The Off Topic Topic

[crazy canuck]

Being small has nothing to do with it.  And the term historically has also not only applied to Black people.

Historically?

Yes?  Did you read my first post on the topic?  I described how the term is no longer used here and went on to explain what it meant historically in Canada.

[Zanza]

I get my new car tomorrow. 

About time too. The current one is six months old already.

[crazy canuck]

I get my new car tomorrow. 

About time too. The current one is six months old already.

The quality of German cars isn't what it used to be?

[Josquius]

In theory I'd say it is a pretty clear either /or choice.
Given the choice of having to drive (or being driven) somewhere vs just sitting down on a train and doing whatever I want as I go there, the train wins every time.

In reality of course it's daft to assume the world would ever be this perfect. There's never going to be good public transport to every corner of the land. Cars will always be necessary for people living in remote areas and the like.
But as a pure theoretical choice then sure. I'm never picking cars.

On cars too I've heard good stuff about the growth of car shares in the Netherlands (London Ontarios most famous son has talked of them)  and this makes a lot of sense - most of the time cars are sitting doing nothing. If they could be available within a few minutes on demand then there'd be no need to own your own.

You know, about 8-9 years ago my wife and I made a decision - we sold my truck and bought a minivan.  It's not that we didn't use a truck - we did, to tow our trailed a few times per year, plus once or twice a year to haul heavy loads - but we figured we could just rent a truck for those handfuls of occasions.

Terrible decision.

Renting a truck was a huge pain in the ass - if they'd even allow us to rent one at all.  Most companies would not allow you to rent a truck to tow a trailer.  Even just for moving heavy loads the costs were huge.

We bought a new truck last year.  And while on a day-to-day basis we don't need it, for the times we do it's amazing.

My neighbours - they're proudly anti-car.  They use bikes a heck of a lot, for which I applaud them.  But you know what?  They have a ride-share car parked in their driveway CONSTANTLY.  I'm pretty sure it'd be cheaper for them just to buy a car.

Just as one example - I have two kids in hockey, plus I play the sport.  It would be absolutely impossible to play hockey without having a car.  Rinks are only barely accessible by public transit, plus trying to imagine hauling a big bag of hockey gear, plus the literal hours it would take depending on rink locations.

Plus - I'm a middle aged dad with too many responsibilities these days, but I remember being in my 20s and having a car.  I would literally wake up and go "you know, I'm going to go to Drumheller today".  Or hell - one weekend I drove to the freaking Northwest Territories, stayed overnight, and drove back.  Just because I wanted to.  And it was an amazing little weekend jaunt.  I had never even heard of the Alexandra Falls on the Hay River, but I saw a sign just after crossing the 60th parallel, pulled over, and was amazed.

https://spectacularnwt.com/attractions/alexandra-falls/

And it's not just North America.  I've rented a car every time in Europe (4 times so far).  The freedom to just see a sign and say "hey let's see what that is" is awesome.  Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes not (a lastminute stopover in Lichtenstein was rather disappointing).

Or my one trip to South America (Brazil) for my brother's wedding.  We were assured "oh no, you definitely don't want to rent a car.  There's lots of family around, I'm sure they can drive you anywhere you want to go".  Well, no.  We were then stuck relying on the goodwill of my sister-in-law's family, which as nice of people as they are, was NOT the same as just being able to drive and go.  And for as much as they warned me about south american traffic, I don't think it was any worse than Rome or Chicago.

On ice hockey, I sometimes did see people with ice hockey equipment on public transport in Switzerland.

But I think all this backs up my point really. We live in a society designed around the idea everyone will have a car. Living without a car is far more difficult than it needs to be.
When you visited Brazil you should have been able to just hop on a train to go see wherever. That's the ideal that we should be shooting for - at the very least if you are just living in a city needing to have a car is an absolute travesty.

Unless you're dealing with really remote areas or have to carry some heavy equipment there should be no reason to have a car beyond being into cars and /or driving.

It's not cars I'm against. It's the basically mandatory nature of car ownership.

[Sheilbh]

Shelf doesn't have a car, so rarely drives,

Not only don't have a car but can't even drive

Edit: I am also in the ban cars camp too

Driving is wonderful.  It's just a sense of freedom - you can go anywhere you want, anytime you want.

Trains are wonderful

[mongers]

Shelf doesn't have a car, so rarely drives,

Not only don't have a car but can't even drive

Edit: I am also in the ban cars camp too

Driving is wonderful.  It's just a sense of freedom - you can go anywhere you want, anytime you want.

Trains are wonderful, when they work.

FYP

[HVC]

When you visited Brazil you should have been able to just hop on a train to go see wherever.
 

I think that's a view of someone from a small county. Brazil (like Canada) is huge. It's 34 times bigger than the Uk (let alone just England and wales). Even setting aside a large part is undeveloped. Metro rio is 3 times bigger than greater London, for example.

[Sheilbh]

FYP

Very much depends. If you're in a city a little issue with the trains can be fine - some wonderful stations out there that are worth not rushing through.

If you are changing in Crewe, or the only thing to do is go to the nearby Railway Tavern then very much agree

[Sheilbh]

I think that's a view of someone from a small county. Brazil (like Canada) is huge. It's 34 times bigger than the Uk (let alone just England and wales). Even setting aside a large part is undeveloped. Metro rio is 3 times bigger than greater London, for example.

