I’d posit it’s quickly getting easier to live without a car than without a smartphone in the US.
Plus, even if you live in an area where a car is required you have the option to opt out and move (housing crisis aside), which isn’t an option to avoid smartphone requirements.
Yeah, this sentiment covers for sure all of Gen X and Elder Millennials. If the back half of Millennials all turn 30 and it’s the same story we can pretty confidently say that it’s not really a generational thing.
I would love to ditch my car but it’s impossible in my city and I have no power to change it. I could move I guess but choosing lack of car over my friends and family feels a bit drastic.
and it also requires you to fully buy in to the city-centric lifestyle. Whether you like it or not there will always be a lot of people that don't want to live in an urban center or even a small town. For them, personal transportation is non-negotiable. Even people who live within walkable towns or cities will often prefer to have a car so that they can access other locations and services whenever they feel like it without having to rent or limit themselves to places accessible by mass transit. Cars just aren't going away, nor should we wish them to. I'm all for building more walkable and human scale environments, I enjoy them as much as the next person but I also want those places connected by good roads so that I can access, or leave, any of them freely.
I honestly doubt anyone who complains today about needing to carry a cell phone was in any way directly responsible for the decisions of automobile manufacturers, lobbyists, and marketing firms that brought us the car-obsessed culture we have.
The people who created the car-obsessed society died long ago. These people would be my parents' & grand-parents' generations. I'm in my 60s.
And before you ask, I hate having to have a smartphone. It is required to VPN into work, or to do so many things. I changed grocery stores rather than let them use my cellphone for the "loyalty" card.
I also hate living in a state where public transit is useless.
TL;DR - something about "get off my lawn" and "old man yells at cloud".
Do you seriously think it's easier for a 80-year-old to hop in a car to go somewhere than walk 10 minutes to the store in a more compact city or take the bus?
Plus, look at the Netherlands, geriatric people who've biked their whole lives and maintained good physical shape have no problem continuing to bike.
Walking to a store everyday to buy only their daily necessities would end up costing them a lot more than if they were buying a bunch of what they need in bulk, and nobody ( especially an elderly person) is going to walk home carrying around their items in bulk sizes.
Even for people lucky enough to live in those rare areas where you can walk to a grocery store, it's extremely useful to have access to a car you can fill up with large items.
There are many places where bus comes every half an hour, and there are on average 1-2 passengers on it. I think in those towns it would be cheaper for local council to just pay for Uber service for everyone who needs public transportation. No need to buy expensive buses, maintain bus stops, stations and depots, pay drivers and administrators salaries and pensions etc.
> There are many places where bus comes every half an hour, and there are on average 1-2 passengers on it
Well, no surprise there are so few passengers: the bus comes every half an hour! Make it once every two hours, and there will be no passengers at all.
"Every half an hour" is an option for the desperate. Also, that bus is probably stuck with cars when there's heavy traffic, while being slower than cars when there isn't. And it does not go exactly where you want to be. Would _you_ use such a bus service if you weren't forced to due to circumstances?
The answer for shitty public transport offering should not be eliminating public transport offering.
Well, it depends. Public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides nor any other handouts from the local council.
For clarity: the context was for local councils to give money to Uber instead of running a bus service. Which is plausible idea. I just don't think you need to be so specific: give people money, so they can buy goods and services they deem most beneficial (including Uber rides).
Now going one step further: only give the money to poor people. Welfare for rich people is a bit silly.
I'm all for giving more money to poor people, but how is that related to public transport? "Let's sell for scrap metal what's left of our public transit system and give the proceedings to the poor" would be a mad proposition.
I'm a regular user of public transport. I don't own a car, don't have a drivers license and call taxi/uber maybe once or twice per year. I am lucky enough to live in a place where that's not just possible, but easy, easier than driving a car. And I'm not poor. I can afford a car, just don't want to have one.
Public transport is not a handout to the poor, it is a service which makes life better for everyone. If yours is so bad only poor people would use it - maybe it's time to fix it.
For what it's worth, I never owned a car in my life.
(I currently live in Singapore, which has excellent public transport.)
My suggestion was conditional: if a city has already decided that Uber is better than public transport, then they should still not give Uber money. But instead, give the money to poor people.
However: public transport only really makes sense when you have enough density.
If you have the typical North American rules that make density illegal, even the best public transport won't safe you. In fact, it might be throwing good money after bad money.
I don't say that density needs to become before public transport. Just the opposite: you need to put transportation in place before people come. But you also need to make density legal before you think about public transport.
