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Unset's avatar

There is a lot of tilting at windmills with straw men in them going on here. It seems to be a product of the Kotkin school of obfuscating the internal contradictions in ones argument.

At the end of the day, improving transit and creating more walkable neighborhoods is about giving Americans more living options, not taking their preferred choice away.

Trembath cites the fact that "over 85% of Americans commute to work by car, overwhelmingly alone, compared to about 5% who use public transit and less than 1% who bike" as evidence that cars are "really popular." Given how terrible mass transit options are for the overwhelming number of Americans, that is hardly evidence that cars are "really popular." Ask any Soviet grandmother--buying the only option on the shelf doesn't mean you love it.

Hernandez's article is mostly a wokewashing of her anti-mass transit and anti-environmentalism animus.

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Travis's avatar

Why are there ANY traffic lights?

They are for cars. They are not so I don't bike into someone (Though they set up bike signals! Dumb!). Traffic lights ruin commute times and literally create traffic. All because cars are so huge and heavy that their existence (doing what they are built for) is so dangerous that every other form of transit (which do not need traffic lights) has to use them. Talk about a huge externality.

Street wideness and parking are also car externalities. We've had cars for so long the inefficiency of them is baked into our minds. I'm sick of everyone's inability to see it.

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