afford to live in a large city.

NYC is "walkable" and shitty housing starts at a million with the same minimum wage. Small cities in Texas and Iowa is unwalkable but decent housing starts under 100K. Do the math.

[undergroundpanther]

12. The problem

Is no infrastructures for public transport have been built because the auto industry made sure Americans are addicted to cars.Despite what you might want, Oil will not last forever.There will come a time where people will have to change the way they live ,suburban sprawl will have to go,and people will have to walk more and SHARE transportation burdens via mass transit.There was life before the car.There will be life after the car.There was life before corporations,there will be life when they die.

It will happen.there will be an end for car culture it is unsustainable.So is suburban sprawl,and capitalism.

[dysfunctional press]

36. you do realize that there are ways to power automobiles that doesn't require petroleum, right?

...cuz it sure don't seem that way. :shrug:

[knitter4democracy]

115. Much of Michigan's "suburban sprawl" is towns that are from before cars.

Towns forged in the woods near the mines or on the rivers. I guess I can look forward to fighting the town ordinance against livestock in the city limits and taking a horse to see my mom, who lives 45 minutes away by car. I'm not sure how my husband will get to both of the offices he covers (in Marshall, one of the towns considered for the state capital in the 1830s, and Tekonsha, to the south, almost as old) and both hospitals, a half hour commute.

[Leopolds Ghost]

172. What the hell does public transit have to do with population density? Ulaanbataar has a subway.

Oh, I forgot, you're one of the majority of DUers who believe the system must be oversubscribed and confined to densely developed areas and kept out of your leafy subdivisions (where 70% of all Americans live) in order to "turn a profit".

I posted a viable plan for a Kansas City subway here on DU and got nothing but jeers from anti-urban anti-transit do-nothings here on DU.

No mention of the fact that $10 billion is a small price to pay for a comprehensive subway system in one of the cheapest places to tunnel in America.

No mention of subway-surface or innovative other ideas that you've never heard of because you don't ride transit.

ULAANBATAAR has a fucking subway.

[krispos42]

17. Sure, no problem.

I'll walk to Albert Lea and back twice a week to pick up my kid from my ex's house. No problem.


Or maybe I can ride a bike. It's only 155 miles each way, 620 miles per week.


Yeah, no problem at all.



Ooooooor, I can take the non-existant bus! Or the non-existant train! Because every small town in rural America has non-existant bus and rail service to every other rural small town, you know.

[undergroundpanther]

20. Yes I know.

But truthfully this lifestyle cannot go on forever.

Eventually everyone will be forced to make some hard choices,and towns will be forced to change.Our culture has forced people to move to chase work,or other things,This culture is rootless.
No roots put down, so families are scattered over hundreds of miles.Relying on cars.Very bad place to be,and you can thank greedy auto makers who block public transport initiatives for this mess.
Car culture and capitalism made this mess.

And like usual we will have to find another way.

When gas is a luxury,that hundred mile trek might not be a common trip.You might have to renegotiate with your ex how the custody is handled.Because in the future that kind of trip might prove very costly.And I think food and warmth might override the car trip.
This is what we are facing,unless we get organized and push for decent public transport now wherever we are ,before it is too late and fuel makes cars a luxury item.

[krispos42]

26. Yes, it can go on forever

And it probably will. The cities can't hold everybody, which was part of the reason for the massive expansion of suburbs in the post-World-War-Two period. Even now, with plentiful public and private transportion, it costs ridiculously huge amounts of money to get a tiny apartment in a big city. Now imagine how much more that would cost when the commuters and city-visiting regulars all have to move back into urban area?

People want room. Fast, easy and cheap tranport gived them that room. The fuels can, must change. Ultracapacitor-powered cars charged by clean fusion power is my guess on how it will ultimately work out. But that's in the future, but almost certainly well within my lifetime.

Breaking up large consolodated transnational corporations will go a long way towards prevening this all-over-the-country spread that we have.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

86. There were two reasons for the massive expansion of the suburbs in America:

1. Cheap loans for the returning GIs after WWII and real estate companies ready to take advantage

2. Racism. Deliberate blockbusting by real estate agents until the mid 1960s. Real estate agents would go through perfectly stable neighborhoods and induce panic selling by telling residents that the area was "going colored, oh, and by the way, we have this nice little subdivision off the bus line so you'll never be bothered by those colored people again." Panic selling lowered the prices that buyers could get for their houses, which fed the myth (encouraged by the real estate agents) that having even one black family move into a neighborhood "lowered property values."

Even if you say that suburbanization was inevitable, there's no reason that it had to be totally auto-centric. Until 1954, Minneapolis had streetcar lines that ran all the way to Lake Minnetonka. (I forget how far they ran east of St. Paul, but pretty far.) Smart planners would have

1) Built their commercial centers around streetcar stops

2) Prevented the dismantling of the streetcar system

If you look at suburbs in other countries, you see that they are served by transit and do NOT consist of jumbo houses on 2 acre lots.

Here we get absurd constructions like Carlson Parkway, a single street of two high-rise office towers, some office "parks," and apartment complexes built with no connection to anything else except by car (and in the middle of nowhere when it was built).

[comtec]

46. DO YOU?! Do you REALLY ? because you don't come off as reasonable

You can't get rid of cars, not for a country as vast as the USA.
You C A N change what we fuel our transportation with.
it is not unfeasible to make windmills to generate electricity.
The tech is actually very old and basic, and affordable.

We can re-tool bicycles to be electric generators. batteries from older vehicles can be used (re-use is the first of the 3 R's in recycling) to store said energy created by the bike generators.

Computers, TVs, everything is consuming less and less power now a days.

We also need to clean our own garbage up. STOP sending E-garbage over seas, for several reasons.

ONE - it's fucking toxic and to be honest 3rd world countries do NOT have any capacity to deal with those materials SAFELY, we do

TWO - it's a TON of valuable, and useful materials! we can use the led from TV's as well as the glass! not to mention teh valuable metals on computer motherboards! We can use the left over inert materials (most motherboards are fiberglass) as insulation or road materials, along with chopped up tires!!!

AND STEEL! Computer cases (at least the old ones) are made with steel! Steel that we NEED to build in this country, and we're just wholesale GIVING IT AWAY... how stupid is that?

We could use that steel to make new alt-energy based vehicles, or wind turbines, you need ferromagnetic materials to make a generator (similar polarities being forced together causes electricity)

We can't stop the "car culture" because it's a direct reflection of our freedom of movement.

but we CAN clean up the process greatly.

[Grinchie]

193. The Car Culture was a Goverment Subsidized Job Creation Tool

After World world II. It servered it's purpose, but the goverment got lazy and forget to move on to the next step.

It's true that the automobile employs millions of Americans, but exponentional growth is not the answer. At some point you run out of roads due to the crushing load of cars, and the environment suffers as well.

Personally, a real effort needs to be made to allow people to have the choice not to own a car, and not be forced into car ownership because it would hurt the auto industry.

Do you ignoramuses even realize how much water is polluted when it falls onto one acre of freeway? Do you even think of how much water never makes it into the aquifers because of roads, parking lots and other wasteful land uses? Do you even realize how many acres of roads and parking lots exisit in the United States? Did the auto companies build those roads, or did you?

Are you maintaining those roads?

The damage is done. A moratorium needs to be placed on ever growing numbers of cars.

[Winnipegosis]

18. What's with all the gloom and doom.

Cheer up.

It's not the end of the world! Not even close.

Car culture is AMERICAN culture. As far as this Canadian can see, it's nothing to be ashamed of.