Sure - and I get it for very thinly populated countries like Australia or Canada (though still don't think it's entirely the explanation). But there are other models like Russia or China, say. It's a political and social choice.

I think Brazil, Mexico, Argentina would really benefit from passenger railway networks - I think they all have (or had) significant rail infrastructure but it was freight focused. In my time in those countries there's a lot of bus and coach travel, plus lots of regional inter-city planes as well as people with planes. I think like China they could definitely benefit from relatively high-speed inter-city networks and then better regional rail (and I think that model could work for lots of big countries rather than looking at European style dense rail).

[HVC]

Trains help, especially good lines, but you'll never get away from cars (and the need for them) for some areas/nations.   I don't drive, so I'm not a  gung ho "woo cars" guy, but I do understand the necessity of them. It's not even just a density things, it's also just purely a size issue. England is tiny.

Throwing some more numbers, southern Ontario alone is 9000 square km bigger then all of England

[Josquius]

Trains help, especially good lines, but you'll never get away from cars (and the need for them). For some areas/nations.   I don't drive, so I'm. It a gung ho "woo cars" guy, but I do understand the necessity of them. It's not even just a density things, it's also just purely a size issue. England is tiny.

Throwing some mor numbers, southern Ontario alone is 9000 square km bigger then all of England

This is a pretty irrelevant number when it comes the most important part of transport though - getting around in cities.
Canadas national density is something stupid like 2 people per square kilometre. But look at the cities, even in their current poorly designed state, and it's far more reasonable levels of a few thousand (still broadly bad. But not so much so the thought of change is a joke).

And hey. If we are looking at big countries with trains, Russia, China, and India are into them.

When you visited Brazil you should have been able to just hop on a train to go see wherever.
 

I think that's a view of someone from a small county. Brazil (like Canada) is huge. It's 34 times bigger than the Uk (let alone just England and wales). Even setting aside a large part is undeveloped. Metro rio is 3 times bigger than greater London, for example.

Well yeah but even if driving I wouldn't be expecting to see the whole country in 2 weeks with most of it spent driving - this is meant to be a holiday, not a time for doing a particularly awful chore.

My plan for visiting the US that I sadly never got around to was basically NYC-Philadelphia-DC. And even that wouldn't have given me time to really properly see any of them if squeezed into just 2 weeks.
Those nutters who plan to do NYC and then the grand canyon.... Like.... Yah. No.

[HVC]

When you visited Brazil you should have been able to just hop on a train to go see wherever.
 

I think that's a view of someone from a small county. Brazil (like Canada) is huge. It's 34 times bigger than the Uk (let alone just England and wales). Even setting aside a large part is undeveloped. Metro rio is 3 times bigger than greater London, for example.

Well yeah but even if driving I wouldn't be expecting to see the whole country in 2 weeks with most of it spent driving - this is meant to be a holiday, not a time for doing a particularly awful chore.

My plan for visiting the US that I sadly never got around to was basically NYC-Philadelphia-DC. And even that wouldn't have given me time to really properly see any of them if squeezed into just 2 weeks.
Those nutters who plan to do NYC and then the grand canyon.... Like.... Yah. No.

Those NY to California people are the people who really don't understand size. Coincidently they make the best girlfriends

It's not even a visiting places thing though. For better or worse things are just far apart. Some (a lot) is zoning and sprawl, but what's done is done. A lot of its just things are far away lol. I mentioned in the train thread that a line from Windsor to Montreal would make sense, but even then it doesn't about for more northerly travel.  It would suit a narrow corridor.

[Sheilbh]

Trains help, especially good lines, but you'll never get away from cars (and the need for them) for some areas/nations.  I don't drive, so I'm not a  gung ho "woo cars" guy, but I do understand the necessity of them. It's not even just a density things, it's also just purely a size issue. England is tiny.

Throwing some more numbers, southern Ontario alone is 9000 square km bigger then all of England

Sure - and half the population live in two cities. That's exactly the sort of thing trains are very, very good at From what I can see the train journey takes 4.5 hours. The distance is about London to Manchester which takes about half that time (and, as you may have heard, we haven't even built a high speed rail yet). That's what I mean by a political and social choice.

As I say look at Russia or China - or, indeed, countries in the Americas before the advent of cars - and you'll find a different model.

It's not even a visiting places thing though. For better or worse things are just far apart. Some (a lot) is zoning and sprawl, but what's done is done. A lot of its just things are far away lol. I mentioned in the train thread that a line from Windsor to Montreal would make sense, but even then it doesn't about for more northerly travel.  It would suit a narrow corridor.

As Robert Moses famously said when he decided he just couldn't make space for a highway

[Josquius]

Worth remembering.

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Sure. NA has a whole heap of other problems that make becoming like Amsterdam quite the impossible dream.
But there's no reason it can't become much better than it is for a huge swathe of the population.

Beware of the nirvana paradox. We don't have to eliminate every single car and have every village in the land with hourly rail service.
Just having the major cities, which account for a significant chunk of the population, setting up more sensible zoning laws and investing in public transit would do a tonne.

It's weird it comes up. In my free time at the minute I'm actually putting together a look at Britain's density issues and a punchline in there is "hey. At least we aren't America".

[garbon]

All those bikes coming from every which angle? Amsterdam is no dream unless talking nightmares