> I just don't think non-poor people need subsidised Uber-rides
I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
I think there does come a point where a community can decide their public transportation costs more to operate than it's worth, but unless it's consistently losing massive amounts of money it's probably not worth it to take a valuable resource from the public just to save a bit of money. Especially if that community has any desire to grow.
> I agree, if you're going to provide financial assistance it should go to those in need, but I don't think non-poor people need or want to be saddled with an added expense to replace the public transpiration services they already have and use.
In places where public transport works and is used, I agree.
It's really not at all. In Japan, you just buy a debit card and swipe that every time you enter or exit a station. When it gets low, you stop at a vending machine and put more cash on it. It doesn't get any simpler, and it's totally anonymous.
Touch a piece of plastic when you start, toich again when you end. It’s not exactly complicated. You can buy the plastic for cash, or use the one almost everyone has in their wallet, or use a phone.
It may sound odd, but you are not bolstering your argument here. The parent is arguing for a way to ensure that participation in society is not bound by one's ability arrange for unrelated physical objects other than cash and ID to participate. And that is before we even get to how much having a car and cell phone governs one's life in US. Not everyone believes it is a good societal structure.
Note that I am not arguing one way or another, but outright dismissal is not an appropriate counter argument.
Yeah, the minimum you need to participate in US society is SSN, driver’s license number, working cell phone number, credit/debit card, health insurance, car, car insurance, proof of citizenship, permanent address, internet connection and W2 or equivalent.
I’ve needed all of these sans the car to interact with just government services in my state.
I've made it to my late 30s only owning a car for maybe 2 or 3 of those years. I've never felt the desire, my mom always commented it was odd back when I was a teenager... But I digress, it is very possible and it's easier than ever. I grew up on the rural west coast, moved inland to an agricultural area. Never living in a proper city by most metrics. Certainly I've missed some opportunities along the way, c'est la vie, but it is easier than ever and I'm meeting more and more people like me as time goes on. I also don't have a photo ID as a general rule, but that's a whole different can of worms and in some cases much more limiting than living car free.
Most people seem to create their own hurdles or embiggen real ones that they do face, certainly I do in my own ways so don't take that as a judgement just an observation. Choosing to go carless is not half the hurdle many people perceive it to be.
> I've made it to my late 30s only owning a car for maybe 2 or 3 of those years.
Similar. I spent part of my teen years in a children's home in the U.S. -- it turns out that even though the state may go in for a [driving] learning permit (pre-req for a driving license), it won't sign off for the license to drive. So I never got a license until older and dropped it later.
I'm definitely healthier for all the walking I still do :)
Tell that to some of my past prospective employers.
It's getting so bad, that some insist on being able to drive to work even if you live within 15 minutes walking distance.
"But what about bad weather?" They ask.
"I'll dress appropriately." I reply.
3 days later: Phone rings.
"We're sorry, but we decided to go with someone better suited for the job."
The job... was at a restaurant, as a cook. Cooks... don't need to be able to drive to work... usually. (There are maybe some jobs where driving would be ideal, or necessary, but let's be real here. Most don't need to be able to drive.)
I’m guessing “the bus was late” is a common excuse used by those who are frequently late to work. The issue here is that they mindlessly apply a filter of if you drive to work you pass if you don’t you fail. Employees with attendance issues can still use plenty of dumb excuses. A car itself provides several: car broke down, traffic was bad, snowy roads. Those issues don’t apply to someone who can walk in. Unfortunately not being a driver is not a protected class in the US.
I think far more common (in the fast food & retail industry) is the manager calling you up: "X called out sick, we need you to come in to do their shift, starting in 45 minutes." If the person lacks a car, then "I can't, buses don't run today" or "it will take me 90 minutes to get in by bus today".
I once worked where I lacked a car. There were 3 buses going there in the morning. The next bus going there left downtown Denver at 4pm. Between 0545 and 1600 there was no bus service to that destination. Missing the 0430, 0505 or 0545 buses meant missing work that day. When I finally managed to get a car (legal problems), I got a new job within a month.
But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards. Heck, here in Canada we have a tribunal system to deal with human rights abuses, even in the workplace; not just societal. And it gets underfunded due to be under utilized due to the very lack of backbone I speak of. What I am saying right now is right from the horses mouth no less.
Yes, that means it's all our fault. People are afraid of losing their jobs, and so they do nothing; and so they get away with more than they should.
To be clear though for those on the other side of the fence.
