Nineteenth-century English conservatives detested the car, believing that it would destroy the looks and manners of the countryside. Italian Futurists exalted “the beauty of speed” in the 1920s, hoping that it would usher in a new violent age, shorn of “emasculating tendencies” like democracy. Mussolini and Hitler followed through such ideas, the latter bequeathing the autobahns and the Volkswagen to subsequent road enthusiasts. [Brian] Ladd's explicitly anti-car study ["Autophobia"] questions why machines associated with individual freedom have appealed so greatly to fascists of all stripes (Russian and Chinese central planners were both great admirers of Henry Ford).
Opponents of cars have laboured the same points for more than a century: damage to the environment, social atomization and, of course, a high risk of accident and death. In opposition, the pro-car lobby requires abstract arguments which refuse to address the same set of “facts” and foreground ideology instead. From Hitler to Margaret Thatcher, car advocates have seen them as literal engines of change; vehicles by which to remake society, whether on the basis of individualism or collectivism.
December 7, 2008
Fascist cars?
Why aren't we more hostile to cars? Are we deluded about what they are doing to us? Jon Garvie is reviewing a couple books. Here's a challenging excerpt:
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They're better than horses!
None of us can remember days when the streets were littered with ozone-layer destroying, methane-emitting, disease-spreading, fly-breeding horseshit.
You're supposed to take public transportation.
Though how you're supposed to pick up your kids and do errands... they never say.
No wonder the publishing business is in trouble.
There are too many pinheads with too much time writing books no one needs.
The closest public transportation (except for the elderly and the disabled) is 45 miles from here, not very practical.
Reductio ad Hitlerum:
Hitler supported X,
therefore X is evil.
Response:
But still the fascists made the trains run on time.
"Neo-liberals portray the free market as an expression of innate human characteristics, exempt from society and history."
No they don't. They never have. This is the worst definition of the free market I have ever read.
"...mobility is a “false god” equates to a wider belief that car-led economic growth is not worth the social consequences."
Oh my, his panties are in quite a twist!
False gods! Oh my. One wonders what he considers the 'true' god. I have a guess.
Plus he knows nothing ...nothing at all about the history of the 20th century, which takes some doing.
How do I know?
This quote:
"...fascists of all stripes (Russian and Chinese central planners..."
What the hell?
When did the prime movers of communism, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, become fascists? What utter bullshit.
This article is typical Marxist claptrap, a paean to a time when rustic folk lived close to the land, in harmony with nature and each other in small communities.
That is, a myth, a time that never existed. The only fact he got right is that they were for the most part immobile.
...a time that Hitler worshiped and wanted to recreate.
Yes, Jon Garvie is an typical modern liberal for soft fascism.
Immobility is a false god; so is collectivism. So is this sort of utopian hate of the world as it is (and its people, damn them for wanting to move about!!!)..
[**exempt from Godwin's law because we are in fact discussing fascism**]
The author got only one thing right:
Hans Monderman showed that when the government makes fewer signs and rules, the accidents are fewer as well.
Gosh, less government intrusion works. I wonder what philosophy that encompasses?
I remember reading somewhere that the car was a key to the sexual revolution. At least the back seat of the car was. Aren't anti-facists supposed to support that particular revolution?
Last night I spent roughly an hour and a half waiting for a bus in 20 degree weather. There is no way in hell I'm relying on public transportation anymore.
Hitler, Mussolini and me: we all love cars.
""...fascists of all stripes (Russian and Chinese central planners..." What the hell? When did the prime movers of communism, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, become fascists? What utter bullshit."
Paging Jonah Goldberg.
In opposition, the pro-car lobby requires abstract arguments...
Actually, the best argument is probably the least abstract, "people like cars." Or to be more precise, "most of the people most of the time prefer cars to the alternative."
And by alternative, I mean real alternative, not some magical conveyance that shows up close to where you are at the time you want to go, drops you where you want to go quickly, and then can be found nearby when you want to leave. That's a private limo with chauffeur, not public transportation.
"From Hitler to Margaret Thatcher"...
Aha!!
I just knew those two were connected somehow!
You know, the pope, Bush, Obama, Hollywood liberals, the Queen, Mother Teresa, Jay Leno, Pete Seeger, and the Dalai lama have all driven in cars.
