I hope this isn’t one of those instances where I 90% agree with you, but you’re gonna be angry with me over the 10% difference.
Aren’t parking spaces smaller in Europe than the US? There is value is having smaller cars.
To go farther into the 10%, there’s a lot of rural America that needs cars. It’s not practical to lay track literally everywhere. And Park n’ Rides are much, much more tolerable if the demand and use for them is much smaller. I don’t expect places like nowhere Ohio to give up their cars. I just want all towns to be more walkable, and I want the biggest transformation to be in the cities.
Aren’t parking spaces smaller in Europe than the US? There is value is having smaller cars.
Maybe, but if so, it’s only a marginal difference. First of all, keep in mind that you have to design spaces for the biggest cars (or at least the 90th percentile or something, excluding outliers), not the average. Second and more importantly, the big win for urbanism isn’t shaving a foot off the width of a space; it’s having fewer spaces to begin with. It’s also an issue of the proportion of people doing trips in cars vs. other modes, and things like that. If you’re building with the expectation that everybody is entitled to free and abundant parking at their destination, you’re going to destroy walkability regardless of whether they show up in Smart Cars or Suburbans.
To go farther into the 10%…
100% agreed with the whole paragraph. And that’s another reason why I think dog-piling about pickup trucks and other specific automobile makes/models/styles is unhelpful: it often gives ammunition for those special-snowflake types who really do need that kind of vehicle an excuse to claim their exception disproves the rule and dismiss us all as irrational truck-hating reactionaries instead of urbanists with legitimate concerns.
I think a point could be made that larger cars are environmentally more damaging as well as more dangerous to pedestrians and other road users, in both cases due to there being a lot more weight of metal being moved around in larger cars (so, more fuel consumption - which in the case of electric cars is still indirectly causing some polution - and more momentum that needs to be removed to stop a collision or involved in the actual collision).
Not really the way the other poster was making his point but still provides a “Fuck cars” reason to complain about “government buys lots of large cars”.
I’ve also made an argument elsewhere about how the higher values involved in corruption in the Procurement of Car Fleets compared to non-Car options might be incentivising state officials to go for cars and car-friendly policies, but that’s not relevant for this specific thread.
I think a point could be made that larger cars are environmentally more damaging as well as more dangerous to pedestrians and other road users
The margin between a large car and a small car is negligible compared to the margin between any car and a bus or bicycle. To dwell on large cars is to give small cars a pass that they do not deserve.
I don’t think criticizing large cars in a post or two qualifies as “dwelling” on large cars.
Also the margin is irrelevant for a vehicle’s danger to pedestrians or its consumption, only its mass and velocity (because the energy of a moving object is proportional to the mass and to the square of the velocity), which is why even a bicycle can be deadly to a pedestrian if going at a high enough speed.
My point is that large cars are generally worse than small cars (significantly so when the mass is 3x or 4x), not that small cars are not bad or that use of small cars can be excused by there being people using large cars.
I can get it if your detesting of cars is an absolute thing with no specific reason, but I suspect that for most of us our detesting of cars is anchored on various very concrete reasons, and personally danger to pedestrians and other road users such as cyclists and polution are two of the biggest ones for me, in which case it makes sense to detest even more a trend in car use that makes them more dangerous and more poluting (and even electric cars are poluting because of tire microparticle emission - which by the way is proportional to weight - and energy generation still not being 100% renewable so indirectly cars fueled by electricity still polute)
Also the margin is irrelevant for a vehicle’s danger to pedestrians or its consumption, only its mass and velocity (because the energy of a moving object is proportional to the mass and to the square of the velocity), which is why even a bicycle can be deadly to a pedestrian if going at a high enough speed.
Let me put it this way: there’s a reason why cyclists and pedestrians can safely coexist on multi-use trails without so much as even lanes or stop signs at trail intersections, but adding even little kei cars to that mix would be a ridiculous disaster.
If being run over by a kei car is already enough to kill you anyway, then it’s not as if being run over by a big truck instead can somehow kill you “more.” And sure, there’s some small difference in probability, but in terms of danger to pedestrians, a kei car is way, way, way closer to a big truck than it is to a bicycle.
Also, again, every car, regardless of size, takes up a whole parking space (even kei cars in places outside Japan that don’t design special small parking spaces for them). Every car, regardless of size, takes up a whole travel lane width. Every car, regardless of size, takes up the essentially the same length of road while in motion (because spacing between cars is dominated by minimum safe following distance, and the length of the car itself is negligible in comparison). Every trip taken by car, regardless of car size, is one not taken by cycling or transit. Every person who owns a car, regardless of car size, needs somewhere to store it and is therefore contributing to demand for parking spaces/loss of walkability.
The negative effects of cars on walkability and urban design are absolutely dependent on their number, not their size.
I can get it if your detesting of cars is an absolute thing with no specific reason, but I suspect that for most of us our detesting of cars is anchored on various very concrete reasons, and personally danger to pedestrians and other road users such as cyclists and polution are two of the biggest ones for me, in which case it makes sense to detest even more a trend in car use that makes them more dangerous and more poluting
Okay, but you need to understand that both of those problems are also absolutely dominated by the sheer number of cars, not the size of them!
Going from a 55mph road with no shoulder with big trucks zooming down it to a 55mph road with no shoulder with kei cars zooming down it would hardly be any safer for cyclists at all. In contrast, adding separated bike infrastructure to such a road would make it way safer for cyclists, even if the cars using it continued to be big trucks.
