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How do we disincentize car ownership?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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If people are fully exposed to the real cost of car ownership they will happily choose alternatives. This means no free parking or mandatory minimums, no subsidies, tolls everywhere, and carbon taxes on fuel. Even after all of that some people will still decide that driving is their best option and that's ok.
In a world where there are no viable alternatives, like much of the US, this ends up putting additional financial pressure on the poor and the rich can simply carry on. This ultimately just increases the cost of ownership, and forces people to pay it.
Studies also show that people will take faster more robust alternatives if they exist, regardless of price. If driving means you sit in traffic for an hour, but taking the bus means you get there in 35 minutes, people will take the bus.
The point is, the poor can still successfully use mass transit now that there’s not much traffic for buses and crosswalks.
I'd rather implement stronger options for free/cheap transportation BEFORE we increase the cost of car ownership. A lot of cities don't have proper transit options, mine included, and if I was suddenly exposed to the "full cost" of owning a car, I'd be SOL until a bus route near enough for me to walk to gets put in place.
I think this is the essence of what you're replying to is getting at. It's a great idea, later, right now we need something that doesn't kill the working class.
That’s not necessarily possible. Good public transit and bikable neighborhoods are made possible by the low land usage. Low land usage requires having fewer roads and smaller parking lots. Those, in turn, require fewer people to be driving.
The midway transitionary option is buses. But buses are only convenient if they don’t have much traffic to battle. We need fewer people driving.
There are options available. More heavy subsidation for buses comes to mind. Subsidize it enough it's practically free, and expand their routes. Add more priority lanes for buses. That much is doable today. Then we have a bit of infrastructure so we're not just pulling the rug out from under people. From there, slowly introduce things to discourage car driving. Gas taxes, more strict emissions requirements, more expensive registration, harder license exams, etc.
You may not have read the second paragraph. People won’t even ride free buses when they don’t arrive and are slower than walking.
Money alone does not solve the issue. You can’t engineer a faster engine for a bus that’s stuck in traffic. Even adding more buses to the route does not help.
It doesn't matter if they're riding them right now. Get that infrastructure in place before you pull the rug out. When the rug is pulled, they'll ride. Yes, it's a bit of throwing money at the problem, but it doesn't leave people fucked in the interim period. Do what you can to get infrastructure in place BEFORE tackling cars.
Oh you can also just give a clear preference to other modes of transportation via traffic rules. Let's say there are traffic lights that only allow bikes to pass more often than they allow cars to pass that's pretty neat