This is the biggest conspiracy of all time, I think.
Paging Jonah Goldberg.
Ah! Garvie is implicitly a fan of Goldberg, you're saying them!
By his standards an unspoken virtue of cars is that it now inclines you toward abstract arguments, more than the horse would! A world of Philosopher-Motorists!
Ladd's book sounds like a farrago of arguments, legitimate and illegitimate, against the automobile, with no distinction made between the quality of the arguments. The result is nonsense.
The futurists glorified machines, speed, and violence, but to say that they influenced Mussolini and Hitler in favor of the automobile is going too far. Mussolini had little interest in art, except to the extent that he could coopt the artists. Hitler's keen interest in suppressing modern art makes absurd the notion that he borrowed ideas from a bunch of Italian artists. Russian and Chinese central planners indeed admired Henry Ford, but for his invention of the assembly line. They much preferred public transportation (and tractors!), not cars.
We might as well as say that dog lovers are fascists because Hitler loved dogs or that clocks are fascist because Mussolini made the trains run on time.
All of this talk about cars is beside the point. In my basement is a working prototype of the transportation device I call a “transporter.” You enter “coordinates” and “energize” the device to “beam” lifeforms or objects from one place to another.
However, it is not yet perfect.
Just last week I attempted to send a gerbil from one side of the basement to the other. Instead, it simply disappeared. What makes it all inexplicable is three days later I got a check for $100 and a nice thank you note from Richard Gere.
It's funny that when people have a choice they usually don't take public transportation.
How's it "better" if we have to compel people to use it? Better for who?
Bissage: install a bug zapper in your basement before performing further tests. Trust me.
Though how you're supposed to pick up your kids and do errands... they never say.
You take the bus all over town and drag the kids along. Sure, your errands take ten hours instead of two, but at least you're not operating one of those fascist cars!
Though how you're supposed to pick up your kids and do errands... they never say
We're supposed to live in hives like this where we don't need cars.
Say, didn't Middleton, WI experiment with this a while back? I'm looking. brb
It's funny that when people have a choice they usually don't take public transportation.
Most people don't have a choice. Given the choice between convenient public transportation and driving, many people will opt for public transportation--especially if you live in a congested city where owning and maintaining a car can be expensive and inconvenient.
When I lived in Alexandria, VA, I took the Metro to work because it was cheaper, less stressful and faster than driving. There are other cities (unfortunately, they are in the minority) in this country, and many more in other countries, where this is true.
Having been involved with the environmental movement for decades, I could never get anyone to deal with questions like "what about people with little kids?" or "what about people who are too old to ride a bike or walk?"
Cars are not only not fascist, they are the distillation of anti-fascism. They are the laughing clowns dancing all over the blueprints of social planners. Cars and the land-use developments unleashed by cars have unleashed capitalism, sending it in directions regretted and bemoaned by intellectuals and utopians almost since their arrival as a consumer product. Nobody who thinks about rearranging society wants to think they would be doing something unpopular and thus, if they had their way, coercive. They think of themselves as more compassionate, more sensitive, more thoughtful, more visionary, all good and virtuous things to be. Cars mock these vanities. They say "talk all you want, I'm going down the road a ways." Cars are Huck Finn, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac and Steve McQueen. They are unbossable. Woody Guthrie wrote "This machine kills fascists" on his guitar, but it could have as easily been written on a car.
The social and environmental planners who deserve being listened to are those who don't start out from the viewpoint that cars should be limited. Go ahead, make cars as clean-burning as possible, make them quiet and earth-friendly. But assume Americans and citizens of the world all want them, and assume they will fight you if you make them inaccessible or unaffordable.
Ah yes, Middleton Hills. No need to pick up your kids or drive to do errands because everything is so conveniently located. How's that working out?
John Stodder wrote: Woody Guthrie wrote "This machine kills fascists" on his guitar, but it could have as easily been written on a car.
That's brilliant John Stodder.
Having been involved with the environmental movement for decades, I could never get anyone to deal with questions like "what about people with little kids?" or "what about people who are too old to ride a bike or walk?"
Well of course when you base a society around the car, you inevitably have the problem of what about people who are too disabled to to drive or can not afford a car.
