It's the 21st century, damn it! Why do I still need a car???

[hunter]

The automobile age can't end too soon for me.

I want neighborhood markets I can walk to, and delivery for everything else. If the big box stores want me as a customer they should send out cars (preferably electric) to pick me up and take me home again, sending a text to my cellphone when they get to my front door. Public transportation should be taking me anywhere I want to go, door to door service, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, routes all optimized by computer each way. No automobile road or highway should ever be more than two lanes in either direction. I should be able to ride my bicycle safely anywhere.

I want to meet 90 year old grandmas and grandpas riding electric tricycles on wide open bike lanes, and alternatively enabled people walking with me to the corner pub on their electric legs.

Why can't I have a future like that? I'm sick of this automobile shit, riding around with my identity plastered to my butt flashing "expired" when my car won't pass the smog test because of some glitch in it's $800 computer that does not affect the normal operation of the car in any way.

Automobiles are a means of fascist control. We've been duped. They were never about "freedom" at all.


(Previously posted as a reply in another thread.)

[handmade34]

1. !!!!

[PDJane]

2. Agreed. It's long past time.

[leveymg]

3. I still kinda like my car, but it's the 21st century - why doesn't my car fly?

[kestrel91316]

4. I took the theft of my car 4 years ago as a sign from Gawd that maybe I should be walking, biking,

and mass transiting instead of driving everywhere. And this is in Los Angeles, where doing all those things can be extremely inconvenient at times and deadly on occasion.

[hunter]

5. My wife and I were Los Angeles commuters.

Assigned to schools nowhere near our homes.

When we married we found a house equidistant (time wise) between our schools. Then she got accepted to graduate school in another state, her dream education.

Somehow, and with a lot of luck, we've managed to avoid commuting ever since. I work at home, my wife's work is about a mile away as the crow flies. We can see the building from our house.

[kestrel91316]

9. I've made a point of always living near my practice in case of car troubles.

When you are single and run a small business and aren't rich enough to just call a cab, you have to plan your life carefully, lol.

[phantom power]

6. zoning seems to be the lynchpin

when it comes to supporting a walkable lifestyle, single use zoning is the devil

[hunter]

8. This is true.

There are so many two and three car garages in our neighborhood that could well serve as small markets or neighborhood pubs. (Our city is okay with child care providers or "granny flat" garage conversions, so it's not so restrictive as it could be.)

When we moved here, late '90s there were very few multi-generational households but now I think every other home has some combination of school age kids, parents, grandparent-homeowners, great grandparents, and random cousins.

We've had a few bouncing in and out.

[stuntcat]

7. k&r

But slave-minded tv-watching freedum flag wavers LOVVVEE showing off their cars. The more money they can spend on them the better they are.
People kill me, I can't have hope for the gun-monkeys.

[zipplewrath]

10. Because it rains

Individual transportation has always existed. People had horse drawn carriages and wagons before there were cars. Roads predate the automobile. Cars carry things, and store things while we are out and about. Cars allow us to spend less time traveling about. Cars allow us to get there with a minimum of disturbance of our clothing and hair. Cars allow us to control the environment (Air conditioned) in which we travel. They aren't going away. Car sharing may get more popular. And autonomous cars may become more common as well. Combining the two creates a robotic taxi cab in some sense. But at some point it becomes advantageous to own a car.

[RevStPatrick]

11. Come live in my neighborhood!

We've got a walk score of 96 (out of 100).

I'm 3 blocks to the subway, 2 blocks to the supermarket, one block to the laundromat, and there's a little place on the corner to get smokes and beer and toilet paper 24/7.

I know lots of people in the neighborhood, and can't walk down the street without saying hello to like 5 people, including the 90 year old grandmas, the little kids and the gaggles of pretty girls. The food here is amazing, you can eat in a different place for 3 meals a day for a month, without ever eating at the same place twice. All within a short walk.

Of course, the average apartment here costs about $2100 for a one-bedroom.
That's the downside...

On edit - I haven't owned a car on over 20 years.
We rent one maybe 2 or 3 times a year to get out of town.