> unconcerned about the environmental impact, the urban sprasubwl and resource drainage, the insane amount of money spent purchasing and maintaining cars and highways, and the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents?
We could go on and on about that. Sure, ballpark, first cut, you are correct. But I don't see a better alternative.
And for the costs, IIRC, and again, this is not my job and I don't have good data, nearly cars pay for themselves from when people buy the cars, buy gas, pay for maintenance and insurance, when the gas taxes are used to build the roads, etc.
> environmental impact
From cars and truck on the roads, I'm no longer much concerned.
> suburban sprawl
I like the suburbs, much better than living in a large city.
> resource drainage
I'm not very concerned: We're using iron, aluminum, concrete, and oil. Someday we will run out of oil, and then we will make it from electricity, water, and CO2. We can recycle the iron and aluminum -- IIRC the aluminum is valuable enough to be eagerly recycled now. Concrete? It needs mostly only calcium carbonate, that is, lime stone. The planet is totally awash in lime stone. And the concrete on the roads can be recycled. Some people are concerned about concrete because making cement from lime stone releases CO2. My understanding is that CO2 from human sources is tiny compared with what comes from volcanoes.
> purchasing and maintaining
Yup, it's expensive, one of the major expenses, likely second only to housing. But I don't know of an alternative unless we are all going to live in small apartments in high rise buildings in dense cities. And we will still need roads for trucks, taxis, and likely busses.
But, a lot of people would rather live in the suburbs and drive a personal car and are willing to pay the costs. If they are in fact paying the costs, then fine with me.
> the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents
I don't like that. But I've driven maybe 800,000 miles without an injury. As a teenager I had some minor accidents, but the main cause was ice and no one was hurt and no cars were seriously damaged. In some parts of the country, when the roads are covered with glare ice, don't drive for 3-4 days.
I just bought auto insurance in NY: It was $370 for the year. That's a good measure of the costs of the accidents and injuries. Medical insurance for the rest of health care is much, much higher. So, auto accidents are not a biggie for medical problems. The old biggie was smoking, but we've made progress on that. Now a biggie is obesity. IIRC, then it's heart disease and cancer. My parents dies of smoking, via heart disease and cancer. Without the smoking the cancer would not have been there. Same for the heart disease except eventually Dad would have had that but now some simple pills for about $0.50 a day fixes that quite nicely. We're making progress in medicine, but, still, that $370 a year figure shows that the medical side of cars is tiny compared with the rest of medicine.
Cars are better than they used to be: Tires used to be gone in 10,000, 20,000 miles. Now it's common to get 70,000 miles. Brakes, ball joints, they last much longer. The engines are much cleaner due to electronic ignition and fuel systems and, thus, last much longer, commonly over 200,000 miles. We're getting more lifetime out of U-joints, wheel bearings, shocks, etc. My SUV has over 200,000 miles and the original shocks -- Bilsteins, from Chevy. Also original springs, suspension bushings, and ball joints. For much of the car interiors, the synthetic fabrics are nearly indestructable. In my 200,000 mile SUV, a lot of the interior looks new. And cars are getting better still, e.g., better protection against corrosion.
The US is a big country. Cars are working great. I see no better alternative. Passenger trains? NYC and DC for commuters. Secret? Both were awash in money and could buy whatever they wanted.
> We could go on and on about that. Sure, ballpark, first cut, you are correct. But I don't see a better alternative.
Well there is an alternative. You build more dense, mixed-use developments where people can walk, bike, or if needed take the bus to where they need to go. Have rentals like Car 2 Go and Lyft and whatnot. Trains aren't the only solution, they are part of a suite of available solutions. I don't advocate getting completely rid of cars, but building 6-lane highways is simply unsustainable and undesirable.
> And for the costs, IIRC, and again, this is not my job and I don't have good data, nearly cars pay for themselves from when people buy the cars, buy gas, pay for maintenance and insurance, when the gas taxes are used to build the roads, etc.
Ok so let's say that everybody pays for their cars and whatever. Yes you pay for the maintenance and yes you pay for the gas. I'll even submit that you pay for the tax and that directly funds roads. My question to you now is, whether or not that is an economically justifiable policy to maintain. Let's say you buy a cheap new car at like $15,000. Ok, so now you're out that money, + interest. Now you have to pay out of pocket for tires, gas, and insurance. All of that money is, as far as I'm concerned, wasted, because if we zoned better we could have situations where you work close to where you live, and you don't have to drive everywhere. Now what are you saving? All of that cost. On top of that, we haven't even broached the subject of teenager deaths (let along just general destruction of life and property from accidents) and the hospital costs associated with those accidents, nor have we discussed the health impact of pollution, sitting on your fat lazy ass everyday, nor have we touched on the environmental impact from extracting all these resources that aren't needed. You sitting here saying "I'm unconcerned" is kind of alarming. How can you be unconcerned with any of this?
