My original question was “How do we disincentivize the purchase of pickup trucks/SUVs” but then I thought it would be better to approach the larger problem of car dependency and car ownership. One option is, of course, to create public transit infrastructure and improve it where it already exist. This, however, doesn’t change the fact that some will still choose to drive. What would be the best ways to discourage people from owning personal cars?
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I’m firmly on the side of it being unreasonable to discourage driving until there is a reasonable alternative.
- There are a handful of us cities where there is enough of an alternative and they already make it expensive to have a car and getting more expensive all the time (see NYC proposed congestion fees, Boston record prices for a parking spot, Cambridge street restrictions)
- even then, there should be a better way to support people who think they need a car but don’t use it everyday. It shouldn’t need to be in everyone’s way
However for most of the US, that’s just alienating people who would be on our side if there was a choice
By making it a poor choice, which you do by providing a better alternative that is cheaper.
Introduce a cheap alternative, get people used to it, then slowly phasing in taxes to make the undesired behavior too expensive to be worth it for the average person, but still give the option.
I have long thought that cars should largely not exist in cities, but (in America at least) they’re required for rural living. Inside cities, there should be cheap (maybe even free), readily available, and numerous public transportation options. Convert parking lots into usable land, and install large parking garages on the outskirts of the cities, again cheap or free, and make them hubs for the public transportation options.
Now, people can drive to the city on their own. We don’t have to immediately redo the entire country’s infrastructure so that rural citizens still have mobility. If you’re just passing through the city, or want to keep your car on you, there could be a day pass option. It’d be expensive, but doable. Otherwise, you can park and do whatever you need to, and just return to your car when done.
As far as city dwellers who may want to own a car for trips, allow rental of a space in a parking garage for a reasonable rate. You can store your car there indefinitely, have free access to it, but would still need a day pass to operate inside the city.
Change is slow. We have to accept some half measures in service of getting things more in line with where we want them. Eventually we may be able to phase out cars completely, but I’d personally be fine with a drastic reduction in cars inside cities. Incentivizing alternatives works better than punishing the unwanted behavior, and works even better when the two are used in tandem.
- Tax carbon (and equivalents)
- give back all carbon tax to all citizens, equally
- Increase tax linearly over time, and let folks and business plan their transition predictably.
This will incentivize people to demand affordable transportation, transition to alternatives, get low income citizens a reason to not oppose increased cost of living. Big consumers have to pay, low consumers will pay a little but get more back.
Check out Citizens Climate Lobby.
Now that EVs are a thing, taxing carbon may not do what you expect.
EVs still create a lot of co2 in production so I’d expect it would incentivize people to use and demand more efficient means of transportation. Trains, busses combined with incentives to do better city planning.
EVs aren’t silver bullets. Will still be cheaper to use an EV than a car running on gas.
I view it as sidelining cars to improve public transportation.
- First thing is to eliminate and revise public zoning laws and removing parking minimums. This causes change the slowest but is the most important to start since it will lead to denser population centers, and parking garages can be closer to residence.
- Second move I think is to eliminate extra lanes and trim road widths. This leads to driving being something that takes more focus and is slower. This also frees space for bike lanes and even dedicated bus lanes.
- Slowly phase out free parking across the city. Start with spots directly next to crosswalks so that there is better visibility of pedestrians crossing. Then focus on bus routes to free a dedicated lane when possible. This discourages driving since there’s fewer chances you’ll be able to park close to the place you are going.
- While this is occurring, you should be introducing public transit as it becomes feasible. More buses or trams, guarded bike lanes, etc.
- MAINTAIN YOUR PUBLIC TRANSIT!! As trains and buses fall into disrepair the number of people willing to ride it will drop off. Also keep the bike lanes and sidewalks clear and smooth.
That’s what I’ve got. It takes decades to break down this infrastructure for new stuff. You also need the to be having accessibility in mind whenever you are thinking about installing public amenities or removing infrastructure.
That will depend a lot from city to city, and also person to person. Some people loathe public transportation, as they see it as something for “the poor”. Trading in cars for motorcycles, electric or combustion, is a good step forward, but would just lead to those ultra dense Indian cities.
What works best is not having places you want or need to go so fucking far: school, grocery store, workplace. For me, my job is 30km away from my home, but thankfully I can take a bus. Some people would take buses, but don’t, because of: 1- they’re overcrowded (because it’s more profitable); 2- there’s no direct lines that go to where the person wants to go (“low demand”, unprofitable); 3- they don’t run at the times the person needs (same as 2)
Another user mentions that many drives are less than a mile, for me that’s whenever I go buy groceries, as I don’t have a bike or anything to carry the bags, so putting them in the car works better.
By making it utterly unaffordable.
Fortunately electric cars are coming, and none of them are cheap.
The downside is you have to explain to an entire class why you no longer deem them worthy of owning a car.
don’t discourage people from owning personal cars. most of the time this mentality is just a tax on the poor.