[undergroundpanther]

21. And I do not find anything

in Car culture.It is toxic,violent,and isolating.American culture's main by product is loneliness.I don't like this kind of culture, or capitalism ,it is exploitative,abusive and unsustainable..

[Winnipegosis]

27. You're only as lonely as you feel.

Travis Bickle.

[undergroundpanther]

132. new age congitive therapy

crap.It doesn't fool everyone.

[Winnipegosis]

139. It's from the movie "Taxi Driver"

...amended by me, somewhat. So blame Paul Kaufman.

But, you already knew that.

[Winnipegosis]

37. "Subdivisions" by RUSH

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions ---
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions ---
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets on quiet nights...

[Waiting For Everyman]

44. Wow, good lyrics! Thanks.

It made me think of this, for some reason...

"Makin' Thunderbirds", Bob Seger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptx_dhA_5fk

The big line moved one mile an hour
So loud it really hurt
The big line moved so loud
It really hurt
Back in '55
We were makin' Thunderbirds

We filled conveyors
We met production
Foremen didn't waste words
We met production
Foremen didn't waste words
We were young and proud
We were makin' Thunderbirds

We were makin' Thunderbirds
We were makin' Thunderbirds
They were long, and low, and sleek, and fast
They were all you ever heard
Back in '55
We were makin' Thunderbirds

Now the years have flown and the plants have changed
And you're lucky if you work
The big line moves but you're lucky if you work
Back in '55
We were makin' Thunderbirds

We were makin' Thunderbirds
We were makin' Thunderbirds
They were long, and low, and sleek, and fast
They were 'classic', in a word
Back in '55
We were makin' Thunderbirds
We were young and proud
We were makin' Thunderbirds
We were young and sure
We were makin' Thunderbirds


I guess we should remember that we used to be good at this (and can be again). :)

[Dogmudgeon]

55. And then we have ...

My Pappy said, "Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin'
If you don't stop drivin' that
Hot ...
Rod ...
Lincoln"

:evilgrin:

--p!

[Touchdown]

82. Even the Brits got into car culture.

Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere, I dont care
I dont care, I dont care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought oh god, my chance has come at last
(but then a strange fear gripped me and i
Just couldnt ask)

Take me out tonight
Oh, take me anywhere, I dont care
I dont care, I dont care
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I havent got one, da ...
Oh, I havent got one

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure - the privilege is mine

The Smiths- There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

[Mopar151]

210. Thanks for the hate - what's up with that?

What are you calling "car culture", anyway? 'Cuz a lot of the people you are counting on to get us out of this mess (like me!) - engineers, mechanics, technicans, welders, machinists, millwrights, pipefitters, roughnecks, roustabouts and gandy dancers - are NASCAR fans, motorcyclists, weekend racers, hot rodders, robot team mentors, quarter-midget moms and crewchief dads.

Hey, I don't like dickheads in Escalades either - but the Escalade did'nt buy the dickhead.....

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

211. best thing I've read on this thread

This gearhead salutes you, because of you want to know how fuel efficiency, aerodynamic efficiency and mechanical efficiency got to cars in the first place go to your local racetrack.

Europe and Japan got the message early. You can have a car that is efficient, practical and fun. The problem with Detroit is the wrong people run the GMs, Fords and Chrsylers and the people who should run them end up at General Dynamics, Rockwell or in a university lab somewhere.

Where are Detroits Colin Chapmans and Sochiro Hondas? Where are the modern day Carroll Shelbys and Smokey Yunicks?

They are needed now more than ever.

[Waiting For Everyman]

28. It's silly season again.

We cut off our own noses (no vote on the auto bailout) and then act like Chicken Littles (the sky is falling).

What we have here, is a generation or two that doesn't know what it's like to go through a major crisis here on our own soil. Take a chill pill and buckle up kids, it's going to get bumpy.

What's with the either/or false choice anyway? There's natural gas, there's batteries coming along - an alternate fuel source will work out. It's BOTH - mass transit and individual cars. It's never going to be practical in the US to have no cars. All we need to do, is do it well. Not impossible, not even close to impossible.

[Winnipegosis]

38. Well said.

[Leopolds Ghost]

178. There will be no new funding for mass transit under the next administration.

I will bet you dollars to donuts, dead serious here. They just slashed all new mass transit in the BLUE state of MD to support a highway that will benefit the ultra-liberal Obama voters in Montgomery County (who were all for doing so, they have no support for mass transit in THEIR suburbs. They and you want highways, by funding priority and by default.)

[backscatter712]

25. Build infrastructure... One way for the car companies to do something useful.

Build cars... Train cars! Specifically, passenger cars for a new rail infrastructure that needs to be built, because we can't do things like reducing our dependence on foreign oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and so on if everyone continues to drive everywhere.

Build rails. LOTS of rails. Build busses. Build subways. Build enough mass transportation that we don't need cars.

It gives the car companies something useful to build, so auto industry workers can stay employed, and does something good for the world.

[Mopar151]

212. Exactly!

Here in NH, we've watched a corrupt and reptilian robber baron ruin our rail system. We ought to be about fixing it and making it work!

[hunter]

30. Geez, Mr. Car Culture stumbles into the E.R. bleeding to death...

...and you kick him in the head.

:thumbsup:

Damned drunk drivers. They should have taken away that fucker's license and put his assets to better use a long time ago.

Oh look, here comes the repo man...

It was pretty damned inevitable.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

31. Couldn't we maybe comprise a little bit?

I don't think we're going to do away with private personal transportation any time soon. America is too spread out for universal public transportation, especially in giant sprawling places like Los Angeles. I do agree that our cars must become smaller and more efficient. At the same time, I think we need to start changing our freeway culture and the shape of American cities, making them more compact and with people living closer to their jobs. After France, for example, went through 10 years of deep depression during the 1930s, they then faced another 6 years of war on top of it. Their car industries were almost wiped out and the people couldn't afford expensive cars. The solution was to build teeny tiny cars that took up small spaces and that got terrific gas mileage and were low in cost. They weren't intended for car-destroying freeway stop-and-go traffic and they didn't go that fast. But they were practical compromises. I think we need modern versions of these small, highly fuel efficient vehicles (the Citroen got 78 miles per gallon, the most fuel efficient mass-produced car ever made) and we also need to start restructuring where and how we live. Maybe we need 3 wheel covered motor scooters that are only made for surface streets. If more people lived in town or on the edges of town and if suburban sprawl were reduced, they might become practical. The American dream of a four bedroom house with a front lawn and swimming pool in back needs to be reassessed.

Renault 4CV (top speed 65mph, 50 miles per gallon)



Citroen 2CV (top speed 45 mph, 78 miles per gallon)

[Ex Lurker]

32. Many of us live where there's no public transport and never will be

and don't tell us to move to the city.

[Indenturedebtor]

142. Do what you want but don't make me pay for your choices

With a spoiled earth and my tax dollars.

[dysfunctional press]

34. people prefer their cars- and if gm/ford/chrysler go under and out- cars won't go away.

they'll ALL be foreign branded,and the profits will all be going overseas.

[Hannah Bell]

203. They certainly will, if people don't have the money to buy or maintain them.

Or if other options are made cheaper or more attractive.

People's opinions & behavior are less inherent than situational. It's the circumstance that molds our "choice".

[SeattleGirl]

39. That won't work for a lot of people, including me

I am required to have a car for my job, as I have to go out for appointments. The bus or other alternative transportation won't work. I am expected to get to my appointments in the most efficient way possible. I really doubt my clients would pay for time spent on the bus, making transfers, etc.

