Motornomativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard
January 17, 2023 8:50 AM Subscribe
"Car Brain" - the cultural blind spot that makes people apply double standards when they think about driving - is real, measurable and pervasive.
Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity. To explore this claim, a national sample of 2157 UK adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (“People shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes”) or a parallel set of statements with key words changed to shift context ("People shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes"). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with "People shouldn't smoke... " but only 17% agreed with "People shouldn't drive... "). We discuss how these biases systematically distort medical and policy decisions and give recommendations for how public policy and health professionals might begin to recognise and address these unconscious biases in their work.
Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity. To explore this claim, a national sample of 2157 UK adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (“People shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes”) or a parallel set of statements with key words changed to shift context ("People shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes"). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with "People shouldn't smoke... " but only 17% agreed with "People shouldn't drive... "). We discuss how these biases systematically distort medical and policy decisions and give recommendations for how public policy and health professionals might begin to recognise and address these unconscious biases in their work.
While we can all bemoan the loss of the electric trolley in many cities, and be frustrated with the modern absurdities of highway traffic, the core issues of life with private transportation are all borne of the horse-drawn carriage era. Our ancestors literally tolerated horseshit-lined streets before the dangers of petroleum, and the (now-)common acceptance of the potentially sun-operated electric car improves upon that model further. Not perfectly, but better.
We've all seen those Facebook/Reddit/whatever memes of how much public space we're surrendering to cars. Those same roads, intersections and garages were previously given to horses, mules and carriages, even since Roman times. Our carriages are part of human life throughout modernity.
We are consciously biased towards private transport because it provides a very substantial degree of freedom, time-savings, privacy, and for the disabled who can still operate their own car, a genuine life-line. Now that we're all online, we haven't obviated the need for our thousands of years of private carriages or cars as many of these "f-cars" people think, and it is naive and ridiculous for those privileged enough to be of adequate health and in adequately dense communities to not have to use private transport to impugn the obvious benefits for everyone else.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 9:12 AM on January 17, 2023 [23 favorites]
We've all seen those Facebook/Reddit/whatever memes of how much public space we're surrendering to cars. Those same roads, intersections and garages were previously given to horses, mules and carriages, even since Roman times. Our carriages are part of human life throughout modernity.
We are consciously biased towards private transport because it provides a very substantial degree of freedom, time-savings, privacy, and for the disabled who can still operate their own car, a genuine life-line. Now that we're all online, we haven't obviated the need for our thousands of years of private carriages or cars as many of these "f-cars" people think, and it is naive and ridiculous for those privileged enough to be of adequate health and in adequately dense communities to not have to use private transport to impugn the obvious benefits for everyone else.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 9:12 AM on January 17, 2023 [23 favorites]
I think most people recognize that people at least sometimes have to drive to live a normal life, whereas nobody thinks you need to smoke. It's not weird that people don't see driving as a vice. This seems like a pair almost designed to get the results they did.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 AM on January 17, 2023 [41 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:13 AM on January 17, 2023 [41 favorites]
"Motornormativity" is a great coining though.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:17 AM on January 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:17 AM on January 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
Discussions around driving and highway building are awash with this kind of ridiculousness -- from this poll (yes, smoking and driving are exactly the same thing) to the idea of "induced demand" (how dare people consume a product they like at higher rates when the supply is higher). It's embarrassing.
posted by Galvanic at 9:17 AM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Galvanic at 9:17 AM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
much of society has been set up so you need to drive to live a normal life, and so of course people don't blame others for participating in society-as-it-is
posted by BungaDunga at 9:19 AM on January 17, 2023 [23 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 9:19 AM on January 17, 2023 [23 favorites]
yes yes of course everyone ELSE must give up their personal consumption and global warming habits, machines and cultures.
my position on the axis of oppression / my wealth / my private property/ my caste / my political standing / mah freedum demands it as a natural right!
the biosphere and all them future generation's children WILL UNDERSTAND because each CO2 megatonne, nay, each MOLECULE that we emit is labeled with MORALITY and they shall sort the good from the bad in their idyllic, pain-free lives that we are bequeathing them.
posted by lalochezia at 9:19 AM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
my position on the axis of oppression / my wealth / my private property/ my caste / my political standing / mah freedum demands it as a natural right!
the biosphere and all them future generation's children WILL UNDERSTAND because each CO2 megatonne, nay, each MOLECULE that we emit is labeled with MORALITY and they shall sort the good from the bad in their idyllic, pain-free lives that we are bequeathing them.
posted by lalochezia at 9:19 AM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
I would love to see more science and data that pushes back against our car-centric culture and makes us re-examine all of that! I would love it!
Like the above posters have noted, looking at the questions presented, this is not that. They're throwing wild strawmen into the argument with some frankly weird context shifts. Particularly galling:
posted by Shepherd at 9:24 AM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
Like the above posters have noted, looking at the questions presented, this is not that. They're throwing wild strawmen into the argument with some frankly weird context shifts. Particularly galling:
(We originally considered specific v general questions, e.g., "People driving cars in public places should be liable for any harm..." / "People operating machinery in public places should be liable..." but decided that changing the context was neater and less subjective)Even that could go in problematic directions, but it was so much better! Maybe they were fishing for extreme swings so went for the clickbait-inducing extreme shifts of context to get results that would be a bit more shocking, but this seems like they had something that wouldn't just attract eye-rolling scorn, and dropped it. What in the world was the thought process there?
posted by Shepherd at 9:24 AM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
I emphatically agree with their conclusions, but their methodology is absolute shit. "It's OK for a delivery driver to break a few health and safety rules" and "It's OK for a chef to break a few health and safety rules" are asking two fundamentally different questions, no matter how much the authors want to insist otherwise.
posted by Mayor West at 9:25 AM on January 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 9:25 AM on January 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
I suspect these results are part of a wider study investigating audience credulity on Twitter or something – the extent to which if you declare you have evidence that show x, people assume that that is what your evidence shows.
I have a vague recollection of someone posting truly fake news on Twitter, complete with invented links, to prove a point
Anyone who clicked the link would know immediately the tweet was BS. Spoiler alert: Rare is the person who bothers to check what is claimed on Twitter.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:31 AM on January 17, 2023
I have a vague recollection of someone posting truly fake news on Twitter, complete with invented links, to prove a point
Anyone who clicked the link would know immediately the tweet was BS. Spoiler alert: Rare is the person who bothers to check what is claimed on Twitter.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:31 AM on January 17, 2023
It's OK for a delivery driver to break a few health and safety rules
I'm not really sorry
posted by flabdablet at 9:34 AM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm not really sorry
posted by flabdablet at 9:34 AM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm glad to see there is actual research backing up what I've been saying about our strange love affair with cars. I'm also not surprised to see so many of the responses illustrate the issue so plainly. It's like *chefs kiss*.
It took about a year after I quit driving to realize how it was affecting my thought processes and my stress levels.
And before anyone accuses me of wanting to ban cars, I don't. I like cars. I like driving an open road. They just aren't compatible with cities, at least not at the scale that we employ them. It's also a serious equity issue that so many cities are designed around cars to the point that cars are a practical necessity to have a reasonable level of mobility and that the demands upon infrastructure are so high that they are completely unsustainable on a financial level. (Plus it makes me sad to see somewhere north of $10 million dollars worth of resources that people could have spent on other things tied up in them in the parking lot of the small condo complex I live in and how much of that gets eaten up by car crashes every year, but that's a choice people get to make for themselves. I'd be fine with that if it wasn't made under coercion.)
posted by wierdo at 9:37 AM on January 17, 2023 [32 favorites]
It took about a year after I quit driving to realize how it was affecting my thought processes and my stress levels.
And before anyone accuses me of wanting to ban cars, I don't. I like cars. I like driving an open road. They just aren't compatible with cities, at least not at the scale that we employ them. It's also a serious equity issue that so many cities are designed around cars to the point that cars are a practical necessity to have a reasonable level of mobility and that the demands upon infrastructure are so high that they are completely unsustainable on a financial level. (Plus it makes me sad to see somewhere north of $10 million dollars worth of resources that people could have spent on other things tied up in them in the parking lot of the small condo complex I live in and how much of that gets eaten up by car crashes every year, but that's a choice people get to make for themselves. I'd be fine with that if it wasn't made under coercion.)
posted by wierdo at 9:37 AM on January 17, 2023 [32 favorites]
Strong Towns is an organization that addresses issues with car-centric city planning.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:37 AM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:37 AM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
I too reacted negatively to the example that compared smoking to driving, thinking especially that smoking is a choice and driving not but then it occurred to me that maybe that's just my Motornomativity talking!
posted by achrise at 9:42 AM on January 17, 2023 [31 favorites]
posted by achrise at 9:42 AM on January 17, 2023 [31 favorites]
I think, I EAT TAPAS, that maybe you're making a great point in response to a poor argument, or at least an argument poorly relayed by facebook etc memes.
I promise there is a real argument for reducing car use that takes into account disabled folks, transportation of goods, public health, and so on. Advocates for reducing car dependency (mostly) don't exist in a bubble where real-world concerns don't matter!
posted by Acari at 9:44 AM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
I promise there is a real argument for reducing car use that takes into account disabled folks, transportation of goods, public health, and so on. Advocates for reducing car dependency (mostly) don't exist in a bubble where real-world concerns don't matter!
posted by Acari at 9:44 AM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
People felt the same way about smoking as cars in the 1970s, as I recall.
posted by Peach at 9:48 AM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Peach at 9:48 AM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
People felt the same way about smoking as cars in the 1970s, as I recall.
What does this even mean?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:50 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
What does this even mean?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:50 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Our ancestors literally tolerated horseshit-lined streets before the dangers of petroleum
As a minor aside on this particular point, which comes up from time to time. There are POOP BAGS for horses. This myth we had to have cars because horses had to shit in the streets is very much a myth.
posted by aniola at 9:52 AM on January 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
As a minor aside on this particular point, which comes up from time to time. There are POOP BAGS for horses. This myth we had to have cars because horses had to shit in the streets is very much a myth.
posted by aniola at 9:52 AM on January 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
much of society has been set up so you need to drive to live a normal life, and so of course people don't blame others for participating in society-as-it-is
Nowadays there are e-bikes, e-scooters, heavy-duty bike trailers, etc., which allow many more people to participate in a motor minimalist lifestyle in a motornormative society.
posted by aniola at 9:56 AM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Nowadays there are e-bikes, e-scooters, heavy-duty bike trailers, etc., which allow many more people to participate in a motor minimalist lifestyle in a motornormative society.
posted by aniola at 9:56 AM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm guessing that most of the anti-car people aren't relentlessly cat-called whenever they walk somewhere.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:57 AM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Jacqueline at 9:57 AM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
I emphatically agree with their conclusions, but their methodology is absolute shit. "It's OK for a delivery driver to break a few health and safety rules" and "It's OK for a chef to break a few health and safety rules" are asking two fundamentally different questions, no matter how much the authors want to insist otherwise.
What?! How?!
posted by aniola at 9:58 AM on January 17, 2023 [16 favorites]
What?! How?!
posted by aniola at 9:58 AM on January 17, 2023 [16 favorites]
I've encountered plenty of people who'll argue that it's perfectly ok for city air to stink of car exhaust fumes because that's just how city air is and has always been.
A couple of decades ago (or less) it was normal to think pubs, restaurants, concert venues etc should stink of cigarette smoke because that's just how they are and always have been.
I think the survey doesn't prove what the authors want it to prove but the comparison between driving and smoking isn't neceassarily wrong.
posted by grahamparks at 10:06 AM on January 17, 2023 [19 favorites]
A couple of decades ago (or less) it was normal to think pubs, restaurants, concert venues etc should stink of cigarette smoke because that's just how they are and always have been.
I think the survey doesn't prove what the authors want it to prove but the comparison between driving and smoking isn't neceassarily wrong.
posted by grahamparks at 10:06 AM on January 17, 2023 [19 favorites]
I emphatically agree with their conclusions, but their methodology is absolute shit. "It's OK for a delivery driver to break a few health and safety rules" and "It's OK for a chef to break a few health and safety rules" are asking two fundamentally different questions, no matter how much the authors want to insist otherwise.
posted by Mayor West at 9:25 AM on January 17 [2 favorites +] [!]
Interesting! I thought this (and the working one) were fairly balanced in my head, and worked much better than the smoking one.
Is it that the chef is breaking trust with their customers, so it's more akin to a personal betrayal? I'm assuming the delivery person's breach of rules will harm random people, rather than the person they've contracted with.
Disclaimer: I much prefer public transit, but grew up in an area where there was no public transit beside the school bus, so I'm sure that's coloring my responses.
posted by ghost phoneme at 10:06 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 9:25 AM on January 17 [2 favorites +] [!]
Interesting! I thought this (and the working one) were fairly balanced in my head, and worked much better than the smoking one.
Is it that the chef is breaking trust with their customers, so it's more akin to a personal betrayal? I'm assuming the delivery person's breach of rules will harm random people, rather than the person they've contracted with.
Disclaimer: I much prefer public transit, but grew up in an area where there was no public transit beside the school bus, so I'm sure that's coloring my responses.
posted by ghost phoneme at 10:06 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
We've all seen those Facebook/Reddit/whatever memes of how much public space we're surrendering to cars. Those same roads, intersections and garages were previously given to horses, mules and carriages, even since Roman times. Our carriages are part of human life throughout modernity.
Tell me you’ve never been to a pre-modern city without telling me &c &c.
London, Amsterdam, Oxford, Munich, Vienna, and a ton of other cities designed without the assumption of personal 4- or 6-seater vehicles would like a word. The automobile is a choice. It’s a heavily incentivized choice, but it is a choice and those incentives are also choices.
posted by gauche at 10:10 AM on January 17, 2023 [44 favorites]
Tell me you’ve never been to a pre-modern city without telling me &c &c.
London, Amsterdam, Oxford, Munich, Vienna, and a ton of other cities designed without the assumption of personal 4- or 6-seater vehicles would like a word. The automobile is a choice. It’s a heavily incentivized choice, but it is a choice and those incentives are also choices.
posted by gauche at 10:10 AM on January 17, 2023 [44 favorites]
A couple of decades ago (or less) it was normal to think pubs, restaurants, concert venues etc should stink of cigarette smoke because that's just how they are and always have been.
I think the survey doesn't prove what the authors want it to prove but the comparison between driving and smoking isn't neceassarily wrong.--grahamparks
I was just thinking that. When I was young, I'd be the only non-smoker in a meeting at work. If it was a long meeting, the meeting room would fill up with so much smoke you actually had a hard time focusing on the other end of the room. I would gag, my eyes and throat would hurt, and I'd have headaches the rest of the day. Everyone (well, except for a few of us non-smokers) just accepted this as the way it was.
With cars, it used to be the smell of lead in the air was just part of life. And the smell of car exhaust, especially diesel fumes from trucks, is still just accepted. When it is gone (and given the price/kg downward trajectory and density upward trajectory of batteries, it will be), we'll be wondering why we accepted it as normal.
posted by eye of newt at 10:13 AM on January 17, 2023 [23 favorites]
I think the survey doesn't prove what the authors want it to prove but the comparison between driving and smoking isn't neceassarily wrong.--grahamparks
I was just thinking that. When I was young, I'd be the only non-smoker in a meeting at work. If it was a long meeting, the meeting room would fill up with so much smoke you actually had a hard time focusing on the other end of the room. I would gag, my eyes and throat would hurt, and I'd have headaches the rest of the day. Everyone (well, except for a few of us non-smokers) just accepted this as the way it was.
With cars, it used to be the smell of lead in the air was just part of life. And the smell of car exhaust, especially diesel fumes from trucks, is still just accepted. When it is gone (and given the price/kg downward trajectory and density upward trajectory of batteries, it will be), we'll be wondering why we accepted it as normal.
posted by eye of newt at 10:13 AM on January 17, 2023 [23 favorites]
I promise there is a real argument for reducing car use that takes into account disabled folks, transportation of goods, public health, and so on. Advocates for reducing car dependency (mostly) don't exist in a bubble where real-world concerns don't matter!
I'm a person who has taken public transport to commute for much of my life, and also owns a late-model low-range electric car for those things that require a car, so I'm tremendously empathetic to arguments for reducing car use and minimizing environmental impact. At least here in America, cars are indeed radically overused! We absolutely should provide alternatives to car use as primary transport!
But... the /r/fuckcars people are getting ridiculous, and "you've all been brainwashed by the social acceptance of cars into accepting cars" has started to become general discourse in some circles. It's just plain not correct. There are clear and obvious reasons that private transport (read: cars) is absolutely necessary for some (life or health-affirming, truly required) tasks, even in most dense, urban environments. I suspect that when some of these people become disabled, have elderly relatives, have kids, or have to relocate, they'll realize how untenable their position is. Unlike smoking, cars provide an essential social good for many.
There are POOP BAGS for horses. This myth we had to have cars because horses had to shit in the streets is very much a myth.
Yes, and how do you dispose of all the poop bags in the middle of a city? This absolutely was a real issue in the late 19th century.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 10:15 AM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
I'm a person who has taken public transport to commute for much of my life, and also owns a late-model low-range electric car for those things that require a car, so I'm tremendously empathetic to arguments for reducing car use and minimizing environmental impact. At least here in America, cars are indeed radically overused! We absolutely should provide alternatives to car use as primary transport!
But... the /r/fuckcars people are getting ridiculous, and "you've all been brainwashed by the social acceptance of cars into accepting cars" has started to become general discourse in some circles. It's just plain not correct. There are clear and obvious reasons that private transport (read: cars) is absolutely necessary for some (life or health-affirming, truly required) tasks, even in most dense, urban environments. I suspect that when some of these people become disabled, have elderly relatives, have kids, or have to relocate, they'll realize how untenable their position is. Unlike smoking, cars provide an essential social good for many.
There are POOP BAGS for horses. This myth we had to have cars because horses had to shit in the streets is very much a myth.
Yes, and how do you dispose of all the poop bags in the middle of a city? This absolutely was a real issue in the late 19th century.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 10:15 AM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
I think a better real world example of this effect is illustrated with bicycles.
Drivers HATE cyclists. Infrastructure for bicycling is always a waste and worse. Cyclists are always at fault. Cyclist are the worst scofflaws, etc.
But what is the real impact of bicyclists on drivers? It's almost never danger. It's mild inconvenience at worst for the vast vast vast majority of interactions.
What's the reality? I can't drive 5 minutes without seeing multiple drivers breaking the law. And I don't drive much but I bet that my life is endangered at least weekly by other drivers.