It is nonsense to say that cars give us freedom and that some evil cadre of social and environmental planners want to take away our cars. Of course, a cadre of planners decided to take away public transportation by consciously deciding in this country, more than almost any other, to build out road networks, zoning, and land use that discouraged the effective use of public transportation and encouraged dependence on the automobile.
"You know, the pope, Bush, Obama, Hollywood liberals, the Queen, Mother Teresa, Jay Leno, Pete Seeger, and the Dalai lama have all driven in cars."
Sure, but Obama didn't like it.
Stodder:
That is is the most insightful,succint bit of writing on cars and motor transport that I've seen in quite some time.
Fredder: When was the last time you carried a half a dozen 2x4s and 100 lbs. of mulch home on the subway or the bus?
Of course, a cadre of planners decided to take away public transportation by consciously deciding in this country, more than almost any other, to build out road networks, zoning, and land use that discouraged the effective use of public transportation and encouraged dependence on the automobile.
That's a weird way of explaining reality. By allowing land to be developed away from central cities, these planners "took away" public transportation?
They didn't take anything away. If anything, they expanded the tax base to pay for it. Los Angeles, the ultimate metaphor for intellectuals for car-promoting urban sprawl, has one of the biggest bus systems in the country, contrary to popular belief. Billions are being spent on light and heavy rail in a massive public effort that's been underway for almost 30 years.
Taxpayers have demonstrated repeatedly they are willing to pay for gold-plated transit systems they'll never use. The planners in Los Angeles want everyone to take buses or rail as often as possible. And people do use them, although some of the lines are turkeys.
The problem, if there is one, is that planners in other communities permit development of single family houses that -- shockingly -- there is a market for. There are regional planners in SoCal who'd like to take away local authority, but that gets resisted understandably. And besides, it's too late. Sprawl in SoCal simply is. As it is in much of the Southwest. Not much you can do now, and making driving a car more expensive merely punishes people without achieving a social purpose.
If you want to start a new city dedicated to facilitating public transit, you can do that. But it'll take a century or more to undo the land uses that the car enabled. Better to just accept them and work with them.
"You know, the pope, Bush, Obama, Hollywood liberals, the Queen, Mother Teresa, Jay Leno, Pete Seeger, and the Dalai lama have all driven in cars."
Beep, beep.
Beep, beep.
Yeah.
Most people don't have a choice. Given the choice between convenient public transportation and driving, many people will opt for public transportation--especially if you live in a congested city where owning and maintaining a car can be expensive and inconvenient.
When I lived in Alexandria, VA, I took the Metro to work because it was cheaper, less stressful and faster than driving.
A train to cut out your commute is one thing. If you actually live in DC, a car would be nice. I lived in Georgetown for a summer and had no car. Took me forever to get anywhere--unless I took a taxi. And getting around DC by oneself at night without a car does not exactly feel safe.
But it'll take a century or more to undo the land uses that the car enabled.
The land use was not enabled not so much by the car but by government building roads, and implementing zoning that encouraged sprawl, that I was thinking about.
We need to think about contracting and returning to more sane and concentrated land use which will facilitate public concentration. And of course it will take a long time to undo it and we will be using cars for a very long time in the future. But to say, "we have been adding lanes and new freeways and another new exurb while emptying out the inner cities for the last 60 years so there is no point in stopping now (and not only that, it is impossible because nobody uses public transportation except stupid poor people)" is shortsighted, ignores places where there is effective public transportation, and refuses to accept that we can do things differently.
We need to think about contracting and returning to more sane and concentrated land use which will facilitate public concentration.
And what of those of us who have no desire to live in "public concentration?"
The land use was not enabled not so much by the car but by government building roads, and implementing zoning that encouraged sprawl, that I was thinking about.
You've got it backwards. The government didn't "implement zoning that encouraged sprawl." The private sector built single-family house where zoning didn't get in the way. The typical pattern is that once a development is populated and the people start to grow roots, they start to elect slow-growth city councils and then restrictive zoning comes into existence.