I do believe we need more and more fuel efficient, hybrid, and electric cars.

But getting rid of the car culture?

Don't think that has a chance of happening.

[Hippo_Tron]

40. Okay show me a comprehensive plan to end the car culture and convert us to mass transit

Because if you haven't noticed it's not just a matter of building the mass transit. Many of our cities simply weren't built around a public transportation system. You would basically have to re-structure entire cities.

Not to mention the large amounts of people that live in small towns and rural areas. How do you propose we set up mass transit systems for them?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

61. Cars would still have to fill in the gaps, but as I learned when I lived in

a small town in Oregon, people drive much more than they have to.

The town I lived in in Oregon was very walkable when I moved there in 1986. You could cross the town from one end to the other on foot in half an hour. No need for an exercise program if you did your errands on foot. But people there were real car potatoes. They would literally drive from one end of the four-block downtown to the other, and I'm talking about healthy young people, not people with walkers or wheelchairs. I lived six blocks from downtown, and I walked there for exercise when I needed something there. Invariably, a friend or neighbor stopped and offered me a ride, assuming that I wouldn't possibly walk if my car weren't in the shop. It's a mindset: "My legs don't work outside the house."

In countries with good transit, even rural areas have good public transit, maybe not on the farm-to-farm level, but certainly on the town to town level. Rural dwellers will probably always need cars, but there's definitely room for improvement.

The UK has a pretty poor transportation system by European standards, and yet, bus coverage in rural areas is so good that one newspaper article reported that if you had the time and patience, you could literally travel from the south coast of England to the Scottish border by stringing together rides on local bus systems.

These kinds of transit systems are liberating for the elderly, who don't have to drive if they are no longer physically capable, for children, who don't have to be chauffeured everywhere, and for parents, who don't have to interrupt their day's activities to cart their kids around.

[DainBramaged]

41. Right, people like you are what we in the auto industry call Starbucks end timers

you work for minimum wage and live above the coffee shop you work at therefore everyone else should lose their freedom to travel because YOU are happy in your bizarre world.

No thanks. Oh, by the way, if we give up cars, can we regulate how much sex you have, what entertainment you enjoy, who your friends are, because we'll have lots of time on our hands to do that.

[Touchdown]

138. Since we can now buy 2 shares of GM stock for the price of a Coffee...

You might want to think twice about that analogy. ;)

BTW: I do agree with you on the goody-goody sanctimony of the OP.

[obiwan]

207. Cars are not sex. Although plenty of people think they are.

Cars are also not fashion accessories or lifestyle statements. They are transportation devices to get you from point A to point B.

Those who use their cars to define who they are need to indulge in, as they used to say, "agonizing reappraisal."

[earth mom]

47. We need environmentally sound cars & better public transportation.

But that doesn't mean we need to kill off Detroit. Those Union jobs are important to all of us. We must fight for them.


I live off a freeway that runs from California all the way up to the Canadian border. A couple of times a month, I travel north and every time I get on that freeway, I think how much easier it would be to just take a train the few hours it would take. Then at my destination, how great it would be to the catch a bus or rail to get where I want to go. But that kind of transportation is not in place. So I have no choice but to drive. That's the reality right now. But that doesn't mean that with the right person in charge in Washington DC it won't change. I've got my fingers crossed, though I'm not hopeful like I would be if Gore was finally in charge. :argh:

[JohnyCanuck]

51. In The Reality Lounge.

Latest blog entry from James Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency":

The world has changed faster than anyone realizes. One big question is how long the American people will stumble around in a daze before we get back to work doing constructive things in this country -- and by that I mean activities scaled to the resource realities of the years just ahead. More specifically, I mean how we are going to grow the food we eat without massive quantities of diesel fuel and petroleum-based "inputs" and also how we are going to make any of the useful products we need in an energy scarcer time.

Perhaps Mr. Obama knows that we're not going back to anything even close to the business-as-usual that shaped our lives for the generations born after 1945. I would advise him to begin thinking about this by dividing the problem into two parts. The first part is how his government might handle the sheer emotional fallout of a people whose standard-of-living will be pulled out from under them. For a while, perhaps the first year or so, the public is apt to be trusting and generous, especially regarding a president who has had some acquaintance with being short of cash himself, and who can speak English both clearly and empathetically. Mr. Obama stands a good chance at playing that role successfully, at least for a while.

The second part, though, is the more difficult operational and administrative matter of promoting the necessary downscaling of all the essential activities of daily life. This is especially difficult given the current trend of the government suddenly taking ownership of everything, from the banking system perhaps to certain areas of heavy industry (if Detroit gets its way). The Obama government will have to resist the temptation to prevent enterprises from failing. These failing things have to get out of the way before new activities can get underway. It will also require government leaders to tell the public the hard truth that it can't do everything we would like it to do.

SNIP

The transportation quandary suggests that we have to move away from the private automobile and commercial trucking, and that the airline industry is certain to contract dramatically. When are we going to start the discussion about rebuilding a US public transit system that was once the envy of the world? It no longer matters how much Americans love their cars, or even how much investment we've made in car infrastructure. At some point, we just have to face the fact that democratic mass motoring is no longer on the program. Nor is a commercial economy based on incessant motoring. (emphasis added)

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/11/in-the-reality-lounge.html

[raccoon]

52. I agree. I'd like to live in a society where I didn't need a car to get around. nt

[Subdivisions]

53. Oil depletion will take care of that in less than 10 years. It's already

the cause of global economic collapse, along with the financial Ponzi scheme, as has been widely predicted. Don't let the low oil prices fool you. Oil is still five times more expensive than "cheap oil".

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

56. While you may be stating things in an extreme form, I partly agree

There was civilization before cars, and there will be civilization after them--but only if we start making adjustments NOW.

To all of you who say, "How am I going to do X if there are no cars?" you do realize, don't you, that the environment in which we are all auto dependent was deliberately created. Suburban sprawl is not a naturally occurring phenomenon that requires a car. It's an environment that was built and endlessly promoted (on TV, in newspapers, and by real estate agents who played upon the racism of white urban residents) as the only ideal living environment, all so that people would have to buy two cars per household.

Small towns were connected by trains. Suburbs were on streetcar routes. Most people didn't have to drive around vast distances for their jobs.

Proponents of the bailout want the government to say, "OK, Detroit, here's some money. Now go keep making the same-old same-old cars," which is poor business and environmentally unsustainable. I'm not talking only about pollution or oil supplies. I'm talking about land use. Suburban sprawl is destroying wildlife habitat, disrupting bird migration patterns, and causing us to become fragmented and less community-oriented. In some metropolitan areas, there is literally no way to build more highways without destroying the social and commercial fabric.

http://www.newcolonist.com/rr11.html

Instead, the bailout should be contingent on Detroit retooling to build more buses and trains, and the Federal Department of Transportation should stop building new highways, concentrate on maintaining the old ones, and encourage cities and towns down to the size of 50,000 to build bus and/or rail systems that make it unnecessary to live without a car. (Such a national project would also create a vast number of blue collar jobs.)

A lot of people on this thread are afraid of change, but many of us have been car-free in good environments, and it's absolutely liberating. Imagine not having to pay for gas or insurance or repairs or worry about where you're going to find a parking place. I first experienced this freedom in Tokyo, where suburban development follows the rail lines. When I moved from Portland to Minneapolis, my biggest regret was that I would need a car in Minneapolis, and because of that, I suffered an immediate $3,000 drop in disposable income, even though I "inherited" my mother's second car--earning about the same, paying similar consumer prices, and yet feeling poorer.

