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Thank the gods we live in such a car-saturated nation, how horrible it would be if this space was used to house people
(media.kbin.social)
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
508 points (91.5% liked)
Fuck Cars
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Calling anywhere in Greater Houston “the middle of an urban area” is just incorrect. It’s the 4th most populated city in the US and the 150th most densely populated. There are a lot of people in Houston but also just a fucking Tom of Houston around. But, as is the norm in this magazine, you are all free to ignore facts and data so you can raise a furor in your tiny anti-car cult.
Houston is so big because the city has absorbed all the communities around it. It's incredibly sprawled so the density is much lower than cities of comparable population. This creates all sorts of other issues, like the problem of paving over hundreds of square miles of wetland.
Why do you think it's so sparsely populated? What's keeping people so far from each other? Is it just Houstonians are their own species and can't stand to be in areas over a certain population density?
Because humans enjoy having lots of space to live in. Personally I would never go back to living in an apartment since I can afford a house and land. I've lived in small apartments, big apartments, a single-wide trailer, large houses, small houses, and medium houses. Medium house with acreage of land is the best living situation of all for me.
Did you really decide that posting that was a good idea? Did you seriously think about it at all before writing it?
Yeah, this place is dumb as hell and you idiots need to know that.
Cool story. Come back when your brain has developed past the age of 2, we'll gladly discuss then.
I concur bro. These bullshitters are high on their own farts and apparently can't see the truth that they are never going to change the vast landscape of America into their imaginary Soviet-style shithole idea of a "utopia" where people don't drive and live in tiny boxes in human hives.
Soviet Union was bad for multiple reasons but in major cities the housing was not really any worse than anywhere else in the world. I guess you just enjoy spending 3 hours a day in your car.
I don't commute to work often, but when I do it's only about a 20 minute drive in light traffic. I certainly wouldn't spend 3 hours a day in a car to commute to work when there are plenty of jobs within that 20 minute commute from my house.
The point was that in total you probably spend more time in your car than any sane average European would, because you lack options. And because you lack options it's a hellscape for anyone who can't drive a car. The point wasn't your commute, because your commute probably doesn't represent the median. Also good for you. My commute is also irrelevant, but it's five minutes walk to a train, ten minutes by train and five minutes walk from the train to the office, all that in an environment where I don't fear for my life, the noise level permits me to whisper to other people without them having difficulties hearing me.
Wow you really assume a lot about people huh? Assuming that I spend so much time in my car, when I probably drive about 1 hour per week on average. "You lack options" he says - LOL! Yet I can get in my car and drive anywhere I want at any time. I also have the option of a motorcycle that I could drive anywhere, including off-road where cars can't go. If I didn't want to drive those I could ride my bike or skateboard. But I don't HAVE to drive anywhere if I don't want to. If I wanted to be lazy I could have anything I want delivered to my house. But yeah go on about lack of options haha.
It's not a "hellscape" or dangerous here at all. I look out my windows and see a beautiful forest around my house. There have been only 3 murders in 25 years in my town. Children play in the yard unsupervised, people leave their doors unlocked, and everyone but the most paranoid feels safe to do whatever they want around here.
EDIT: I forgot to address the noise level you mentioned. The noise level for my working environment is generally silence unless I want to play music. The noise level for my home is only the noises that happen inside my home, because I don't live in a little apartment connected to the walls and floors and ceilings of other people's homes to hear their noises.
And? If they need space they expand elsewhere. If this interchange was at the edge of town, middle of town, north or south. The town is still the same size. America is large, lots of “empty” space.
And that's how you get sprawling cities that are completely untraversable on foot, bike or bus. Urban planning is important, even when space is abundant
Which expands the total travel distance on average, exacerbating all car use in the area. Things need to be closer, not further. That will only encourage car dependent infrastructure.
Not just car use, also infrastructure cost for literally anything from water over sewage to electricity, internet connections, gas pipes,...
Expanding the distance is much, much worse than simply affecting travel times and making us more car dependent. It is literally something we can not afford.
