# Stereotypes, prejudice, preconceived assumptions, self-selection and anti-car rage in SSC



## LtBk

Driving Cars can be stressful too. Also, why is andrelot banned?


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## StreetView

Apparently he has been banned by a Brazilian moderator due to multiple user accounts -- he was writing under the "andrelot" and "Suburbanist" names and he even used to write under another user name, years ago.


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## ChrisZwolle

StreetView said:


> I know you see that the difference in the car ownership index in the US is “just” 0.35 higher, but you are failing to realize that *car ownership in the US is actually 60% higher than in Italy. *It’s basic elementary school math. If the difference was in the range of 10% it’d be enough to say that those numbers are not alike. Now, 60% is a HUGE difference.


Talking about automobility, and compare it to other countries, I think it's better to look at the percentage of households that own at least one car. Then you'll see the difference is not that big.

The American high car ownership is attributed to a couple of factors;

* American youths can generally get a permit between 14 and 16 years of age. Car ownership in the U.S. is also significantly cheaper than the Netherlands, hence, a large amount of high school students and college students own a car, the so-called "3-cars per household suburb". 

In Europe, car ownership is very expensive for students, and another issue is people cannot drive until they're 17 or 18. I went to a high school of 2,500 students. About 2 or 3 of them owned a car. This figure will be drastically higher in the U.S. 

Another issue here is that college and university students over 18 years of age are offered free public transport. This accounts to 50% of the transit usage in the Netherlands, for instance. Why buy an expensive car, while you can travel for free? Time pressure isn't that big an issue for students as it is for commuters too. 

* The number of households owning at least two cars is higher in the U.S. Women work much more often today than they did a few decades ago, although this didn't began to pick up in Europe until the 1990's. The two-car household is getting increasingly common in Europe too. 

The household size is also bigger in the United States. American families are generally larger (about 30 - 40% larger than in NL), so the number of children with a car is also higher, especially with the early driving age and cheap ownership.

* Another issue I'm not sure about, is the number of vehicles in the United States still registered to someone, but barely drive anymore, the "old car in the garage", that people drive in a few times per year. Why throw away your old car if you have room to store it, and ownership costs are not significant anyway? In Europe, you have to pay both insurance and monthly fees, which differ from country to country, but can be pretty high. For instance, if you have an older car in the Netherlands, you pay insurance + monthly road tax. This easily amounts to over $ 1500 per year. 

If you look in some areas of Los Angeles for instance, you'll see numerous backyards with 3 or 4 cars. Do they drive often? I doubt it. But they are taken into statistical account because they're not taken to the junkyard. I wonder how much this influences the car ownership rate in the U.S.



StreetView said:


> Like I said, I have yet to go to Europe, so I don't know how things really are over there. In cities like New York, for instance, taking the subway is faster than driving in many cases, even if you count door-to-door travel time.


While that is true, New York is the exception here, rather than the rule. The number of subway-cities is limited, and they generally serve an even more limited area. 



> Think with me: if 30% of all cars drive with one person alone (your data), then 70% of the cars drive with two people or more. Being pessimistic, let's say that no cars drive with three people or more. So, if we do the math, (30x1+70x2)/100=1.7
> 
> As you can see, your numbers are off because in the worst case scenario the average would be 1.7 people per car, not 1.2 like you said.


No, I was talking about the 30% occupancy rate  With an average of 1.2 persons per car, the occupancy rate of that car is about 30%. Europeans don't drive as much SUV/MPV's, so the seating per car is usually limited to 4 (or 5 if you have small children). So taking the number of available seats in account, the occupancy rate of the train and a car are almost the same. 

This is different during rush hour though, when the occupancy rate of a train is closer to 110%. But rush hours are like 4 hours in an 18-hour operational day, so that's why the average occupancy rate is quite low.


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## Slartibartfas

These numbers are all in all averages. That hides the strengths of PT, which lies in inter urban and intra urban transportation. To mish mash all together and then base claims on it leads nowhere in my opinion. 

Car is the best option in several scenarios. The perfect one probably is a rural area with spread out settlements. 

The situation is very different in urban or metropolitan areas for example. There PT has several big advantages to play out. Its not only about fuel efficiency, its about space efficiency as well, its about incentives for a better city planning as well, one that does not deliberately create long ways for almost everything, even if there is no need for doing so. 

One thing the occupancy rate above seems to completely ignore is that the max occupation of urban PT is far beyond anything a car can come up with. Most of the standing places are an additional efficiency plus, if you'd count the seats only (or the seat capacity you'd have if you did not calculate for any standing places) the occupancy rate would look quite different.