Yet drivers hate cyclists and excuse the excesses of drivers. That's real motornormativity.
posted by jclarkin at 10:28 AM on January 17, 2023 [112 favorites]
Drivers HATE cyclists. Infrastructure for bicycling is always a waste and worse. Cyclists are always at fault. Cyclist are the worst scofflaws, etc.
But what is the real impact of bicyclists on drivers? It's almost never danger. It's mild inconvenience at worst for the vast vast vast majority of interactions.
What's the reality? I can't drive 5 minutes without seeing multiple drivers breaking the law. And I don't drive much but I bet that my life is endangered at least weekly by other drivers.
Yet drivers hate cyclists and excuse the excesses of drivers. That's real motornormativity.
posted by jclarkin at 10:28 AM on January 17, 2023 [112 favorites]
Yes, and how do you dispose of all the poop bags in the middle of a city?
In Paris, they did intensive gardening with it. Manure generates heat.
posted by aniola at 10:29 AM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
In Paris, they did intensive gardening with it. Manure generates heat.
posted by aniola at 10:29 AM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
Here in glorious car-centric Toronto we still have mounted police (for some reason) whose horses leave big piles of poop on the streets, where they pose a danger to cyclists (and to a lesser extent pedestrians) and serve as a metaphor for the way the city is run in general.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:33 AM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:33 AM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'd say that a big indicator of "motornormativity" is people's attitudes toward cyclists, particularly as this plays out in media coverage and conviction rates (nearly nonexistent!) for car fatalities. It's incredibly easy to kill someone with a car through recklessness but the scrutiny will always be on the cyclist to see if they did something 'wrong" that justified, eg, getting hit by someone who decided to cut into the bike lane to speed in heavy traffic. Who could expect bikes in traffic? The driver made an innocent mistake!
On a day to day level, it's incredibly normal to park in bike lanes. There's a bike lane near my house on a heavily used street and there's always a guy who parks there overnight. If you're in the lane after about 6pm and before 8am (commuting, for example) there's always a van parked there and you have to pull out into traffic to get around it. Now, there is parking on the quiet residential street around the corner, but that would not be literally by the guy's back door, so he won't park there.
Anyway. I could reiterate a lot of standard car gripes that get aired here all the time, but my point is that parking in the bike lane and defaulting to blaming individual cyclists for being seriously injured or killed by drivers indicates how deeply we feel that all the roads at all times belong to cars. Bike lanes? Actually belong to cars! The front of the right turn lane at a red light? Belongs to cars!
(I add that there is a silver van in near south MPLS which purposefully swerves toward cyclists in the bike lane to scare them - this happened to me once and I thought I was making it up, but then I was about a half block behind another cyclist and I saw the same van swerve toward him and away. We accept the idea that cyclists are annoying and vaguely illegitimate road users and that "of course" drivers are always annoyed with them - threatening to hit them might be a bridge too far, but "of course" cyclists are on the roads on sufferance and don't really belong there.)
posted by Frowner at 10:36 AM on January 17, 2023 [46 favorites]
On a day to day level, it's incredibly normal to park in bike lanes. There's a bike lane near my house on a heavily used street and there's always a guy who parks there overnight. If you're in the lane after about 6pm and before 8am (commuting, for example) there's always a van parked there and you have to pull out into traffic to get around it. Now, there is parking on the quiet residential street around the corner, but that would not be literally by the guy's back door, so he won't park there.
Anyway. I could reiterate a lot of standard car gripes that get aired here all the time, but my point is that parking in the bike lane and defaulting to blaming individual cyclists for being seriously injured or killed by drivers indicates how deeply we feel that all the roads at all times belong to cars. Bike lanes? Actually belong to cars! The front of the right turn lane at a red light? Belongs to cars!
(I add that there is a silver van in near south MPLS which purposefully swerves toward cyclists in the bike lane to scare them - this happened to me once and I thought I was making it up, but then I was about a half block behind another cyclist and I saw the same van swerve toward him and away. We accept the idea that cyclists are annoying and vaguely illegitimate road users and that "of course" drivers are always annoyed with them - threatening to hit them might be a bridge too far, but "of course" cyclists are on the roads on sufferance and don't really belong there.)
posted by Frowner at 10:36 AM on January 17, 2023 [46 favorites]
I go for daily walks around town, about 5 miles a day. Every single day, I see at least one (though, usually several) drivers committing some degree of negligence, from stopping well past the stop line to running a stop altogether, to going THE WRONG FUCKING WAY through a roundabout. A couple times, I've almost been hit while crossing in a crosswalk, from a driver rolling up to a stop, head turned fully right, not even looking where they are headed, and clearly with no intention of stopping short of the crosswalk as required. It's only after I yell "Hey, what the FUCK?" do they finally face forward and slam on the brakes, totally surprised at the person in the middle of the crosswalk that they completely failed to notice. And it happens constantly. In school zones. This study may well be shit, but driving does something to people's brains, and it's not good.
posted by xedrik at 10:37 AM on January 17, 2023 [44 favorites]
posted by xedrik at 10:37 AM on January 17, 2023 [44 favorites]
Smoking was literally not a free choice. In the 20th century when mass media was taking off, the annual NYC parade of women debutantes made each of the women hold a cigarette in their hand, to represent the torch of liberty.
It was an early form of normativizing a product, a product placement, by one of the American originators of marketing and PR. Public choice was shaped and framed by those with agenda and power. Motornormativity helps problematize how this social acceptance arises in yet another domain today.
posted by polymodus at 10:53 AM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
It was an early form of normativizing a product, a product placement, by one of the American originators of marketing and PR. Public choice was shaped and framed by those with agenda and power. Motornormativity helps problematize how this social acceptance arises in yet another domain today.
posted by polymodus at 10:53 AM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
Lots about the understandable ire of folks for whom transit is unavailable or inconvenient WRT anti-car rhetoric but, in the end, the basic physics of the planet are what they are. We have to drive less at any and all costs.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:55 AM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 10:55 AM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
I've lived in a place where I walked a lot and got catcalled a lot, and I live in a place where there aren't any sidewalks and I had to walk four miles in the snow when my car had a flat tire, and - I mean, it's a false dilemma to say that you have to accept catcalling or motonormativity, but the catcalling wasn't worse!
posted by Jeanne at 11:01 AM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Jeanne at 11:01 AM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
A really great thing some of you could do is to stop inventing a theoretical disabled person who supports your argument while ignoring that car-oriented cities harm far more disabled people than cars offer a "lifeline" to, both from people who's disabilities prevent them from being able to drive, or due to disabled people being more likely to live with poverty levels that prevent car ownership.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:02 AM on January 17, 2023 [67 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 11:02 AM on January 17, 2023 [67 favorites]
A really great thing some of you could do is to stop inventing a theoretical disabled person who supports your argument while ignoring that car-oriented cities harm far more disabled people than cars offer a "lifeline" to, both from people who's disabilities prevent them from being able to drive, or due to disabled people being more likely to live with poverty levels that prevent car ownership.
As someone who personally has had a leg injury that has precluded me from being on a bike, who previously had a finger broken off in a bicycle-on-bicycle accident, who has an elderly parent who can't possibly bicycle and can barely walk, and who raised a child who needed regular trips to somewhere out of biking distance - and again, who drives an old low-environmental-impact EV to reduce impact for when I do need to drive, you "motornormativity" people are just seriously wack. This isn't a hypothetical. I have lived this.
You need to check your own "able to bicycle" or "we don't need private transport" privilege. I'm so sick of all of this, totally done.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 11:06 AM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
As someone who personally has had a leg injury that has precluded me from being on a bike, who previously had a finger broken off in a bicycle-on-bicycle accident, who has an elderly parent who can't possibly bicycle and can barely walk, and who raised a child who needed regular trips to somewhere out of biking distance - and again, who drives an old low-environmental-impact EV to reduce impact for when I do need to drive, you "motornormativity" people are just seriously wack. This isn't a hypothetical. I have lived this.
You need to check your own "able to bicycle" or "we don't need private transport" privilege. I'm so sick of all of this, totally done.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 11:06 AM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
I learned something about motornormativity from my 22 month old this weekend.
We live in an apartment next to a huge park. The park is why I live where I live and we go almost every day the weather permits. The baby has known the way to the park well enough to lead the way there since he was 16 months old.
I knew it was a silly thing to do at the time but it was late in the afternoon and the park closes at sunset, so to maximize playground time and have a convenient place to change a diaper, I strapped him in his car seat and drove what Google Earth tells me is 1,100 yards to the playground. We did some swinging, some sliding, tried to pet some dogs, and then he apparently decided he was finished with the playground and wanted to walk the path around the park. We walked and walked.
I soon realized that he wasn't going for a walk. He was going home and we were closer to home than we were to the car. I let him lead me back to the apartment and then I walked back to the car after I put him to bed that night and picked up the car since we needed it for grocery shopping the next morning.
I don't know if it occurs to a not quite two year old that you need a car to go places. He probably doesn't have a great idea of how far we're even going in the car, but obviously if you can look over there past the trees and see home you just go home when you want to go home. Why would you walk in the wrong direction to get strapped into the orange blob and listen to dad's terrible music?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:07 AM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
We live in an apartment next to a huge park. The park is why I live where I live and we go almost every day the weather permits. The baby has known the way to the park well enough to lead the way there since he was 16 months old.
I knew it was a silly thing to do at the time but it was late in the afternoon and the park closes at sunset, so to maximize playground time and have a convenient place to change a diaper, I strapped him in his car seat and drove what Google Earth tells me is 1,100 yards to the playground. We did some swinging, some sliding, tried to pet some dogs, and then he apparently decided he was finished with the playground and wanted to walk the path around the park. We walked and walked.
I soon realized that he wasn't going for a walk. He was going home and we were closer to home than we were to the car. I let him lead me back to the apartment and then I walked back to the car after I put him to bed that night and picked up the car since we needed it for grocery shopping the next morning.
I don't know if it occurs to a not quite two year old that you need a car to go places. He probably doesn't have a great idea of how far we're even going in the car, but obviously if you can look over there past the trees and see home you just go home when you want to go home. Why would you walk in the wrong direction to get strapped into the orange blob and listen to dad's terrible music?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:07 AM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
Yes, it would be very interesting (and in my opinion at lot more meaningful) to see a similar study done with statements where cars/driving are replaced with bikes/biking.
I also think there's a much larger problem with framing driving as an individual moral failure and not as a collective systemic problem. Like, when I moved to Portland, OR a bit over a decade ago, I sold my car and planned to live car free. Portland had a great, award winning public transportation system after all. But the reality of both the increased amount of time (like it could easily take an hour plus to do what could be a fifteen minute car drive), the harassment/lack of safety as a gender nonconforming and visibly queer person on the bus and at bus stops, how dangerous and unsafe it felt to bike, and some of my own knee injury and mobility issues meant that I ultimately decided I needed a car.
I definitely want to live in a solarpunk world where there's plenty of bicycles and used veggie oil buses and trains with solar panels on top and lush green city streets full of laughing pedestrians and lined with fruit trees for handy snacks and there's collectively owned cars people can borrow for getaways and inter-city travel. And I don't think the way we get there from here is by shaming individual people and framing everything in terms of personal choice. I think we need to radically transform many systems so people don't have so much time and resource scarcity and can enjoy moving more slowly, so walking and biking and wheelchairing feel both physically and socially safe, so collective ownership and shared resources are the norm, so streets and neighborhoods are welcoming and beautiful and places people want to savor.
posted by overglow at 11:07 AM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
I also think there's a much larger problem with framing driving as an individual moral failure and not as a collective systemic problem. Like, when I moved to Portland, OR a bit over a decade ago, I sold my car and planned to live car free. Portland had a great, award winning public transportation system after all. But the reality of both the increased amount of time (like it could easily take an hour plus to do what could be a fifteen minute car drive), the harassment/lack of safety as a gender nonconforming and visibly queer person on the bus and at bus stops, how dangerous and unsafe it felt to bike, and some of my own knee injury and mobility issues meant that I ultimately decided I needed a car.
I definitely want to live in a solarpunk world where there's plenty of bicycles and used veggie oil buses and trains with solar panels on top and lush green city streets full of laughing pedestrians and lined with fruit trees for handy snacks and there's collectively owned cars people can borrow for getaways and inter-city travel. And I don't think the way we get there from here is by shaming individual people and framing everything in terms of personal choice. I think we need to radically transform many systems so people don't have so much time and resource scarcity and can enjoy moving more slowly, so walking and biking and wheelchairing feel both physically and socially safe, so collective ownership and shared resources are the norm, so streets and neighborhoods are welcoming and beautiful and places people want to savor.
posted by overglow at 11:07 AM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
There's a saying about anecdotes and data, .. trying to remember how it goes..
posted by Space Coyote at 11:08 AM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 11:08 AM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
The thing that drives me nuts is that even within a motornormative society we have solutions for some of the public health issues. We have the technology to regulate speed, to prevent drunks from driving, to brake cars if there's a hazard in the way. Driven by insurance rates, these functions could be as good as mandated on our roads, we just lack the will to enact penalties stiff enough to engender change.
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:09 AM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:09 AM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
Wow I'm impressed by how many of y'all have enough training in psychology, social sciences, and survey design to be able to so easily completely invalidate a serious study conducted by a guy who is an expert in transportation psychology and has published over a hundred peer-reviewed research papers on that topic.
I'm sure Dr. Walker will be eviscerated by the keen-eyed observation that smoking is not, in fact, driving.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:14 AM on January 17, 2023 [35 favorites]
I'm sure Dr. Walker will be eviscerated by the keen-eyed observation that smoking is not, in fact, driving.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:14 AM on January 17, 2023 [35 favorites]
Many disabled people can actually make use of cycling and tricycles and other active transport, and, big surprise, the main barrier to more disabled people doing it is car-dominated cityscapes and poorly-designed bicycle infrastructure.
'A rolling walking stick': why do so many disabled people cycle in Cambridge?
posted by Space Coyote at 11:24 AM on January 17, 2023 [35 favorites]
'A rolling walking stick': why do so many disabled people cycle in Cambridge?
Riding a bike may be easier than walking for two-thirds of disabled cyclists, but they often remain invisible to society. Many don’t realise that more than a quarter of disabled commutes in this university city are made by bikeSo yeah I'm not backing down about this. Citing disabled people to shore up the status quo of car dominance is actively harming disabled people even if you yourself are a disabled motorist. Stop it.
Cycle around Cambridge and you’ll see upright city bikes and hybrids, tricycles and four-wheeled cargo bikes. What may be surprising is that many of these machines are used as mobility aids: more than a quarter of disabled people’s commutes here are by bike.
“Getting around Cambridge on a trike is fantastic for me,” says Joanna Crosby, who has scoliosis, which affects her balance. “I can put all my shopping in the back of it and just go. Although I have tried a two-wheeler, I really never got the hang of it. I saw this lovely Pashley tricycle and saw it was the way to go.”
posted by Space Coyote at 11:24 AM on January 17, 2023 [35 favorites]
I don't have a Ph.D., but I do have degrees in Psychology, which included survey design, and Civil Engineering, which included transpo, and I don't think it's a great question either.
I'm not saying it invalidates the study, but it's pretty low hanging fruit for critics.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:24 AM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'm not saying it invalidates the study, but it's pretty low hanging fruit for critics.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:24 AM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
Has everyone forgotten about the pandemic? Public transportation, now less appealing than ever...
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 11:27 AM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 11:27 AM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
As someone who personally has had a leg injury that has precluded me from being on a bike, who previously had a finger broken off in a bicycle-on-bicycle accident, who has an elderly parent who can't possibly bicycle and can barely walk, and who raised a child who needed regular trips to somewhere out of biking distance - and again, who drives an old low-environmental-impact EV to reduce impact for when I do need to drive, you "motornormativity" people are just seriously wack. This isn't a hypothetical. I have lived this.
What you're saying does not invalidate the argument you're responding to. I mean technically it does but only because the argument wasn't perfectly framed.
They said: A really great thing some of you could do is to stop inventing a theoretical disabled person who supports your argument while ignoring [...]
and it's true, as you've personally experienced, that people with disabilities are living in a motornormative world, too. But what's also still true is this bit:
car-oriented cities harm far more disabled people than cars offer a "lifeline" to, both from people who's disabilities prevent them from being able to drive, or due to disabled people being more likely to live with poverty levels that prevent car ownership.
posted by aniola at 11:28 AM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
What you're saying does not invalidate the argument you're responding to. I mean technically it does but only because the argument wasn't perfectly framed.
They said: A really great thing some of you could do is to stop inventing a theoretical disabled person who supports your argument while ignoring [...]
and it's true, as you've personally experienced, that people with disabilities are living in a motornormative world, too. But what's also still true is this bit:
car-oriented cities harm far more disabled people than cars offer a "lifeline" to, both from people who's disabilities prevent them from being able to drive, or due to disabled people being more likely to live with poverty levels that prevent car ownership.
posted by aniola at 11:28 AM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
Here is a weird data point: I am a disabled person who uses a bike and does not drive.
I have an unusual early-onset condition which makes standing and walking very painful. Sitting and leaning, however, are fine. So walking two blocks really hurts but biking ten miles is just exercise. Standing to wait for the bus (and standing on a crowded bus) is painful and fatiguing, so I bike almost everywhere - indeed, thanks to bike racks on our buses, even if I need to go somewhere by bus I take my bike for the ride to the bus stop and any short distances on the other end. I walk my bike because leaning on the bike a little supports me as I walk so that I can do moderate distances with less pain - so if you see me at a protest march, I always bring my bike along.
For the first few years of this condition, I didn't even really think of myself as disabled - partly because it hadn't gotten as bad as it is now and partly because I managed my day so that I rarely needed to walk more than 50 yards from my bike. Even at the grocery store, I'd lean on the cart so I was walking supported. But in the past couple of years it's gotten worse and now just a walk to the corner is painful.
My bike is a mobility aid now. It's like a very expensive cane. Bike lanes and bike accessible areas are essential if I'm going to get around town - if I can't bike, I need someone to give me a ride or I can't go. When people park in the bike lane or the bike paths aren't plowed or maintained, my mobility is impaired.
This is always hard to explain to people because they assume that "disabled" means "can't move much except in a car or a wheelchair", when in my case (and probably in a lot of cases) it means "can move a lot but only certain ways".
I need to be accommodated as a cyclist. It's not a want, and I need to have as many rights to public spaces as cars have, because that's how I have to get around.
posted by Frowner at 11:35 AM on January 17, 2023 [69 favorites]
I have an unusual early-onset condition which makes standing and walking very painful. Sitting and leaning, however, are fine. So walking two blocks really hurts but biking ten miles is just exercise. Standing to wait for the bus (and standing on a crowded bus) is painful and fatiguing, so I bike almost everywhere - indeed, thanks to bike racks on our buses, even if I need to go somewhere by bus I take my bike for the ride to the bus stop and any short distances on the other end. I walk my bike because leaning on the bike a little supports me as I walk so that I can do moderate distances with less pain - so if you see me at a protest march, I always bring my bike along.