Cities should avoid becoming nightmare, sprawling hellscapes. Dense cities with multi-use buildings, public transit, and walkable infrastructure are where its at.
Dense, ugly cities, with no character, where people trip over each other isn’t the solution.
Those can be a part of the larger city, why can’t everyone have what they want instead of just a small portion of people who only think of themselves?
Its great to know this community is open to discussion instead of just perpetuating the same tropes and downvoting people!
Dense and ugly are not synonyms, same with lacking character. If you go to sprawling suburbia, you'll find that there's exactly no character, you can drive for 30 minutes and think you went in a circle.
Do you genuinely believe people want sprawling hellscapes where they have to sit in traffic forever to get to the nearest Walmart, destroying the environment and further atmozing individuals and alienating themselves, or do you think it makes more sense to address population needs, environmental needs, and efficiency via smarter urban planning that isn't so car-centric?
Car-centric infrastructure takes up for more space and far more time is spent on commuting than well-planned urban infrastructure with public transit, and costs the environment far more, and is far more economically expensive. It's disastrous and should be stopped entirely.
Ugly and character are both subjective, your opinion isn’t the correct one. Nor is someone’s else’s, but one side is vocal while the other trudges along allowing the other to do and get what they need and want.
Some people do, yeah. Do you seriously think people don’t want that? People literally drive trucks as a career lmfao, yeah lots of people love it, in fact, they are the majority and you are the vocal minority. Get a grip on reality lmfao.
No.
People absolutely loath getting stuck in traffic, and the existence of truckers does not mean that the majority of people love traffic and wasted space, fighting over parking, wasting tons of money, and destroying the environment.
You implied that dense requires ugliness and lacking character, which is the exact opposite of reality. Car-centric infrastructure is incredibly ugly and lacks any and all character, it's just roads and parking garages, traffic, and pollution.
No some people don’t mind being stuck in traffic. If it makes your drive 4x longer because of bad design that’s different. At the worst in my large city it’s 50% longer to get across the city unless there’s an accident. That 20 minutes to a whopping 30 minutes to travel the almost 40km from north to south.
Its ugly and lacks character because its dense, I’m sorry you can’t understand other peoples opinions and only yours apparently is valid.
Name one person that either enjoys or doesn't mind being stuck in traffic. Your example of the worst case scenario being an accident is a problem that is caused by car-centric infrastructure.
Density is not ugly nor does it lack character, that's an absurd statement. Ugly things can be dense, but to claim that Density itself is ugly is absurd.
Ah yes you can’t seem to understand out of the over 7 billion people on this planet, they all must share your opinion.
Nice bubble you live in.
And hey, I love it, now you do know one. But I’m not the only one and to claim that would be the asinine and absurd thing. Not to think that someone could have a differing opinion. You realize lots of people CHOOSE to live in these cities and aren’t forcedor anything yeah? Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean everyone does, sorry. And sorry I forgot you can’t seem to comprehend this, maybe I should drop this extremely obvious point that pokes flaws in your view….
Nice community you have here lmfao.
"No you don't understand, because there are a bunch of people, the majority loves excruciating pain and CBT."
You're arguing for inefficient and slow infrastructure on the grounds that efficiency is bad and inefficiency is fun for you personally.
I’m saying it can all exist together if you were actually paying attention.
And comparing a minor inconvenience to torture, that’ll get people to understand your side… good job!
You're saying people love inconvenience and that's why everyone should bend over backwards to support the overwhelmingly inconvenient infrastructure to maintain inefficient and inconvenient traditions.
It's anti-science and anti-progress, lol
I’m saying some people can get over a minor inconvenience. You do when you take a slower method of transport like public, walking or biking.
So yeah YOU can love an inconvenience, but others can’t…? Shit take yet again…
You’re ignoring that it can be done correctly and is in some places. Why do people always conveniently do this?