PS:
I do not support any fanatic claim of banning car traffic in urban environments, I just make a case why not handling it as THE priority which is superior to anything else. Cities can be designed however to work perfectly and feature great quality of life and at the same time press the car modal share below 1/3. This should be our aim.


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## StreetView

ChrisZwolle said:


> Talking about automobility, and compare it to other countries, I think it's better to look at the percentage of households that own at least one car. Then you'll see the difference is not that big.
> 
> The American high car ownership is attributed to a couple of factors;
> 
> * American youths can generally get a permit between 14 and 16 years of age. Car ownership in the U.S. is also significantly cheaper than the Netherlands, hence, a large amount of high school students and college students own a car, the so-called "3-cars per household suburb".
> 
> In Europe, car ownership is very expensive for students, and another issue is people cannot drive until they're 17 or 18. I went to a high school of 2,500 students. About 2 or 3 of them owned a car. This figure will be drastically higher in the U.S.
> 
> Another issue here is that college and university students over 18 years of age are offered free public transport. This accounts to 50% of the transit usage in the Netherlands, for instance. Why buy an expensive car, while you can travel for free? Time pressure isn't that big an issue for students as it is for commuters too.
> 
> * The number of households owning at least two cars is higher in the U.S. Women work much more often today than they did a few decades ago, although this didn't began to pick up in Europe until the 1990's. The two-car household is getting increasingly common in Europe too.
> 
> The household size is also bigger in the United States. American families are generally larger (about 30 - 40% larger than in NL), so the number of children with a car is also higher, especially with the early driving age and cheap ownership.
> 
> * Another issue I'm not sure about, is the number of vehicles in the United States still registered to someone, but barely drive anymore, the "old car in the garage", that people drive in a few times per year. Why throw away your old car if you have room to store it, and ownership costs are not significant anyway? In Europe, you have to pay both insurance and monthly fees, which differ from country to country, but can be pretty high. For instance, if you have an older car in the Netherlands, you pay insurance + monthly road tax. This easily amounts to over $ 1500 per year.
> 
> If you look in some areas of Los Angeles for instance, you'll see numerous backyards with 3 or 4 cars. Do they drive often? I doubt it. But they are taken into statistical account because they're not taken to the junkyard. I wonder how much this influences the car ownership rate in the U.S.


I have to agree with you. In the US anyone can buy a car for US$ 500. That's less than half month of work for whoever works full time. However, having insurance is mandatory for all cars and each year you do have to renew plates registration (when you get a new sticker). Driving without insurance or with expired stickers is always illegal in any of the 50 United States. But still, I don't have any doubts that owning a car in the US is cheaper than in Europe, even though I have never had a car in Europe.



ChrisZwolle said:


> While that is true, New York is the exception here, rather than the rule. The number of subway-cities is limited, and they generally serve an even more limited area.


Yes, that was just an example. My point was only to show that it is possible to get there faster by transit, even if you consider door-to-door travel time. 



ChrisZwolle said:


> No, I was talking about the 30% occupancy rate  With an average of 1.2 persons per car, the occupancy rate of that car is about 30%. Europeans don't drive as much SUV/MPV's, so the seating per car is usually limited to 4 (or 5 if you have small children). So taking the number of available seats in account, the occupancy rate of the train and a car are almost the same.


Now I see what you mean. It's just because it sounded a little weird to talk about occupancy rate in private vehicles. We usually talk about the average of people per car on the streets.



Slartibartfas said:


> Car is the best option in several scenarios. The perfect one probably is a rural area with spread out settlements.


Yes, undoubtedly. I think if you live in a farm, homestead or any type of rural estate, you have to have your own vehicle. However, urban population accounts for most of western developed countries' population. 



Slartibartfas said:


> The situation is very different in urban or metropolitan areas for example. There PT has several big advantages to play out. Its not only about fuel efficiency, its about space efficiency as well, its about incentives for a better city planning as well, one that does not deliberately create long ways for almost everything, even if there is no need for doing so.


Certainly. I think mass transit systems make a lot of sense medium to big cities environments. Sometimes it's not even worth it to have a transit system in a small town because the demand just won't be there and thus service frequency will be very low. It may work for some people, but it's usually impractical for most people.



Slartibartfas said:


> PS:
> I do not support any fanatic claim of banning car traffic in urban environments, I just make a case why not handling it as THE priority which is superior to anything else. Cities can be designed however to work perfectly and feature great quality of life and at the same time press the car modal share below 1/3. This should be our aim.


