560
awful post. seems you just hate pedestrians and people who use bicycles
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
560 points (92.0% liked)
Fuck Cars
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Korea has this, it's great for buses in the mountains: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-12-24/national/socialAffairs/Underroad-heating-a-lifesaver-in-Seouls-hilly-communities/1942752
Snow–free roads seem like a beneficial thing for most modes of transport though.
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You may not quite realize for how long roads are impassible to all traffic in northern states. Where I live, a couple hundred miles south of Grand Rapids, the snow and ice still make roads entirely impassible for a total of a week or so every winter; it takes the coordinated effort of hundreds of salt trucks and plows to get it cleaned out enough to drive, bus, walk, or bike on. Then that same effort has to be expended again a couple of weeks later.
Piping existing waste heat underground into a system like this, when the road is uncovered for repair anyway, would make a lot of sense for high-traffic areas so that plows can focus on other locations instead; it would also reduce the salt budget and plow fuel budget, and reduce the maintenance budget for cleanup and repair due to salt damage.
Going even a little bit further north, this would likely be even more effective. In some Michigan cities, roofed streets make economic sense; this seems even more cost-effective and less likely to require heavy repair.
Bike lanes, public transportation, roadway maintenance, and snow & ice clearing are all expensive. None of them have to turn a profit.
Yeah; trains that can be their own ploughs would be communist.
Trains would definitely be a great choice. But in a lot of places in the midwestern US, the economic realities of fixed transit infrastructure are tricky.
Not impossible. I'm definitely not saying that. But they'd require more regulatory steps than a robust bus network, for instance.
Tell that to the pre world war two united states, porphyriato era mexico, and literally siberia.
I'm so glad roads are flexible and free.
Yeah, I know. But the last two were accomplished largely by fiat. Which should be impossible in the US, though...you know.
And the pre-WW2 US had the advantage of essentially being pre-suburbs. Now sprawl means that the cost of adequate rail connections increases exponentially while the tax base increases linearly.
Again, like I said before, this is not impossible. But it will require a concerted effort to reverse a century's worth of underinvestment in urban areas, white flight, and stigmatization of multi-family living; and right now, we're doing the opposite of all of those things.
Im glad the cost of car capable roads and their maintenance, plus fuel and vehicle subdidies, stays the same no matter what. That's so lucky.
No, of course they don't stay the same. I'm not asserting that at all. In fact, that's a big problem in a lot of places with huge road networks and proportionally too-small tax bases. But they're already there, and upkeep is cheaper than building new.
Is it?
The state of Michigan expects to spend $24,093 per lane-mile to maintain their roads. By contrast, the cheapest light rail line in the world costs $150 million per mile to build. Assuming that new rail line lasts for 6,000 years and never needs a single cent of maintenance, it might just barely break even with the financial cost of maintaining an existing road.
But induced demand means the cost of more road is part of the road.
Plus im guessing that rail cost includes power delivery infra and actual engines/cars.
So add the cost of every gas station to that number. Add the cost of the cars and their maintenance, or some dubiously calculated fraction thereof.
Add the maintenance cost of driveways and garages. Of parking lots. Of parking structures.
Induced demand is a good point, but the cost of building new lane-miles of road is "only" about $5 million per mile. (In Florida; I can't find exact numbers for Michigan, but the variance is unlikely to be dramatic.)
Plus im guessing that rail cost includes power delivery infra and actual engines/cars.
Power delivery, maybe. Engines and cars, probably not (at least not meaningfully), since the numbers I'm seeing are for extensions to existing lines. But we don't need to worry about adding gas station costs or the costs of car ownership to that, because those are privately-owned (and thus privately-borne costs).
We're not talking about societal cost here. We're talking about why localities don't do this. And the answer is, because it's expensive: the upfront cost for a massive public works project that won't be finished until after the current office-holders are no longer in public service would be at or above a billion dollars.
Added bonus: private ownership of some portion of transportation costs means that the localities can offload a good chunk of the cost to the people in a way that makes them feel like they have "freedum!"
See im taking about reasons should(n't)
If we're talking about why they dont, then fed hwy subsidy should also factor, and roads are functionally free to local budgets.
Yeah, I've definitely been coming at this from a perspective of why they don't. I absolutely think they should, even with all of the reasons that I've stated; though I acknowledge that it'd take a while and a lot of money to make the shift.
Yep, the federal highway subsidy is definitely a big factor here, too (though I don't think that's as big a deal as it might seem; numbers that are too big just become part of the marketing in the campaign to replace you. "outhouseperilous voted to spend $450 million on transportation last year!" becomes the soundbite, and your protestations that subsidies covered the entire cost won't get any traction).
To say nothing of how it's "woke" to not worship at the feet of the automotive industry.
not worshipping and going to the other r/fuckcars woukd be woke, god theyre sexy
Oh, thats true. Nevermind. I dont want to be burned as a heretic.
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So many people get heated driveways, use it for a year, get the cost for running it and never use it again...
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written by someone who has never been to michigan.
fyi, Michigan is a peninsula surrounded by the great lakes… it has it’s own special snow….
(see also, lake effect snow).
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I mean this has a specific use case
You don't have to be negative about everything just because you don't understand it
It's not like you live in doomworld, doomsilvanya, 10230
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