Imagine how much a suburban family that is paying off, insuring, driving, and maintaining two or three cars could save if the infrastructure allowed them to get rid of one of the vehicles.

Portland, Oregon, is probably the mid-sized U.S. city with the best public transit system, not only rail but a vast and well-coordinated bus system, a system so good that you can go to most major destinations in the suburbs without a car. People in most cities would find it incredible that I could go to suburban movie theaters, restaurants, shopping malls, community colleges, medical clinics, and even residential neighborhoods on the bus or by a combination of train and bus seven days a week.

Portland's system didn't just happen. Until the 1970s, the local government intended the area to be tied up with a lattice of freeways, but then plans were announced to build a freeway through a unique historic neighborhood, and the locals rose up against it--successfully.

The secret of good public transit is how you think about it. The Twin Cities seem to be thinking in terms of, "How do we get people to work and back?" There's little coordination among the modes and bus lines. Portland asks the question, "How can we make it easy to live without a car?" and the bus and rail lines are beautifully coordinated.

Most people in Portland still drive, but the number of car-free people grew visibly during the ten years I lived there.

Now I lived in a small town for 7 years, and people there were odd about transportation. Until the big box stores and fast food joints came in (they simply exploded in the 1990s, doubling the footprint of the town), the town was perfectly walkable, and yet, people seemed to be allergic to walking. They were incredulous that I would walk six blocks downtown when I had a car. They would literally drive from one end of the four-block downtown to the other. There was no intrinsic reason that most of the population couldn't walk or bike to most destinations, and yet they all drove. That's not an infrastructure problem. That's a mindset.

I don't believe that cars can be eliminated, but they can be made smaller and more fuel-efficient and to a large extent, they can be replaced by public transit if Americans can get over their hang-ups.

In the Vegetarian Epicure, an early veggie cookbook, published 1973, when vegetarianism was rare, author Anna Thomas talks about the average person's (at that time) idea that a vegetarian meal would be a typical American meal without the meat: i.e. mashed potatoes and a boiled vegetable. That's because they don't realize that becoming a vegetarian requires re-imagining what a meal is.

So the day will come when we have to reimagine our lives, break away from the Fake American Dream of a trophy house with three vehicles in an exurb, and adjust. We can start adjusting now by thinking seriously about whether we really have to drive two blocks to the store. If the time comes to move to a new community, we can choose our residence based on convenience and access to transit. (That's what I did when I moved to Minneapolis. I chose a neighborhood with what passes for good bus service here and with a lot of stores and services within walking distance.) We can demand better transit from our local governments.

But if we react with knee-jerk, Madison Avenue-induced "but I love my car" reactions, we'll get what we deserve for our stubbornness and lack of vision: more hours in traffic, more destroyed habitat, more social fragmentation, more feeling financially strapped.

[GOTV]

94. typo: "make it unnecessary to live without a car" other than that what you wrote is great n/t

[bread_and_roses]

213. The Vegitarian Epicure is a wonderful cookbook - even if you are not a vegitarian

My 1973 copy (oversized paper) finally fell apart - literally. I keep meaning to replace it. Best chocolate desert ever.

[-..__...]

57. Fuck that!

Bring back the good old days when 8 cylinder fire breathers ruled the roads... :smoke:

[CRF450]

59. Not digging those S-10 wheels

[surrealAmerican]

58. I agree with you. Public transportation needs to be massively ...

... improved in this country. It needs to cover not just the major cities, but smaller towns and rural areas too. You can see by the other responses in this thread, though, that getting past the "car culture" is going to be a long, and frequently painful process. It will require building an infrastructure nation-wide that simply doesn't exist now, and will be very costly. It's worth it in the long run, but right now, we're going to have trouble coming up the funds to do it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

60. BAHHHHHHH ROARRRRRRR SNARFFFFF GARBLE GARBLE ROARRRRRR!!!!!!

[mudesi]

119. It's been a while since you've posted that

Where has he been? :evilgrin:

[no limit]

62. Sure, let's go back to the barter system while we are at it.

We'll probably have to anyway once 10% of the entire work force is killed off because of your hippie pipe dream.

[LibertyLover]

Gosh thanks for thinking of those of us who live where there is no viable public transportation

I'd love to be able to give up one of the 2 cars my husband and I own, but it's not happening. I have to get to work. Were I to try and use what passes for public transportation where I live to get just to the nearest DC Metro station, it would take me, conservatively two and a half hours one way. So, I drive to the Metro, park my car and take Metro downtown to work. It "only" takes an hour and a half and I get to see my husband and kid some in the evening before she has to go to bed. Then, running errands like food shopping. Again, no public transportation. The closest food store is 2 and half miles away. Biking? Could be done, but you know - it's damned difficult to carry much on a bike. Or taking the dogs to the vet's - just yesterday we had to take our 12 year old greyhound to the vet's for the last time. Try doing that on public transportation.

[LibertyLover]

63. Gosh thanks for thinking of those of us who live where there is no viable public transportation

sorry got posted twice.

[Throd]

64. You don't understand gearheads...

When gas runs out we will power our cars with something else.

[hunter]

68. Yabba-Dabba-Doo!

Artist beats ticket for 'driving' pedal car

ANDREW WALLACE/TORONTO STAR

Spectators giggle as prosecutor points out dangers of operating fake Buick

Apr 04, 2008 04:30 AM

Robyn Doolittle
Staff Reporter

The prosecutor's case began to unravel when he turned his attack to the tea light-candle headlights.

Up until that point, Daniel Lerner had argued that the car in question was unsafe because of its dangerous braking system. Granted, classifying the hollowed-out Buick a car is a bit of a stretch.

http://www.thestar.com/article/410165

[Book Lover]

71. You got that right!

n/t

[imnothere]

67. I cannot stand cars...they suck

I never had one, never want one. They have destroyed so much.

[undergroundpanther]

128. I hate cars too

I walk most places. Bus for the rest.The bus is crappy out here and there are few sidewalks this place is built around fucking cars, not people..but..
Anyway a walk by car ridden roads shows you up close& personal how violent cars are,when they pass you the roaring, look at the fucking impatient drivers who gotta get there NOW and whine over a red light.To me I never had a car,don't want one ,I am one who walks and lives in sprawl,the red light whining is so two year old to me because it takes me 15 minutes one way to reach a drugstore,18 minutes one way to the bus stop,to get to a strip mall it's close to 40 minutes one way,.If you walk the roadsides you see soot covered plants,small trees bent like bonzai by the constant motion of the air fast moving cars cause,the dead mutilated animals sad sad to see,all the trash tossed out car windows. It is truly disgusting sad and so wasteful. Cars made Americans into spoiled brats in some ways.Cars made Americans addicted to speed ,a intolerance of taking things at a slower pace(what do Americans feel they must constantly be busy?what are they distracting themselves from feeling?..and cars brought the I want it yesterday mentality of a bully or a type asshole adult child demanding shit. To me, it's SICK on so many levels,most of them most americans do not even have the guts to face.. Thank you,imnotthere for saying the ultimate Taboo in this country, that you hate cars.

[Mopar151]

214. Panther, I'm sorry you have issues - but why hate?

We are all in this together, unless you hadn't noticed....
I would agree with you that sprawl living has many stupid, wasteful aspects - but should'nt we be talking about ways to cut down our driving in circles (that makes nobody happy)? Should'nt we be building you a better bus? Or at least getting you a better road shoulder, instead of a saber-tooth ditch?

[GOTV]

69. But I have a RIGHT to live far from the things that I value ....

... and society has an OBLIGATION to provide the cars and cheap energy that enable me to do so.

