this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Yeah, that's totally unrealistic. We could get rid of 99% of cars and only keep ambulances and fire trucks, and most people would be happier. Also we should get everyone on a vegan diet. Vegetarian is okay, but still enslaves animals. We can do much better.
What about people not living in cities?
Public transport for low density areas is terrible. So or you are forcing people to live in cities (where public transport can be good) or you are forcing people to endure terrible public transport.
Also forcing dietary changes on people, something as big as preventing people to eat or use animal products...
I just don't think forcing that on people would be clever. I know how I would react if anyone were to impose that way of living to me, and I can only assume that many people would react the same way.
Yeah, there's a bit of a conflict here: People want to live in rural areas with large plots of land and nature everywhere but want to have the comforts and amenities of living in a city center.
Before the car this was a choice that people had to make: move to the city where everything is available or to the countryside where countryside is available and hardly anything else.
The car allowed to bridge this gap to the detriment of the climate and the sustainability of life on this planet.
And now we have another conflict: luxurity for people in rural areas vs survival of the human race.
Surely there's a way of having people living rural, a totally valid life choice and also must needed for agriculture, having a good life, and not having a planet wide global extinction.
I get that in the US and some other countries one of the biggest divisions in voting is rural/urban, thus some people really feel vindicated on hating people that live rural and wanting to impose some penalties on them.
But if we cannot find an economic system that would lead to every person having a good life, regardless on where they live... Do we really want to have a future as a species?
Whether 'a good life' is possible in rural areas depends on your definition.
Is it living like the Amish? In that case, yes.
No. I think humanity should aim for absolutely every single human in every country in every single region, urban or rural could have a level of life quality comparable to what's consider middle-high income level in USA/Europe.
If we cannot achieve that we'd better give up as an intelligent species and leave room for que squids to try.
I have some information that's gonna blow your mind: people lived in rural areas for many thousands of years and cars were only invented a hundred years ago.
They lived self sufficient lives and walked to town once a month for essentials. If they were lucky, they had a mule and a wagon.
I'm guessing you live in a rural area and you think you need your car, because you've gotten used to driving into town every few days for fresh groceries and haircuts? Yeah, so that's arrogant decadence. You live a cosmopolitan lifestyle with inner city conveniences, despite being out in a rural area with plenty of space and low land values, and this is made possible by your poison death machine.
The poison death machines are not sustainable. Go back to living how your ancestors did. Take the mule into town once a month for soap and molasses, or move to the city. You don't get to have it both ways
I don't want to live like people lived two thousands years ago, thanks.
Tough shit. Your poison death machine is killing people on the other side of the world, and the only way to have a clean conscience is to get rid of it
You lack imagination. Plenty of ways to not kill people without having to recede to Palaeolithic levels of life quality.
Yeah, I'm actually subtly manipulating you. See, you were acting like there's no way to live rurally but to use cars, so I explained that people can live in rural areas without cars in a way you can't argue with. But the trick is, I lowballed you to set your expectations low. Now I can explain that the United States was basically built by railroads, and that trains are faster than donkeys. Furthermore, rail technology has advanced massively in the last 100 years, to the point that you genuinely could live rurally without a car and still enjoy those urban conveniences you love, like out of season fruit. It won't be as convenient as the car, but I'm sure now you've realised it would still be a far better quality of life than has ever been possible for your ancestors. And now it'll look really selfish if you say you're still not satisfied with that and you want to poison the sky and kill people for even more convenience.
I live in Europe (Spain for reference). I think my country is the second one in the world in ultraspeed train network only behind china (or it used to).
People in rural areas still needs cars. In fact people in rural areas doesn't even use trains for the most part. Buses work better. Still, living there without a car is a big drop in life quality.
We fund trains with public money to make them cheaper. Some trains are even FREE to the public, free as in you can hop in without paying. Still people don't use trains in rural areas unless they have not access to a car. Because it's imposible to have a network with enough frequency and travel time to match people expectations on transport. The infrastructure needed for it would be impossible.
Sorry to break your great manipulation revealing that I do not live in the US.
Next revelation is that I don't even live in rural areas, but I know plenty of people who does.
Trams would have a lower maintenance cost and higher volumes than buses. Buses are ideal for temporary routes and little else. If the provincial government ran trams instead of buses, they could afford to maintain more routes at the same annual cost, provided a little extra initial money. Then it wouldn't be so impossible to have a tram route serving you.
What you're seeing isn't a physical law. It's an engineering problem.
We got rid of trams last century because there were better engineering solutions. Buses got more efficient, larger and more comfortable than they used to. Also within a city metro is much better and faster. They are also electric now. No need for investing in tram infrastructure for most cases nowadays.
Also when talking about rural I don't think if we are talking really about trams, more like low distance trains, at least that's what we call them here. They use full train infrastructure. Trams are more for cities.
What I don't get is why some people cannot be happy with a 70% traffic reduction in cities ? That would be a great objective that would get rid of tons of emissions and problems without that much fuss because it's easy to provide not only the same but better life quality with that objective. But some people feel the need to push to really hard extremes that, imho, only make people to push back over any attempt on traffic reduction. We could do a lot with proper demand control instead of trying to push a lot of restrictions on people and wanting to take away rights and life quality.
First off, the Netherlands brought back their trams, and it's awesome. Trams are the most accessible form of transportation for people with mobility or financial issues, and they contribute very positively to the local economy by increasing foot traffic around local businesses. And as I said, they're cheaper to run and maintain than buses.
Second, a 70% traffic reduction in cities would be around a 50% reduction in car usage overall, which was the thing you started this argument by complaining about. My radicalism caused you to push for a compromise that you previously considered too extreme. Get got. Being radical works.
Netherlands has crazy population density. The whole country is like a big city. Also I remember using a tram in Netherlands in the 2010s I don't know if they really got rid of them.
Anyway buses have a lot of advantages in rural areas. They respond better to a variable demand, they need less infrastructure, you can change routes all you want, you can get rotatory routes without going broke with the infrastructure. A tram would most likely need a bigger population density to be justified. Even then. Modern buses are quite good. Don't get me wrong I love a smooth tram travel and the looks of it, but it is more expensive than a bus. Here buses are 100% accessible for all people, flat floors, and automatic ramps for people with mobility issues.
I've always have been advocating for car reduction. Since forever, I've not changed my ming here. And precisely it's really hard to make people understand that we could achieve better living standards and that they will still be able to use a car when needed when there's people around telling them that they will not be allowed to use a car at all. It makes the struggle for traffic reduction harder.
I think selling the idea of, "you can have a car but we are going to make it so you will only need to use it a couple times a month, because you won't need it more" is way friendlier then "we are going to take away your car".
Also we are talking about countries with massive urban population. In a world context many countries could not adopt this model because they can be 80% rural or more.