For the first few years of this condition, I didn't even really think of myself as disabled - partly because it hadn't gotten as bad as it is now and partly because I managed my day so that I rarely needed to walk more than 50 yards from my bike. Even at the grocery store, I'd lean on the cart so I was walking supported. But in the past couple of years it's gotten worse and now just a walk to the corner is painful.
My bike is a mobility aid now. It's like a very expensive cane. Bike lanes and bike accessible areas are essential if I'm going to get around town - if I can't bike, I need someone to give me a ride or I can't go. When people park in the bike lane or the bike paths aren't plowed or maintained, my mobility is impaired.
This is always hard to explain to people because they assume that "disabled" means "can't move much except in a car or a wheelchair", when in my case (and probably in a lot of cases) it means "can move a lot but only certain ways".
I need to be accommodated as a cyclist. It's not a want, and I need to have as many rights to public spaces as cars have, because that's how I have to get around.
posted by Frowner at 11:35 AM on January 17, 2023 [69 favorites]
I promise there is a real argument for reducing car use that takes into account disabled folks, transportation of goods, public health, and so on. Advocates for reducing car dependency (mostly) don't exist in a bubble where real-world concerns don't matter!
For the record, I too think that for a myriad of reasons we should reduce our reliance on cars, but for climate reasons we MUST stop using CO2 emitting cars (amongst other things).
But having lived in various distances of "downtown" in my city, the level of anti car advocacy of my fellow citizens decreases proportionally with distance to said downtown. Which is expected, it's way easier to bike/public-transit to work when you live closer to where you work, so it's a smaller sacrifice. So I'd say there's still a slight bubble effect, it's easy to give up your car, when it's barely practical in the 1st place. It's also self selecting, you're more likely to pay more to go live in a denser neighborhood if that matches with your values/expectations.
Nowadays there are e-bikes, e-scooters, heavy-duty bike trailers, etc., which allow many more people to participate in a motor minimalist lifestyle in a motornormative society.
Personally there are 2 things preventing me from getting all-in on e-bikes. Winter and it's truly miserable cycling conditions, and the fact bikes are too easy to steal. In the not-winter every time I need to go downtown, I just hop on a shared e-bike, ride to the nearest metro station in no time/no sweat and continue from there, and I really love it.
Also it's interesting to reminisce about the olden days of the before cars era, but it was a different society, where you didn't need to drive your kid to school or daycare and myriad of things were just not the same. This is not a justification for blowing the planet, but we have so many things to fix before we can give up on cars, we need to use all the tools at our disposal to reduce emissions, sometimes it's rethinking our cities, sometimes it's stopping our cars from emitting CO2, and sometimes it's reducing our need to go somewhere else so that we can electrify a thing coming to us.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:38 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
For the record, I too think that for a myriad of reasons we should reduce our reliance on cars, but for climate reasons we MUST stop using CO2 emitting cars (amongst other things).
But having lived in various distances of "downtown" in my city, the level of anti car advocacy of my fellow citizens decreases proportionally with distance to said downtown. Which is expected, it's way easier to bike/public-transit to work when you live closer to where you work, so it's a smaller sacrifice. So I'd say there's still a slight bubble effect, it's easy to give up your car, when it's barely practical in the 1st place. It's also self selecting, you're more likely to pay more to go live in a denser neighborhood if that matches with your values/expectations.
Nowadays there are e-bikes, e-scooters, heavy-duty bike trailers, etc., which allow many more people to participate in a motor minimalist lifestyle in a motornormative society.
Personally there are 2 things preventing me from getting all-in on e-bikes. Winter and it's truly miserable cycling conditions, and the fact bikes are too easy to steal. In the not-winter every time I need to go downtown, I just hop on a shared e-bike, ride to the nearest metro station in no time/no sweat and continue from there, and I really love it.
Also it's interesting to reminisce about the olden days of the before cars era, but it was a different society, where you didn't need to drive your kid to school or daycare and myriad of things were just not the same. This is not a justification for blowing the planet, but we have so many things to fix before we can give up on cars, we need to use all the tools at our disposal to reduce emissions, sometimes it's rethinking our cities, sometimes it's stopping our cars from emitting CO2, and sometimes it's reducing our need to go somewhere else so that we can electrify a thing coming to us.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 11:38 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Public choice was shaped and framed by those with agenda and power.
Yeah, I note how well that worked for Jeb Bush or for the Covid Zero policy in China (bet those two things have never been invoked in a sentence together before). The "elite overlords control our brains" thing is always way overstated. Individuals are remarkably assertive about their own beliefs, and in the United States, one of those is having a car.
Wow I'm impressed by how many of y'all have enough training in psychology, social sciences, and survey design to be able to so easily completely invalidate a serious study conducted by a guy who is an expert in transportation psychology and has published over a hundred peer-reviewed research papers on that topic.
A lot of the people who feature heavily on Retraction Watch have similar credentials.
posted by Galvanic at 11:40 AM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I note how well that worked for Jeb Bush or for the Covid Zero policy in China (bet those two things have never been invoked in a sentence together before). The "elite overlords control our brains" thing is always way overstated. Individuals are remarkably assertive about their own beliefs, and in the United States, one of those is having a car.
Wow I'm impressed by how many of y'all have enough training in psychology, social sciences, and survey design to be able to so easily completely invalidate a serious study conducted by a guy who is an expert in transportation psychology and has published over a hundred peer-reviewed research papers on that topic.
A lot of the people who feature heavily on Retraction Watch have similar credentials.
posted by Galvanic at 11:40 AM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Here is a weird data point: I am a disabled person who uses a bike and does not drive.
You're not alone, bike as mobility device is totally a thing.
posted by aniola at 11:41 AM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
You're not alone, bike as mobility device is totally a thing.
posted by aniola at 11:41 AM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
Has everyone forgotten about the pandemic? Public transportation, now less appealing than ever...
This is a great reason to make it safer for slow traffic (such as bike/ped/wheelchair/scooter/etc.).
posted by aniola at 11:47 AM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is a great reason to make it safer for slow traffic (such as bike/ped/wheelchair/scooter/etc.).
posted by aniola at 11:47 AM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
I emphatically agree with their conclusions, but their methodology is absolute shit. "It's OK for a delivery driver to break a few health and safety rules" and "It's OK for a chef to break a few health and safety rules" are asking two fundamentally different questions, no matter how much the authors want to insist otherwise.
What?! How?!
Most people drive and their experience is that breaking the rules a little bit (e.g. speed limits, parking) does not result in a bad outcome for anybody (granted, this perception is skewed because they haven't been killed in a traffic accident yet).
Most people are not chefs and are not entirely certain that fucker back there isn't pissing in the soup when nobody's watching.
I don't think this is a good question for proving anything except a lot of people drive cars and don't like traffic tickets - I think the point would have been much better made if option B used an occupation most respondents have everyday experience of and can identify with.
Also driving vs smoking is very clearly a false equivalence - driving has an obvious practical utility, smoking is at best pleasant.
posted by each day we work at 11:59 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
A lot of the people who feature heavily on Retraction Watch have similar credentials.
Sure, but not one of those works was retracted because a fatal flaw was pointed out by someone with no training in that field after spending a whole two minutes looking at it.
I'm not saying this is gold-star research either. I'm saying that the 'criticism' that smoking is not driving (and all the similar observations above) is useless and has no real bearing on the merit of the work. It's not the case that we should believe anything the smart professor man tells us because he's a smart professor. What I'm saying is that to read this in good faith we should extend a basic modicum or respect for his ability to do the kind of research in which he has thoroughly demonstrated success, and not assume that we know more than he does about the methods of his research and how inferences are drawn from them, especially if we have no relevant expertise in survey-based research.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:00 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
Sure, but not one of those works was retracted because a fatal flaw was pointed out by someone with no training in that field after spending a whole two minutes looking at it.
I'm not saying this is gold-star research either. I'm saying that the 'criticism' that smoking is not driving (and all the similar observations above) is useless and has no real bearing on the merit of the work. It's not the case that we should believe anything the smart professor man tells us because he's a smart professor. What I'm saying is that to read this in good faith we should extend a basic modicum or respect for his ability to do the kind of research in which he has thoroughly demonstrated success, and not assume that we know more than he does about the methods of his research and how inferences are drawn from them, especially if we have no relevant expertise in survey-based research.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:00 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
I emailed a link to this discussion to Ian Walker in hopes that he'll join in the comments here. I'm not sure if he's the corresponding author, but it'd be great to have some representation from the authorship given that I just read through the aper and it's pretty intriguing. It even answers or responds to some of the questions and critiques presented here. Sometimes these "discussions" get separated from the spirit of a discussion so quickly that it's just, I don't know, rage and frustration on display? It's so common now for scholarship or expertise to come up and immediately get buried. I'm hopeful Walker comes to join, in the hopes that it makes it less like a drive-by and more like a lecture hall or an AMA.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:01 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:01 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
also think there's a much larger problem with framing driving as an individual moral failure and not as a collective systemic problem.
I love that you pointed this out. I'm a traffic safety researcher, with a PhD in civil engineering, and my research focuses on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, speed management, the Safe System Approach (think Vision Zero), and traffic safety culture.
I don't believe accessibility and reducing motorization are inconsistent goals. I haven't looked deeply into the methods of this particular survey (I skimmed, but I honestly hate reading Twitter threads), so I can't speak to its methods, but it definitely seems that the authors are poking at the mental models people have around transportation. And my research has revealed some pretty interesting things about those mental models. We surveyed a number of land developers about how they consider safety when assessing transportation impacts, and there was a consistent through line of this idea that if you mitigate congestion (i.e., reduce the delay to cars), you make things safer. There were few mentions of actual crashes, and none of conflicts or physics.
But if we think about physics, we can recognize that humans have a physiological tolerance to only so much kinetic energy. We can reduce that kinetic energy in two ways, really: we can reduce the speed or mass of the vehicles involved in collisions, or we can merely ensure that different kinds of road users don't come into conflict (i.e., have their trajectories) cross. The leading paradigm in the US has been something of a mix of the two, sometimes resulting in speed management but generally resulting in prioritization of motor vehicles to the point of exclusion of other modes.
And that worked, for a little while, but we've been at about 40,000 deaths happening every single year on our roads in the US, a disproportionate number of which are pedestrians (especially at night), and that's not taking into account the number of uncounted deaths and serious injuries that occur (research has shown that pedestrians and cyclist injuries are undercounted). We also know from research that these casualties are not equitably distributed. For example, when Montgomery County ranked their top sites across the county for where there was the highest risk of a crash occurring (based on statistical models), more of the top 200 sites were in their equity emphasis areas, which were not the majority of the county's land mass.
Obviously people will need to drive sometimes, and most of the advocates and #bancars people I talk to don't envision a world where motorization is zero. But it's worth consider what gets prioritized as Federal funds flow down through Highway Safety Improvement Project funds into State DOT STIP plans into safety improvement efforts that only end up widening roadways and don't actually line up with what MPOs want to prioritize.
Here's where I like to zoom out and start asking questions about how our system ended up like this. Why do people drive? Housing and job availability are certainly connected. Zoning too. Perhaps if we started to think of transportation systemically, by considering transit demand and where people can afford to live and work alongside the health benefits of greenways and natural corridors, we might realize that some of the goals can be done through multisolving (something the systems scientists like to propose). Some people with accessibility concerns may be perfectly capable of using transit if it stops at reasonable locations and gets them where they need to go. Transit can also reduce congestion and share the space with vehicles whose drivers need their cars. Rural areas are still an issue, absolutely, but I don't believe transit and bike facilities should be out of the question for rural residents either.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:02 PM on January 17, 2023 [51 favorites]
I love that you pointed this out. I'm a traffic safety researcher, with a PhD in civil engineering, and my research focuses on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, speed management, the Safe System Approach (think Vision Zero), and traffic safety culture.
I don't believe accessibility and reducing motorization are inconsistent goals. I haven't looked deeply into the methods of this particular survey (I skimmed, but I honestly hate reading Twitter threads), so I can't speak to its methods, but it definitely seems that the authors are poking at the mental models people have around transportation. And my research has revealed some pretty interesting things about those mental models. We surveyed a number of land developers about how they consider safety when assessing transportation impacts, and there was a consistent through line of this idea that if you mitigate congestion (i.e., reduce the delay to cars), you make things safer. There were few mentions of actual crashes, and none of conflicts or physics.
But if we think about physics, we can recognize that humans have a physiological tolerance to only so much kinetic energy. We can reduce that kinetic energy in two ways, really: we can reduce the speed or mass of the vehicles involved in collisions, or we can merely ensure that different kinds of road users don't come into conflict (i.e., have their trajectories) cross. The leading paradigm in the US has been something of a mix of the two, sometimes resulting in speed management but generally resulting in prioritization of motor vehicles to the point of exclusion of other modes.
And that worked, for a little while, but we've been at about 40,000 deaths happening every single year on our roads in the US, a disproportionate number of which are pedestrians (especially at night), and that's not taking into account the number of uncounted deaths and serious injuries that occur (research has shown that pedestrians and cyclist injuries are undercounted). We also know from research that these casualties are not equitably distributed. For example, when Montgomery County ranked their top sites across the county for where there was the highest risk of a crash occurring (based on statistical models), more of the top 200 sites were in their equity emphasis areas, which were not the majority of the county's land mass.
Obviously people will need to drive sometimes, and most of the advocates and #bancars people I talk to don't envision a world where motorization is zero. But it's worth consider what gets prioritized as Federal funds flow down through Highway Safety Improvement Project funds into State DOT STIP plans into safety improvement efforts that only end up widening roadways and don't actually line up with what MPOs want to prioritize.
Here's where I like to zoom out and start asking questions about how our system ended up like this. Why do people drive? Housing and job availability are certainly connected. Zoning too. Perhaps if we started to think of transportation systemically, by considering transit demand and where people can afford to live and work alongside the health benefits of greenways and natural corridors, we might realize that some of the goals can be done through multisolving (something the systems scientists like to propose). Some people with accessibility concerns may be perfectly capable of using transit if it stops at reasonable locations and gets them where they need to go. Transit can also reduce congestion and share the space with vehicles whose drivers need their cars. Rural areas are still an issue, absolutely, but I don't believe transit and bike facilities should be out of the question for rural residents either.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:02 PM on January 17, 2023 [51 favorites]
Sorry, that was a lot to type, and I'm not certain I got my point across. But as an example of multisolving, consider Gothenburg. The City realized they wanted to reduce their fossil fuel consumption, so they invested heavily in transit. They had to do so by making it kind of a pain in the ass to drive, but you can still drive there. But more importantly, most people ride the bus or train because they have frequent and convenient stops that you can easily find and plan around with their transit app. Gothenburg, through investing in accessible transit, improved traffic safety and moved closer toward climate goals.
That sort of approach in the US is a challenge, but I don't think it's a zero sum game.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:11 PM on January 17, 2023 [21 favorites]
That sort of approach in the US is a challenge, but I don't think it's a zero sum game.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:11 PM on January 17, 2023 [21 favorites]
I significantly reduced my use of public transit once the pandemic started and I haven't gone back to using it at the same level it was before. In my case this meant riding my bike more and not driving my car more. About half of my ride is on residential streets with either sharrows or painted bike lanes (when they put the bike lane up they had flexible bollards but the garbage trucks destroyed them by driving over them all the time instead of staying in the car lane) but there's a 3-4km section at each end where I have to ride on stroads with traffic. For the most part there is ample space to put in separated bike lanes along the stroads but that would cost money and the city isn't going to do that for non-car infrastructure.
The overriding impression I get during my commute is that a large number of drivers have no issue with putting my life in danger because they can't wait a couple of seconds. This could be by close passing me, performing right hooks, or oncoming traffic turning through my path while I'm there. I understand that the more people bike the more driver behaviour will change for the better but it's tough to get people to bike for transport when drivers are so bad at sharing the road.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:12 PM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
The overriding impression I get during my commute is that a large number of drivers have no issue with putting my life in danger because they can't wait a couple of seconds. This could be by close passing me, performing right hooks, or oncoming traffic turning through my path while I'm there. I understand that the more people bike the more driver behaviour will change for the better but it's tough to get people to bike for transport when drivers are so bad at sharing the road.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:12 PM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
Sure, but not one of those works was retracted because a fatal flaw was pointed out by someone with no training in that field after spending a whole two minutes looking at it.
You've checked the entirety of Retraction Watch to find that out? That's an impressive commitment to this thread.
(And since I don't think you did, I'll point out you're doing the same thing that the study authors seem to be, which is predefining the correct moral stance in their study before they actually do that study).
What I'm saying is that to read this in good faith we should extend a basic modicum or respect for his ability to do the kind of research in which he has thoroughly demonstrated success
When you start off with an equivalency between driving and smoking, no, you're not entitled to good faith.
And this is getting argumentative, so I'll leave it there.
posted by Galvanic at 12:13 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
You've checked the entirety of Retraction Watch to find that out? That's an impressive commitment to this thread.
(And since I don't think you did, I'll point out you're doing the same thing that the study authors seem to be, which is predefining the correct moral stance in their study before they actually do that study).
What I'm saying is that to read this in good faith we should extend a basic modicum or respect for his ability to do the kind of research in which he has thoroughly demonstrated success
When you start off with an equivalency between driving and smoking, no, you're not entitled to good faith.
And this is getting argumentative, so I'll leave it there.
posted by Galvanic at 12:13 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Any portmanteau in a storm, I'm a cyclist too, and I get honked at or buzzed pretty frequently. Ironically, our safety research center is right on a dangerous Stroad with frequent pedestrian fatalities :/
I only mention that to commiserate. I wish you had a more comfortable ride.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:14 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
I only mention that to commiserate. I wish you had a more comfortable ride.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 12:14 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Discussions around driving and highway building are awash with this kind of ridiculousness -- from this poll (yes, smoking and driving are exactly the same thing) to the idea of "induced demand" (how dare people consume a product they like at higher rates when the supply is higher). It's embarrassing.
When you start off with an equivalency between driving and smoking, no, you're not entitled to good faith.
You don't even know what induced demand means, so if you are passing yourself off as a counter-expert in this thead, you are not.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:16 PM on January 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
When you start off with an equivalency between driving and smoking, no, you're not entitled to good faith.