[PVnRT]

76. Hmmmmmm

Do you think the minimum-wage workers at a McDonald's in Lake Forest (very expensive area near Chicago) can afford to live near where they work? It's not always by choice.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

77. That's a structural problem

The wealthy suburbs were purposely built to keep the poor out. A typical pattern is to have bus service out to wealthy suburbs only in the morning and back only at night. This allows the maids and groundskeepers to get to their day jobs.

Do you think the minimum wage workers in Lake Forest would have an easier time financially if they didn't have to buy and maintain cars, even old beaters, but could spend less than the cost of running a car to buy a monthly transit pass?

[PVnRT]

83. I don't argue that

That falls under infrastructure improvements. My beef is with people who take the simpleton attitude of "Duh, just move to the city! It's so easy!" It ignores the fact that most people can't just up and move, nor find jobs with relocation packages.

And there are those of us like me and my wife who hate living in crowded areas. I suppose that makes me a bad guy to the true liberals of DU.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

87. No, but just be aware

Sometimes people act as if the only choices are a downtown condo or a trophy house on a recently subdivided former farm.

There's no law that says that suburbs can't be both pleasant and walkable. If people want to live in islands in the cornfields, a mile away from the nearest store or service, there's no reason why those islands can't be connected by bike/pedestrian paths instead of just by freeways.

[GOTV]

88. People that built a life around cheap cars and energy made a bad choice.....

... You're not bad people. But your choices do not constitute an obligation on the rest of us to provide you the cheap cars and fuel that enable your lifestyle.

You're going to have to move near the stuff you want - or make a lot more money.

[PVnRT]

89. Who is demanding that?

Have I demanded that you subsidize my gas or car payments? Where do you get this strawman about "obligation" and what not?

Besides, not everything can exist in a city. Speaking of transportation, industry is going to have to start moving closer to their raw materials, which aren't in the city, or pay ever-higher costs in money for transport and in public relations.

[GOTV]

91. Then why is where someone lives an argument about what should be done about the "car culture" ....

... let's not preserve the car culture, or fail to raise gas prices so that its real cost is covered, just because you chose to make yourself dependent on it.

I think reducing the national dependence on gas would be a good thing overall. If gas prices doubled we'd start moving that way. If you say I can't do that because you want to live in the country then your choice of lifestyle is creating an obligation on the rest of us not to take a certain course of action - raising gas prices.

[Raskolnik]

109. A couple of questions for you, since you don't like being obligated to pay for those

people who have made the choice to be dependent on cheap cars and fuel for their lifestyle.

How does the food get delivered to your local grocery store?

How do the clothes you wear make their way from the manufacturer to your closet?

How do the farms and factories that produce the things you need to live get the things they need to operate?

Where was the computer you're using right now built, and how did it get to your house?

[GOTV]

118. Oooooh you got me there. I never THOUGHT about all the trucks....

Gimme a break. What does that have to do with reducing the "car culture", the point of this thread?

I'm all for paying more for items shipped a long distance. I'm all for encouraging people to buy from local sources.

If you're going to say we can't raise gas prices because you simply must have Maine lobster every weekend I've got the same problem with you. I don't want to provide you with cheap shipping just so you can eat Maine lobster in New Mexico. If you can afford to eat that way when gas is brought to it's proper price - great for you. If not, I don't feel sorry for you. Buy food from a nearby farmer.

But I don't think trucks, carrying several tons of food to stores, do near the damage all cars do carrying a single person each out to the country home they think they have a right to.

[Raskolnik]

125. You stated that people that built their lives around cheap energy made a bad choice

Your life is built around cheap energy.

[GOTV]

154. Not true. I'm for more expensive gas and I'll pay for it.

I'll buy local when I can and when I can't I'll pay the cost of the shipping, the gas, the environmental damage and the cost of defending the oil.

I am not one of those who who uses lifestyle choices which I can change as an excuse for why we can't make progress towards sustainable policies.

I'm stuck with cheap energy against my will.

[GOTV]

80. Economics determines where you can live - the country may be out of range for many of you soon ...

... the availability of cheap cars and cheap gas factored into the choices those workers made. Small cheap towns have McDonald's too. For their next home or job they'll probably make different choices.

[PVnRT]

85. You can only move if you have money

Period. If a company doesn't pay you to move, you can't take a job elsewhere. That is reality for most people on the low end of the job scale.

[GOTV]

90. You can't stay where you can't afford either .... something's got to give

You'll move when the cost of staying is higher than the cost of moving.

At the end of the day no one owes you the means to afford to live where you want. I'm not living in my #1 choice either. Can't afford it.

[Strathos]

70. I'm a liberal through and through, but I say NO BAILOUT for auto industry

If they are bailed out, nothing will ever change.

[spoony]

123. So the change you're looking for is a Greater Depression

You're not a liberal.

[mzmolly]

72. One of the last good union jobs in this country is working for the Auto Makers.

I'd rather see them restructure and build environmentally friendly cars that could help out agriculture or ?? as well?

[StrictlyRockers]

73. Gas should be taxed up to $10.00 per gallon. We should use it to fund public transportation.

Truth!

[hunter]

84. Yes. Public transportation systems built and run by union workers!

The same people who build automobiles now, the same people who are now unemployed.

We need to grab all this money that's flying around in useless market flim-flam and direct it to the people who actually build things.

It's pretty obvious now that our petroleum based transportation system is unsustainable so we have to retool and rebuild and create a modern transportation system that does not require huge inputs of imported oil.

Money has to go to people who work hard and spend it, not to the people who shuffle it around as an abstract symbol of ownership. Owning something is not the same as making something. There are things that must be made or tommorrow will be a much darker place than today.

[sfam]

117. Naw, go for $40 a gallon.

If you're gonna be absurd, you might as well stop with the halfway stuff.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

136. That's a great idea, then lets raise the minimum wage to $50 dollars a hour to pay for it.

[colinmom71]

150. Will persons with disabilities be allowed to be exempt from your notion of a proper gas tax?

See, some persons with mobility disabilities (or even some with other less obvious disability issues, like autism) may not be easily accommodated by your notion of public transportation. If my son has a medical emergency during late night to early morning hours, calling ahead for special needs transport is just not feasible. It's either a $2000 ambulance ride, or a relatively quick personal drive to the ER as needed.

As his parents, my son must have reliable and instant transport in emergent times according to his needs (not to mention my needs as his primary care-giver). We currently drive a Taurus Wagon to carry his wheelchair when our son is with us, and that has worked well until lately when my wagon has begun to age (it's 12 yrs old). We plan to buy a mini-van in a few months for the extra room for DS and his wheelchair, but fuel efficiency unfortunately must take a back seat to accommodating our son's transport and ambulatory needs.

An extra tax of $10 per gallon would be a terrible hardship for us, especially when we already have to spend close to $200 a month for DS's diapers (yes, disability related). It would also be a terrible hardship upon numerous other disabled persons who live independently with personal transport or for their family members (parents, spouses, children, etc.) who offer up personal transport to aid their needs. Please understand that a lot of rural and sub-urban areas do not always offer public transportation in general, never mind transport that is specifically designed to help disabled persons.

Yes, your tax ideas sounds like a nice simple "blanket" solution to help reduce gas consumption in general, but it doesn't take into account the fact that not all persons are equally impacted by this purported gas tax. Unfortunately, it has the potential to tax those most vulnerable and in need...