It isn't a minor inconvenience. It completely ruins infrastructure, eliminates vast amounts of space, destroys the environment, and sucks people's time.
The infrastructure can all work together, it can take up no more space than it does now, it can even be done in less. It won’t destroy the environment if it’s done correctly, why is every rebuttal of yours just hand waving that can also just be handwaved away?
The freedom to go when and where takes less time actually, bad infrastructure makes it take longer. Public transport will never be faster and more convenient than personal travel. I scan stop on a whim where I want, if public transport did that it work take hours. That’s why fast transports like mag trains stop so infrequently with large stops. Buses go from there and there is other options, but it’s all guess what, time…….
Private transport will always be most time economical, it’s hilarious that you think that’s a valid point on your side.
No it cannot. Car centric infrastructure necessarily destroys the environment far more and takes up far more space.
I'm not hand-waving your points, I'm pointing out why they are terrible points.
The rest of your comment is baseless and rejects reality. Proper public transit is faster and doesn't require vast amounts of space, and with proper urban planning you can go anywhere you want whenever you want. You can't with cars, it takes forever to get where you need to go, because cars carry far less people per square meter.
You have no points at all, just vibes.
Lmfao. This community is a joke. Must be, to be this ignorant of reality.
It doesn’t have to take up more space, claiming the same thing, while denying reality (places do it already) is quite the walled garden you’ve made for yourselves here.
It's quite simple. Cars hold far fewer people per square meter than public transit, and need wide roads for traffic and potential accidents. They destroy the environment and require infrastructure like stoplights, that waste minutes at a time.
Cars can stop anywhere, buses, if they did that for passengers instead of set stops, it would take a day to make a route.
You are sacrificing convenience, and both can coexist, the roads are already needed, lights too, even for buses and cabs and what not. They wouldn’t just magically disappear with public transport.
Again, lacking the reality. What you’re suggesting for what people want, can’t happen, since it would be far more time consuming, for everyone involved.
Good thing nobody wants buses to do that. You are quite literally imagining the least efficient form of public transit to avoid making an actual point. Cars clog infrastructure and you can have non-bus methods when you need to go more specific places.
You're just inventing reasons to mald.
What…? Of course people want that, it’s been one of your main points this entire time, and now that I’ve pointed out the flaw, you can discard it now…?
People don’t use buses because of the lack of stops, it’s literally one of the most frequent complaints about them. But too many and it makes it too slow.
Am I mad? I’ve been asking to get a viewpoint into your perspective and all you’ve done is show me how whiney and bitchy this community is.
If anything, you’re projecting that onto me since I’m questioning your beliefs, which does usually anger people. Clearly this community wants to be a walled garden without any outside opinions for discussion.
Sad…. Blocking you can this community since it doesn’t want discussions.
No, lmao, people don't want busses to be the only mode of transit. Trains, bikes, walking, etc.
You're malding and have no points, lmao.
Cars work well for smaller, more spread out towns. They can't really stop anywhere in most large cities - there's just no parking for them. The space is simply too valuable to waste on parking other than loading zones and taxi stands.
There's just too many people wanting to move about to accommodate them with cars. At these scales mass transit is more convenient.
Even my city relies on public transit, and it's only around 200k people, 400k in the metropolitan area.
https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?si=4Dhz8B-6AYK677PO
You may want to look at the economic downsides to sprawl. If you really want sprawl, then you're gonna have to pay for it, cause we're sick of paying for your roads, and the people who live in the cities pay for everyone else's roads, and we want walkable/bikeable cities with cars being excluded to a few parking structures on the edge of the city.
You're so american it's sad. American cities are some of the ugliest in the entire world, whereas dense cities like what you'd find in most of Europe or Japan are absolutely beautiful and brimming with character.
This is not really outside the city though
...and even though it's next to industrial zone, this is what downtown Houston actually looks like on a map. Numerous square miles of space just for "letting traffic through". The bill on the upkeep of this kind of wasteful infrastructure must be much more than what it costs to provide housing for all the homeless people in the county!