You don't even know what induced demand means, so if you are passing yourself off as a counter-expert in this thead, you are not.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:16 PM on January 17, 2023 [17 favorites]
I'm going to draw ire for this probably, but in the US we also incentivize the choice to live in rural areas, which promotes car culture to a large degree. The giant four wheel drive SUV or truck often gets excused when somebody says, "I need it because I live 20 miles up a gravel road on the side of a mountain," with no one asking the follow up question of why this person needs to live 20 miles up a gravel road on the side of a mountain.
I took enough transportation engineering classes to have gone into the field if I wanted to, but I do water and wastewater utilities, and I spend a lot of time and urban tax- and ratepayers' money running pipes out to places that will never be able to pay for those pipes or wires or roads. These people aren't subsistence farmers on grandpa's land, either. They drive their cars to town to work every morning.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:18 PM on January 17, 2023 [43 favorites]
I took enough transportation engineering classes to have gone into the field if I wanted to, but I do water and wastewater utilities, and I spend a lot of time and urban tax- and ratepayers' money running pipes out to places that will never be able to pay for those pipes or wires or roads. These people aren't subsistence farmers on grandpa's land, either. They drive their cars to town to work every morning.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:18 PM on January 17, 2023 [43 favorites]
I mean, in a "why are things this way" kind of approach in a late capitalism society, let us not forget that the global automotive market is about $2.7 trillion which is only slightly more than the global road infrastructure and maintenance market of $2.2 trillion plus the suburban housing market which is also in the trillions (with at least two million units built in 2022) .... because enormous market forces are bent towards the preservatiion of the suburban status quo.
I mean you look at the total wreckage of human rights, health care, social services, etc etc etc that is the Ontario provincial government and it is directly tied 1) to the suburban class absolutely refusing to elect people who might not be All About more suburbs, and 2) direct and indirect support for Doug Ford and the progressive conservatives from land developers.
Why is it like this? Because CAPITALISM. Really, folks, it's time for direct action if you want change to the motorways of the world.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:20 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
I mean you look at the total wreckage of human rights, health care, social services, etc etc etc that is the Ontario provincial government and it is directly tied 1) to the suburban class absolutely refusing to elect people who might not be All About more suburbs, and 2) direct and indirect support for Doug Ford and the progressive conservatives from land developers.
Why is it like this? Because CAPITALISM. Really, folks, it's time for direct action if you want change to the motorways of the world.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:20 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
i think its no coincidence its called motornormativity, car culture seems deeply heteronormative and a way of controlling how much independence woman and children in families have. car culture doesn't feel liberating and something someone would only reject out of some kind of effete liberalism, 25% of the adult population in the uk doesn't have a driving license and being locked out of that car culture honestly, it feels viscerally fucked up. cars aren't a solution to a problem they're a political choice to restrict people who don't have access to a car's movement.
posted by mosswinter at 12:24 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by mosswinter at 12:24 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
I appreciate those like TheKaijuCommuter coming in to make great points so those of us with a lot of time and passion for this subject don't spend all afternoon trying to answer the myriad of half-baked arguments presented above, one more time. Suffice it to say that most of us who are advocating for changing the status quo aren't trying to ban cars. "Ban cars" is a snark, not an "all-or-nothing" policy proposal, and the people who deploy it have zero power to actually change anything, hence the snark. We just want consideration out on the street. Right now, we have none, and it's killing us.
I agree that the study seems weak enough I'd have a hard time sharing it in my community. Would also appreciate other lovers of the Blue to put guard rails on their street design advocacy hot takes.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 12:28 PM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
I agree that the study seems weak enough I'd have a hard time sharing it in my community. Would also appreciate other lovers of the Blue to put guard rails on their street design advocacy hot takes.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 12:28 PM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'm a cyclist too, and I get honked at or buzzed pretty frequently
If I was a tractor or garbage truck there would be none of this aggro. Cars would change lanes ahead of time to pass me and if for whatever reason they didn't notice me they'd still safely pass me but because I'm smaller than them they can do as they like. It's part of a punching down culture that has always been there but seems to have gotten more and more prevalent over the course of my life.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
If I was a tractor or garbage truck there would be none of this aggro. Cars would change lanes ahead of time to pass me and if for whatever reason they didn't notice me they'd still safely pass me but because I'm smaller than them they can do as they like. It's part of a punching down culture that has always been there but seems to have gotten more and more prevalent over the course of my life.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
I mean you look at the total wreckage of human rights, health care, social services, etc etc etc that is the Ontario provincial government and it is directly tied 1) to the suburban class absolutely refusing to elect people who might not be All About more suburbs, and 2) direct and indirect support for Doug Ford and the progressive conservatives from land developers.
I think we focus too much on "big business" as a culprit, people (at least some) want to live on their private property in their personal bubble, this is on us. And since it's impossible/too expensive in the core areas this just expands suburbs further. Is it financially and environmentally viable, hell no! But we collectively won't have no as an answer, and those who already got theirs don't want their QOL to be affected by measures that'll save the planet.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 12:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think we focus too much on "big business" as a culprit, people (at least some) want to live on their private property in their personal bubble, this is on us. And since it's impossible/too expensive in the core areas this just expands suburbs further. Is it financially and environmentally viable, hell no! But we collectively won't have no as an answer, and those who already got theirs don't want their QOL to be affected by measures that'll save the planet.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 12:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
i think its no coincidence its called motornormativity
While agreeing with basically your entire comment, I thought I should point out that feminism is why rich women wanted cars instead of streetcars in Los Angeles about a century ago.
posted by aniola at 12:35 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
While agreeing with basically your entire comment, I thought I should point out that feminism is why rich women wanted cars instead of streetcars in Los Angeles about a century ago.
posted by aniola at 12:35 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm not saying this is gold-star research either. I'm saying that the 'criticism' that smoking is not driving (and all the similar observations above) is useless and has no real bearing on the merit of the work.
I feel like this falls into the category of “research that formally confirms the obvious” (obvious to people in this thread, anyway). If the question you’re asking is “are externalities of driving more socially acceptable than externalities of smoking?” it gives you an answer (“yes”) but that answer by itself seems a bit underwhelming because it doesn’t get to the heart of why, and people can fill in their own reasons for why that make it seem perfectly reasonable or argue about whether it’s a fair comparison forever.
I actually liked the idea they said they chose not to do better, in a way - comparing norms for driving to norms for “operating machinery.” I suppose that might risk coming off even more as contrived to make a point, but it also makes that point with deadly precision. What can you say - “that’s a loaded question because of course when people think of operating heavy machinery they don’t think of automobiles?”
posted by atoxyl at 12:38 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
I feel like this falls into the category of “research that formally confirms the obvious” (obvious to people in this thread, anyway). If the question you’re asking is “are externalities of driving more socially acceptable than externalities of smoking?” it gives you an answer (“yes”) but that answer by itself seems a bit underwhelming because it doesn’t get to the heart of why, and people can fill in their own reasons for why that make it seem perfectly reasonable or argue about whether it’s a fair comparison forever.
I actually liked the idea they said they chose not to do better, in a way - comparing norms for driving to norms for “operating machinery.” I suppose that might risk coming off even more as contrived to make a point, but it also makes that point with deadly precision. What can you say - “that’s a loaded question because of course when people think of operating heavy machinery they don’t think of automobiles?”
posted by atoxyl at 12:38 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
I don't do this, but everyone else I know does.
posted by slogger at 12:39 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 12:39 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
(In best Yoda voice) "Begun, The Fallacy Wars have!"
Smoking vs Cars: adiction, utility and risk perception?
Romans: they had carriages and slaves, but did they have cat-calling?
Is it bias when I am aware that I want to murder pedestrians?
Can we blame this problem on feminists?
We got clicketty click baited and boy are we talking past each other.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
Smoking vs Cars: adiction, utility and risk perception?
Romans: they had carriages and slaves, but did they have cat-calling?
Is it bias when I am aware that I want to murder pedestrians?
Can we blame this problem on feminists?
We got clicketty click baited and boy are we talking past each other.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 12:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
My partner has been hit by cars while driving so many times, she finds it very hard to drive, walk, or bike, anything.
She isn't going within ten feet of a bike, unless the bike lanes are separated. Which saddens me greatly, as most of my riding is such a source of joy.
But it s murder out there, and the conditions need to be changed, even if only for the sake of the drivers.
posted by eustatic at 12:49 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
She isn't going within ten feet of a bike, unless the bike lanes are separated. Which saddens me greatly, as most of my riding is such a source of joy.
But it s murder out there, and the conditions need to be changed, even if only for the sake of the drivers.
posted by eustatic at 12:49 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
If somebody leaves their car in the street and it gets stolen...
If somebody leaves their belongings in the street and they get stolen...
Leaving a locked car in a parking place is not the same as leaving a gold watch on the pavement.
I'm sympathetic to the point they are trying to prove, but this is just a prime example demonstrating that survey questions have to be very carefully designed if you want to avoid bias in the results.
posted by Lanark at 1:00 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
If somebody leaves their belongings in the street and they get stolen...
Leaving a locked car in a parking place is not the same as leaving a gold watch on the pavement.
I'm sympathetic to the point they are trying to prove, but this is just a prime example demonstrating that survey questions have to be very carefully designed if you want to avoid bias in the results.
posted by Lanark at 1:00 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think most people recognize that people at least sometimes have to drive to live a normal life
We haven't recognized it. We've normalized it.
whereas nobody thinks you need to smoke.
I'm old enough to remember that during the first round of trying to ban public smoking, it was very much framed with "this is taking away my rights and freedom!" hysterics.
Then we got over it and had a more realistic view of what public smoking bans actually entailed.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:00 PM on January 17, 2023 [26 favorites]
We haven't recognized it. We've normalized it.
whereas nobody thinks you need to smoke.
I'm old enough to remember that during the first round of trying to ban public smoking, it was very much framed with "this is taking away my rights and freedom!" hysterics.
Then we got over it and had a more realistic view of what public smoking bans actually entailed.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:00 PM on January 17, 2023 [26 favorites]
I don't think this is a good question for proving anything except a lot of people drive cars and don't like traffic tickets - I think the point would have been much better made if option B used an occupation most respondents have everyday experience of and can identify with
I'm not sure that there would be anything that approaches the kind of crossover that cars do. At least with chefs most people have a passing familiarity with places that you buy prepared food to eat and consume, so they have a connection there. I think 2/3 of the people I know have worked in food service at some point as a high school/college job (not sure if that's representative though), so it's also a category of work that's not that unusual. I suppose the breaking rules to keep their own business running tips further away from most people's hands on experience, though, but that'd apply to the delivery driver.
I think even if we found the best point of comparison, we'd still have people picking apart them apart. As you point out, most people have experience with cars, so it's easy to slip into the driver's perspective and justify it, because we've justified it to ourselves: "My car is not like smoking because it is how I get to work*. Work is how I pay to live, smoking is not how people pay to live, so they are different."
However, the world would be better off if we made it so driving individual cars wasn't as necessary for people to get around. But since people have a mental model that the harms caused by driving cars are more acceptable because X reasons, then there is less push to fix the problems that encourages/makes people use cars.
*Generic example, I WFH and take the bus 99% of the time. Now if I take the car to work (except for days where the bus isn't running) it probably is closer to smoking in public.
posted by ghost phoneme at 1:05 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure that there would be anything that approaches the kind of crossover that cars do. At least with chefs most people have a passing familiarity with places that you buy prepared food to eat and consume, so they have a connection there. I think 2/3 of the people I know have worked in food service at some point as a high school/college job (not sure if that's representative though), so it's also a category of work that's not that unusual. I suppose the breaking rules to keep their own business running tips further away from most people's hands on experience, though, but that'd apply to the delivery driver.
I think even if we found the best point of comparison, we'd still have people picking apart them apart. As you point out, most people have experience with cars, so it's easy to slip into the driver's perspective and justify it, because we've justified it to ourselves: "My car is not like smoking because it is how I get to work*. Work is how I pay to live, smoking is not how people pay to live, so they are different."
However, the world would be better off if we made it so driving individual cars wasn't as necessary for people to get around. But since people have a mental model that the harms caused by driving cars are more acceptable because X reasons, then there is less push to fix the problems that encourages/makes people use cars.
*Generic example, I WFH and take the bus 99% of the time. Now if I take the car to work (except for days where the bus isn't running) it probably is closer to smoking in public.
posted by ghost phoneme at 1:05 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
If somebody leaves their car in the street and it gets stolen...
If somebody leaves their belongings in the street and they get stolen...
Leaving a locked car in a parking place is not the same as leaving a gold watch on the pavement.
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of belongings is: possession—usually used in plural. Possession is linked, so I clicked it. The relevant definitions are:
posted by aniola at 1:06 PM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
If somebody leaves their belongings in the street and they get stolen...
Leaving a locked car in a parking place is not the same as leaving a gold watch on the pavement.
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of belongings is: possession—usually used in plural. Possession is linked, so I clicked it. The relevant definitions are:
1 a: the act of having or taking into controlA car is a possession. It's not the study where I'm seeing a bias here.
b: control or occupancy of property without regard to ownership
c: ownership
d: control of the ball or puck
also : an instance of having such control (as in football)
scored on their first two possessions
2: something owned, occupied, or controlled : property
posted by aniola at 1:06 PM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
25% of the adult population in the uk doesn't have a driving license and being locked out of that car culture honestly
In North America, locked out of most culture. I am disabled and do not drive. Because of my lack of driver’s license, I live a life where I mostly cannot get a credit card, get a library card, rent videos (when that was still a thing), rent a hotel room, vote...
I am basically a non-person unless I plead my case to unsympathetic functionaries.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:12 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
In North America, locked out of most culture. I am disabled and do not drive. Because of my lack of driver’s license, I live a life where I mostly cannot get a credit card, get a library card, rent videos (when that was still a thing), rent a hotel room, vote...
I am basically a non-person unless I plead my case to unsympathetic functionaries.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:12 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
I very much agree that in North America (my experience being in the US), everything revolves around expecting you to have a driver's license. It's absurd. But I also thought you might like to know that in my experience you can ignore just about anything that says "drivers license" that doesn't involve driving or getting hired and give them your state ID (or Canada/Mexico equivalent) instead.
posted by aniola at 1:20 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by aniola at 1:20 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
MetaFilter: I emphatically agree with their conclusions, but their methodology is absolute shit
posted by chavenet at 1:28 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 1:28 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Leaving a locked car in a parking place is not the same as leaving a gold watch on the pavement.
Sure, it isn't in the world we currently live in, which is kind of the point. But cars are actually quite easy to steal. The point is that we do (sort-of, depending where you live) use police to prevent theft of vehicles, while we do not use police to prevent theft of watches that you leave on the pavement. We also sell insurance for cars, but we don't sell leaving your gold watch on the road insurance, generally. That's a choice we make. We could just as easily say that if you decide to leave your car on the side of the road and it gets stolen, well that's your fault, too bad (which is basically what we do with bikes, interestingly). The point is that cars and drivers are privileged.
posted by ssg at 1:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [26 favorites]
Sure, it isn't in the world we currently live in, which is kind of the point. But cars are actually quite easy to steal. The point is that we do (sort-of, depending where you live) use police to prevent theft of vehicles, while we do not use police to prevent theft of watches that you leave on the pavement. We also sell insurance for cars, but we don't sell leaving your gold watch on the road insurance, generally. That's a choice we make. We could just as easily say that if you decide to leave your car on the side of the road and it gets stolen, well that's your fault, too bad (which is basically what we do with bikes, interestingly). The point is that cars and drivers are privileged.
posted by ssg at 1:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [26 favorites]
Today is the day we solve car culture in America. I can feel it.
posted by some loser at 1:40 PM on January 17, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by some loser at 1:40 PM on January 17, 2023 [21 favorites]
In North America, locked out of most culture. I am disabled and do not drive. Because of my lack of driver’s license, I live a life where I mostly cannot get a credit card, get a library card, rent videos (when that was still a thing), rent a hotel room, vote...
I am basically a non-person unless I plead my case to unsympathetic functionaries.
Well now look I'm not about to argue that DMV employees suffer from an excess of sympathy but
you literally just have to show up and request a state ID instead of a driver's license and this is a thing they do without any special case pleading. I had a state ID for much of my early adulthood and this was no impediment to drinking, voting, using libraries, booking hotels, or any other thing that didn't directly involve the driving of a car.
Per a quick search every province in Canada seems to have an equivalent non-driver ID card available. Naturally, as I don't live there, I can't speak to whether people actually accept those cards as official ID but they are legally required to.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
I am basically a non-person unless I plead my case to unsympathetic functionaries.
Well now look I'm not about to argue that DMV employees suffer from an excess of sympathy but
you literally just have to show up and request a state ID instead of a driver's license and this is a thing they do without any special case pleading. I had a state ID for much of my early adulthood and this was no impediment to drinking, voting, using libraries, booking hotels, or any other thing that didn't directly involve the driving of a car.
Per a quick search every province in Canada seems to have an equivalent non-driver ID card available. Naturally, as I don't live there, I can't speak to whether people actually accept those cards as official ID but they are legally required to.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
The thing is that car-centric culture is not an issue of a whole bunch of folks making selfish or immoral decisions, it's a "Tragedy of the Commons" issue. Which generally become intractable precisely because it's hard not to view them through the lens of "so you're saying I'm making a selfish / immoral decision, huh?"
Cars can be good. A whole lot of people depend on them for various very defensible reasons. A whole lot of other people use them because they simply prefer them. And a whole lot of a third group of people use them largely because even though there could be a better way for them to get around, the infrastructure isn't there, but is super-in place for cars.
By working on that third group - which is to say working on improving public transportation infrastructure - we also improve things for the first group! And the second group for that matter, though it's harder to care as much there. But the uphill battle on the third group is defined by the inertia that a car-centered-culture has in place. There are no easy answers there.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:56 PM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
Cars can be good. A whole lot of people depend on them for various very defensible reasons. A whole lot of other people use them because they simply prefer them. And a whole lot of a third group of people use them largely because even though there could be a better way for them to get around, the infrastructure isn't there, but is super-in place for cars.
By working on that third group - which is to say working on improving public transportation infrastructure - we also improve things for the first group! And the second group for that matter, though it's harder to care as much there. But the uphill battle on the third group is defined by the inertia that a car-centered-culture has in place. There are no easy answers there.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:56 PM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
Per a quick search every province in Canada seems to have an equivalent non-driver ID card available. Naturally, as I don't live there, I can't speak to whether people actually accept those cards as official ID but they are legally required to.
You mean the one we use for our free health care?
.... sorry didn't want to rub it in, and it's not free either we just all collectively pitch in through our taxes to fund our system.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 1:57 PM on January 17, 2023
You mean the one we use for our free health care?