Roads, because they are built by the government, do represent a public choice, but in the planning process, the roads followed the developments, generally speaking. If you want to say there was graft and corruption in the process sometimes, in which developers saw an opportunity to build but wanted to grease the process to get roads and other utility connections, okay. But why was that graft needed? Because the government has monopolized public transportation in all its forms.
The LA story, that developers killed the great, wonderful, magnificent trolley system you see in old movies, is a myth. It wasn't cars vs. transit, it was transit vs. transit. Bus manufacturers, and bus tire manufacturers had much more to do with influencing the decisions involved in killing the trolleys. And they were old, falling-apart and thus underused, and the companies that ran them were going under. So the real public choice was, do we fix them or do we try something else? The most important features of old transit system, the rights-of-way, still exist in many places, however, and some of them have been used as the routes for more contemporary above-ground rail systems.
I was in France last month for the better part of two weeks, and I reacquainted myself with European-style transportation, so beloved by the command-and-control classes everywhere. Things are not perfect in France, and, in fact, quite American in their use of cars in some ways. But I did see a few things regarding transportation that were worthwhile for me, at least, to be aware of.
First of all, Europe has a very dense rail network of high physical quality, enabling them to run trains rapidly and efficiently. Maintaining that network costs enormous amounts of money that would be very hard to raise on an ongoing basis in America. The rail network has long since become part of the socialized infrastructure in Europe that took a long time to build and develop. It would take a similarly long time, perhaps that century mentioned by John Stodder, to duplicate that piece of the puzzle in America. For one thing, we need to get our considerable freight traffic off the same lines used for passenger service. That in itself is no small task, and even in France we were shuttled onto freight rails briefly for a track repair to a main passenger line.
European trains (the French are much improved in the past 20 years) are clean, safe, and run on time. That takes an enormous staff, something Americans don't often appreciate. All those people have to be trained and paid, otherwise the service would deteriorate into American-style misery. While the labor costs for freight have been cut considerably in the past 30 years, passenger service is resistant to staff cuts beyond a certain point, as anyone who has tried to find an actual person to help them when traveling by rail in the US can tell you.
But despite the dense rail network in Europe, cars remain very handy. The walk from the train station in the pleasant suburb of Saint Maur to the venue of the convention I was attending would have been nice, but taken 20 minutes in good weather. There was raw, cold rain a couple of days, so I was very happy to see a nice, warm, new Peugeot appear by the café to pick me up.
I also ran across one of the constant problems you'll find in France, and which social planners never seem to mention: Strikes. All that staff is unionized, and they go on strike frequently. There was a half-day train strike the Friday before the long All-Saints' Day weekend, just to remind everyone that the CGT refuses to die. Typical. So we crawled along on the périphérique for 3 hours getting back to our apartment in the 15th. The whole thing had a remarkable Bay Area vibe, and if it weren't for the license plates and Euro-style truck tires, I would have thought we were stuck on the Nimitz or 101.
All that European planning to minimize the bad effects of cars hasn't completely done the job. More of that damned real life.
But there is one innovation that I saw in Paris that has become really popular in the past 10 or 15 years, that some people should consider in this country, and that is the widespread use of heavy-duty motor scooters or half-motorcycles. This model is typical on Parisian streets. Scooters have always been widely-used in Europe, but the latest models are much more substantial, all-weather vehicles, some with 3 wheels. They are everywhere now, and all sorts of people use them, not just the young. Their 2-cycle engines seem to have been eliminated as well, so you don't get that unmistakable leaf blower/Italian motor scooter smell. As an old motorcycle rider, I have always turned up my nose at scooters, but it looks like modern scooters are nearly perfect urban vehicles that nicely bridge the gap between "real" motorcycles and the miserable Vespas of Italian movies.
There are also lots of very clever rental bicycles that have been recently made available in Paris. They cost a Euro per half hour, increasing after an hour. You have to pay a membership fee, etc., but the rental bike racks are everywhere, and the sturdy bikes are a great way to get around for trips that are too long to walk.
Not to make this a travelogue, but I think a good exercise for realistic urban planners is to, in fact, visit Europe, but don't stay in a hotel. Actually go through a few days of real life, getting to work, buying groceries, moving the kids around. I think they might find that a mix of strategies, from public transportation to cars to bicycles, etc., as I found at Paris, is the best way forward, in general, and that we shouldn't put all our transportation eggs in any one basket.