I think banning cars from our cities is not the most reasonable choice. However, I really believe that transit systems (rail and buses), bike lanes and walking should be priority for several reasons. Cities should always provide options other than driving. And don't get me wrong: even though I hardly drive on weekdays, I always drive when I go out on weekends, or at least I get a ride of a friend or someone. Sometimes I happen to take transit on weekends, but it's not that common.


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## Acerola

Why Andrelot was banned? There's something wrong with the brazilian forums moderators.... too many people banned there!


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## poshbakerloo

I kinda agree with this thread...

I get it a lot, as I live in the country I have to drive to pretty much everywhere, and do it in a big (American) car...


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## StreetView

Acerola said:


> Why Andrelot was banned? There's something wrong with the brazilian forums moderators.... too many people banned there!


Well, who knows? Maybe he has really broken the rules and had to be banned. Why should we care anyway?


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## OakRidge

> * Another issue I'm not sure about, is the number of vehicles in the United States still registered to someone, but barely drive anymore, the "old car in the garage", that people drive in a few times per year. Why throw away your old car if you have room to store it, and ownership costs are not significant anyway? In Europe, you have to pay both insurance and monthly fees, which differ from country to country, but can be pretty high. For instance, if you have an older car in the Netherlands, you pay insurance + monthly road tax. This easily amounts to over $ 1500 per year.
> 
> If you look in some areas of Los Angeles for instance, you'll see numerous backyards with 3 or 4 cars. Do they drive often? I doubt it. But they are taken into statistical account because they're not taken to the junkyard. I wonder how much this influences the car ownership rate in the U.S.


Indeed. My father owns seven vehicles (not counting several motorcycles and ATVs) but only one is used regularly. That one is his truck he drives everyday. The rest are project and custom vehicles he drives only several times a year to shows and the like. All but one are registered.


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## Suburbanist

Major differences between European and American traffic and driving trends are less related to car ownership than to usage patterns. Both areas make heavy use of particular vehicles for family holiday and weekend trips, for non-recurrent countryside travel etc., but I'd say average commute distance in Europe is shorter than in America, and -definitively - average fuel consumption of American cars is far higher than European cars (especially in countries where diesel use is more prevalent like Italy and France).


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## Dahlis

The car is not the problem, the car is the solution to the problem and the problem is poor city planning and sprawl.


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## nerdly_dood

Dahlis said:


> The car is not the problem, the car is the solution to the problem and the problem is poor city planning and sprawl.


I wouldn't say the car's the solution, I'd say better planning and upgrading current infrastructure is the solution.


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## tvdxer

OakRidge said:


> Indeed. My father owns seven vehicles (not counting several motorcycles and ATVs) but only one is used regularly. That one is his truck he drives everyday. The rest are project and custom vehicles he drives only several times a year to shows and the like. All but one are registered.


We own something like ten or twelve, but only three are in regular use and the rest just sit around unregistered. I'm guessing that aside from my brother's cars, none of them are worth over $300 or $500. Also, only 3 or 4 of our vehicles have insurance.


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## Martin S

Dahlis said:


> The car is not the problem, the car is the solution to the problem and the problem is poor city planning and sprawl.


In Britain in the early 60s a report was produced looking into how city's could be redesigned to accommodate the motor car more effectively. 'Traffic in Towns' by Colin Buchanan became famous amongst transport professionals for its insight into the problem of accommodating the car.

Buchanan looked into various levels of city redevelopment designed to provide more facilities for the car and captured the public imagination with some images of bi-level cities with traffic on the ground level and pedestrians, shops, offices etc all at higher levels.

What Buchanan concluded though was that more investment in road infrastructure followed a law of diminishing returns. As more road capacity was provided, not only did roads become wider, junctions larger and more complex but also, more space was needed for car parking, dropping off points, filling stations etc. The nett effect of that was that the city expanded and, in so doing, generated more car journeys and so greater demands for road infrastructure - it was a vicious circle.

In my home town, Liverpool, an in-depth study of land use and transportation was carried out in the 1950s and concluded that to meet the anticipated needs would cost £300 million at 1960 prices, which was a collossal sum. In the end, a project to improve the rail network with some underground construction and rail electrification was decided upon. That went seriously over- budget but, when completed in the late 70s cost only £50 million at 1977 prices.


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## ChrisZwolle

Martin S said:


> What Buchanan concluded though was that more investment in road infrastructure followed a law of diminishing returns. As more road capacity was provided, not only did roads become wider, junctions larger and more complex but also, more space was needed for car parking, dropping off points, filling stations etc. The nett effect of that was that the city expanded and, in so doing, generated more car journeys and so greater demands for road infrastructure - it was a vicious circle.