Going from a big car to a small car might be up to about 50% more efficient (and that’s making a very generous assumption) – and that margin applies equally to going from a big gasoline car to a small gasoline car, or going from a big electric car to a small electric car. In contrast, going from an electric car to an e-bike is 20 to 35 times more efficient. Even the smallest cars still weigh thousands of pounds; there’s a limit to how efficient they can get. The big wins in reducing pollution are achieved by getting people out of cars entirely, not by getting them into smaller ones.
Attention/political capital is a limited resource. Spending any of it on reducing the size of cars instead of their number is borderline misguided and unhelpful, in every case.
I hope this isn’t one of those instances where I 90% agree with you, but you’re gonna be angry with me over the 10% difference.
Aren’t parking spaces smaller in Europe than the US? There is value is having smaller cars.
To go farther into the 10%, there’s a lot of rural America that needs cars. It’s not practical to lay track literally everywhere. And Park n’ Rides are much, much more tolerable if the demand and use for them is much smaller. I don’t expect places like nowhere Ohio to give up their cars. I just want all towns to be more walkable, and I want the biggest transformation to be in the cities.
Maybe, but if so, it’s only a marginal difference. First of all, keep in mind that you have to design spaces for the biggest cars (or at least the 90th percentile or something, excluding outliers), not the average. Second and more importantly, the big win for urbanism isn’t shaving a foot off the width of a space; it’s having fewer spaces to begin with. It’s also an issue of the proportion of people doing trips in cars vs. other modes, and things like that. If you’re building with the expectation that everybody is entitled to free and abundant parking at their destination, you’re going to destroy walkability regardless of whether they show up in Smart Cars or Suburbans.
100% agreed with the whole paragraph. And that’s another reason why I think dog-piling about pickup trucks and other specific automobile makes/models/styles is unhelpful: it often gives ammunition for those special-snowflake types who really do need that kind of vehicle an excuse to claim their exception disproves the rule and dismiss us all as irrational truck-hating reactionaries instead of urbanists with legitimate concerns.
I think a point could be made that larger cars are environmentally more damaging as well as more dangerous to pedestrians and other road users, in both cases due to there being a lot more weight of metal being moved around in larger cars (so, more fuel consumption - which in the case of electric cars is still indirectly causing some polution - and more momentum that needs to be removed to stop a collision or involved in the actual collision).
Not really the way the other poster was making his point but still provides a “Fuck cars” reason to complain about “government buys lots of large cars”.
I’ve also made an argument elsewhere about how the higher values involved in corruption in the Procurement of Car Fleets compared to non-Car options might be incentivising state officials to go for cars and car-friendly policies, but that’s not relevant for this specific thread.
The margin between a large car and a small car is negligible compared to the margin between any car and a bus or bicycle. To dwell on large cars is to give small cars a pass that they do not deserve.
I don’t think criticizing large cars in a post or two qualifies as “dwelling” on large cars.
Also the margin is irrelevant for a vehicle’s danger to pedestrians or its consumption, only its mass and velocity (because the energy of a moving object is proportional to the mass and to the square of the velocity), which is why even a bicycle can be deadly to a pedestrian if going at a high enough speed.
My point is that large cars are generally worse than small cars (significantly so when the mass is 3x or 4x), not that small cars are not bad or that use of small cars can be excused by there being people using large cars.
I can get it if your detesting of cars is an absolute thing with no specific reason, but I suspect that for most of us our detesting of cars is anchored on various very concrete reasons, and personally danger to pedestrians and other road users such as cyclists and polution are two of the biggest ones for me, in which case it makes sense to detest even more a trend in car use that makes them more dangerous and more poluting (and even electric cars are poluting because of tire microparticle emission - which by the way is proportional to weight - and energy generation still not being 100% renewable so indirectly cars fueled by electricity still polute)
Let me put it this way: there’s a reason why cyclists and pedestrians can safely coexist on multi-use trails without so much as even lanes or stop signs at trail intersections, but adding even little kei cars to that mix would be a ridiculous disaster.
If being run over by a kei car is already enough to kill you anyway, then it’s not as if being run over by a big truck instead can somehow kill you “more.” And sure, there’s some small difference in probability, but in terms of danger to pedestrians, a kei car is way, way, way closer to a big truck than it is to a bicycle.
Also, again, every car, regardless of size, takes up a whole parking space (even kei cars in places outside Japan that don’t design special small parking spaces for them). Every car, regardless of size, takes up a whole travel lane width. Every car, regardless of size, takes up the essentially the same length of road while in motion (because spacing between cars is dominated by minimum safe following distance, and the length of the car itself is negligible in comparison). Every trip taken by car, regardless of car size, is one not taken by cycling or transit. Every person who owns a car, regardless of car size, needs somewhere to store it and is therefore contributing to demand for parking spaces/loss of walkability.
The negative effects of cars on walkability and urban design are absolutely dependent on their number, not their size.
Okay, but you need to understand that both of those problems are also absolutely dominated by the sheer number of cars, not the size of them!
Going from a 55mph road with no shoulder with big trucks zooming down it to a 55mph road with no shoulder with kei cars zooming down it would hardly be any safer for cyclists at all. In contrast, adding separated bike infrastructure to such a road would make it way safer for cyclists, even if the cars using it continued to be big trucks.
Going from a big car to a small car might be up to about 50% more efficient (and that’s making a very generous assumption) – and that margin applies equally to going from a big gasoline car to a small gasoline car, or going from a big electric car to a small electric car. In contrast, going from an electric car to an e-bike is 20 to 35 times more efficient. Even the smallest cars still weigh thousands of pounds; there’s a limit to how efficient they can get. The big wins in reducing pollution are achieved by getting people out of cars entirely, not by getting them into smaller ones.
Attention/political capital is a limited resource. Spending any of it on reducing the size of cars instead of their number is borderline misguided and unhelpful, in every case.