Truly, what a load of BS. People have never been truly immobile and were probably always on the lookout for ways to get wherever faster and carry bigger, heavier loads.
This was the part that made me laugh the loudest:
"Driving kills because it is too complicated for our poor brains. The army of evolutionary biologists, molecular physicists and social psychologists whom Vanderbilt interviews have not, between them, produced a robot capable of negotiating a roundabout safely."
That's because they have programmed the robots properly. According to my sister living in Scotland, the best way to negotiate a roundabout is by closing your eyes :-)
We need to think about contracting
What bullshit, Fred. You think about contracting. Go. Contract. Live in a place of contraction with your contraction-loving friends. How about New Harmony, Indiana?
It's funny. I don't own a car. I live in the middle of a dense city -- I'd have it no other way -- and having a car seems like adding stress to my life. That said, I can't stand fascist pansies who want to take away the freedom and efficiency that cars provide for people who choose to have them, wherever they live.
That said, I can't stand fascist pansies who want to take away the freedom and efficiency that cars provide for people who choose to have them, wherever they live.
I've got no problem with Freeman Hunt wanting to live in West Bumble, MT and commute 75 miles each way to work. But when it comes time to spend precious and limited transportation dollars and the choice is between a high speed rail line which will encourage high density development or another outer ring interstate that will let Freeman commute to work in two hours rather than two and a half because it will reduce traffic density for a couple years (until even more cookie cutter subdivisions are built even further out in the country and traffic is just as bad again and somebody proposes yet four more lanes or another new road), I want my tax dollars spent on the high speed rail line.
I can't stand fascist pansies whose idea of freedom is whining about high taxes and the government yet expect there to be adequate roads, sewage, electrical supply and all the other trappings of society in what ever inconvenient corner of the world they decide to live.
Freder: The difficulty is, as I implied upthread, that you cannot just build a "high speed" rail line, and, presto, all your transportation problems are solved.
What is a "high speed" line anyway? In France, home of the TGV, you don't get "high speed" until you get on the damned TGV on one of the scrupulously and expensively maintained grandes lignes that only go long distances. The commuter rail RER is fast enough, but nothing special, and the interurban lines, such as we took to Chartres, run along nicely, but, again, nothing astounding.
The astounding thing by American standards is that the trains are frequent, relatively clean, efficiently run and organized, and on time, except, of course when they're on strike. The rail system is an entire SYSTEM, with 4 services, if you count the Metro, all of which took well over a century to evolve into their present shape. The tracks are well maintained, and everything seems to be electrified, simplifying locomotive maintenance and management.
A European-style rail system has been in American urban planners' wet dreams for a long time. My point, and that of John Stodder, if I understand him correctly, is that such things are not built overnight, that they are enormously complex and expensive, and, I will add the obvious, that they are not suited for the low population densities of most of this country.
For better or worse, we have built what we have built, and no one is going to tear it down and move everyone into cities. We need realistic transportation planning, including private cars, for conditions in the United States.
If you want efficient rail, you have to have European population densities. Everyone in cities must then live asshole-to-elbow in Manhattan-style tiny apartments, or, if you can afford it, in million-Euro, ugly, little mansionettes on postage-stamp yards in what passes for the 'burbs. The countryside is clearly the countryside, and has few people living there.
Europe has much to recommend it in terms of climate, food, quality of education and services, and, of course, history and culture (at least what didn't get destroyed in the 20th century). But, as an American who is values all those things, I am very glad to trade some of them for a little living space. I will, of course, pay for that, but I would end up paying just as much for all the charms of urban life.
It would be interesting for people to kick around realistic and positive thoughts about issues like transportation, and not resort to commonplace cant and holier-than-thou self-congratulation.
Here's the deal with the trains. When people talk about "Europe," they are really talking about Western Europe. It's not that big. It's a few countries, with a few major cities. It's basically the American Northeast.
We already have high-speed rail in the Northeast. It's quite good, actually, and it is far better than driving or flying. Could it be better? Yeah, if it was private.
Should it also service Boise and Houston and Oakland? No. Because, as has been pointed out in this thread numerous times, the population density in those areas is not high enough for trains to make sense.