[Raskolnik]

78. That's a great idea!

Now, the only thing you need to clear up is whether you prefer to completely depopulate the vast majority of the interior of the United States, or whether you prefer to spend tens of trillions of dollars creating mass transit systems to serve all the small to medium-sized cities across the country and reconfiguing those cities infrastructure.

Which do you prefer?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

97. It would be cheaper than war

:shrug:

and it would solve the unemployment problem.

[Raskolnik]

103. No, it wouldn't.

What UP's poorly thought out post is suggesting equates to radically and completely rebuilding and/or replacing every city on the continent. Either that, or completely abandoning the vast majority of the interior of the continent.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

105. I don't think anyone is actually advocating banning cars entirely

but de facto compulsory car ownership is both a tremendous drain on the resources of the poor and downright crippling for people who can't afford even a beater or are physically or legally unable to drive.

Even in small towns, we could bring back inter-town rail or bus service with little modification of the infrastructure. For example, in Europe and Japan, there are one-car "rail buses" that run on the existing freight lines, and places that don't have the population to support full bus service may be able to support on-call vans or vans that circulate to major destinations every hour.

[Raskolnik]

108. The United States of America is not Europe or Japan

European nations and Japan are small, densely populated areas that lend themselves to the kinds of mass transit you are suggesting.

Take a look at a map of the U.S., take a look at the number of cities and small towns on the continent, and you tell me how you could possibly connect those cities and small town to each other with rail or other mass transit for anything less than tens of trillions of dollars.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

112. Within my lifetime, those places almost all had bus or rail links

The infrastructure is in place.

Besides, as I said, the rural areas will always need some cars. But making cars compulsory is very disenfranchising to those who can't drive, for whatever reason.

[NuttyFluffers]

155. i second this comment. Europe is surprisingly rural in many places -- yet it still works.

same thing with Japan. we could take rail or bus to many utterly puny towns. sitting here talking with many euro friends and roomies they also talk of small towns all interconnected with buses at least, several times a day, let alone local service. this concept of infrastructure is doable and has already been done. it's so disappointing that the american will has such a low opinion of its own power.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

157. We already have the roads between small towns

Just need to put buses on them, or vans, if the population is really small. There may not be enough population density to support Greyhound-size buses, but just about everywhere could support van service to the nearest larger population center.

In an area with a lot of clusters of rural poor houses, you could have a van that circulated every hour and took people to shopping, medical appointments, etc. and also picked up kids from after-school activities.

This would free up a LOT of disposable income for the poor, since running any car, even an old beater, takes lots of money. Indeed, the old beaters break down a lot, so you can end up spending all sorts of money on repairs or buying a new beater.

[Leopolds Ghost]

183. Most of those small towns have been emptied out by the car.

Only poor folks live there in those rural town centers now. You know, the folks center-right Dems claim that transit should only serve.

Oh, I forgot, center-right Dems intend to gentrify all those places into another Sarasota Springs when the urban areas grow unlivable.

[Leopolds Ghost]

184. How could you possibly connect those cities with ROADS for anything less than trillions of dollars?

Answer, you can't. And the 100% depreciation rate of rural roads is what, 50 years?

Meaning the replacement cost of the highway system has to be fully funded by money
from the GAS TAX (plus regressive property taxes on non-drivers) once every 25-50 years.

Guess what goes down when gas gets cheaper?

[dysfunctional press]

198. the roads are already there. (that's what all those lines on the map are)

people WANT cars, not trains.
and the technology is there to give them what they want.

[Hannah Bell]

204. And new ones are being built, & old ones maintained, for trillions of dollars.

If the spending, cost, advertising & convenience changes, peoples "wants" will change with them.

You may think people's desires are inherent & fixed, but they're not.

[dysfunctional press]

215. people will always prefer personal transport to mass transit.

we're individuals.

[Hannah Bell]

216. non seq.

[dysfunctional press]

217. not at all

[IsItJustMe]

81. I wish we had an anti-post recommend. For I would surly use it on this OP.

[KamaAina]

93. I guess you "surly" would.

I already gave out Freudian Post O' The Week yesterday. D'oh!

[IsItJustMe]

96. I have no clue what that meant. Must be a private thing.

[KamaAina]

98. You clearly meant to type "surely", but the post was itself "surly" in nature.

Thus, a so-called "Freudian slip". You'd be surprised how often it happens around here.

[IsItJustMe]

99. Nah. I will be honest. I can't spell worth a damn. LOL

[Leopolds Ghost]

169. Why, are you anti-public transit? You guys seem to want to confine it to the inner cities

Like you (suburban centrist Dems and your elected officials) did to public housing and public schoolchildren and are doing to affordable housing in general as we speak.

[KamaAina]

92. Automobile apartheid also means anyone who *needs* mobility

through walking, cycling, or public transportation -- notably, people with disabilities -- suffers discrimination in a built environment designed for automobiles.

You have no idea how many want ads I've gone over: "Bachelor's, check, management experience, check...", only to find at the end: "Valid driver's license and access to insured vehicle required." Translation: "No KamaAinas need apply." :grr: :banghead:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

106. And Oahu has a pretty good bus system

That's sad.

[KamaAina]

111. Sure, as long as you're going downtown or to Waikiki

many other routes operate infrequently. Those to outlying areas of the island can take an hour or more. Each way. Just going back and forth to the office, three miles from home, can take 45 minutes or even longer! Never mind trying to act like a professional and go to meetings and such during the day... :scared: And yet 47% of voters don't think we need rail transit. :eyes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=398&topic_id=476&mesg_id=476

Then again, 46% of voters nationally would presumably have been happy to see Hockey Mom Sarah succeed McThuselah as president... :scared:

[woo me with science]

149. I was actually going to make the opposite argument,

that for many with disabilities it would be hell to be forced to live in a place that assumes walking, biking, or shlepping to the bus stop in the rain will be easy or convenient.

My disabled neighbor has his own car, and I suspect he would be miserable if forced to relinquish it and move into a "walkable/bike-able" urban area.

[KamaAina]

161. Presumably your neighbor has a disability other than blindness

or cognitive/intellectual disability (the term "retarded" is considered obsolete and offensive).

For many of us, the option of driving is simply not available. Thus, we are marooned if we are outside the few large cities and college towns that offer decent transportation.

As far as I'm concerned, a "walkable/bikeable" urban area would necessarily include wheelchair access as well.

[woo me with science]

164. Which is fine, except when it's raining,

or if there is a considerable distance to go, or if he needs to carry more than a wheelchair will bear, etc. etc. etc.

I suspect my neighbor wants to keep his car. I hear and respect what you want and need, but all others who are disabled do not necessarily want or need the same thing. That was my point.

[robertpaulsen]

100. Patience. Peak Oil will kill car culture.

Whether we let it die calmly or go kicking and screaming. Our current economic infrastructure has no future. Car culture, along with suburbia, is headed to the dustbin of history.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

107. Yes, we can start preparing now, or we can pretend it's taken us by surprise.

sort of like the financial markets.

[Pathwalker]

104. How long does it take horse-shit to compost?

Because I'll need to know if this happens - I'm not going to EVER move into ANY city.

[hogwyld]

110. You may not have a choice

Either move to the city and be a member of society, or become like Mad Max and wander the desolate wilds alone. Your choice.

[Pathwalker]

113. Lol! I'm not that far from civiliation. I own enough land to sustain my family,

and a horse and buggy could get me to town and back. Not exactly out in the desolate wild, nor am I alone. We'll survive.

[crispini]

163. Not long at all, actually, and it's great in the garden.

I go to the neighboring stables and pick up a load for the compost pile every now and then -- and I live in the city. ;)

[Leopolds Ghost]

181. How long does it take the CHICKEN SHIT in your suburban yard to compost?

Oh, you didn't know what was in that fertilizer?

