TTG 1892 for Sunday 8 May 2022

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What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!

Ending personal car ownership and thereby being dependent on the government or some large corporation for traveling needs is not something that will ever be acceptable in America by the vast majority of people.

If it were acceptable, the cities would not be declining in population the way they have been (NY Times). Suburbs and small towns are already were 75% of Americans live (538) and it is only growing.

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Check your privilege. There are a great many people who live in urban areas who are poor and cannot afford the expense a vehicle entails. (The initial purchase, the maintenance (oil changes etc), insurance, fuel, parking.) If everyone who already doesn’t have a car had a voice, you might find your opinion is in the minority.

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The vast majority of Americans own their own car. It’s not even close. Check your facts. Also, I never suggested that Uber and Lyft shouldn’t be an option. My point was getting rid of car ownership “entirely” which is what Leo suggested, is not a lifestyle the vast majority of Americans would accept.

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That’s households. Rich people live one or two people per house. Poor people live 4 or more people to an apartment. You can’t conclude the number of Americans who own a car based on households. You’d need a population census, where every person of driving age gets a vote. In that case, you may find, as I previously suggested, that the numbers are not what your instincts suggest. Again, we’re referring to poverty here. America has a poverty problem… which is tied to white privilege.

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According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2015, 88% of Americans own a personal car. This places Americans at the second position in terms of the percentage of citizens owning a car, next only to Italians, 89% of whom reported owning a car.

Only NYC has a car ownership rate less than 50%, and it’s rate is 45%

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Portland, OR (one of the liberal cities in America) can not even move past personal transportation. If they can’t do it, no one can

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It’s hard to square all the data with reality… someone is fudging the numbers somewhere.

Probably this says something different to me than to you. I fully expect, as gas prices get ever higher, that fewer and fewer people want to own an ICE vehicle, and right now they cannot afford a BEV. Never mind the costs to operate either. With the trend toward working from home, to save money and commute time, as well as to keep people safer from airborne pathogens like covid, I fully expect car ownership desires to decline in favour of other trends, which is also what I think @Leo was suggesting.

Good Luck with that view. Americans want independence. Spend some time in American suburbs or small towns (where 75% of Americans live) and you will see what I mean.

The numbers are clear, you can spin them to your view anyway you want, but the vast majority of Americans own cars.

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Regardless of the numbers it’s obvious we have too many cars. How much city space is wasted on parking lots? How many downtowns are ruined for pedestrians. I’d love to ride my bike to work and town but the pathetic bike lanes filled with careless drivers are death traps. You’re probably right, the world is never going to give up personal car ownership, and will probably go down with that ship. Sad.

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We have hundreds of miles of undeveloped land in America. A country like Japan might have to worry about the space taking up parking lots, but not the United States.

In fact, I believe our big cities would be doing so much better (I.E not declining in population) if they were more car dependent and less public transportation, bike lanes etc.

When bikers start paying all the fees and taxes drivers pay, I will accept the fact that they should have equal access to the roads. One reason why I live in the suburbs is to avoid all that.

Ask the average suburban person if they really like going into any big city. The cities would benefit from suburban wealth if they changed.

Bike weaknesses: inclement weather, stocking up on groceries, going to laundry, disabled etc
Mass transit weaknesses: criminals, filth, pandemic etc
Cars essential: emergencies, evacuation, medical issues, pets
There are too many people. Perhaps we should avoid encouraging illegal immigration if the issue is that dire.

There is no reasoning with someone who can see past the past. It’s possible to have a future where transportation is included in the average person’s life without it requiring said average person to own the means of transportation. Paving wide swaths of the planet for cars is not the best use of resources. It seems likely that in the long term local transportation will be either short hops in the air (where the average user will NOT be allowed to “drive” for safety reasons) or some sort of a larger version of the old hospital vacuum tube system (what Star Trek calls turbo lifts,) where the average person would be incapable of the task of driving safely.

I don’t think ANYONE is encouraging breaking of laws… that’s just dog whistle politics. Your country, like mine, is “suffering” a low birth rate from the existing citizens. This leaves two outcomes… eventual decline, or increased immigration. (Or, I suppose, enforced birth rate increases, but that seems untenable for any number of reasons.)

Illegal immigration has been encouraged, but I’m flexible. To avoid distraction with that language, let’s say, we should stop illegal immigration if we think the situation is that dire. An endlessly increasing population will not help the environment of our country nor the planet.

It was good to hear Leo voicing more concern about privacy. In the past he was personally less concerned than some of his listeners. Welcome to the club Leo!

No you’re probably right, but from a word economic power situation, if your population declines enough relative to other countries who do not decline, then you end up being economically disadvantaged and eventually pushed aside as a world power. If the trend gets bad enough you become a 3rd world economy relying on everyone else to keep you going. Kind of like how a fish needs to keep swimming to stay alive, an economy needs to keep growing to not fail… at least in the ways we have been running our [combined] economy in North America.

It’s good to see your concern about our economic situation relative to the rest of the world. The actions taken to discourage Americans from using cars weakens us economically and hurts individuals. I’m not suggesting that we don’t plan for the future, but pushing change before alternatives are ready hurts our country.