Many American cities have rail services that nobody takes. Why? And if no one is taking them, why build more?
One more point. The Interstate in this country IS the rail service. It's faster. It's probably about the same cost when you figure in labor, repairs, etc. Try driving from Salzburg to Rome sometime.
Seven, I agree. You put most of what I was trying to say more clearly and directly.
Two little quibbles: Western Europe is larger than simply the Northeast. Not hugely so, but enough. France is the size of California, and it is covered with a fairly good rail system, as are Germany and the Low Countries. Western Europe simply has more railways over a larger area with higher population densities than we do.
As someone who's been on trains and subways of all kinds in the Northeast and in Europe, I'd say that the service, cleanliness, convenience, etc. is a notch better in Western Europe. Of course, the frequent and on-time service is counterbalanced by the adventure of using a bathroom in a French train station, but the tracks, the trainsets, and the level of service is better. I'd say the cost per mile (or kilometre) is cheaper, too, but I won't swear to this without more research.
The bottom line is that conditions in this country don't lend themselves to widespread passenger rail service. You can say the magic words "high speed rail," all you want, but you can be sure the Fairy Godmother won't turn Southern California into France.
One thing related to the automobile that is forgotten is the trucking industry. This industry has been a very important factor in making the US an economic powerhouse. The invention and use of the refrigerated warehouse, where you could park an entire semi-trailer, was a genuine marvel. In all the talk about organic grown food, we forget that the average American now has access to a range and quality of inexpensive food far surpassing even fifty years ago, let alone a hundred.
I can't stand fascist pansies whose idea of freedom is whining about high taxes and the government yet expect there to be adequate roads, sewage, electrical supply and all the other trappings of society in what ever inconvenient corner of the world they decide to live.
You do realize that we have plenty of money for infrastructure but we blow most of it on socialist handout programs you like, don't you?
Amusing that I've somehow morphed into a fascist commuter from a cookie cutter subdivision. I think that you don't know as much about other people as you assume you do.
Of course the trains in Western Europe are better. The whole place seems nicer in a lot of ways.
The difference between them and us was summed up nicely for me once by a lawyer from from some European country. "We look back into the past," he said. "You have no past and always look toward the future."
Didn't F. Scott Fitzgerald nail exactly this with Jay Gatsby? Anyway, back to commuting.
I live in NYC and haven't owned a car for decades, but I do rent cars for trips out of the city fairly frequently. I have used every form of mass transit available, and ridden on buses and subways and trains and trolleys and trams and ferries and such in, and to, every city from here to Boston and from here to DC. I am also a big fan of walking, for transportation and for fun.
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, you've got to be kidding me. Cars are fascist? Get a clue. Capitalist, maybe. But fascist? More like Libertarian, I's say.
As for why people prefer cars, I think the answers are pretty f---ing obvious and have little or nothing to do with "idealogy" or even the language used in car advertising. (Caveat: All of the following is predicated on being able to afford a car (including insurance, maintenance, licencing, registration, repairs, tolls, parking, etc.), if you can't afford a car, then you better hop on the bus!)
(1) Cars are convenient. With a car, I can go when I want, stay as long as I want, and come home when I damn well please. I am beholden to no one else's "schedule," and to no one else's sense of when "service" should end or be cut back. There is no dearth of "service" late at night, on weekends, at midday, or on Holidays. And just as I set the schedule, so do I set the itinerary. I stop where I want, and only where I want. There is no place, at least anywhere near a road, that I "can't get to" by car. That's not even close to being true of train or even bus travel, at least in the US. If you like the countryside, most of it is inaccesible without a car, unless you have endless amounts of time to hike to where you want to go, and even that is not really possible as there will no place to camp or eat along the way. I change the number of stops at will. I get hungry, I stop. I need to use the toilet, I stop. I want to stretch my legs, I stop. I don't want to do any of that, I don't stop. I combine or split trips at my convenience and whim. I never have the experience, as all bus and train riders have had at times, of actually riding right past my destination and having to double back to it because there is no "stop" for my conveyance at the exact place where I wish to go. I can avoid trouble spots (like the Lincoln Tunnel) and whole trouble zones (like Midtown Manhattan) much more easily and frequently than I can if I rely on intercity buses and trains in NYC. This is to say nothing of the psychic peace gained by avoiding tranist hell-holes like Penn Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, particularly at rush hours or other peak times, like holidays.