.... sorry didn't want to rub it in, and it's not free either we just all collectively pitch in through our taxes to fund our system.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 1:57 PM on January 17, 2023
You'll pry my car away when you provide safe, efficient and low-cost public transportation that minimizes contact with other people.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:57 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:57 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
At the risk of derailing, the folks I know with non-driver state or provincial IDs all have at least one story of someone or some bureaucracy or organization who should have accepted their ID as equivalent to a driver’s license but, due to unfamiliarity or whatever, didn’t. So in practice it is not quite a one-for-one substitution. That fact is probably quite a good illustration of motonormativity, however, so not that much of a derail after all, I guess.
posted by eviemath at 2:09 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 2:09 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
I'm reminded of the observation about how "driver killing someone with their car" gets passive-voiced away in reporting much like "police killing someone" does. There's always a lot of special pleading in both cases.
If we held them to the same standards as everyone else nobody would do the job! (and incidentally cars are the biggest threat to police, so even head-to-head cars are a special case)
Without them having the exact priority they do, society would crumble! (but don't you dare make changes to make alternatives possible)
It's not that they're *targeting* poor people, it's just that they're genuinely in the way!
etc.
Similarly, look at past threads about how much drivers *identity* gets extended to their car. Threats of violence if you look like you might touch their car. Rolling coal. Murdered-out trucks.
It's all exceptionalism.
posted by CrystalDave at 2:15 PM on January 17, 2023 [16 favorites]
If we held them to the same standards as everyone else nobody would do the job! (and incidentally cars are the biggest threat to police, so even head-to-head cars are a special case)
Without them having the exact priority they do, society would crumble! (but don't you dare make changes to make alternatives possible)
It's not that they're *targeting* poor people, it's just that they're genuinely in the way!
etc.
Similarly, look at past threads about how much drivers *identity* gets extended to their car. Threats of violence if you look like you might touch their car. Rolling coal. Murdered-out trucks.
It's all exceptionalism.
posted by CrystalDave at 2:15 PM on January 17, 2023 [16 favorites]
> the fact bikes are too easy to steal
Ideally, this is something that a greater focus on bicycle infrastructure could fix. At present, though, I agree that it makes e-bikes a difficult sell in some areas. Depending on the model, they can cost as much as a used car, but are much easier to steal and much more weather dependent in cities with poor cycling infrastructure (or even cities with decent cycling infrastructure that don't bother to clear snow from bike lanes in the winter).
Personally, I'd love to see a huge focus on e-bikes (and regular bicycles) as part of a shift away from internal combustion engines. EVs (meaning cars and trucks in this context) are a step in the right direction, but simply swapping out ICE vehicles for EVs on a one-to-one basis isn't the solution.
For a lot of people, an e-bike is a perfect solution for their transportation needs: it's small, relatively inexpensive, cheap to operate and maintain, and gets them to and from work nearly as quickly as a car. But without decent cycling infrastructure (or even just a culture shift wherein bikes become popular and commonplace enough as commuter vehicles to demand space on the roads and not feel unsafe doing so), it's hard to get people to see that.
> You mean the one we use for our free health care?
No? Whether or not your health card is the same card as your ID is dependent upon your province. In Alberta, at least, they are two separate cards. In BC, on the other hand, they appear to use a single card for both purposes.
posted by asnider at 2:17 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ideally, this is something that a greater focus on bicycle infrastructure could fix. At present, though, I agree that it makes e-bikes a difficult sell in some areas. Depending on the model, they can cost as much as a used car, but are much easier to steal and much more weather dependent in cities with poor cycling infrastructure (or even cities with decent cycling infrastructure that don't bother to clear snow from bike lanes in the winter).
Personally, I'd love to see a huge focus on e-bikes (and regular bicycles) as part of a shift away from internal combustion engines. EVs (meaning cars and trucks in this context) are a step in the right direction, but simply swapping out ICE vehicles for EVs on a one-to-one basis isn't the solution.
For a lot of people, an e-bike is a perfect solution for their transportation needs: it's small, relatively inexpensive, cheap to operate and maintain, and gets them to and from work nearly as quickly as a car. But without decent cycling infrastructure (or even just a culture shift wherein bikes become popular and commonplace enough as commuter vehicles to demand space on the roads and not feel unsafe doing so), it's hard to get people to see that.
> You mean the one we use for our free health care?
No? Whether or not your health card is the same card as your ID is dependent upon your province. In Alberta, at least, they are two separate cards. In BC, on the other hand, they appear to use a single card for both purposes.
posted by asnider at 2:17 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was skeptical that motornormativity was actually a thing, and then I started reading some of the comments here.
You see this exaggerated response with gun control, mask-mandates, public smoking bans, addressing climate change, etc.
This is how "we've normalized the massive problems that car-centric city planning causes" turns into "nobody will be allowed to have a car and grandma will be forced to bicycle in the rain!"
Which kinda proves the original point.
posted by AlSweigart at 2:18 PM on January 17, 2023 [41 favorites]
You see this exaggerated response with gun control, mask-mandates, public smoking bans, addressing climate change, etc.
This is how "we've normalized the massive problems that car-centric city planning causes" turns into "nobody will be allowed to have a car and grandma will be forced to bicycle in the rain!"
Which kinda proves the original point.
posted by AlSweigart at 2:18 PM on January 17, 2023 [41 favorites]
Ian Walker's Twitter thread on the topic today.
There were 1400 road deaths in the UK last year - we accept that number as normal - This is Motornormivity.
(The number should be zero.)
The most dangerous workplace in the country is the roads - We accept that as normal - This is Motornormivity.
A 10 ton truck driving 1 metre from your 3 year old child at 40mph, yes that's perfectly fine. No safety barriers needed. This is Motornormivity.
300 people die in this city (of 600k population) every year from air pollution, primary from vehicles and the rest mostly from wood fires. Sure, we accept that as normal. - This is Motornormivity.
posted by Dr Ew at 2:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [20 favorites]
There were 1400 road deaths in the UK last year - we accept that number as normal - This is Motornormivity.
(The number should be zero.)
The most dangerous workplace in the country is the roads - We accept that as normal - This is Motornormivity.
A 10 ton truck driving 1 metre from your 3 year old child at 40mph, yes that's perfectly fine. No safety barriers needed. This is Motornormivity.
300 people die in this city (of 600k population) every year from air pollution, primary from vehicles and the rest mostly from wood fires. Sure, we accept that as normal. - This is Motornormivity.
posted by Dr Ew at 2:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [20 favorites]
Do some of you think people are out here saying "ban all cars, fuck the rural, and no trains or busses, leave everything and all the infrastructure just as it is, but no cars, and if you don't like it you're a bad leftist" Do you... think that?
Because some of are you are having a conversation with that guy, and not the article, and certainly not anyone in this thread.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 2:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
Because some of are you are having a conversation with that guy, and not the article, and certainly not anyone in this thread.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 2:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
So in practice it is not quite a one-for-one substitution. That fact is probably quite a good illustration of motonormativity, however, so not that much of a derail after all, I guess.
Oh like I said, not having deep familiarity with all regions of North America, I didn't want to claim that it was obviously always exactly as good and simple. However, there are plenty of arguments to be made about the preponderance of car culture without claiming that actually you can't be a voting or library-using citizen at all of anywhere in North America unless you drive a vehicle.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:30 PM on January 17, 2023
Oh like I said, not having deep familiarity with all regions of North America, I didn't want to claim that it was obviously always exactly as good and simple. However, there are plenty of arguments to be made about the preponderance of car culture without claiming that actually you can't be a voting or library-using citizen at all of anywhere in North America unless you drive a vehicle.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:30 PM on January 17, 2023
Back during the Obamacare debate with death panels and all the other ridiculous nonsense the opposing side kept making up, a friend of mine overheard someone at a bar thusly: "This isn't tyranny. Tyranny is Trujillo cutting out your tongue because you can't say 'broccoli.' This is the government saying it's a good idea for you to have healthcare."
Tyranny would be banning car ownership. This is people suggesting it would be nice if you didn't have to drive everywhere all the time.
posted by thecaddy at 2:33 PM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
Tyranny would be banning car ownership. This is people suggesting it would be nice if you didn't have to drive everywhere all the time.
posted by thecaddy at 2:33 PM on January 17, 2023 [15 favorites]
You mean the one we use for our free health care?
I'm glad you qualified this comment. And if there is a time to point out that Canada's universal public healthcare system is looking less and less robust, that time is now. Meanwhile, with the re-election of Ford I can only assume that a good chunk of Canada's most populous province is totally fine with the totally cool plans that gov't has for healthcare.
Canadians should not be boasting about their healthcare system, they should be out in the streets fighting to save it.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:35 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm glad you qualified this comment. And if there is a time to point out that Canada's universal public healthcare system is looking less and less robust, that time is now. Meanwhile, with the re-election of Ford I can only assume that a good chunk of Canada's most populous province is totally fine with the totally cool plans that gov't has for healthcare.
Canadians should not be boasting about their healthcare system, they should be out in the streets fighting to save it.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:35 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
... I thought I should point out that feminism is why rich women wanted cars instead of streetcars in Los Angeles about a century ago.
"Feminism" - the heck? aniola, as your link notes, "Streetcars were also considered to be no place for a nice woman—especially one traveling alone. Women who did brave the trolleys were sexually harassed, writes Scharff, as well as pilloried by the press suggesting they should stay home instead of venturing into public. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many women chose to drive downtown instead." Women used hatpins to protect themselves, until they couldn't.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:42 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
"Feminism" - the heck? aniola, as your link notes, "Streetcars were also considered to be no place for a nice woman—especially one traveling alone. Women who did brave the trolleys were sexually harassed, writes Scharff, as well as pilloried by the press suggesting they should stay home instead of venturing into public. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many women chose to drive downtown instead." Women used hatpins to protect themselves, until they couldn't.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:42 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'm old enough to remember that during the first round of trying to ban public smoking, it was very much framed with "this is taking away my rights and freedom!" hysterics.
Me too, but taking away smoking wasn't telling a mum with 3 kids she can't work any more because she'll get fired. And yet, in Toronto, the average transit commute time is 56 minutes one way.
If your daycare opens at 7:45 and closes at 6pm, let's say you drop your kid off at the drop of 7:45 and get to work by 8:40. Then to get to daycare before 6 pm without any snafus you have to leave at 5:04. That's IF the schedules line up exactly against those times. You are going to be literally walking away from your boss who is still talking to you.
When my kids were in daycare, every 5 minutes we were late cost $20, per child. I once forked over $120 to get my kids out of hock.
Then, of course, you have to get the two kids to daycare via bike or on the bus at like 7:15 am and getting home at 6:30 pm, and then you have to put them on a bus at 6 pm to get them home.
After school programs are even worse, often ending at 5. I know, because we get people to mine all the time (we end at 6:30.)
I'm a lifetime transit user and have biked my child to daycare and all those things...and yet, there was a point at which it was get a car, get fired, or move...except my husband and I worked in opposite directions. If I had known all this, I might well have made different choices but...we bought our current house before we had kids and in theory "I'll bike my kid to daycare and then hop on the GO Train" looked VERY doable. It's just that in the details, the times did not work. (It is improved slightly now that trains run more frequently on the Lakeshore line, which took multiple years of adding the third track in to achieve.)
I'm pro figuring this out -- I come from an Urban Planning family and my dad did one of the first cycling studies in the 80s with recommendations that were never implemented -- but in order to solve it we can't just ban cars, we have to provide alternatives.
As I recall, smokers had to step outside and smoke on the sidewalk to comply with the new laws.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:50 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
Me too, but taking away smoking wasn't telling a mum with 3 kids she can't work any more because she'll get fired. And yet, in Toronto, the average transit commute time is 56 minutes one way.
If your daycare opens at 7:45 and closes at 6pm, let's say you drop your kid off at the drop of 7:45 and get to work by 8:40. Then to get to daycare before 6 pm without any snafus you have to leave at 5:04. That's IF the schedules line up exactly against those times. You are going to be literally walking away from your boss who is still talking to you.
When my kids were in daycare, every 5 minutes we were late cost $20, per child. I once forked over $120 to get my kids out of hock.
Then, of course, you have to get the two kids to daycare via bike or on the bus at like 7:15 am and getting home at 6:30 pm, and then you have to put them on a bus at 6 pm to get them home.
After school programs are even worse, often ending at 5. I know, because we get people to mine all the time (we end at 6:30.)
I'm a lifetime transit user and have biked my child to daycare and all those things...and yet, there was a point at which it was get a car, get fired, or move...except my husband and I worked in opposite directions. If I had known all this, I might well have made different choices but...we bought our current house before we had kids and in theory "I'll bike my kid to daycare and then hop on the GO Train" looked VERY doable. It's just that in the details, the times did not work. (It is improved slightly now that trains run more frequently on the Lakeshore line, which took multiple years of adding the third track in to achieve.)
I'm pro figuring this out -- I come from an Urban Planning family and my dad did one of the first cycling studies in the 80s with recommendations that were never implemented -- but in order to solve it we can't just ban cars, we have to provide alternatives.
As I recall, smokers had to step outside and smoke on the sidewalk to comply with the new laws.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:50 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
One bad question doesn't invalidate the survey; I think smoking isn't at all analogous. Cars have utility, but cars are also quite tied to status, or we'd be driving much smaller and more efficient vehicles, as I suspect many of us attempt. The questions made me think about my attitude towards, and relationship to cars. Where I live, there used to be trolleys, but they were torn out despite their great usefulness. We've been taught how to think about cars. Great post, thanks.
posted by theora55 at 2:50 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 2:50 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Per a quick search every province in Canada seems to have an equivalent non-driver ID card available. Naturally, as I don't live there, I can't speak to whether people actually accept those cards as official ID but they are legally required to.
Yeah. Here in Ontario we've got the Ontario Photo Card which is a driver's license equivalent in terms of its validity as government-issued ID for things official. My spouse has one and has never had an issue with it being accepted in any situation -- i.e., where a driver's license or passport would be required, for example. Also beats the risk of carrying a passport around for non-travel situations.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:51 PM on January 17, 2023
Yeah. Here in Ontario we've got the Ontario Photo Card which is a driver's license equivalent in terms of its validity as government-issued ID for things official. My spouse has one and has never had an issue with it being accepted in any situation -- i.e., where a driver's license or passport would be required, for example. Also beats the risk of carrying a passport around for non-travel situations.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:51 PM on January 17, 2023
You guys… people who think we should have fewer cars are proposing making cars unnecessary via safe and convenient alternatives, not seizing your car and spitting in your face and telling you to go fuck yourself. But the fact that more than half of people on this ostensibly lefty website immediately go there sure is disheartening. Guess we’ll just continue having it be totally normal for “bones smashed and organs pulverized by massive machine” to be a leading cause of death in America, because every proposed solution is immediately deemed unworkable fascism.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:02 PM on January 17, 2023 [43 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:02 PM on January 17, 2023 [43 favorites]
At the risk of derailing, the folks I know with non-driver state or provincial IDs all have at least one story of someone or some bureaucracy or organization who should have accepted their ID as equivalent to a driver’s license but, due to unfamiliarity or whatever, didn’t. So in practice it is not quite a one-for-one substitution. That fact is probably quite a good illustration of motonormativity, however, so not that much of a derail after all, I guess.
Couple tips for fellow state ID users that have always worked for me, in case they help:
- I used to cross out "drivers license" and write in "state ID" but I don't do that any more because it just confuses them.
- A quick, confident "this is what they issue people who don't/won't/can't drive, you just put the number in the drivers license field, it is fine and normal. Yep, really!" has always cleared it up for me.
I agree these tips should not be necessary in the first place because driver's licenses should not be the primary form of identification.
posted by aniola at 3:11 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Couple tips for fellow state ID users that have always worked for me, in case they help:
- I used to cross out "drivers license" and write in "state ID" but I don't do that any more because it just confuses them.
- A quick, confident "this is what they issue people who don't/won't/can't drive, you just put the number in the drivers license field, it is fine and normal. Yep, really!" has always cleared it up for me.
I agree these tips should not be necessary in the first place because driver's licenses should not be the primary form of identification.
posted by aniola at 3:11 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Me too, but taking away smoking wasn't telling a mum with 3 kids she can't work any more because she'll get fired. And yet, in Toronto, the average transit commute time is 56 minutes one way.
CAR-DEPENDENT CULTURE IS HOW WE GOT INTO THIS SITUATION.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:14 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
CAR-DEPENDENT CULTURE IS HOW WE GOT INTO THIS SITUATION.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:14 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
"Feminism" - the heck? aniola,
I think you may have misread my comment (transposed "cars" and "streetcars" while reading?) or I'm not seeing what you're trying to communicate or I somehow said something unclearly that I'm missing. I am familiar with the history, which is why I went and found an article to share that recounted it.
What I was saying was that cars were a feminist choice, if you were a rich woman in Los Angeles a hundred years ago.
If I were to say more, it would be that they weren't an option for women who weren't rich. Feminism should include everyone, including people of all socioeconomic statuses as well as the non-human environment.
posted by aniola at 3:19 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think you may have misread my comment (transposed "cars" and "streetcars" while reading?) or I'm not seeing what you're trying to communicate or I somehow said something unclearly that I'm missing. I am familiar with the history, which is why I went and found an article to share that recounted it.
What I was saying was that cars were a feminist choice, if you were a rich woman in Los Angeles a hundred years ago.
If I were to say more, it would be that they weren't an option for women who weren't rich. Feminism should include everyone, including people of all socioeconomic statuses as well as the non-human environment.
posted by aniola at 3:19 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's pretty cool that feminist progress over the past century is part of what's giving us the opportunity to rethink transportation as we know it.
posted by aniola at 3:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by aniola at 3:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was skeptical that motornormativity was actually a thing
I don't understand how anyone could be skeptical. It seems to be the status quo longer than anyone here has been alive. And it isn't going away, unless we were to somehow dredge up the wherewithal to actually ban the things. The problem with all the car threads on leftist sites is that there are no real solutions to be had. Motornormativity is here to stay for better and worse. The benefits of the automobile are obvious, as much as they are self reinforcing of motornormativity. Which is the problem.
posted by 2N2222 at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't understand how anyone could be skeptical. It seems to be the status quo longer than anyone here has been alive. And it isn't going away, unless we were to somehow dredge up the wherewithal to actually ban the things. The problem with all the car threads on leftist sites is that there are no real solutions to be had. Motornormativity is here to stay for better and worse. The benefits of the automobile are obvious, as much as they are self reinforcing of motornormativity. Which is the problem.
posted by 2N2222 at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
You don't even know what induced demand means
I do know what induced demand is, which is why I pointed out that it’s among the most ridiculously biased concepts a scholarly field has come up with, and that’s including economics and the idea of rational actors.
posted by Galvanic at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2023
I do know what induced demand is, which is why I pointed out that it’s among the most ridiculously biased concepts a scholarly field has come up with, and that’s including economics and the idea of rational actors.
posted by Galvanic at 3:30 PM on January 17, 2023
Can you link to any research refuting the concept of induced demand?