Flip the idea. Encourage people to not use cars instead.
- not just bike lanes, but bike storage & lockers
- not just public transport, but better connections between transport modes (buses with bike carriers, train stations with better car parking and bike lockers and bus connections)
- more small car parking bays with all large truck bays further away from the stores
- more motorcycle parking bays
- cheaper motorcycle registration, etc.
it’s all about spending money and effort in the areas you want it. Not about being restrictive.
it’s a slower method of conversion, but more effective.
You have to do both I’m afraid
no, you really, absolutely don’t.
more importantly, you missed the part where being anti-car is just a tax on poor people. It’s also ableist. We still need cars, and punishing people who need them isn’t helpful.
“poor people, like people on disability payments, shouldn’t be able to afford to drive, but rich people can do whatever they want” is a horrible dystopia.
I agree with you, it’s not fair, but afaik the research and data shows that in order to get people to use their cars less there has to be more downsides to using it as well as easier alternative transportation.
Otherwise people will just keep driving
You can own your car and drive it from time to time, ideally not in the city. Those aren’t what we want to discourage. Discourage driving daily, driving in the city. Make those things simply easier, faster, and cheaper to do than using a car, and, while it won’t KILL cars completely, it’ll reduce them enough to make a noticeable difference.
After that’s successful, and the working class hasn’t completely shit themselves, we can start with making cars less desirable than they are right now. Once only the enthusiasts and most stubborn own a car, we can add some kinds of taxes, so that at the end, we’re left with only the enthusiasts, which I think is a perfectly reasonable goal.
Yes, but you must also do things like add tolls, rush surcharges, etc to actually get the car usage down.
Simply making the alternative better alone won’t make the majority drop the comfort of their own car because it will never be as good as driving yourself.
Pretty sure my second paragraph, starting with the word “after” (that word does a LOT of lifting) addresses that aspect.
It usually happens at the same time, you increase cost. Then you use that cost directly to build and maintain the public infrastructure required.
no, you don’t. that’s all a poor tax, again.
and remember: most of the people who need cars (for mobility reasons) are among the poorest.
So taxing people through tolls and such is just punishing the disabled. ie ableist.
You do if you actually want the traffic to go down and you want to afford the public transportation infrastructure that will be required.
People are in engrained car habits. That’s why alternatives to driving are important, but people are unlikely to switch unless we ALSO make driving less appealing
The solution seems to be, build those public transit options first. Let people get used to them, know they exist, etc. even if they’re not massively used, their presence makes implementing some kind of penalty for driving WAY more likely to work - there’s already an alternative in place, we don’t have to worry about what we’re gonna do now, were just gonna take the bus.
I totally understand why you say this. But at the same time:
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Be a politician
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Do the right thing and invest billions in an amazing public transport system knowing it won’t be used properly until much later
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Lose your job for wasting billions on a system nobody uses. Ensure that every other politician in the world cannot henceforth invest in public transport because “Look what happened when that other guy tried it”.
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There is no Step 4
This is why I propose moving in sloooooow steps. One or two small changes at a time, and eventually we’ve “snuck” some stuff by and moved in the right direction.
The way I look at it, it’s as likely to happen if we do it right as if we do it wrong. Either we’re going to get rid of cars, or we’re not. I’d rather make steps towards doing it right.
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address how this stance of yours isn’t just a tax on poor people and how it isn’t ableist.
Anti-tobacco campaigns proved to be very useful. Anti-car campaigns could be equally useful. Won’t happen in the EU sadly because Germany relies too much on automotive industry.
well, sure, because that’s just because vaping didn’t exist then. Once vaping became a thing, soooo many people switched over from smoking to vaping.
I wasn’t being sarcastic, anti-tobacco campaigns and regulations were very effective
Public transportation should be provided for the public by the public. Quit wasting time with ticket booths and all that shit. Just free transportation. We aren’t charged per use for roads so people drive. Make public transport free so transportation is equally accessible by all social classes.
Even with cheap fares now, moving a family is still more expensive by bus than vehicle. I don’t drive for my sake. I drive for the others that need me to drive for them.
Long ago my city made all public transit free on spare the air days. (Days where particulate concentrations were predicted to be high) I do miss those, they were actually kinda fun. I would like them to come back someday.
This is so backwards. They wait til the the air is already fucked up to provide the cleaner alternative. Wouldn’t it be better to always provide that then have less bad air days because less people are driving and spewing particulates?
It takes a really, really prolonged inversion later to trigger a spare the air day from just smog. That alone is fairly rare. Bigger culprates are BBQ’s and fireplaces. By far, the #1 trigger is wildfires. That was the first spare the air month I’ve experienced!
Not to say that you’re wrong, but driving does cost money in the form of registration, excise tax, gas taxes, and inspection. It’s still heavily subsidized, but drivers don’t pay nothing to use the roads
Many of those are fixed costs. That means that if you use the car more, it becomes more worth it.