One of the main problems today is that they didn't improve road infrastructure in decades. Hence, a lot of traffic that wants to use a certain motorway, now uses alternate routes, routes probably not meant for that kind of traffic. Once you widen a motorway now, traffic will come back to the better route. Environmentalists call this the "more roads is more traffic" phenomenon. While this is partially true, it is mostly a relocation of traffic. 

For instance, the traffic volumes on the Dutch A13 are now between 160,000 and 180,000 AADT. A widening to 10 lanes causes it to increase to 300,000 AADT, almost doubling the current traffic levels. However, this is not traffic that is magically induced by the widening, but that is traffic that took other alternate routes before. This is a serious factor that has to be reckoned in transportation planning - not only the autonomous growth and additional traffic generation, but also the shift of traffic from local routes back to the motorway. 



> In my home town, Liverpool, an in-depth study of land use and transportation was carried out in the 1950s and concluded that to meet the anticipated needs would cost £300 million at 1960 prices, which was a collossal sum. In the end, a project to improve the rail network with some underground construction and rail electrification was decided upon. That went seriously over- budget but, when completed in the late 70s cost only £50 million at 1977 prices.


And is Liverpool traffic jam free? Even with the almost 50% drop in population since 1960? The ability of public transportation to solve traffic problems is generally overstated in normal urban areas (I'm not talking about Manhattan or Tokyo here). A significant amount of the PT-users do not have the ability to access a car every day. In the Netherlands, this amounts up to 80% of the PT users overall, somewhat lower in urban areas. Hence, 80% of the PT mileage wouldn't otherwise been done by car. 

Although PT does save some car-mileage in urban areas, it is not as much as usually thought. Most people see a crowded train station and think "_wow, good thing they aren't going by car, that would mean real traffic problems!_", while in fact, only a small portion of them have the ability to do so.


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## Martin S

Hi ChrisZolle,

There was a British transport consultant, Martin Mogridge who made the controversial claim that the best way to increase road speeds was to reduce rail journey times on parallel routes. The argument was that, as rail journey times reduced, people would find it quicker to use public transport and so leave their car at home. That, in turn freed up road space and led to faster journey times for the motorist. There would then be some return to road use but the net effect was a general reduction in journey times.

Liverpool is not traffic jam free but, in comparison to similar cities, traffic levels are lower and that is partly down to the highly developed rail infrastructure. The population loss issue is not as simple as it seems. Whilst it is true that the population of the city is some 60% of what it was in 1960, a significant part of that can be put down to the dispersal of people from the very high density inner core districts to outlying suburbs. This effect will tend to increase car usage as people have to commute into the city over greater distances.

One factor that influences traffic patterns in our area is the fact that we have a de facto congestion charge in the form of the tunnel tolls charged for crossing the River Mersey. Whilst the charge is small in comparison to the London congestion charge or the one formerly proposed for Manchester, it does have a regulatory effect on traffic levels and helps more effective use of public transport. 

A reasonable level of investment in public transport infrastructure will divert people from using cars. Maybe they won't do all their journey by public transport but they will make use of park and ride facilities to allow them to do a faster and congestion-free journey into town.

I take the point about many users of public transport not having access to private transport but we have to be clear about what is meant by that. People under the age of 17 (in the UK) cannot legally drive cars and though there is no upper age limit you are not going to have that many over the age of 75 who will still be able to drive. Many people with disabilities are unable to drive and able bodied people with cars and clean driving licences still cannot legally drive a car when under the influence of alcohol. There are people who just don't want to have the burden of car ownership and others who simply can't afford it. All of that amounts to a sizable section of the community.


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## _BPS_

Reading this essay and these points of contention leads me to believe that you probably failed your G2 test a few times too many.


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## Martin S

_BPS_ said:


> Reading this essay and these points of contention leads me to believe that you probably failed your G2 test a few times too many.


What's a G2 test?


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## _BPS_

hmm.. nevermind. I thought this was the Canadian forum.


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## zaphod

I think there are many people who don't really "hate" cars so much as they have been disappointed by cities that are planned around roads rather than quality of life. I would say this is entirely reasonable and where I stand in this debate.

I guess its different looking at this issue as an American than a European. Despite the rhetoric I don't see any policies to discourage auto based transportation happening the US. However I do see more expensive insurance, licensing, orwellian traffic control(GPS, cameras), and an attitude that teens shouldn't drive. I also believe there is a trend where individual prosperity in the US is declining and having a car becomes more of a burden. In short, a car no longer represents pure mobility like it might have in the 60's. Another thought is that in the future cars will be smaller and have the ability to drive themselves-essentially a paradigm shift of what a car even is.

Thus I am all for not caving to the "we need wider roads and huge parking lots". Uh, no we really don't.


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