I'm the employee who will usually say "yeah, sure boss. Just maybe give me some time to get down there, or cover my cab fare so I can get there faster."
Heck, one employer literally drove down to get me just to get the shift covered without any lost time.
But recently I've been getting flak from employers for even that sort of thing. (Getting a cab, or taking the bus I mean.)
So, I don't care anymore. We have rules for a reason, and you all can follow them, or uphold them. Which ever may be the case for whoever is reading this.
> But the problem is that most people are spineless and don't use the proper channels of authority that oversee these sorts of things to ensure that employers are held to proper standards.
In the US there is no authority that oversees these sorts of things. It's perfectly legal to make insane demands on an hourly employee's time. Hourly employees are lucky if they can get a set schedule and don't have to constantly check to see what days/hours they'll work because those hours can be changed at any time without notice. They can be expected to come in at any time to cover for other employees and fired if they aren't making themselves always available at the drop of a hat.
There are very few regulations preventing employers from abusing their staff and those only cover the most egregious abuses. Walmart (the largest private employer in the country) for example has been caught for things like refusing to pay workers for hours that they worked, for locking workers inside of buildings and refusing to let them leave, child-labor violations, knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and serious OSHA violations that endangered the lives and safety of their employees. While they do get the occasional light slap on the wrist for violating what few protections workers have (often only after repeatedly violating them) even the largest and easiest target gets away with all kinds of abuses not covered under law.
Companies and entire industries spend massive amounts of money on bribing politicians so they can continue to exploit workers and even manipulate the workers themselves to be so anti-regulation and anti-union that they'll fight against efforts to improve the conditions that they themselves suffer under.
Workers being exploited in the US are not uncaring or spineless. They're just working against a system that has been carefully designed and refined over centuries to keep them powerless. We're starting to see some pushes for change though. There's been an increase in efforts to unionize, but just talking about unionizing can get you fired and laws have been changed so that unions don't always have the power they used to. In the meantime, folks still have to pay rent and eat, so they're forced to suffer under exploitative practices.
While I suppose that most people will be considering this topic under American rules and regulations; please note I mentioned Canada in my comment. That said, I accept that USA has all sorts of things to work out and get fixed. BUT, Don't look north for inspiration. It's not exactly better up here, cause the employers up here (except for the few good ones) take inspiration from your bad employers all down south of our border.
Let's just say that we have it just as bad in slightly different ways. The only saving grace for us Canadians (IMHO) is that we still have stuff like the old common law stuff in effect. (of which many of our citizenry is not aware of its actual legal standing, and so they don't make use of any of it.) {Also the libertarian free-man-of-the-land types make erroneous use of some of this stuff, which doesn't help either.}
I state it as such, because when I brought this all up with a lawyer to see if I had a case at all; he was surprised I even knew about some of the old common law stuff that employers legally are supposed to be obeying. This has to do with things like wrongful dismissal for example, where an employee has decided to say no to a bad boss, and gets fired for it. A lot of our current laws state that's already illegal as well depending on the situation; but even those old laws had details in them pertaining to things like severance pay. Long story short; some employers know about this, and will pay out extra weeks even under probationary period because it could land them in court if they don't.
So it is better up here in some ways; but that kind of stuff will probably never be enacted down there, because it would mean accepting that ol Britain was right about a few things.
It's that, and more. It's also that they want to be able to rely on being able to call you in at any moments notice without any potential for excuses like "Well, it's going to take an hour to get there, because of the bus." or "I can't come in right now due to the weather on such short notice."
Quite frankly, I think the entire restaurant industry (in Canada) needs to be audited for multiple reasons. Tax evasion, disobeying the law in regards to discrimination, etc. (Canadian laws) There may be some innocent owners caught in the crossfire, but if they truly are innocent in this case; they should be fine and worry free. It's not a line of logic I like to use in many things, but in this case it really is true.
If I can't walk there within an hour, or the bus itself takes more than an hour to get there; I won't even apply to the job. My method of thinking on this is that people with their own vehicle won't go much further than an hour away anyways, so why would I with a bike, my own two feet; or transit for that matter.
It's not like the people they are hiring with vehicles are going to get there much faster if they own a vehicle taking the same amount of time. The only time this won't be true is if they live so close they really should be walking instead to save money.
They'd probably agree with you. Having to pay to maintain a car (probably an awful one that has lots of problems) just to get anything done is distinctly bad part of being poor in America.
Hopefully they'll react as if you were an irrational pedant, because I have been participating in society without a car my entire adult life just fine.