(2)Cars are private. In a car, one needn't associate with "the Other" in any way. I'm in my car. I don't have to talk to you. I don't have to touch, or be touched, by you. I don't have to listen to you, or even look at you. If I am with someone else, we can talk about whatever we want without worrying about being overheard. We can use any idiom, no matter how idiosyncratic or embarassing if overheard, we choose. Same with my cell phone, if I choose to use it.
(3) Cars are comfortable. In my car. I decide how hot or cold it will be. I decide if I want fresh air or not. I decide if there is to be music, or not, and, if so, what it is to be and at what volume. And, I have more room. I always have a seat, and nice big one at that. One that I can adjust easily, without straining my back or inconveniencing anyone else.
(4) Cars can carry more than I can. I carry a backpack most places. I'm pretty good at stuffing things in it, and at schlepping it on the subway, in trains, cabs, busses, on foot and so on. But, I'm not a car. I don't have a back seat, or a trunk or hatchback. You can simply carry a whole lot more stuff in a car than you can on any form of public transportation. And you don't have to be a travelling salesman for that to matter. Going on a vacation? It's a lot nicer, and easier, to be able to bring along everything you might want or need than to have to "triage" your luggage to what you can carry. The days of porters carrying your "steamer trunk" for you are long gone. On most forms of public tranist, you're the porter, and the security guard protecting your own luggage too. And, once you're on the road, if you see something you might like for yourself, you can just buy it and throw it in the car. You don't have to worry about carrying it, or shipping it, home. And the same with presents for others. Speaking of which, going home and coming back for the Christmas holidays, laden with presents both ways, is a hell of a lot easier with a car than without one.
All of this is to say nothing of folks who find getting in and out of public transit to be too strenuous, because of sickness, injury, disability, or old age. Or of travelling with children, which is much easier by car.
As for bikes, forget it! The weather must be near perfect, many people are not healthy enough to do it, it's dangerous, it tends to make you, and your clothes, dirty and sweaty, and you can hardly carry anything at all.
Sure, there are some disadvantages to using a car. If one needs to go "downtown," at least in the Northeast US, there is often a train, bus or subway that will get you there, and move you around once there, better, and cheaper than a car will. And, one can drink alcohol and ride public transit, but, nowadays, not really do the same and drive a car. Which leads to what maybe the best advantage of public transit: that you get to "leave the driving" to someone else. Driving can be a pain in the neck, and, even under optimal conditions, can become tiring, even dangerously so. And, of course, no one wants to drive in bad weather (although mass transit tends to fall apart in bad weather too).
But, all in all, it seems to me that only pointy eared bureaucrats and academics, utopian dreamers, and liberal, guilt-mongering, PC'er than thou, scolds could fail, or more likely, pretend to fail, to see all the obvious benefits of having a car for the individual. Where I live, one doesn't "need" a car, as all really required shopping is within walking distance. That being the case, the expense of a car just can't be justified. And, of course, I understand all of the societal arguments about wasted fuel, suburban sprawl, global warming, and the rest of it. But, from the point of view of the individual, the case for the car is overwhelmingly persuasive.
Cars are freedom.
They add robustness to the marketplace by making it possible for labor and product to move from place to place as the demands of the market shift.
Of course. some people hate them.
It doesn't suprise me that Freder likes folks to be in tight living conditions and without transportation- it makes them dependant on the government for EVERYTHING.
I find it fascunating that we have 1000 year old abandoned cities in Central America that are still surrounded by people. They didn't abandon the area; just the city. And they did so once the social order broke down and they needed land to feed themselves- to hunt for game and grow their own corn.
Cities are great, as long as you feel the need to depend on everyone else for everything else, but if you want to depend on yourself- move to the country and grow alot of peaches.
I'm surprised I don't see anything written about disease as a downside of public transport. It's a monster disease vector. I'd bet plenty of harm is done by people getting sick from their fellow sardines. It's bad enough people show up to work sick, can you imagine how many extra people they expose when they take public transport to get to work?
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