Instead of making cars more expensive, we should make public transport cheaper. And it should also reach outside of cities.
If you want to go outside of a city for whatever reason (maybe you even live outside a city!) the options for public transport are very few, very expensive, and very time consuming.
The one tied to increased use is linked, not fixed.
Well there are fees in registration, and gas, but it isn’t enough.
If we want people to switch, time and money are the best motivators to broadly apply. Making transit both faster and cheaper than a car (or free) will increase ridership and decrease car usage.
I remember a study from Denmark that pointed towards convenience dwarfing every other reason (including cost) for choice of transport.
Basically people took bikes rather than cars because it was quicker and easier to take the bike. In places where cars where more convenient, people would drive, even if it was outrageously expensive.
Very few people were driven by health/environmental benefits, cost, fun, etc
No disagreement. Was just clarifying misinformation.
For me the only answer is good, fast, cheap public transit.
Gosh I took the railroad from Long Island, NY into NYC and back. Each way was about 40 min but the total cost was like $19 per person! If I was going with 3/4 friends, it could literally be cheaper and about as fast to drive into the city and pay for parking. It needs to be more subsidized.
Car driving also needs to be less subsidised.
In Japan, car owners are responsible for ensuring they have somewhere to park. Municipalities don’t provide free on-street car storage, or even much in the way of paid parking, so if you really want a car, you’ll need to sacrifice some space to store it, or make other private arrangements at your own expense. You’ll need proof of this when you buy a car.
Singapore goes one step further, with car owners needing to purchase a licence for keeping a car (which is separate from a driver’s license). This costs about as much as the car itself. Though by some accounts, this has made having even a mediocre car into a status symbol.
I think you’re on to something. If we stopped providing free street parking in cities, in addition to removing the parking requirements for new buildings, the problem would slowly resolve itself. Unfortunately that would mean that residents currently benefiting from free street parking would have to vote to take away their own subsidy, so we’d have to find a way to make it worth it to them.
Good public transportation, good bike roads, a train system that works well.
Spend trillions on infrastructure.
Better specify, the right kind of infrastructure, not just more highways.
Basically this. Make it so that people live in places conducive to not owning a car. If people live places where it is miles between their needs and there is no accessible form of alternative transport, you’re stuck with cars.
Ultimately, we need alternatives, people will take alternatives if they are faster and affordable. We need a rich public transit system.
If people are fully exposed to the real cost of car ownership they will happily choose alternatives. This means no free parking or mandatory minimums, no subsidies, tolls everywhere, and carbon taxes on fuel. Even after all of that some people will still decide that driving is their best option and that’s ok.
In a world where there are no viable alternatives, like much of the US, this ends up putting additional financial pressure on the poor and the rich can simply carry on. This ultimately just increases the cost of ownership, and forces people to pay it.
Studies also show that people will take faster more robust alternatives if they exist, regardless of price. If driving means you sit in traffic for an hour, but taking the bus means you get there in 35 minutes, people will take the bus.
The point is, the poor can still successfully use mass transit now that there’s not much traffic for buses and crosswalks.
I’d rather implement stronger options for free/cheap transportation BEFORE we increase the cost of car ownership. A lot of cities don’t have proper transit options, mine included, and if I was suddenly exposed to the “full cost” of owning a car, I’d be SOL until a bus route near enough for me to walk to gets put in place.
I think this is the essence of what you’re replying to is getting at. It’s a great idea, later, right now we need something that doesn’t kill the working class.
That’s not necessarily possible. Good public transit and bikable neighborhoods are made possible by the low land usage. Low land usage requires having fewer roads and smaller parking lots. Those, in turn, require fewer people to be driving.
The midway transitionary option is buses. But buses are only convenient if they don’t have much traffic to battle. We need fewer people driving.
There are options available. More heavy subsidation for buses comes to mind. Subsidize it enough it’s practically free, and expand their routes. Add more priority lanes for buses. That much is doable today. Then we have a bit of infrastructure so we’re not just pulling the rug out from under people. From there, slowly introduce things to discourage car driving. Gas taxes, more strict emissions requirements, more expensive registration, harder license exams, etc.
You may not have read the second paragraph. People won’t even ride free buses when they don’t arrive and are slower than walking.
Money alone does not solve the issue. You can’t engineer a faster engine for a bus that’s stuck in traffic. Even adding more buses to the route does not help.
It doesn’t matter if they’re riding them right now. Get that infrastructure in place before you pull the rug out. When the rug is pulled, they’ll ride. Yes, it’s a bit of throwing money at the problem, but it doesn’t leave people fucked in the interim period. Do what you can to get infrastructure in place BEFORE tackling cars.
Oh you can also just give a clear preference to other modes of transportation via traffic rules. Let’s say there are traffic lights that only allow bikes to pass more often than they allow cars to pass that’s pretty neat
