Comment by Retric
Comment by Retric 3 days ago
Over half of New York City households are car-free. That jumps to 3/4 in Manhattan.
Millions of American households don’t have a car, but you rarely hear about it as a viable option.
Comment by Retric 3 days ago
Over half of New York City households are car-free. That jumps to 3/4 in Manhattan.
Millions of American households don’t have a car, but you rarely hear about it as a viable option.
It's the same in Europe, but people pushing an agenda don't talk about that either.
People who are "pushing an agenda" aren't arguing that there should be no cars ever, anywhere. Cars are the smallest-scale form of long-distance transport, they are unavoidable in low-density areas or for services that requires complete flexibility. All the agenda-pushers I've seen in real life are just saying that there's better options within cities, at least for a lot of people. Most of the time, most people only move within their cities, myself included. If transit within my city was in any way adequate, I would choose it over the car. I could cover those rare out-of-city edge cases with rentals or train travel.
Besides, it's not even the same in Europe. In a few countries, maybe, but in the majority the inter-city transit or transit within small towns is not even in the same universe as what's available in most of the US.
Over 100 million people live in just the top 20 metro areas alone. It's hardly an edge case.
A massive chunk (if not majority?) of those top 20 metro areas are largely car dependent for most of their populations. Large areas don't have any public transit at all, and the rest is often designed to be actively hostile to pedestrians.
Try living without a car in these places, all in the 4th largest MSA.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/mHmGidZRJaKptHeL8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/5P4mW5iM6b5ab9Ve7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JCiBgESKs5ZWqGny8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/E1iVwLCB28ooGhQL9
These are all in "urban" areas and a part of DFW. But how about Houston, the 5th?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/7yEAimERmyE1EGde6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UKSQjPqifWUSv82H7
I don't know how one would even get groceries without a car.
And even then, you're then talking about less than 1/3 of Americans living in that mostly car dependent space.
And even in most of those metros (OK. Leave aside Manhattan), not having a car tends to imply a lot of lifestyle choices in terms of activities, visiting friends outside of the metro, etc.
There are certainly people who are OK with living like they did in their urban school for a few years after graduation. But that's not a long-term solution for most people.
NYC is the absolute best case in the US, if you're talking about the ability to exist without a car. It's not that no one talks about those millions of households, it's that they are all concentrated on a few standout islands (literally!) in a sea of the nearly identical car-only supermajority of cities. It's the exception to all exceptions.
I don’t think the average city is a useful comparison when more people live in larger cities which tend to have better mass transit options.
People live car free in a wide range of cities, it’s more convenient for more people in NYC thus the large percentage of people doing so, but the percentage is rarely zero.
"the best public transit in the densest US city barely manages to reach 50% of car-free lifestyle" is what you're leaving out.
Because as soon as you leave a major metropolitan area, not having a car is almost a nonstarter.