[knitter4democracy]

114. It will kill Michigan entirely. We're already limping along, drowning so to speak.

Most of our manufacturing jobs are gone. The ones left are mostly with the Big Three or their suppliers. Take away the Big Three without replacing those jobs, and we will die. I'm not saying that lightly--people are starving up here, and the snow's come early this year, so people freezing to death is a real possibility. In our small parish of just 40 families, six lost their jobs in the last year alone and are in desperate straits. Kids at the "good" elementary in town need the free breakfasts and lunches, and I have noticed that several students in my son's class there have only one or two outfits, no hats or boots, and are starved for any love that they can get.

Battle Creek used to have more cereal jobs, but many of those are gone now. GM had a huge plant not far away in Kalamazoo that had thousands of jobs that are now gone. Same with the paper mills, the carpet mills, and many of the car parts suppliers. Just over in Albion, a small town with a good liberal arts college, they lost 5,000 jobs in less than five years, and it's starting to look like a ghost town.

Kill off the Big Three, and you kill off Michigan overnight. Our state budget is crap, so we wouldn't be able to build the new bikeways and train routes to cover our very large state. Rural poverty is a huge problem here (I went to school with kids who lived in shacks with no running water and dirt floors--and that was in the late 1980s, early 1990s), and it's getting worse with high gas costs and food costs.

Please don't let our state die off for a utopian ideal. Please.

[KamaAina]

126. I have no interest in killing Michigan

The Big Three can make buses, streetcars, and fuel-efficient cars.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=398&topic_id=492&mesg_id=492

[knitter4democracy]

160. And who will buy them?

Fuel-efficient cars will be like any new technology--very expensive at first and only slowly getting cheaper as the parts get cheaper. If you try to sell them to a population that can't afford them, you won't sell any. Buses and streetcars are bought by cities, and all the city budgets in Michigan are so strapped that they're laying off police officers and can't buy enough salt for the roads this winter. Add in the fact that we only have a few big cities with the rest of the state being quite rural, and you have to wonder about those buses and streetcars and even trains. To get the Big Three to switch, you'll have to guarantee the funds, just like the feds did in WWII when they made tanks, planes, jeeps, and more for the war.

[sfam]

116. Automobile Aparthied? Perhaps you shoulda just used the Nazis instead...

There comes a time when an analogy loses any potency it might have once had. Usually this comes with someone over-reaches far past the point of absurdity - similar to this OP, for instance.

Yeah, we should send hundreds of thousands out of work because of the direction of society in the 20th Century - that all that is bad is clearly GM's fault. My guess is they're probably also responsible for putting the horrid high fructose corn syrup in all our foodstuffs, and probably had something to do with the Soviet Union's ability to dominate Eastern Europe.

Yes we absolutely need real mass transit. Yes we need to get off the gas addiction. I'm just not seeing how dramatically increasing levels of unemployment in a severely downturned market helps make that happen. Incidentally, I could be wrong, but I believe corporations are probably responsible for building the components of most mass transit systems around the world. Just sayin...

[undergroundpanther]

129. Ok it is a STIGMA

I have had stuff THROWN at me from moving cars why? Because the drivers thought they could get away with it.How would I ever catch them? They needeed a person to dump thier fucking frustrations on and I was a target.. It happens to alot of people who walk.
Secondly look at want ads for jobs most require you to have a CAR.That is a very real form of DISCRIMINATION.
Third,if you are disabled, an SSI check will not cover the cost of gas and maintenance of a car.

Fourth,there are places with no sidewalks,counties do not bother putting them in because people drive everywhere.There the grass is tall and the ground full of pits very easy to twist an ankle there you must walk gingerly.And you take a risk walking in these places because drivers are distracted with cell phones, oblivious pissed ,drunk,whatever.I have already been hit by a careless driver my spine is fucked up to prove it.

There is car apartheid.Car aparthied is part of how America expresses it's class war,it's a discrimination facet this country has twords the poor ..

If you have a car, I am pretty sure you have never experienced it yourself. I dare you to try this for a month.. walk, walk to the grocery store,carry the bags,(try not to go over 20 pounds each and balance the weight in the bags as evenly as you can)walk alongside the roads on the shoulders, rain or shine cold or hot,walk,observe the drivers who cut in front of you, rush the yellow light so they can avoid waiting 20 seconds.See them for no reason,flip you off,yell shit at you, toss stuff or rev engines to make you hurry up crossing the intersections,never mind you are using a walking stick because of pain and cannot run fast enough for them..

Many people in cars are BLIND to how fucking rude, selfish and hostile to non-drivers they ARE.

[yodoobo]

131. Yea, I laughed out loud when I read that phrase

kinda took the punch of the post (but did make it entertaining)

[Leopolds Ghost]

176. Did you laugh out loud when persons were prohibited and shot at for leaving NOLA on foot?

[yodoobo]

130. "Automobile apartheid "

oh come on.

[undergroundpanther]

133. Do you walk?

Do you walk alongside roads because you have no car? Are you unable to get a job because you have no CAR? If you never dealt with this issue please STFU,because you have NO IDEA what it is like to put up with fucking cars and childish drivers..

[yodoobo]

158. "Automobile apartheid "

Come on.

There is an word to describe the situation described.

Its called being poor. And yes it sucks. Yes. I've been there. Heck I've still got one foot into it.

Its no "Automobile apartheid" which make me chuckle everytime I say the phrase.

In any event, you successfully took a serious situation and plea for attention to the matter and cheapened it by the use of over-wrought, melodramatic, inaccurate, and yes - offensive terms.

""Automobile apartheid" - I'm going to remember that term as a good example how to go to far in rhetoric.

Look, this is all meant to be constructive criticism - so that YOU are more successful in your message. But given your use of "STFU" and cursing, I suspect this falls on deaf ears.

[Leopolds Ghost]

174. Do you support shooting at people trying to walk out of a city, or inspecting their papers on foot?

To make sure they're in the right neighborhood (because being on foot is considered grounds for suspicion in many policing jurisdictions)?

If so, you oppose Anglo-American common law, regardless of what Germanic name you want to give it.

[1]

173. i thought you wouldn't get a job because you would get so angry you would hurt your coworkers?

that's why you don't work.

am i wrong about that? did i misread your previous posts?

help me understand here...

[Leopolds Ghost]

175. Argumentum ad Hominem by reputation n/t

[1]

187. wow. so many big words, is the answer to my simple question "yes" or "no"... n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

188. No, it is an invalid argument that does not require an answer.

[1]

190. so asking if the op walks to work is an invalid question? how so? n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

195. No, the bit about up's employment status. Irregardless,

There are other means of getting to work, such as the bus, or bicycle for healthy people who don't mind being looked down upon by fellow Dems in a social setting (and being turned down for desk jobs because they intend to take the bus to work in a city that has a $20 billion transit system that actually works, like I've had happen.)

[1]

196. "irregardless"??? you throw all of your fancy latin at me and this is the best you can do???

with the english language?

the question was not directed at you. so why don't you take a step back and let the op speak and answer my simple question?

maybe things have changed with the op since i last read. i asked a simple question.

i don't like threads with a "you people" vibe. i don't like them at all.

i was seeking clarification, so back off.

ok?

bye, bye...

[TheKentuckian]

134. This is exactly why we need to stop looking backwards

and move forward. We solve the energy crunch and damn well can make the big 3 the cornerstone of the effort.