> But I don't know of an alternative unless we are all going to live in small apartments in high rise buildings in dense cities. And we will still need roads for trucks, taxis, and likely busses.
The problem is that you have this picture of what urban means, (small apartment and idk, what else?) when it's not the case. I have no desire to live in a shoebox either. Yet I still live in the middle of a downtown in a large city in the US. How can you reconcile this? The fact is that urban sprawl is almost as undesirable as suburban sprawl. But mixed-use neighborhoods solve for both. Check out this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the_walkable_city
> The US is a big country. Cars are working great. I see no better alternative.
Than you simply aren't thinking. I don't mean to sound rude here but it's pretty easy to imagine a far superior solution to gigantic unused parking lots, fiery deaths and destruction, and 45 minutes (each way) drives stuck in traffic. Why is it that every other first-world country on the planet can get along fine with public transportation, but we can't? If you want to say "America is so big" my reply to you is good, and we should keep the open space open for better uses than gigantic, poorly built homes. You can have the best of both worlds. Hell you can even still have a car. But you cannot have a world where everybody does the single-occupant commute to their 9-5 everyday, not for long at least.
> Passenger trains? NYC and DC for commuters. Secret? Both were awash in money and could buy whatever they wanted.
Hmm. I wonder why that's the case?
Also, I don't dispute that you are paying $370/year for car insurance, but you're far below average anywhere in the country, and nearly 4x cheaper than the average for New York. If you have any contrary stats by all means post them, but this is like the first thing I found: https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-insurance
We could go on and on about that. Sure, ballpark, first cut, you are correct. But I don't see a better alternative.
And for the costs, IIRC, and again, this is not my job and I don't have good data, nearly cars pay for themselves from when people buy the cars, buy gas, pay for maintenance and insurance, when the gas taxes are used to build the roads, etc.
> environmental impact
From cars and truck on the roads, I'm no longer much concerned.
> suburban sprawl
I like the suburbs, much better than living in a large city.
> resource drainage
I'm not very concerned: We're using iron, aluminum, concrete, and oil. Someday we will run out of oil, and then we will make it from electricity, water, and CO2. We can recycle the iron and aluminum -- IIRC the aluminum is valuable enough to be eagerly recycled now. Concrete? It needs mostly only calcium carbonate, that is, lime stone. The planet is totally awash in lime stone. And the concrete on the roads can be recycled. Some people are concerned about concrete because making cement from lime stone releases CO2. My understanding is that CO2 from human sources is tiny compared with what comes from volcanoes.
> purchasing and maintaining
Yup, it's expensive, one of the major expenses, likely second only to housing. But I don't know of an alternative unless we are all going to live in small apartments in high rise buildings in dense cities. And we will still need roads for trucks, taxis, and likely busses.
But, a lot of people would rather live in the suburbs and drive a personal car and are willing to pay the costs. If they are in fact paying the costs, then fine with me.
> the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents
I don't like that. But I've driven maybe 800,000 miles without an injury. As a teenager I had some minor accidents, but the main cause was ice and no one was hurt and no cars were seriously damaged. In some parts of the country, when the roads are covered with glare ice, don't drive for 3-4 days.
I just bought auto insurance in NY: It was $370 for the year. That's a good measure of the costs of the accidents and injuries. Medical insurance for the rest of health care is much, much higher. So, auto accidents are not a biggie for medical problems. The old biggie was smoking, but we've made progress on that. Now a biggie is obesity. IIRC, then it's heart disease and cancer. My parents dies of smoking, via heart disease and cancer. Without the smoking the cancer would not have been there. Same for the heart disease except eventually Dad would have had that but now some simple pills for about $0.50 a day fixes that quite nicely. We're making progress in medicine, but, still, that $370 a year figure shows that the medical side of cars is tiny compared with the rest of medicine.
Cars are better than they used to be: Tires used to be gone in 10,000, 20,000 miles. Now it's common to get 70,000 miles. Brakes, ball joints, they last much longer. The engines are much cleaner due to electronic ignition and fuel systems and, thus, last much longer, commonly over 200,000 miles. We're getting more lifetime out of U-joints, wheel bearings, shocks, etc. My SUV has over 200,000 miles and the original shocks -- Bilsteins, from Chevy. Also original springs, suspension bushings, and ball joints. For much of the car interiors, the synthetic fabrics are nearly indestructable. In my 200,000 mile SUV, a lot of the interior looks new. And cars are getting better still, e.g., better protection against corrosion.
The US is a big country. Cars are working great. I see no better alternative. Passenger trains? NYC and DC for commuters. Secret? Both were awash in money and could buy whatever they wanted.