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:34 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:34 PM on January 17, 2023 [4 favorites]
We could just as easily say that if you decide to leave your car on the side of the road and it gets stolen, well that's your fault, too bad (which is basically what we do with bikes, interestingly).
The reason the analogy to leaving [some other valuable] on the side of the road is not particularly illuminating is that it’s part of the basic function of a car to be left unattended by its owner some distance from their dwelling. Taking auto theft seriously is part of car culture on the same level that the existence of roadways and street parking marked and maintained for cars is - it’s an example of the public investment that goes into making cars a viable means of transit for the masses. Which, yes, is a big deal and often taken for granted. But in a world where people are allowed and expected to park cars on the street to begin with, of course it’s not generally considered a failure of caution to do just that. What else are they going to do, hire a driver? So again that survey question just feels like it confirms the obvious.
The comparison to bikes is more directly meaningful, but it also fits very well into frameworks that are not transportation-specific. The law generally values one’s property by its price, not by how much one needs it, and there are all kinds of things to be said about the limitations of that from a moral standpoint.
(My personal experience is that the police are pretty bad at actually doing anything about either bike or auto theft, though.)
posted by atoxyl at 3:34 PM on January 17, 2023
The reason the analogy to leaving [some other valuable] on the side of the road is not particularly illuminating is that it’s part of the basic function of a car to be left unattended by its owner some distance from their dwelling. Taking auto theft seriously is part of car culture on the same level that the existence of roadways and street parking marked and maintained for cars is - it’s an example of the public investment that goes into making cars a viable means of transit for the masses. Which, yes, is a big deal and often taken for granted. But in a world where people are allowed and expected to park cars on the street to begin with, of course it’s not generally considered a failure of caution to do just that. What else are they going to do, hire a driver? So again that survey question just feels like it confirms the obvious.
The comparison to bikes is more directly meaningful, but it also fits very well into frameworks that are not transportation-specific. The law generally values one’s property by its price, not by how much one needs it, and there are all kinds of things to be said about the limitations of that from a moral standpoint.
(My personal experience is that the police are pretty bad at actually doing anything about either bike or auto theft, though.)
posted by atoxyl at 3:34 PM on January 17, 2023
I'm struggling to find reasons why driving is unlike smoking.
posted by UN at 3:35 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by UN at 3:35 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
The problem with all the car threads on leftist sites is that there are no real solutions to be had. [...] The benefits of the automobile are obvious, as much as they are self reinforcing of motornormativity.
Really? These benefits come from choices we make to prioritize cars over people. We could make different choices.
There are a lot of people out there, working to make our cities safer, healthier, more navigable and more pleasant for pedestrians, cyclists, children, older folks, disabled people, etc. Just because we don't like their solutions don't mean they don't exist. Pretending that we can't change anything is pretty much the core of motornormativity.
posted by ssg at 3:36 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Really? These benefits come from choices we make to prioritize cars over people. We could make different choices.
There are a lot of people out there, working to make our cities safer, healthier, more navigable and more pleasant for pedestrians, cyclists, children, older folks, disabled people, etc. Just because we don't like their solutions don't mean they don't exist. Pretending that we can't change anything is pretty much the core of motornormativity.
posted by ssg at 3:36 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
I don't understand how anyone could be skeptical.
People are skeptical of motornormativity because we live in a motornormative society. The full comment was basically saying, to my understanding, that they had just learned that motornormativity is a thing. I appreciated that they were able to be vulnerable and learn something new, and then share how they learned it so that others could, too.
posted by aniola at 3:39 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
People are skeptical of motornormativity because we live in a motornormative society. The full comment was basically saying, to my understanding, that they had just learned that motornormativity is a thing. I appreciated that they were able to be vulnerable and learn something new, and then share how they learned it so that others could, too.
posted by aniola at 3:39 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
For those wondering about induced demand, Wikipedia has a good summary:
"In transportation planning, induced demand, also called "induced traffic" or consumption of road capacity, has become important in the debate over the expansion of transportation systems, and is often used as an argument against increasing roadway traffic capacity as a cure for congestion."
Emphasis mine. Part of motornormativity is the constant (and I mean CONSTANT) idea that building more roads will solve traffic. It won't.
No one is saying that digging won't get you deeper, they're saying that digging won't get you out of the hole.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:41 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
"In transportation planning, induced demand, also called "induced traffic" or consumption of road capacity, has become important in the debate over the expansion of transportation systems, and is often used as an argument against increasing roadway traffic capacity as a cure for congestion."
Emphasis mine. Part of motornormativity is the constant (and I mean CONSTANT) idea that building more roads will solve traffic. It won't.
No one is saying that digging won't get you deeper, they're saying that digging won't get you out of the hole.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:41 PM on January 17, 2023 [13 favorites]
I do know what induced demand is, which is why I pointed out that it’s among the most ridiculously biased concepts a scholarly field has come up with, and that’s including economics and the idea of rational actors.
This take seems genuinely bizarre, though. Your complaint seems to be somewhere at the intersection of
a.) as an economic phenomenon it’s actually obvious, and
b.) it’s not something we should be judging as negative
how dare people consume a product they like at higher rates when the supply is highest?
But if it’s obvious, then what’s the issue with having a two-word term for it? The words themselves are about as neutral econ-speak as one can get. And the reason it usually appears in a negative light is that it’s usually invoked to explain the insufficiency of a simple supply increase to alleviate quality of life issues, like traffic, which literally everybody hates!
posted by atoxyl at 3:53 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
This take seems genuinely bizarre, though. Your complaint seems to be somewhere at the intersection of
a.) as an economic phenomenon it’s actually obvious, and
b.) it’s not something we should be judging as negative
how dare people consume a product they like at higher rates when the supply is highest?
But if it’s obvious, then what’s the issue with having a two-word term for it? The words themselves are about as neutral econ-speak as one can get. And the reason it usually appears in a negative light is that it’s usually invoked to explain the insufficiency of a simple supply increase to alleviate quality of life issues, like traffic, which literally everybody hates!
posted by atoxyl at 3:53 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
I just want to share that in Mexico they use the word "cochismo" (deriving from machismo in the sense of male entitlement and bravado, but with the word coche for car), which I think is a wonderfully evocative word with roughly the same meaning as motornormativity.
posted by ssg at 3:56 PM on January 17, 2023 [32 favorites]
posted by ssg at 3:56 PM on January 17, 2023 [32 favorites]
The problem with all the car threads on leftist sites is that there are no real solutions to be had. Motornormativity is here to stay for better and worse. The benefits of the automobile are obvious, as much as they are self reinforcing of motornormativity. Which is the problem.
Aren't the solutions more and better public transit serving denser communities and road infrastructure designed to make it harder for inattentive drivers to harm other road users?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:57 PM on January 17, 2023 [20 favorites]
Aren't the solutions more and better public transit serving denser communities and road infrastructure designed to make it harder for inattentive drivers to harm other road users?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:57 PM on January 17, 2023 [20 favorites]
Induced demand, as AlSweigart has pointed out, is the theory that building more roads to reduce traffic congestion is ineffective because more people use the roads and thus the traffic congestion (usually measured in commute time) remains constant. Ergo, we should not build more roads because they will not reduce the commute time.
The analyses almost always fail to ask what people want in terms of their commute and whether the commute time measure is a good one, but let's ignore that for a moment.
Imagine the same thing with access to health care, using emergency room waiting times (or waiting time for a doctor's appointment, or waiting time for a medical procedure) as a measure to identify the problem, and someone suggesting building new hospitals, broadening health care access, and generally creating more health capacity as the solution, only to see, in response, large numbers of scholars pointing out that people would take advantage of this, and asserting that this was "induced demand." Thus, they would say, if we build more hospitals and create more medical service points, they're just going to see the same waiting times because more people will want medical care. No, no, they would continue, we must convince those folks to not need medical care! The new medical access is creating the demand. The key is less medical care!
Both sides just know what the right answer is, and they'll shape the studies and their discipline to make sure they reach it. Those folks with diabetes should have ridden their electric bike to the homeopathic doctor down the street instead of driving to the hospital.*
*At this point I may be crossing the streams a bit.
posted by Galvanic at 4:06 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
The analyses almost always fail to ask what people want in terms of their commute and whether the commute time measure is a good one, but let's ignore that for a moment.
Imagine the same thing with access to health care, using emergency room waiting times (or waiting time for a doctor's appointment, or waiting time for a medical procedure) as a measure to identify the problem, and someone suggesting building new hospitals, broadening health care access, and generally creating more health capacity as the solution, only to see, in response, large numbers of scholars pointing out that people would take advantage of this, and asserting that this was "induced demand." Thus, they would say, if we build more hospitals and create more medical service points, they're just going to see the same waiting times because more people will want medical care. No, no, they would continue, we must convince those folks to not need medical care! The new medical access is creating the demand. The key is less medical care!
Both sides just know what the right answer is, and they'll shape the studies and their discipline to make sure they reach it. Those folks with diabetes should have ridden their electric bike to the homeopathic doctor down the street instead of driving to the hospital.*
*At this point I may be crossing the streams a bit.
posted by Galvanic at 4:06 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Do some of you think people are out here saying "... fuck the rural" well there was with no one asking the follow up question of why this person needs to live 20 miles up a gravel road on the side of a mountain.
posted by achrise at 4:10 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by achrise at 4:10 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
What amazes me is how BIG cars have become.
Physics means that these cars are more dangerous. Economics says these cars are more expensive.
So why are they so popular? Whenever I ask someone why they feel the need to pay huge amounts of money for the privilege of shipping around 4 cubic metres of empty space, it seems to resolve to a question of status.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 4:10 PM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
Physics means that these cars are more dangerous. Economics says these cars are more expensive.
So why are they so popular? Whenever I ask someone why they feel the need to pay huge amounts of money for the privilege of shipping around 4 cubic metres of empty space, it seems to resolve to a question of status.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 4:10 PM on January 17, 2023 [11 favorites]
> "It's OK for a delivery driver to break a few health and safety rules" and "It's OK for a chef to break a few health and safety rules"
Umm, because a chef breaking a few health/safety rules might give someone an upset stomach whereas a deliver driver might kill or maim random people . . .
Yes, the two are indeed quite different.
Part of the problem is, we are at the point where it is quite possible to retain 90-95% of the benefits of automobiles while remove something like 99% of the harm they do.
But no one wants to do that. We want to keep driving 50mph in the middle of densely populated areas. Because, Freedom or whatever.
posted by flug at 4:12 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
Umm, because a chef breaking a few health/safety rules might give someone an upset stomach whereas a deliver driver might kill or maim random people . . .
Yes, the two are indeed quite different.
Part of the problem is, we are at the point where it is quite possible to retain 90-95% of the benefits of automobiles while remove something like 99% of the harm they do.
But no one wants to do that. We want to keep driving 50mph in the middle of densely populated areas. Because, Freedom or whatever.
posted by flug at 4:12 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
Both sides just know what the right answer is, and they'll shape the studies and their discipline to make sure they reach it.
drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:22 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 4:22 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
The problem with all the car threads on leftist sites is that there are no real solutions to be had.
Charging private vehicle owners proportionately to the costs we impose on everyone wouldn’t obviously be a lefty response, and yet would still probably come out ahead by lefty measures. Pollution, collision risk, road damage, parking space use. (These parking kiosks that ask your license plate number instead of printing you a ticket - they know the model of the car. They should certainly charge by length and IMO by area.)
For an example of the cheap, disability-supporting cars we could have if we weren’t subsidizing an SUV arms race, microcars.
posted by clew at 4:25 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
Charging private vehicle owners proportionately to the costs we impose on everyone wouldn’t obviously be a lefty response, and yet would still probably come out ahead by lefty measures. Pollution, collision risk, road damage, parking space use. (These parking kiosks that ask your license plate number instead of printing you a ticket - they know the model of the car. They should certainly charge by length and IMO by area.)
For an example of the cheap, disability-supporting cars we could have if we weren’t subsidizing an SUV arms race, microcars.
posted by clew at 4:25 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
"Motornormativity" is a great coining though.
posted by zamboni at 4:34 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Motornormativity(two Rs) appears to be an unfortunate typo in the Psyarxiv title, since they use
motonormativity(one R) consistently in the paper. It’s important to be consistent in your neologisms.
posted by zamboni at 4:34 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
The point where people are making arguments that are effectively countered with a dril tweet is when I step away from this thread. Thank you, Etrigan, for posting this article on motornormativity but car-brained Mefites have derailed the discussion.
(I never apologize for my puns.)
posted by AlSweigart at 4:37 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
(I never apologize for my puns.)
posted by AlSweigart at 4:37 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
not seizing your car and spitting in your face and telling you to go fuck yourself
I mean I wasn't at the top of the thread . . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 4:37 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
I mean I wasn't at the top of the thread . . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 4:37 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
The most humourous motonormativity is the kind you get when discussing motorbikes.
"What!? You took a child on your motorcycle, on the streets!? That's dangerous! You could get involved in an accident!"
posted by UN at 4:38 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
"What!? You took a child on your motorcycle, on the streets!? That's dangerous! You could get involved in an accident!"
posted by UN at 4:38 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
Well, I think harm reduction is a first step, getting rid of cars will take ages.
Some positive news from New Zealand, they're experimenting with a vehicle emissions tax / rebate scheme and it seems to be working - for the past 5-6 years their top selling vehicles were huge, fuel guzzling trucks, just like the US and Australia.
Now, basically if you REALLY want to buy a 2,200kg truck, you get taxed about $4,500 and that money is given to someone buying a 1,100kg subcompact car or EV who gets a $4,500 rebate.
Truck sales plunged about 75% after the tax was introduced and if you look at the top selling vehicles for Dec 2022 it's just EVs and subcompacts (Model 3, Swift, MG ZS)
Why trucks have done so well historically - to answer someone earlier in the thread - well some of my speculations -
1. Currently positive brand image, though that is fading - it's selling people a fantasy of rugged capability, just like how selling someone a Ferrari used to sell people a fantasy of sophistication and wealth, now if you see someone drive a Ferrari you just think they're a wanker. Consumer tastes and perceptions are fickle, who knows, maybe in 2030 when you drive a truck the brand association becomes "smelly inconsiderate smoker" / "child killer" and the market collapses overnight.
2. Lower emissions requirements - industrial / commercial vehicles often get to "dodge" the harsher and more expensive emissions laws that passenger vehicles have to abide by, which results in pure profit margin for manufacturers if you buy a truck vs an SUV or car. Eg your country can ratify EU6 emissions standards but trucks are classified as Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) and are allowed to emit more so they don't need a Diesel Exhaust Fluid system which adds about $1000 to the cost of the vehicle.
3. A lot of them get expensed as part of the operating cost of a small business, decreasing their effective cost to the customer (versus regular cars) so it leads to higher willingness to pay on average. I think it's just easier to justify on your tax return. I run a small business, yeah it's a truck, versus trying to justify why your subcompact that's parked in your garage is REALLY tax deductible.
4. Beneficial tax regime - many industries have lobbied for industrial / commercial goods and machinery to be treated favourably under tax / tariff / free trade schemes so you'll often find them taxed lower compared to passenger cars.
posted by xdvesper at 4:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
Some positive news from New Zealand, they're experimenting with a vehicle emissions tax / rebate scheme and it seems to be working - for the past 5-6 years their top selling vehicles were huge, fuel guzzling trucks, just like the US and Australia.
Now, basically if you REALLY want to buy a 2,200kg truck, you get taxed about $4,500 and that money is given to someone buying a 1,100kg subcompact car or EV who gets a $4,500 rebate.
Truck sales plunged about 75% after the tax was introduced and if you look at the top selling vehicles for Dec 2022 it's just EVs and subcompacts (Model 3, Swift, MG ZS)
Why trucks have done so well historically - to answer someone earlier in the thread - well some of my speculations -
1. Currently positive brand image, though that is fading - it's selling people a fantasy of rugged capability, just like how selling someone a Ferrari used to sell people a fantasy of sophistication and wealth, now if you see someone drive a Ferrari you just think they're a wanker. Consumer tastes and perceptions are fickle, who knows, maybe in 2030 when you drive a truck the brand association becomes "smelly inconsiderate smoker" / "child killer" and the market collapses overnight.
2. Lower emissions requirements - industrial / commercial vehicles often get to "dodge" the harsher and more expensive emissions laws that passenger vehicles have to abide by, which results in pure profit margin for manufacturers if you buy a truck vs an SUV or car. Eg your country can ratify EU6 emissions standards but trucks are classified as Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) and are allowed to emit more so they don't need a Diesel Exhaust Fluid system which adds about $1000 to the cost of the vehicle.
3. A lot of them get expensed as part of the operating cost of a small business, decreasing their effective cost to the customer (versus regular cars) so it leads to higher willingness to pay on average. I think it's just easier to justify on your tax return. I run a small business, yeah it's a truck, versus trying to justify why your subcompact that's parked in your garage is REALLY tax deductible.
4. Beneficial tax regime - many industries have lobbied for industrial / commercial goods and machinery to be treated favourably under tax / tariff / free trade schemes so you'll often find them taxed lower compared to passenger cars.
posted by xdvesper at 4:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [18 favorites]
From waaaaaay above
I'm guessing that most of the anti-car people aren't relentlessly cat-called whenever they walk somewhere.
I am. Well I’m not exactly anti-car but I’m “use car alternatives when possible let’s walk to the goddamn store.” I am cat called, I have been harassed and I still walk. I’ve had shitty aggressive panhandlers try and shake me down. I’ve been followed.
Some days it does take a spine of steal to go back out and face that and women shouldn’t have to make that choice. But fuck the shitty men out there, I don’t take kindly to being forced out of public spaces.
I wish more women would walk, and walk alone. The only way to normalize it is to make sure there are enough of us doing it. It’s hard because I also don’t want to ask women to take on risk, and there IS a risk. But having men chase us into our homes and are cars is dangerous in a different way.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 4:49 PM on January 17, 2023 [29 favorites]
I'm guessing that most of the anti-car people aren't relentlessly cat-called whenever they walk somewhere.
I am. Well I’m not exactly anti-car but I’m “use car alternatives when possible let’s walk to the goddamn store.” I am cat called, I have been harassed and I still walk. I’ve had shitty aggressive panhandlers try and shake me down. I’ve been followed.
Some days it does take a spine of steal to go back out and face that and women shouldn’t have to make that choice. But fuck the shitty men out there, I don’t take kindly to being forced out of public spaces.