Get your minds off of carbon and put your eyes on the prize-solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hemp, algae, and eventually new things will free us from the remaining bonds we used to bridge like nuclear and natural gas.

The car can be the selling point to move us where we need to go.

[Fran Kubelik]

135. .

:thumbsdown:

[madrchsod]

137. yup not a bad idea...

i`m starting a



business

[Undercurrent]

148. Agree with those who have stated the obvious

problems that us rural folks face. It's a 24 mile trip for me to the grocery store for me, and there's no public transpiration.

The US is huge in size compared to Europe. Here in the US, the rural, mostly Western states, are huge and sparsely populated compared to urban areas, especially New England, where mass transit works well.

We need both cheap, energy efficient cars, and mass transit.

[litlady]

201. This makes sense - some areas can more easily convert to mass transit.

Living in Los Angeles, I never understood why so many people DIDN'T take public transit! I took the bus, subway, light rail, and train and rarely had a problem. My mother is over 50 and still relies solely on public transit. It seems as if those in rural areas would need to rely on automobiles. But in big cities, the amount of people who rely on cars is disappointing and we certainly pay for it in air quality and stress.

[mondo joe]

156. I suspect you'd be happy for the entire economy to die.

Newsflash: that's not what most people want.

[Leopolds Ghost]

180. The economy is unsustainable. You can't pave the entire country.

You can't sustain 75% of the Earth's resources and you can't grow your way out of it by allowing other folks to consume more magically untapped resources.

[hunter]

162. Four wheels and a motor on a prison cell.

We traded away a lot of our freedom for the automobile.

On foot you can go anywhere, and you don't have to carry government issued identification or wear a license plate on your butt. You are who you are, and not just the meat-space representation of some consumer-object in a computer file. You become part of the world and begin to see the damage we do to our earth and ourselves ceaselessly driving from one banal overdeveloped place to another.

I do drive, I do own a car, but I've never enjoyed it. The car culture was a bad idea, and it is unsustainable. We've no choice in the matter -- those aspects of car culture that are unsustainable will rot away like abandoned automobiles and unmaintained bridges.

cc

[onager]

167. In Los Angeles, mass transit destroyed itself.

Sorry, but the Great Roger Rabbit Conspiracy Theory has been debunked over and over by transportation experts.

I live in Los Angeles when I'm not in Egypt, where I have lived/worked for 3 years. (And where I often ride the Alexandria trams, just like E.M. Forster did when he lived here in 1915. You're welcome.)

Many times in Los Angeles, I've heard old-timers lovingly recall the Pacific Electric "Big Red Cars." But as usual, nostalgia doesn't quite match up with the facts.

...ridership on the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway (LARY) peaked in 1920.

After that, ridership fell consistently over the years, with the only increase coming during the early 1940s, when wartime gasoline rationing forced people out of their cars.

At the same time, the people of Los Angeles were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the poor service and overcrowding on the streetcars, which led to the Major Street Traffic Plan of 1924. This was approved by the voters, and provided for money to widen and improve the main streets thoughout the city. This was a popular measure because the automobile was seen as a way for ordinary people to have an alternative to the streetcars.

Another inconvenient fact for the conspiracy theorists is that the Pacific Electric (Red Cars) was never owned by National City Lines. It was owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad until 1953, when it was sold to Metropolitan Coach Lines. In 1957, it was sold to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, which presided over the final dismantling of the line in 1961.

Also remember that the Pacific Electric was not really a profit-making enterprise in itself. It largely came into existance in order to help Henry Huntington make money on real estate. The Red Cars existed in order to allow new subdivisions to be built on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Once the houses were sold, the railroad was just an albatross as far as the developers were concerned. This was the origin of the poor service and overcrowding that led to people being unhappy with the streetcars.

http://www.1134.org/stan/ul/GM-et-al.html

The Pacific Electric, which was owned by the Southern Pacific railroad, made a profit in only 8 of the 42 years it was in business under its own name.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/551/did-general-motors-destroy-the-la-mass-transit-system

A good book on the subject is Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City by Scott L. Bottles. I believe this started as a doctoral thesis, but it's fascinating reading:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520073959/qid=949036990/sr=1-4/104-6474030-5977269

[Leopolds Ghost]

170. And you believe the road system should make a profit, I take it?

Or perhaps you feel that Metropolitan Coach Lines wasn't part of the National City consortium of bus conversion holding companies. No conspiracy involved, my friend. No more than the silent DEM conspiracy to get rid of public housing (just ask your fellow DUers, they supported eliminating public transit funding in BLUE jurisdictions and they will support ending public housing for good under an Obama administration.) Repubs? They don't give a shit. This is Dem on Dem political violence to starve a so-called "inner city" resource that in other countries is not confined to the "inner city".

[treestar]

171. True, it is the reason we are expensive to employ and therefore

why we are losing jobs to other countries. They haven't developed that sense of entitlement and can live a middle class lifestyle without the expense of a car. We can whine all we want about how we are entitled to be paid more than the Chinese and the Indians, but they're going to be able to underprice us on that alone.

We were not seeing very far ahead when we built the suburbs. And the white people shouldn't have moved out there just to avoid having a black neighbor or two. Now those chickens are starting to come home to roost.

[Leopolds Ghost]

179. They are still moving out to protect the "freedom" to live away from poor, they just won't admit it.

That's why there's so much repressed hostility on the center-left towards welfare, public housing, and transit -- the Big Three of Great Society that the New Democrats in power intend to kill.

[spoony]

182. Wanting a livable wage = whining? Nice.

They can "underprice" us on health care costs (zero) and benefits (zero) too, I guess that's because they don't "whine" about getting sick or having families, eh?

[Leopolds Ghost]

186. We don't "whine" about Dem leaders selling out on universal care, either.

And they have already sold mass transit down the river, just ask your local elected officials what they are doing to advance transit projects like a Kansas City subway or Metro expansion in the suburbs of Obama's new hometown (or what have you.) (and don't say you oppose such "wasteful ideas" or you reveal you agree major suburban expansion of transit should be opposed by the Democratic party and viewed as insane and foreign to American thinking.)

When was the last time Chicago expanded its rail system? That's right, one of the few cities where transit use actually shrank in the 90s, as I recall. Local leaders blamed extreme segregation and class/ethnic hostility to intermingling in Chicago.

[Hannah Bell]

208. First, we're losing jobs for the same reason the Irish were thrown off their land

in the enclosures: because the rich wanted more.

Second, Americans don't have any more significant "sense of entitlement" than Canadians, French, or any other "modern" national group.

Third, it's not that we should be paid more than Chinese, nor that we should be paid like Chinese peasants, it's that Chinese should be paid more, & workers in general should be paid enough to live a healthy, secure life.

Fourth, oligopolistic industries don't compete, they conspire. Against their workers. And they depend on useful idiots like you to buy their bullshit. The capital & start-up technology for both the Japanese & Chinese auto industries came from the US. The US auto corps own pieces of all the other auto industries, who also own pieces of them. They're intertwined through joint ventures, shared management, & multiple, convoluted chains of ownership by the same wealthy individuals through investment vehicles.

2/3 of retired US workers would be below the poverty line without Social Security, & you're telling them they need to be Chinese peasants.

You're a Democrat?

[Hannah Bell]

209. Oh, & the suburban thing? Study the history. Workers were, you might say,

"herded" to the suburbs. With carrots & sticks.

Rich people make their money by moving people around, coming & going.

Buy low, sell high. Then destroy the economy in the last place to empty it out, buy low, move them back in & sell high, rinse & repeat.

If you have money, inner-city Detroit is a good bet for the next round.

Location, location, location.