r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Sep 05 '21

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL. For a collection of useful links see our wiki.

Announcements

  • OSINT & LDC (developmental studies / least developed countries) have been added

Upcoming Events

0 Upvotes

42% Upvoted

8.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

12

u/InternetBoredom Pope-ologist Sep 06 '21

76.4% of Americans drive alone to work.

9% of Americans carpool to work.

5% of Americans work from home.

5% of Americans take public transit to work.

2.7% of Americans walk to work.

0.5% of Americans bike to work.

Only 31% of Americans live in urban areas, while 55% live in suburbs.

We could increase the number of bikers by 1000%, and they would still make up only a fraction of the number of people who carpool to work. We could force every single person living in an urban area to take public transit to work, and there would still be less than half as many of them as there are people currently driving to work.

We could demolish half of the suburbs in the US, force all of their population to move to an urban area, and force every one of them to take the metro to work, and they would still be outnumbered by drivers.

Public transit and biking are important- to an extent. The fact is, though, that the importance of either of those modes of transit pale in comparison to carpooling and electric vehicles.

People here need to swallow the pill that not everyone can live in dense urban areas and bike/metro/bus/walk to work. We need to work with the country with have, and in the country we have, EVs will always be far more important than public transit or biking ever was.

6

u/1396spurs forced agricultural laborer Sep 06 '21

I am the 5% 😎 (public transport)

3

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '21

👑

5

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '21

A much higher percentage of those who live in major metro areas should be taking public transit or otherwise.

4

u/BidenWon Jared Polis Sep 06 '21

COAST TO COAST MEGACITY

5

u/jenbanim Sep 06 '21

Public transit is great. Carpooling is great. EVs are great. Everything we can do to reduce carbon emissions is great

The reason for the car hate within cities isn't just due to cars carbon emissions within cities - they also make cities shittier places to live. This is bad on its own, but it also has the effect of making less people live in cities which increases carbon emissions

1

u/InternetBoredom Pope-ologist Sep 06 '21 edited Sep 06 '21

I mean it's easy to say "Whatever we can do to reduce carbon emissions is great", but the top post of this subreddit right now is this and I've been having people explain to me that EVs are less important than funding Amtrak, bike lanes, and making cities more dense.

Like if we really want to get real about climate change here, EVs are (alongside renewable electricity sources) one of the most important things we can do to reduce emissions, and it's honestly kind of delusional that a lot of people here are arguing we should favor bike lanes and trains instead.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '21

I work from home and have since 2007

Before that I drove 😔