I wish more women would walk, and walk alone. The only way to normalize it is to make sure there are enough of us doing it. It’s hard because I also don’t want to ask women to take on risk, and there IS a risk. But having men chase us into our homes and are cars is dangerous in a different way.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 4:49 PM on January 17, 2023 [29 favorites]
As the resident poor* disabled person who can't drive and was forced to purchase a car anyway and rely on my partner to drive it because public transportation is so inaccessible, the main thought I have every time we go around on this topic is, "I'd love to see this much energy put into discussing how to make public transportation better instead of re-litigating car ownership."
I have a couple of disabled friends who just achieved stable housing, who are on food stamps and Medicaid, and whose first and most important goal is to save and budget for a car. In a major city with nationally recognized bus lines. Because taking public transportation is just that fucking horrible here that "comes once every half hour in a climate where you will be waiting at a bus stop in -20 or 110 degree weather" is considered excellent.
(*Yes, there are disabled people more in poverty than me but if you make more than $16k a year I don't want to hear your thoughts on it.)
posted by brook horse at 4:59 PM on January 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
I have a couple of disabled friends who just achieved stable housing, who are on food stamps and Medicaid, and whose first and most important goal is to save and budget for a car. In a major city with nationally recognized bus lines. Because taking public transportation is just that fucking horrible here that "comes once every half hour in a climate where you will be waiting at a bus stop in -20 or 110 degree weather" is considered excellent.
(*Yes, there are disabled people more in poverty than me but if you make more than $16k a year I don't want to hear your thoughts on it.)
posted by brook horse at 4:59 PM on January 17, 2023 [24 favorites]
(Also, I use a state ID card and I have never once had it questioned anywhere in the past 10 years. But I also don't go out much, because of the car dependence that is forced on disabled people as much as everyone else, which I also hate but which no one seems interested in actually fixing using disabled people's input, just using us as chips on either side of the argument.)
posted by brook horse at 5:05 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 5:05 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
The analyses almost always fail to ask what people want in terms of their commute and whether the commute time measure is a good one, but let's ignore that for a moment.
Well I think this is actually the main thrust of your criticism, right? That the very existence of the phenomenon of induced demand for road use suggests that commute time is the wrong endpoint, that people would apparently still prefer to sit in traffic, listen to their podcasts or whatever, than to use other means of transit?
I think that’s a fair enough criticism. But going to your medical analogy, if studies showed that increasing the number of ERs didn’t decrease ER wait times, I would not assume the result a complete failure of policy. But it would make me consider whether we should be focusing more on increasing access to preventive care, focused urgent care for minor issues, etc., because having the ER be the fallback for all that stuff isn’t optimal for anybody. If it is, that’s a sign that something else hasn’t been planned properly, that there is slack missing somewhere else in the system.
Similarly, I think there’s more to “induced demand” than people waking up in the morning and deciding they’d rather drive to work than take the train. It’s also a larger-scale issue of short-term thinking leaving planning and development stuck in cycles that recreate the same problems over and over.
posted by atoxyl at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Well I think this is actually the main thrust of your criticism, right? That the very existence of the phenomenon of induced demand for road use suggests that commute time is the wrong endpoint, that people would apparently still prefer to sit in traffic, listen to their podcasts or whatever, than to use other means of transit?
I think that’s a fair enough criticism. But going to your medical analogy, if studies showed that increasing the number of ERs didn’t decrease ER wait times, I would not assume the result a complete failure of policy. But it would make me consider whether we should be focusing more on increasing access to preventive care, focused urgent care for minor issues, etc., because having the ER be the fallback for all that stuff isn’t optimal for anybody. If it is, that’s a sign that something else hasn’t been planned properly, that there is slack missing somewhere else in the system.
Similarly, I think there’s more to “induced demand” than people waking up in the morning and deciding they’d rather drive to work than take the train. It’s also a larger-scale issue of short-term thinking leaving planning and development stuck in cycles that recreate the same problems over and over.
posted by atoxyl at 5:19 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
Manure generates heat.
This principle is still used today, in the design of the algorithms that shape social media.
posted by flabdablet at 5:22 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
This principle is still used today, in the design of the algorithms that shape social media.
posted by flabdablet at 5:22 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
I just want to share that in Mexico they use the word "cochismo"
Also, just for fun: a machisto is a sexist pig, so a cochisto is an entitled jerk on the road, and a micromachismo is a sexist micro-aggression, so a microcochismo is, for example, stopping at a light in the bike box or nosing into the intersection through pedestrians crossing.
posted by ssg at 5:32 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, just for fun: a machisto is a sexist pig, so a cochisto is an entitled jerk on the road, and a micromachismo is a sexist micro-aggression, so a microcochismo is, for example, stopping at a light in the bike box or nosing into the intersection through pedestrians crossing.
posted by ssg at 5:32 PM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
We really need much better public transit before we can shame people out of owning cars. I am also one of those theoretical disabled people. I don't own a car, and I just don't go anywhere unless I absolutely must, because every time I get on the bus there is someone coughing without a mask. (They are "required" but most of the drivers don't even wear one.)
Also, there are virtually no stops with shelters and many don't even have a bench. I put up with that only because I have to. There is no incentive at all for a car owner to get rid of their car and stand in the cold/rain/snow/heat for 20-30 minutes to get on a bus where people are coughing on you. I would 100% buy a car if I could afford to own one. Or take Uber everywhere. There's no free choice here.
(No, bikes are not an option for me. No, not eBikes either.)
posted by nezlamnyy at 5:33 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
Also, there are virtually no stops with shelters and many don't even have a bench. I put up with that only because I have to. There is no incentive at all for a car owner to get rid of their car and stand in the cold/rain/snow/heat for 20-30 minutes to get on a bus where people are coughing on you. I would 100% buy a car if I could afford to own one. Or take Uber everywhere. There's no free choice here.
(No, bikes are not an option for me. No, not eBikes either.)
posted by nezlamnyy at 5:33 PM on January 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
Induced demand, as AlSweigart has pointed out, is the theory
Well no. You are confusing a term for an observed phenomenon that is apparently empirically well-supported with the way that phenomenon to used to argue against building more/bigger roads.
But more to the point, people arguing against building more or wider roads are never arguing in a vacuum--it's not bigger roads or nothing. It's about the opportunity cost of building bigger roads and optimizing for vehicle speed and convenience instead of investing in better public transport, changing zoning laws, building more housing or, for that matter, choosing to prioritize pedestrian and cyclist safety.
Again, as others have said, it's not all or nothing. It's not status quo vs no cars at all.
posted by col_pogo at 5:39 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Well no. You are confusing a term for an observed phenomenon that is apparently empirically well-supported with the way that phenomenon to used to argue against building more/bigger roads.
But more to the point, people arguing against building more or wider roads are never arguing in a vacuum--it's not bigger roads or nothing. It's about the opportunity cost of building bigger roads and optimizing for vehicle speed and convenience instead of investing in better public transport, changing zoning laws, building more housing or, for that matter, choosing to prioritize pedestrian and cyclist safety.
Again, as others have said, it's not all or nothing. It's not status quo vs no cars at all.
posted by col_pogo at 5:39 PM on January 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Well no. You
Well, yes. I’m pointing out that in some cases that increased demand leads to people arguing for more supply — health care- and some cases it doesn’t. The difference is the moral decision that people have already made about the product.
Unless you’d like to argue that more health care is also a bad thing?
posted by Galvanic at 5:46 PM on January 17, 2023
Well, yes. I’m pointing out that in some cases that increased demand leads to people arguing for more supply — health care- and some cases it doesn’t. The difference is the moral decision that people have already made about the product.
Unless you’d like to argue that more health care is also a bad thing?
posted by Galvanic at 5:46 PM on January 17, 2023
studies showed that increasing the number of ERs didn’t decrease ER wait times, I would not assume the result a complete failure of policy.
Yes, and I would hope that your solution would not be to oppose any proposals to increase the number of ER hospitals, restrict people from using those hospitals, and demonize those folks using ERs as being "ERnormative."
(And, no, my point was not just ER wait times, it was health access generally)
posted by Galvanic at 6:04 PM on January 17, 2023
Yes, and I would hope that your solution would not be to oppose any proposals to increase the number of ER hospitals, restrict people from using those hospitals, and demonize those folks using ERs as being "ERnormative."
(And, no, my point was not just ER wait times, it was health access generally)
posted by Galvanic at 6:04 PM on January 17, 2023
(And, no, my point was not just ER wait times, it was health access generally)
Right, but you're arguing that healthcare is like roads with cars on them. So, if I take the train I'm against healthcare? More roads is more healthcare, everything else gets i. The way. It's a weak and flawed analogy.
posted by UN at 6:26 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Right, but you're arguing that healthcare is like roads with cars on them. So, if I take the train I'm against healthcare? More roads is more healthcare, everything else gets i. The way. It's a weak and flawed analogy.
posted by UN at 6:26 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
My argument is that if you change the issue you get an opposite result because you’ve already decided your moral opinion of both, and that’s not scholarship, that’s advocacy. It’s the Cyril Burt version of science, and worthy of the same skepticism.
posted by Galvanic at 6:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Galvanic at 6:29 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
“Tyranny is Trujillo cutting out your tongue because you can't say 'broccoli.'
It’s parsley, but otherwise right on.
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:31 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
It’s parsley, but otherwise right on.
posted by toodleydoodley at 6:31 PM on January 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
The way most people use the term induced demand is simply to say that you can't build your way out of congestion in cities. This isn't controversial, being backed up by at least 50 years of experience. It's also, on its own, value-neutral.
What's not value neutral is saying that more care trips are inherently bad. I think that last statement is obviously true, but that's a value judgement I'm making based on my experience living in congested cities and suburbs for the past decade. Leaving aside the risk of injury and health impacts, it's just plain unpleasant to live near roads and highways that a hundred thousand cars use every day. One car isn't (usually) all that loud, but 50 of them sure as hell are.
Cars, at least in the volumes they are used in the US, depend on externalized costs, some visibly obvious and some more hidden. Accepting those costs is a choice we are allowed to make as a society. Pretending they don't exist, however, is straight up ignorant or delusional.
posted by wierdo at 7:05 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
What's not value neutral is saying that more care trips are inherently bad. I think that last statement is obviously true, but that's a value judgement I'm making based on my experience living in congested cities and suburbs for the past decade. Leaving aside the risk of injury and health impacts, it's just plain unpleasant to live near roads and highways that a hundred thousand cars use every day. One car isn't (usually) all that loud, but 50 of them sure as hell are.
Cars, at least in the volumes they are used in the US, depend on externalized costs, some visibly obvious and some more hidden. Accepting those costs is a choice we are allowed to make as a society. Pretending they don't exist, however, is straight up ignorant or delusional.
posted by wierdo at 7:05 PM on January 17, 2023 [10 favorites]
At the end of the day these discussions always boil down to “if cars didn’t exist I couldn’t have the lifestyle afforded to me by the personal automobile”, which… yeah.
I read a fascinating stat the other day: Line 1 of the Toronto subway carries more people per day than the entire Chicago L.
The reason? Canada prioritizes frequency and connections over one-seat rides to downtown. Thusly, they run frequent (like, every 2.5-5 minutes) buses in low density areas that feed into the subway. (Also American heavy rail transit operators never met an interlining plan they didn’t want to jerk off, but that’s a pretty specific complaint. But: interlining bad.)
I live a mile from a subway station in Philadelphia and there is a bus, that runs about every 30 minutes, that takes a bizarre roundabout route to that station. Do I take that bus? Of course not.
I honestly don’t think that most Americans understand how bad our transit is. It is abysmally bad. Literally the worst in the developed world. And this is a choice, 100%. It does not have to be this way.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:15 PM on January 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
I read a fascinating stat the other day: Line 1 of the Toronto subway carries more people per day than the entire Chicago L.
The reason? Canada prioritizes frequency and connections over one-seat rides to downtown. Thusly, they run frequent (like, every 2.5-5 minutes) buses in low density areas that feed into the subway. (Also American heavy rail transit operators never met an interlining plan they didn’t want to jerk off, but that’s a pretty specific complaint. But: interlining bad.)
I live a mile from a subway station in Philadelphia and there is a bus, that runs about every 30 minutes, that takes a bizarre roundabout route to that station. Do I take that bus? Of course not.
I honestly don’t think that most Americans understand how bad our transit is. It is abysmally bad. Literally the worst in the developed world. And this is a choice, 100%. It does not have to be this way.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:15 PM on January 17, 2023 [27 favorites]
After two weeks in Japan, I remember waiting for the subway in Kyoto, at night, and wondering what was taking so long. I may have waited an entire five minutes!
The last time I waited for a bus in the US, it just didn't show up at all. I used the real-time tracking system to check where it was, it proclaimed that it was on time and everything was fine. Never came. Nor did the second one, scheduled 15 minutes later. I gave up and called a Lyft.
I feel like public transit in the US is often used to shame people who don't own cars.
posted by meowzilla at 9:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
The last time I waited for a bus in the US, it just didn't show up at all. I used the real-time tracking system to check where it was, it proclaimed that it was on time and everything was fine. Never came. Nor did the second one, scheduled 15 minutes later. I gave up and called a Lyft.
I feel like public transit in the US is often used to shame people who don't own cars.
posted by meowzilla at 9:46 PM on January 17, 2023 [9 favorites]
Induced demand, as AlSweigart has pointed out, is the theory that building more roads to reduce traffic congestion is ineffective because more people use the roads and thus the traffic congestion (usually measured in commute time) remains constant.
It's been pointed out many times already, but this is utterly wrong. Induced demand is not a theory. It is a concept- that adding capacity stimulates an increase in demand. The concept says nothing about effectiveness, or traffic remaining constant; and additionally says nothing about whether it is a positive or negative outcome. "More vehicles use improved facilities" is not based on morality (???) but observation.
...and someone suggesting building new hospitals, broadening health care access, and generally creating more health capacity as the solution, only to see, in response, large numbers of scholars pointing out that people would take advantage of this, and asserting that this was "induced demand."
No scholar would ever assert that a possible outcome was the same thing as an outcome because that's illogical. A scholar would make the neutral observation making health care more available could mean more people use heathcare, because this is definitely a possibility- increasingly so if there are numerous repeated observations that this very thing happens. One could then argue whether or not more people using healthcare is a good thing (generally speaking it certainly seems to be) and whether or not wait times will change in any meaningful way, but those are separate considerations and/or objectives.
Obviously if one adds more auto capacity to roads, the possibility exists that more people will use them. Whether or not one considers this their objective depends on the outcome one is trying to achieve. What has been repeatedly observed is that more road capacity often does not reduce travel times on those roads, in spite of many politicians and automobile advocates using that as a reason to sell the idea to the public. Conflating induced demand with the consequences of induced demand definitely muddies the waters, but this- "how dare people consume a product they like at higher rates when the supply is higher" is a complete misunderstanding of how the phrase is used as well.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:18 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
It's been pointed out many times already, but this is utterly wrong. Induced demand is not a theory. It is a concept- that adding capacity stimulates an increase in demand. The concept says nothing about effectiveness, or traffic remaining constant; and additionally says nothing about whether it is a positive or negative outcome. "More vehicles use improved facilities" is not based on morality (???) but observation.
...and someone suggesting building new hospitals, broadening health care access, and generally creating more health capacity as the solution, only to see, in response, large numbers of scholars pointing out that people would take advantage of this, and asserting that this was "induced demand."
No scholar would ever assert that a possible outcome was the same thing as an outcome because that's illogical. A scholar would make the neutral observation making health care more available could mean more people use heathcare, because this is definitely a possibility- increasingly so if there are numerous repeated observations that this very thing happens. One could then argue whether or not more people using healthcare is a good thing (generally speaking it certainly seems to be) and whether or not wait times will change in any meaningful way, but those are separate considerations and/or objectives.
Obviously if one adds more auto capacity to roads, the possibility exists that more people will use them. Whether or not one considers this their objective depends on the outcome one is trying to achieve. What has been repeatedly observed is that more road capacity often does not reduce travel times on those roads, in spite of many politicians and automobile advocates using that as a reason to sell the idea to the public. Conflating induced demand with the consequences of induced demand definitely muddies the waters, but this- "how dare people consume a product they like at higher rates when the supply is higher" is a complete misunderstanding of how the phrase is used as well.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:18 PM on January 17, 2023 [8 favorites]
The thing is that induced demand can be a good thing if you're a small town getting better connectivity to the outside world due to highway upgrades/expansions and the increased business activity that often comes along with it. It can be a good thing to stimulate better regional connectivity, increasing trade and improving opportunity for everyone. Rural highways are usually great for the localities they affect, same as train lines were 150 years ago. Sometimes there are non-monetary reasons not to build a specific highway in a specific place, but in general they're a good thing.
That stands in stark contrast to what building and expanding highways in cities does. Even without adding more cars it reduces connectivity within the city by acting as an obstacle to travel for the people who actually live there. It reduces the amount of land that can be used for activity that actually generates revenue. It induces the building of more storage for cars, further reducing the space dedicated to activity that is actually productive and can finance city services. It increases the space between places people want to go, making car ownership more necessary than it would otherwise be. It drives up rent to pay for all that car storage. It diverts money that could be used to build transit infrastructure that would benefit the people living in the city mostly to benefit people who don't actually live there.
Some of these are, to at least some degree, reasonable tradeoffs for improved connectivity, though it really sucks to be on the receiving end as many neighborhoods populated primarily by minorities know from experience during the inner city highway building boom of the previous century. The first few lanes can provide a huge benefit, even if each added lane shows a decreasing return on investment.
The problem is that many state DOTs and indeed many people in general don't really acknowledge that there are in fact tradeoffs being made. More lane miles is always a good thing, to their mind. Never mind that they're just dumping more cars on already overburdened infrastructure in places where people don't want more cars because they're already choked in traffic. There was a time that we could at least say that drivers were shouldering the vast majority of the direct financial burden of all the infrastructure dedicated to them, but the ever shrinking in real terms gas tax is now so low that it no longer comes even close to paying for construction and maintenance of the infrastructure that is dedicated to the use of motor vehicles.
We've spent nearly the entirety of the period between the end of World War II and now following the same playbook. It hasn't worked anywhere we've tried it. It's time we spend a few decades investing in transit in places where it makes sense. At the very least we could stop thinking we know better than the people who live there and spending hundreds of millions on road projects when they're asking for better transit, not wider roads or some pretty, but ultimately unnecessary, new bridge that will at best push traffic problems a couple of miles downstream in the short term and be a major drain on the budget in the long term due to increased maintenance costs above a more basic design.
