Comment on Grocery stores promoting gas discounts are not helping the transition away from gas vehicles
grue@lemmy.world 4 months agoThe “transition away from gas vehicles” and the “transition to electric vehicles” aren’t the same thing and shouldn’t be conflated.
The bulk of the transition should be to other forms of transportation, not simply subbing out disastrous gas automobiles for only-marginally-less-disastrous electric automobiles.
I wish more people, more ordinary non-Lemmings, understood this.
Even if you can’t get everywhere with a bike, you can definitely go some places. Last year, completely on accident, I went a whole month only using my car twice. 90% of my trips were to the grocery store and other close-by destinations.
Electric cars are just an evolution of the status quo designed as a pressure valve to prevent the momentum for real change from building up.
For further than bike distance, it’s confounding why cities don’t have a tram system.
If something is being moved from one place to another, and back again, you would of course look for more efficient ways to move that thing. Use a box.
When there’s dozens of those things making the same trip, put them together in the same transport method. It’s not complicated. Factories don’t have people moving one product at a time to the next station. They have conveyor belts or similar to accomplish the task.
When needed, sure, have an electric car that someone could drive. But it’s not necessary for a good portion of the population.
Why Tram? While I prefer them as well and my area has some, this is the same scenario a bus can handle, and a bus is arguably better since it can go more places and be more flexible without infrastructure costs. For most places, we need to electrify buses and figure out how to make them a more appealing choice
Trains and trans are better at scaling for more populated areas but buses need to be part of that continuum
I see buses as a good method of figuring out routes when first implementing a transit system similar to how some developments leave out walking paths to see where people typically walk and install them afterwards.
Generally though, trams can allow for more passengers transported per trip and per operator than a bus. Good for high and low traffic areas with dedicated transit lanes.
Don’t get me wrong - trams certainly don’t replace buses. Multiple forms of transit are best practice of course. I just don’t see the need for only buses or mostly buses.
As a minor detail, tires are one of the top polluters of both microplastics and noise levels in cities, and it would be nice to lower the amount of them being disintegrated in the process of moving people from place to place - be in from buses, or the larger culprit, private vehicles.
The problem with buses (on busy lines), and I don’t see how to overcome it, is that they get full. I’d rather have a slow traffic jam than having to let 3 or 4 buses pass you by because they are full. This is on a line that rides every 7 minutes. But on tuesdays and thursdays, you can’t get a bus from my stop at 5 o’clock.
While many people in urban and suburban areas could effectively integrate bikes into their daily routines, it still ultimately depends where you live, given that many areas don’t have safe bike lanes or are simply too rural to be able to bike as part of one’s routine.
johntash@eviltoast.org 4 months ago
One problem is the lack of alternative transport options. In most of the US, public transport just isn’t a thing. And things are too far apart for cycling to be efficient for commutes, grocery shopping, etc.
I hope that changes some day though.
JDPoZ@lemmy.world 4 months ago
for those not from the US, I highly recommend watching the YouTube channel “Not Just Bikes” to get a better understanding of how absolutely dogshit the US is for anyone without a car.
Not only is public transit non-existent… you are nearly constantly under threat of being hit by a car as a pedestrian - as things like sidewalks, street crossing safe areas, etc. are all spotty at best… not to mention how trucks and SUVs now are bigger than ever so chances are higher than they’ve ever been before that you won’t be seen before being run over.