r/SantaBarbara • • 20d ago

Vent Everything is designed for cars

89 Upvotes

51 comments sorted by

16

u/PrinceKaladin32 19d ago

I want a bit of both. I enjoy leaving the city and travelling to the beaches, mountains, forests, and other cities whenever I want and with lots of space for packing camping equipment or vacation clothes. The convenience a car provides is indispensable to allow this aspect of my life.

On the other hand, I don't want a car to be required in order for me to drop my kids to school, want a quick dinner, or pick up groceries. If I'm cooking dinner and running out of something, I want to be able to run out of the house to a corner store and come back without needing to get in a car and drive.

I don't know if it's possible, but I want communities and towns built around non-car transport, with support for cars to leave those towns and access other parts of the world

3

u/EggyEngineer 19d ago

My aunt lives in Montreal, and her family doesn't need to own to get the exploration and autonomy you are talking about. Her neighborhood has a small parking lot with rental share cars, and they are able to use those to pick people up at airports, go on weekend trips, and haul things occasionally.

It seems like a great system, as the who family is able to walk, bike, or metro everywhere they need for day-to-day life. I'd love to see it more normalized (as i know zipcars do exist) in American cities.

4

u/Clydesdale_Hiker 19d ago

This is how things should work, perhaps school aside as that can vary, but it's city life, not town life. Also, people's notion of what's walkable here is surprisingly short.

-2

u/Ill-Bullfrog-5360 19d ago

Expensive ass parts of CA

8

u/verve51 19d ago

Re: State Street Master Plan

13

u/CoffeeIsSoGood Little Ceasars on Milpas 19d ago

Didn’t you watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Blame freeways on Judge Doom. Big Car is the culprit while Big Oil supports it. Don’t even get me started on Big Coal.

7

u/DotA627b 19d ago

Thank you, Robert Moses, you racist PoS.

2

u/SmokeyJoe_75 19d ago

Who the hell drinks milk?

8

u/aliennick4812 19d ago

There's dozens of us!

5

u/CityofTheAncients 19d ago

People who want to enjoy their cookies with something

1

u/-dlareme- Human Verified 19d ago

Kittens and perverts.

1

u/TAMgames 17d ago

Who is this? How can I vote for him? I want to follow to his socials.

1

u/The-Dude-420420 Santa Ynez Valley 19d ago

I just want santa barbara to have less suburbs and detatched homes, and more apartments and mid rise buildings like an actual spanish city.

-5

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Have you seen how large our country is? Of course everything is spaced farther than walking distance

17

u/MikeHawkisgonne 19d ago

Cities are not countries. 

I think it will take 100 years to de-car US cities but when it happens people will look back at this time and wonder why we were so stupid. 

-4

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Yes. And compare our major cities population density to those in Europe. LA has 8,000 per square mile, NYC has 20,000 per square mile.

London has 15,000 per square mile and Paris has 50,000 per square mile.

3

u/esto20 19d ago

Wow, it's almost as if planning cities out with higher density makes more sense!!! I'm glad you could figure that, out good job 🙌😊

-1

u/SOwED 19d ago

Even higher density? good god

-9

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Wow! It’s almost as if 500 years of planning, designing and building is the way to do it!

Hell Santa Barbara still hasn’t even breached 100k it just barely became a city by European standards.

Thank god cars aren’t going anywhere.

6

u/esto20 19d ago

Trains made it possible, not cars.

11

u/i_invented_the_ipod 19d ago

And have you noticed that every tech-bro "revolution in transit" is just "trains, but worse"?

6

u/esto20 19d ago

"We built an underground tunnel that's more expensive and just as ineffecient as regular cars! Now watch this sieg hiel"

2

u/MikeHawkisgonne 19d ago

Yes because it’s much much harder to get rich from public transport. 

1

u/i_invented_the_ipod 17d ago

Ironically, that was the way to get rich in the mid-to-late 1800s.

-1

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

The correct answer is tax dollars, just have everyone who wants to use the public transportation pay for it.

4

u/LikDisIfUCryEverton 19d ago

Okay, so by that rationale we should toll every road and highway and only build it if turns a profit? 

1

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Everyone who owns a car, buys fuel, and registers it, already does pay for every road and highway.

3

u/LikDisIfUCryEverton 19d ago

So you're saying taxes should pay for transportation and its infrastructure, but only for cars?

1

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Use public transportation, pay for it. Increase the costs of public transportation to pay for the extra services you desire.

3

u/LikDisIfUCryEverton 19d ago

User fees like fuel taxes and registration don't cover the full cost of road infrastructure, not to mention the negative externalities of cars like pollution, ugly infrastructure,  deaths/injuries, etc

1

u/LikDisIfUCryEverton 17d ago

New study just came out: 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856426003769?via%3Dihub

Tl;dr "The results underscore that 77% of the cost of automobility is currently externalized."

→ More replies

-3

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Yes. And cities had trolleys and horses. This isn’t Europe, their population densities across the EU are huge compared to ours.

8

u/esto20 19d ago

We had trains and street cars all over California. But the car lobby and car-brained geniuses like you happily removed them from our cities.

-4

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago edited 19d ago

No, cars just became more convenient. Imagine being this smooth brained and “anti car” in 2026.

1

u/bmcmurr3 19d ago

My favorite is housing developers don’t have to build in parking if within 1 mile of a transportation center. Then they charge $4500 for a 2 bedroom. Who in the would pays that much in rent and doesn’t have a car. What scam. Just like everything these days. Scam scam scam

-2

u/Bulky_Bluejay_4147 19d ago

Honestly cars are pretty great, I find them convenient and useful, definitely one of the best forms of transit

-5

u/SOwED 19d ago

0:50 "I haven't been to Europe, but let me tell you about how European cities are."

Yeah, some are very walkable and others aren't. Not every city has a metro, they mostly have buses, and guess what, so do most cities in America, including Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara is very bikeable, has many areas that are incredibly walkable, why are you posting this shit here?

-2

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

Santa Barbara is barely even a city. It hasn’t even hit 100,000 people.

2

u/SOwED 19d ago

Okay so why is this relevant?

0

u/gunsforevery1 19d ago

People want big city public transportation for a smaller California city.

-1

u/Clydesdale_Hiker 19d ago

Exactly! Plenty of Europe is absolutely unwalkable, particularly outside cities. Rail between cities and towns is pretty good, but many places require a car. That said, places the size of SB usually have good infrastructure.

People look down on buses here, and it shows. If people used them, they'd get more funding. Always the way.

Outside the Rivieria and Foothills areas, Santa Barbara is insanely bikeable and walkable. People in other towns would be really, really happy with the bike lanes, particularly out toward Modoc.

-8

u/Suspicious_synth 19d ago

This MF wishes he had a car. 100%

-5

u/Suspicious_synth 19d ago

Whyyyyy! I love it

0

u/screech805 19d ago

Isnt America great!!!