But in all fairness, I don't think that Alex, Bill, Carrol, Michael, Doug, Wojtek, Stephen or Carl should be denouncing car use without telling us how they get about.
Wojtek makes a very closely argued case that the car is a waste of money. So how about it gents? Have you got rid of your car yet?
Car owner? Cyclist? Public transport to work? Alex Bill Carrol Michael Doug Wojtek Stephen Carl
In message <v04210111b40d6935c930@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>James, sometimes you say things that leave me almost speechless.
Thank you.
>The
>anti-car crowd in the U.S., in the immortal words of former In These
>Times editor Jimmy Weinstein, consists of about a dozen weirdos who
>live in New York & San Francisco.
(and some subscribers to this list, I guess)
I guess things are a bit different in Europe (as your original post indicates). Anti-car policies are quite pronounced, and that group that you identify as weirdoes is rather larger, and influential in the transport policies of government, local authorities, the Conservative and Labour Parties. As a consequence, no new roads have been built since the controversial Newbury By-Pass (opposed by protesters, even though the citizens of Newbury voted for it again and again in local elections).
As I am sure you know, gasoline (petrol to us) prices are many times higher in Britain than in the US, in fact fully eighty per cent of the price of a gallon of petrol goes straight to the exchequer. This 'green tax' has been bouncing upwards for the last five years with an explicit 'get the cars off the roads' justification.
Furthermore, British local authorities, with the active encouragement of Central government impose what are comically called 'traffic calming' measures. These are measures to SLOW DOWN the traffic, thereby making it less attractive. 'Sleeping policemen', bus lanes, cycle lanes (as a cyclist, let me tell you, they are no use to cyclists), dedicated taxi lanes, are all introduced with the explicit purpose of making driving less attractive, and bullying people onto the crapulous public transport system. Amazingly, British traffic lights are staggered with the deliberate purpose of slowing down traffic, rather than speeding it through the city. On top of that there are 'controlled parking zones' where local authorities make even more money charging residents to park on the roads that they have already paid for several times over with their road-tax, petrol-tax and so on.
Despite all of these measures, ordinary people in Britain prefer to drive. What you seem to find shocking - that carrying shopping or picking up children from school is a bind - is just plain obvious.
In message <3.0.6.32.19990921115858.00d32d80 at jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu>, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> writes
>Jim, this is yet another example of commodity fetishism. The car has
>always been more of a fetish than a practical item, whose main appeal was
>expression of a desirable ideology
No, I thin you will find that it is the campaign against the car that is an expression of commodity fetishism. To working people, cars are merely useful tools. But protesters make them symbolise greedy capitalism. This tells you more about the protesters than it does about the car users. Tilting at Windmills, Cervantes called it.
> Had they done a proper cost-benefit analysis of this
>thing, very few people would actually decide to buy one. On average, a
>working class person could save about $1,300 a year on car alternatives
>(combination of public transit, taxis, and car rentals) assuming the same
>transportation needs - see attached calculation.
I don't accept your calculations. You miss out on the obvious practicalities of not calling a taxi, or booking a ticket, or planning ahead with the military precision that is demanded. Most obviously (and assuming that most working people do not have money to throw around) people would not go on buying them if they were not to their benefit. Maybe you know better about your own circumstances, but I don't accept that you do about everyone else's. Let's see who on this list is persuaded to sell their car on the basis of your calculations.
In message <000601bf044a$ebc65d40$1670c4d0 at wideye>, alex lantsberg
<wideye at ziplink.net> writes
>
>jim, you are clinging to the misguided belief that more consumption equals more
>prosperity. if all
>of the money that is shoveled into the pockets of road builders and the rest of
>the car lobby went
>to sensical transit, i would rejoice.
Sensible for you, maybe, but evidently not for everyone else.
>it's one thing to not travel by car, but its another when the choices are
>generally withing the
>confines of "car-chitecture." do people really WANT to sit in traffic and the
>smog? do they
>really WANT the road rage that erupts when their oiled up lazy boy is stuck with
>thousands of
>others?
>
>the simple answer is no.
No, they want to drive where they are going. Obviously if the choice were as you describe it, then people would have left their cars long ago. But its not. Certainly there are jams, but that just shows that you need more roads.
> as long as the car is the most accomodated transport
>mode, it will remain
>in the lead no matter how many discentives are piled on top of it.
This seems contradictory to me. How can something be both the 'accommodated transport mode' and at the same time have disincentives piled on top of it. In Britain, as in much of Europe, the car is the disaccommodated transport mode, because it has had disincentives piled upon it. Strangely, British citizens continue to prefer ... the car.
Why? Because it meets there needs more efficiently than do the plethora of trams, trains, buses, underground trains etc.
> i guarantee
>that if people could
>get from A to B quicker and cheaper than by car, then the travel mode would
>shift.
But that is just what you will never be able to guarantee. If trains could meet the demands of car use then they would. But they don't because they are slow to organise and build, while people's economic circumstances change quickly.
> it's not a place
>where "some fat controller dictates all possible movements on his railway
>timetable" but a place
>where transit is reliable, fast, and cheap.
Well, by all means, lets dream. But in the mean time, don't be surprised that people prefer the car.
>its not the car users. its actually directed at the idiot planners who
>accomodate the narrow,
>self-interest of capitalist developer scum who push people further and further
>into the fringes to
>feed their insatiable dollar lust.
Isn't AMTRAK a private company? How is that only car-capitalism gets singled out? Is it really so awful that people should own their own means of transport?
> the car driver is pawn in the system and is
>merely playing the
>role he is stuck into. this isnt a denunciation of the working class, its an
>indictment of the
>ruling class.
'Come on you pawns, abandon your false consciousness - smash the evil car'. I just don't believe you. I've seen the anti-car lobby close up. It reeks of petit bourgeois resentiment.
>like we said earlier, cars have their place in a transport system. its just
>that that place should
>be last in line.
Why not just leave it up to people to decide for themselves which is the preferable form?
In message <07E012F391C6D2119AFD0050040E8AE022E544 at RLM-EXCH>, Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com> writes
> No, I really hate cars themselves.
Which strikes me as an example of commodity fetishism.
>Instead of squandering scarce
> R&D capital on genetic modification technologies, we should be
> investing heavily in ways to make automobiles less loathsome. One
> prime area to focus on, IMO, is automated navigation. Once cars
> could largely drive themselves, there would be no need to produce
> oversized, fuel-wasting vehicles for reasons of safety; highways
> could be reduced in scale to make them less of an eyesore; and
> there would be no more concern about the driving practices of
> drunks, teenagers and the elderly ... among other benefits.
Sometimes called 'driverless taxis'. But doesn't this fantasy reveal exactly what it is that you do not like about the car: drivers. Imaginatively, you abstract from all the properties that you can live with, to isolate the one that really bugs you: the people who drive them. That's what makes cars attractive, though, that people decide for themselves where to go. Maybe the idea of lots of people making their own decisions upsets you. It doesn't me. -- Jim heartfield