Lately I have read a lot of articles or 'letters to the editor' telling people to get out of their cars. Some go so far as calling people names for driving certain types of vehicles. Others talk about the economical or environmental benefits of doing without a car. All of it is very nice but useless.
Useless in the sense that car use is so ingrained into society, people cannot imagine living without a car. Calling them names or talking about shit they do not care about will get you nowhere. It is time we addressed the major challenges a driver will face without their car. It is huge. None of which will happen overnight. Until that is done it will simply be a lot of hot air that we are expelling. I am all for putting roads on diets thereby forcing people to rethink their transportation options yet we still must take the next step. No easy task, where do you even begin?
On the other hand I think, "why bother". Sooner or later we will run out of oil and we will not have to worry about it at all. Alternative fuel cars are nice but without oil they will not be cheap or nearly as nice as the gas combustion engine. Alternative fuels need a lot of fuel to be created in the first place.
Vrrrooommmm! Vrroooommmmm!
2 comments:
And of course alternative fuels do nothing to solve the major problem of cars in a dense urban area: congestion, and too much public space devoted to vehicles.
I just realized this at 10am morning that a young woman who lives in my building, who works at the same place as I do, gets her b/f to drive her to work in the morning. Our workplace is 500 metres away. Pitiful.
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