As a person who rides bikes a lot, I strongly prefer sitting at a stoplight behind an electric vehicle over a gasoline vehicle. Tailpipe emissions matter a great deal even though EVs don't completely solve the problem of cars creating air pollution.
Of course, I still prefer no cars over electric cars.
I am for a total car ban in city centers around the world. However, this is not a policy that activists today can seriously propose to a city council: consider that even in the ground zero of the Urbanist movement, Amsterdam, cars are still allowed in the city center.
Even though I would prefer a total car ban, I am not going to oppose intermediate steps like a triple tax on oversized vehicles, because I'm not going to let my dreams of a perfect city get in the way of improving society somewhat.
Nice straw man buddy. What we're actually talking about merits of making SUVs a privilege for the rich or banning them.
SUVs have always been a privilege for the rich. This policy reduces the amount of people who can afford to drive SUVs downtown. It is a net good despite your aesthetic objections against it.
A world where everyone can afford to drive SUVs is not better than a world where only a few can afford to drive SUVs. The world where everyone can afford to drive SUVs is the American suburb, where car ownership is so heavily subsidized to the point that even poor people drive SUVs. Do you think this is better than Hong Kong or Singapore, where only rich people can afford to drive SUVs?
I'm not, but keep on straw manning there. Seems to be what you excel at.
This is literally your position. Your logic is completely indistinguishable from that of pro-car concern trolling. There is an in-between world between Dallas and utopia. There needs to be an in-between step between car hell and bicycle utopia. Expensive parking is a needed step in the right direction. To refuse to take the first step out of car hell, however imperfect it might be, is to advocate for an indefinite wallowing in the pits of shit.
Nope, but I've already realized that having a serious discussion with you isn't possible. Bye.
And you are simply a deeply unserious person who says they want something but in actuality are advocating for the exact opposite. Good riddance!
In your bizarro world, there are actually no in-between steps between carbon hell and green utopia. Until carbon dioxide is banned, people should just be allowed to emit CO2 for free.
I'm so sorry that you cannot comprehend a world that's in-between "everyone drives SUVs" and "only a few drive SUVs" and understand why the latter world is better than the former world. When you advocate against policy that improves society somewhat on the basis that it doesn't create utopia, you are advocating in favor of the status-quo.
I'm still using NewPipe x Sponsorblock and haven't had any issues with it.
That's interesting. I started to have issues loading Youtube videos a few months ago and had to switch back to regular NewPipe. (I'm using Tubular now.)
Any idea why the change? It looks more or less identical.
When there is adequate infrastructure then there should just be a ban period.
You are deeply unserious if your proposal is just "ban all cars lulz".
What these policies achieve is to provide the rich with privileges that regular people can't enjoy.
Congestion pricing and paid parking have objectively reduced traffic in downtowns across the world, and you are deeply unserious if you want to achieve a goal but refuse to do anything to work towards that goal.
You are seriously advocating for the massive subsidization of drivers here. I do not weep for the ability of the common man to impose massive externalities on their fellow men and have their behavior be subsidized.
Cars are a luxury good that most people simply cannot afford without massive subsidies. Consider how in Hong Kong and Singapore, where cars aren't subsidized, only the rich can afford to drive. Do you think that this is wrong? Should Hong Kong and Singapore bulldoze their cities and pave over paradise so that poor people can drive too?
You are acting as if driving cars is a God-given right that poor people are being denied. There is no such right to drive a car. The private automobile is a luxury good that would have never spread to the masses if not for massive government subsidies. Driving is not a civil right.
The real solution is to invest in building public transit infrastructure, to design cities to be walkable.
We are talking about Paris here. Paris has the best public transit infrastructure in the world. Paris is highly walkable.
People who drive downtown have no excuse for their actions and must be penalized accordingly.
When London implemented congestion pricing, it significantly improved traffic and encouraged people to take transit. You are completely ignoring reality if you oppose congestion pricing on the basis of it being ineffective.
When giant SUVs are only accessible to the rich anyways, then the whole premise of tripling parking fees is meaningless to begin with.
Driving your car seems free because you've already paid for it yesterday at the pump. Expensive parking puts a real, visible price on driving that you have to confront every single day.
The rich doesn't solely consist of Jeff Bezos and co. Most people who drive luxury SUVs cannot afford tripled parking prices in the city every day. And even if they could, this forces them to reconsider their habits and maybe take the train next time.
And yes, I'm against the idea of trying to solve the problem using a tax because it's a performative measure that accomplishes nothing of real value while distracting from real solutions.
This is not a performative measure, this is the real solution. Driving needs to become multiple times more expensive, and a tripled parking price is a good place to start. Drivers are heavily subsidized by society and this subsidy needs to end, and these taxes are the first step in that direction.
I believe this accomplishes about as much as carbon taxes.
As I understand it, China just has cameras on every street because their goal is to decrease traffic violations and not just generate ticket revenue.
This is correct. Traffic cameras are present on basically every street, and they are highly visible, preceded by a road sign, and your GPS audibly tells you about them. They also flash at you.
China also has a better implementation of red light cameras. Green lights start flashing a few seconds before they turn yellow, allowing you to either make it across the intersection or slow down in time.
The widespread implementation of automatic traffic enforcement cameras in China objectively has decreased traffic violations. Compare driving in China in 2008 to 2024. It is a night and day difference.
I agree with your assessment about American traffic enforcement being more about collecting an informal tax than actually being about improving road safety (see: speed traps). In the UK (which this article is about), the speed cameras do flash (and thus provide immediate feedback).
If you don't drive, you have literally no reason to oppose speed cameras. Speed cameras reduce the negative externalities of cars at literally no cost to you. If you don't drive, you cannot get a speed ticket.
Also, for the China fans out there, consider how the widespread implementation of automatic traffic enforcement cameras in China that do things from watching if you're speeding, to watching if you're driving in multiple lanes at once, to watching if you're wearing a seatbelt have massively improved driving conditions and reduced road chaos in China. Automatic traffic enforcement makes driving better.
Please explain to me where the money to redesign and rebuild like half the city's roads is going to come from if not from a transitional period of speed cameras.
Say, why are you such a virulent opponent of speed cameras? Do you find yourself to be a chronic speeder?
![wopazoo [he/him]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/0e47876f-1bbe-4a04-bbcf-a9ba531d293f.png?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
As a person who rides bikes a lot, I strongly prefer sitting at a stoplight behind an electric vehicle over a gasoline vehicle. Tailpipe emissions matter a great deal even though EVs don't completely solve the problem of cars creating air pollution.
Of course, I still prefer no cars over electric cars.