“Car dependency has a threshold effect—using a car just sometimes increases life satisfaction but if you have to drive much more than this people start reporting lower levels of happiness,” said Rababe Saadaoui, an urban planning expert at Arizona State University and lead author of the study. “Extreme car dependence comes at a cost, to the point that the downsides outweigh the benefits.”
This ties into something I’ve thought about a long time having lived in the busy Seattle corridor for a stretch (there’s accidents on I-5 literally every day). At a certain point, even with an ever-expanding number of lanes, everyone having their car becomes limiting not freeing. Because we’re all on the roads all at the same time all the time, it takes longer to get places and we have to spend more of our time planning on the off-chance there might be traffic because a short drive to Tacoma could be 30 minutes or 2 hours. It doesn’t make you feel free to do what you want, because everyone else is also using their freedom to the point that everything is clogged and backed up all the time and everyone is so tired of it all they’ve taken to driving like maniacs since the pandemic.
The results were “surprising,” Saadaoui said, and could be the result of a number of negative impacts of driving, such as the stress of continually navigating roads and traffic, the loss of physical activity from not walking anywhere, a reduced engagement with other people, and the growing financial burden of owning and maintaining a vehicle.
That’s the big one. average people are torn between trying to keep an old car from before everything in cars was computerized and trying to keep it running, or you’re forced into the modern-era of cars where there is no economy vehicle, they’re all luxury, and the cost of buying it and keeping it maintained is way, way, way, way higher. As is the insurance.
“Some people drive a lot and feel fine with it but others feel a real burden,” she said. “The study doesn’t call for people to completely stop using cars but the solution could be in finding a balance. For many people driving isn’t a choice, so diversifying choices is important.”
It literally isn’t a choice if you want to be able to have a job, the number of low-level, low-paying jobs that absolutely act like you’re unreliable if you don’t have a vehicle is too damn high. It’s really almost not a choice at all.
At a certain point, even with an ever-expanding number of lanes, everyone having their car becomes limiting not freeing. Because we’re all on the roads all at the same time all the time, it takes longer to get places and we have to spend more of our time planning on the off-chance there might be traffic because a short drive to Tacoma could be 30 minutes or 2 hours. It doesn’t make you feel free to do what you want, because everyone else is also using their freedom to the point that everything is clogged and backed up all the time and everyone is so tired of it all they’ve taken to driving like maniacs since the pandemic.
This is what toxic individualists don’t understand about collectivism: sacrificing a little bit of freedom can get you more freedom in the long run. I sacrifice the freedom to kill random people and in exchange I get freedom from most of the fear of being randomly murdered. I sacrifice the freedom to throw mercury in the garbage and I gain freedom from mercury poisoning. I sacrifice the freedom of driving straight out of my driveway onto a big ugly stroad and I gain the freedom to walk safely out of my front door onto a nice quiet street.
Man, if you thought it was bad in the Seattle area (where I’ve lived for quite a while now), you don’t want to see the shitshows in places like New York or DC.
Driving in the metro DC area is worse than driving in Seattle proper. When I lived in Northern Virginia, if it was a weeknight, I just accepted that there was nothing I could do other than go home because the public transit was almost non-existent, there was nothing to walk to (and poor pedestrian infrastructure), and driving anywhere would take forever because of the traffic. And you would be frustrated the entire time because people there drive like entitled idiots. You don’t just turn on your hazards and stop in the middle of the road/highway! I don’t know why that one in particular is such a big thing in NoVa, but it is, and it drove me insane. That and people turning on their hazards and then parking in a fire lane. Just, wtf.
Right. Living in any major city makes it really obvious that car dependency just doesn’t scale, and easily reaches negative usefulness. I felt so much more free living in the city without a car. My city is very walkable, has a decent (for the US) transit system, and has long encouraged “transit oriented development “
I do love the freedom of a car when leaving the city, but there’s nothing quite like the freedom of the entire city available without dealing with the hassles of parking and traffic. There’s nothing like the freedom of walking out my door and hopping a train for a far away city. I can no longer deal with towns that don’t have at least a walkable center
This ties into something I’ve thought about a long time having lived in the busy Seattle corridor for a stretch (there’s accidents on I-5 literally every day). At a certain point, even with an ever-expanding number of lanes, everyone having their car becomes limiting not freeing. Because we’re all on the roads all at the same time all the time, it takes longer to get places and we have to spend more of our time planning on the off-chance there might be traffic because a short drive to Tacoma could be 30 minutes or 2 hours. It doesn’t make you feel free to do what you want, because everyone else is also using their freedom to the point that everything is clogged and backed up all the time and everyone is so tired of it all they’ve taken to driving like maniacs since the pandemic.
That’s the big one. average people are torn between trying to keep an old car from before everything in cars was computerized and trying to keep it running, or you’re forced into the modern-era of cars where there is no economy vehicle, they’re all luxury, and the cost of buying it and keeping it maintained is way, way, way, way higher. As is the insurance.
It literally isn’t a choice if you want to be able to have a job, the number of low-level, low-paying jobs that absolutely act like you’re unreliable if you don’t have a vehicle is too damn high. It’s really almost not a choice at all.
This is what toxic individualists don’t understand about collectivism: sacrificing a little bit of freedom can get you more freedom in the long run. I sacrifice the freedom to kill random people and in exchange I get freedom from most of the fear of being randomly murdered. I sacrifice the freedom to throw mercury in the garbage and I gain freedom from mercury poisoning. I sacrifice the freedom of driving straight out of my driveway onto a big ugly stroad and I gain the freedom to walk safely out of my front door onto a nice quiet street.
Positive vs negative freedom. Right-libertarians refuse to believe positive freedom exists, because their whole worldview shatters if you go there.
Man, if you thought it was bad in the Seattle area (where I’ve lived for quite a while now), you don’t want to see the shitshows in places like New York or DC.
Driving in the metro DC area is worse than driving in Seattle proper. When I lived in Northern Virginia, if it was a weeknight, I just accepted that there was nothing I could do other than go home because the public transit was almost non-existent, there was nothing to walk to (and poor pedestrian infrastructure), and driving anywhere would take forever because of the traffic. And you would be frustrated the entire time because people there drive like entitled idiots. You don’t just turn on your hazards and stop in the middle of the road/highway! I don’t know why that one in particular is such a big thing in NoVa, but it is, and it drove me insane. That and people turning on their hazards and then parking in a fire lane. Just, wtf.
Right. Living in any major city makes it really obvious that car dependency just doesn’t scale, and easily reaches negative usefulness. I felt so much more free living in the city without a car. My city is very walkable, has a decent (for the US) transit system, and has long encouraged “transit oriented development “
I do love the freedom of a car when leaving the city, but there’s nothing quite like the freedom of the entire city available without dealing with the hassles of parking and traffic. There’s nothing like the freedom of walking out my door and hopping a train for a far away city. I can no longer deal with towns that don’t have at least a walkable center