There are places in this world where cars should rightfully be prioritized. I'm totally fine with that. However, there are also places in this world where cars should be a secondary or even tertiary consideration. Even in places where the majority of the population has come to realize this outside forces continue to insist that they know better and ram through road projects with only the slightest consideration of the needs of the people most directly affected even when it can be shown the benefit to drivers is minimal. It's infuriating.
posted by wierdo at 11:23 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
That stands in stark contrast to what building and expanding highways in cities does. Even without adding more cars it reduces connectivity within the city by acting as an obstacle to travel for the people who actually live there. It reduces the amount of land that can be used for activity that actually generates revenue. It induces the building of more storage for cars, further reducing the space dedicated to activity that is actually productive and can finance city services. It increases the space between places people want to go, making car ownership more necessary than it would otherwise be. It drives up rent to pay for all that car storage. It diverts money that could be used to build transit infrastructure that would benefit the people living in the city mostly to benefit people who don't actually live there.
Some of these are, to at least some degree, reasonable tradeoffs for improved connectivity, though it really sucks to be on the receiving end as many neighborhoods populated primarily by minorities know from experience during the inner city highway building boom of the previous century. The first few lanes can provide a huge benefit, even if each added lane shows a decreasing return on investment.
The problem is that many state DOTs and indeed many people in general don't really acknowledge that there are in fact tradeoffs being made. More lane miles is always a good thing, to their mind. Never mind that they're just dumping more cars on already overburdened infrastructure in places where people don't want more cars because they're already choked in traffic. There was a time that we could at least say that drivers were shouldering the vast majority of the direct financial burden of all the infrastructure dedicated to them, but the ever shrinking in real terms gas tax is now so low that it no longer comes even close to paying for construction and maintenance of the infrastructure that is dedicated to the use of motor vehicles.
We've spent nearly the entirety of the period between the end of World War II and now following the same playbook. It hasn't worked anywhere we've tried it. It's time we spend a few decades investing in transit in places where it makes sense. At the very least we could stop thinking we know better than the people who live there and spending hundreds of millions on road projects when they're asking for better transit, not wider roads or some pretty, but ultimately unnecessary, new bridge that will at best push traffic problems a couple of miles downstream in the short term and be a major drain on the budget in the long term due to increased maintenance costs above a more basic design.
There are places in this world where cars should rightfully be prioritized. I'm totally fine with that. However, there are also places in this world where cars should be a secondary or even tertiary consideration. Even in places where the majority of the population has come to realize this outside forces continue to insist that they know better and ram through road projects with only the slightest consideration of the needs of the people most directly affected even when it can be shown the benefit to drivers is minimal. It's infuriating.
posted by wierdo at 11:23 PM on January 17, 2023 [12 favorites]
I can't speak to whether people actually accept those cards as official ID but they are legally required to.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.
I do in fact have a provincial photo ID, which suffices more often than not. But as I have related on the site before, when a driver’s license is the most common ID shown, very quickly front line people begin to believe it is the only ID acceptable. More than once I have tried to vote and made my case to a deputy returning officer at the polling station that I have three or four of the dozen items clearly enumerated on the large sign right behind them as acceptable identification (but not a driver’s license) and have been told, “Oh, we only accept drivers’ licenses.” Sometimes I have been able to get this ruling overturned, and other times... well, I have a folder full of letters from Elections Ontario and Elections Canada apologizing and promising that they will try to do better. (Now I often work elections as a DRO to keep this from happening to others.)
I can recall instances 25 years ago where I had to fight to get recognized despite not having a license and as recent as this morning where I had to plead my case to be accorded the treatment that a driver would get. 25 years ago it was an auction; this morning it was a domestic flight, but both times the fact that I do not drive was a matter of grave bureaucratic concern (no matter how irrelevant driving was to the situation).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:07 AM on January 18, 2023 [10 favorites]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.
I do in fact have a provincial photo ID, which suffices more often than not. But as I have related on the site before, when a driver’s license is the most common ID shown, very quickly front line people begin to believe it is the only ID acceptable. More than once I have tried to vote and made my case to a deputy returning officer at the polling station that I have three or four of the dozen items clearly enumerated on the large sign right behind them as acceptable identification (but not a driver’s license) and have been told, “Oh, we only accept drivers’ licenses.” Sometimes I have been able to get this ruling overturned, and other times... well, I have a folder full of letters from Elections Ontario and Elections Canada apologizing and promising that they will try to do better. (Now I often work elections as a DRO to keep this from happening to others.)
I can recall instances 25 years ago where I had to fight to get recognized despite not having a license and as recent as this morning where I had to plead my case to be accorded the treatment that a driver would get. 25 years ago it was an auction; this morning it was a domestic flight, but both times the fact that I do not drive was a matter of grave bureaucratic concern (no matter how irrelevant driving was to the situation).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:07 AM on January 18, 2023 [10 favorites]
Policies to reduce car usage always contain sticks for car users and carrots for people who use transit, and if you've been priced out of the city and forced to live in the low density surburbs or exurbs there's only ever going to be sticks, because low density transit is terrible or a massive money hole or both.The problem with all the car threads on leftist sites is that there are no real solutions to be had. Motornormativity is here to stay for better and worse. The benefits of the automobile are obvious, as much as they are self reinforcing of motornormativity. Which is the problem.Aren't the solutions more and better public transit serving denser communities and road infrastructure designed to make it harder for inattentive drivers to harm other road users?
Automated buses will help a bit in areas without a bus drivers union by reducing the incremental cost of additional bus frequencies, but its going to be something like a bus every hour instead of a bus every few hours at best.
posted by zymil at 1:29 AM on January 18, 2023
Building more roads has been demonstrated time and again to lead to more driving. Building more ERs doesn't lead to more people breaking their legs.
posted by grahamparks at 2:07 AM on January 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by grahamparks at 2:07 AM on January 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
Policies to reduce car usage always contain sticks for car users and carrots for people who use transit, and if you've been priced out of the city and forced to live in the low density surburbs or exurbs there's only ever going to be sticks, because low density transit is terrible or a massive money hole or both
Exurbs and genuinely rural areas will always have infrequent transit service at best. We choose to have long, meandering, and infrequent transit service to suburbs, however. Half hourly or even 15 minute intervals are completely doable if we can make transfers less painful by making it possible for buses to run on time and create more direct walking routes that don't follow the meandering layout of the existing roads so that it's reasonably easy for riders to group together rather than having the bus try to get close to every house in a poorly connected subdivision.
It's not easy, by any means, but it's certainly doable.
posted by wierdo at 2:15 AM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Exurbs and genuinely rural areas will always have infrequent transit service at best. We choose to have long, meandering, and infrequent transit service to suburbs, however. Half hourly or even 15 minute intervals are completely doable if we can make transfers less painful by making it possible for buses to run on time and create more direct walking routes that don't follow the meandering layout of the existing roads so that it's reasonably easy for riders to group together rather than having the bus try to get close to every house in a poorly connected subdivision.
It's not easy, by any means, but it's certainly doable.
posted by wierdo at 2:15 AM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Gotta agree with AlSweigart on this thread.
Car brain is real and holy shit a lot of you have it.
Here's a challenge that I'm sure approximately 0 car brained MeFites in here will actually take but worth a shot: go watch this recent 26minute from NotJustBikes which breaks down how the US and Canada were persuaded to fuck up so badly. I know, it's a long video, but you'll probably be stuck in stand-still traffic this week for longer than that anyway, right?
You'll hopefully learn that all this isn't actually a magical mystery. It's just another example of corporate propaganda that worked really well. So well that today you don't even realize just how much bullshit you've been brainwashed with so that GM et al can get a little richer.
Car brain is real and holy shit a lot of you have it.
Here's a challenge that I'm sure approximately 0 car brained MeFites in here will actually take but worth a shot: go watch this recent 26minute from NotJustBikes which breaks down how the US and Canada were persuaded to fuck up so badly. I know, it's a long video, but you'll probably be stuck in stand-still traffic this week for longer than that anyway, right?
You'll hopefully learn that all this isn't actually a magical mystery. It's just another example of corporate propaganda that worked really well. So well that today you don't even realize just how much bullshit you've been brainwashed with so that GM et al can get a little richer.
Would You Fall For It?posted by lazaruslong at 4:49 AM on January 18, 2023 [15 favorites]
In the 1950s, the US automobile industry was lobbying hard to get more funding for roads and highways. Part of this effort included propaganda targeted to the general public.
In this video, I look back at one of these automobile industry propaganda videos, "Give Yourself the Green Light" by General Motors, and show what was promised versus what the reality is today for American cities. The automobile industry got everything they wanted, but the problems they were trying to solve only got worse.
Yelling at people about car brain is garbage, sorry.
In the last ten years I have:
- gone to about 15 community consultation meetings in favour of either transit or increased density along the Kingston Rd corridor
- gotten a new bus route added to an area of population growth
- worked with my kids’ principal to get a crosswalk put in (Toronto elementary schools were literally designed for walkability, placed specifically so kids could walk to school)
-gotten speed bumps and cameras added around 8 schools in the area, working with my city councillor
- I’ve already written to support a new “commercial lot” tax in TO - write your councillor
Yelling at people about their brains does not work. Finding out their actual problems and working on them does. If you’re not interested in hearing why people who support fewer cars still drive, I question your commitment to solutions. All change requires a change in thinking (plus usually legislation) but transportation requires design as well, and design requires understanding.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:19 AM on January 18, 2023 [8 favorites]
In the last ten years I have:
- gone to about 15 community consultation meetings in favour of either transit or increased density along the Kingston Rd corridor
- gotten a new bus route added to an area of population growth
- worked with my kids’ principal to get a crosswalk put in (Toronto elementary schools were literally designed for walkability, placed specifically so kids could walk to school)
-gotten speed bumps and cameras added around 8 schools in the area, working with my city councillor
- I’ve already written to support a new “commercial lot” tax in TO - write your councillor
Yelling at people about their brains does not work. Finding out their actual problems and working on them does. If you’re not interested in hearing why people who support fewer cars still drive, I question your commitment to solutions. All change requires a change in thinking (plus usually legislation) but transportation requires design as well, and design requires understanding.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:19 AM on January 18, 2023 [8 favorites]
Also, while I’m ranting, you know who advocates heavily for transit in my area? The board of trade, because they recognize housing and transportation as key.
Additionally, the “SUV/pickup asshole” certainly exists and often is in power. But that’s not the majority. The view that it is is shooting advocates in the foot. A single mum or a new Canadian immigrant family in Toronto do not want to pay insurance, gas, and car payments. They do not have car brain…come to my area and watch everyone walking home from the mosque. They are making choices based on what will keep their families fed, rationally. Solve for those families and you have a great start.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:29 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Additionally, the “SUV/pickup asshole” certainly exists and often is in power. But that’s not the majority. The view that it is is shooting advocates in the foot. A single mum or a new Canadian immigrant family in Toronto do not want to pay insurance, gas, and car payments. They do not have car brain…come to my area and watch everyone walking home from the mosque. They are making choices based on what will keep their families fed, rationally. Solve for those families and you have a great start.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:29 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not sure if you are replying to me directly, warriorqueen, but I ain't yelling at nobody. Good job on all of that work though, that's excellent stuff!
posted by lazaruslong at 5:59 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by lazaruslong at 5:59 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
nothing about whether [induced demand] is a positive or negative outcome
That's simply not plausible. The very name -- "induced demand" -- implies that people aren't making a choice but are being pulled into doing something. It incorporate the moral judgment into the very concept as a way of side-stepping the fact that people like cars, like using cars, and, it turns out, take advantage of an increase supply of roads, even if it doesn't actually do much for travel time.
A scholar would make the neutral observation making health care more available could mean more people use heathcare, because this is definitely a possibility
Yes -- they should. And if they did treat the increased demand for health care as inherently negative -- in the same way that scholars treat the increased demand for roads -- we would react with criticism. That's my point -- the moral judgment around cars is being baked into the scholarship in a way that it's not for, eg, health care.
posted by Galvanic at 6:15 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's simply not plausible. The very name -- "induced demand" -- implies that people aren't making a choice but are being pulled into doing something. It incorporate the moral judgment into the very concept as a way of side-stepping the fact that people like cars, like using cars, and, it turns out, take advantage of an increase supply of roads, even if it doesn't actually do much for travel time.
A scholar would make the neutral observation making health care more available could mean more people use heathcare, because this is definitely a possibility
Yes -- they should. And if they did treat the increased demand for health care as inherently negative -- in the same way that scholars treat the increased demand for roads -- we would react with criticism. That's my point -- the moral judgment around cars is being baked into the scholarship in a way that it's not for, eg, health care.
posted by Galvanic at 6:15 AM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Do you think that if there were more and better buses and trains, people might choose to use them more? I’m not sure why your calculus here is cars vs. nothing.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:58 AM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:58 AM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
The reason alternative transport advocates talk a lot about induced demand is because traffic engineers and politicians routinely pretend it doesn't exist or greatly underestimate it. Thus road schemes are sold to the public on promises (and often elaborate expensive traffic studies) that journey times will improve for existing users. Which almost never happens except in the very short term.
If the projections correctly predicted induced demand, those schemes would very likely not be authorised, or at least be a much harder sell.
The great thing about induced demand is that has a twin, traffic evaporation. If you restrict car usage and re-assign roadspace to other uses, the traffic chaos predicted almost never happens (except in the very short term), because it turns out many or most car journeys aren't essential but elective, and can be substituted the moment the price (in time) goes up.
posted by grahamparks at 8:13 AM on January 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
If the projections correctly predicted induced demand, those schemes would very likely not be authorised, or at least be a much harder sell.
The great thing about induced demand is that has a twin, traffic evaporation. If you restrict car usage and re-assign roadspace to other uses, the traffic chaos predicted almost never happens (except in the very short term), because it turns out many or most car journeys aren't essential but elective, and can be substituted the moment the price (in time) goes up.
posted by grahamparks at 8:13 AM on January 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
If anyone is curious about traffic evaporation, I found this open access paper last night that may be of interest. Traffic evaporation isn't as well document as induced demand, and I would like to see the traffic monitoring period discussed in this paper to extend several years to rule out the evaporation effect being a statistical anomaly, but if folks want a primer on what some of the scholarship says about these topics, the lit review section is pretty good.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 8:18 AM on January 18, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 8:18 AM on January 18, 2023 [7 favorites]
I'm old enough to remember when almost three years ago I would have had to buy or rent a car to get tested for covid-19 in Chicago. Then it happened again when the vaccine came out and the only available appointment slots for the first two months were in out in the republican anti-vax suburbs.
Coincidentally cars got really incredibly expensive right then.
posted by srboisvert at 8:23 AM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Coincidentally cars got really incredibly expensive right then.
posted by srboisvert at 8:23 AM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Canada prioritizes frequency and connections over one-seat rides to downtown.
Well, Toronto does, at any rate. Many, many Canadian cities -- particularly in the western provinces, where land has traditionally been cheap and accessible, thus contributing to urban sprawl and car-centric design -- have rather abysmal transit systems. Ironically, efforts to improve these systems are often met with criticism from motorists because adding new LRT crossings inconveniences drivers who have to wait for the train to pass (for example) and because they complain that they have to pay taxes for a service they don't use and will never use and no one uses and fuck Big Transit #@$#%&!
posted by asnider at 9:33 AM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well, Toronto does, at any rate. Many, many Canadian cities -- particularly in the western provinces, where land has traditionally been cheap and accessible, thus contributing to urban sprawl and car-centric design -- have rather abysmal transit systems. Ironically, efforts to improve these systems are often met with criticism from motorists because adding new LRT crossings inconveniences drivers who have to wait for the train to pass (for example) and because they complain that they have to pay taxes for a service they don't use and will never use and no one uses and fuck Big Transit #@$#%&!
posted by asnider at 9:33 AM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
A single mum or a new Canadian immigrant family in Toronto do not want to pay insurance, gas, and car payments. They do not have car brain…come to my area and watch everyone walking home from the mosque. They are making choices based on what will keep their families fed, rationally. Solve for those families and you have a great start.
That's actually been my observation as well, as an immigrant. Before I migrated I used to drive all the time, since I got my license at the age of 18 - it was my social life, going to school, the mall, eating supper at roadside stalls, parties. Then after I migrated from the age of 20 to 30 I didn't own a car and didn't drive and neither did most of my immigrant friends. We went to university, to work, shopping, holidays, we just did without one. And in our case it was not because of poverty or inability to afford a car, but simply a function of having our social circle contracted into a tiny compact group, so there wasn't a perceived need to travel all over town. Perhaps there was also the complexity and uncertainty - life was already uncertain and unfamiliar, and adding the cost and burden of maintaining one was just another thing we didn't need to deal with especially if you didn't have someone experienced to mentor you in how to do it. If I hadn't migrated and I continued living back home, I would have driving literally everywhere everyday.
My commute to work was a 40 minute walk + 40 minute train ride.. each way. Most memorably on 43°C days and the train was so old it didn't even have air-conditioning (it was a literal museum piece brought back into service). The train only arrived every 30 minutes and the bus service in the area was awful so you just rather walked. And for that privilege, the annual pass was $1,500.... and it only paid for 25% of total service costs, so the true cost per passenger was $6,000 per year. The total cost of ownership for a car would have been about $7,000 per year, so paying $1,500 for transport instead was ok.
posted by xdvesper at 2:44 PM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's actually been my observation as well, as an immigrant. Before I migrated I used to drive all the time, since I got my license at the age of 18 - it was my social life, going to school, the mall, eating supper at roadside stalls, parties. Then after I migrated from the age of 20 to 30 I didn't own a car and didn't drive and neither did most of my immigrant friends. We went to university, to work, shopping, holidays, we just did without one. And in our case it was not because of poverty or inability to afford a car, but simply a function of having our social circle contracted into a tiny compact group, so there wasn't a perceived need to travel all over town. Perhaps there was also the complexity and uncertainty - life was already uncertain and unfamiliar, and adding the cost and burden of maintaining one was just another thing we didn't need to deal with especially if you didn't have someone experienced to mentor you in how to do it. If I hadn't migrated and I continued living back home, I would have driving literally everywhere everyday.
My commute to work was a 40 minute walk + 40 minute train ride.. each way. Most memorably on 43°C days and the train was so old it didn't even have air-conditioning (it was a literal museum piece brought back into service). The train only arrived every 30 minutes and the bus service in the area was awful so you just rather walked. And for that privilege, the annual pass was $1,500.... and it only paid for 25% of total service costs, so the true cost per passenger was $6,000 per year. The total cost of ownership for a car would have been about $7,000 per year, so paying $1,500 for transport instead was ok.
posted by xdvesper at 2:44 PM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
Here's a challenge that I'm sure approximately 0 car brained MeFites in here will actually take but worth a shot: go watch this recent 26minute from NotJustBikes which breaks down how the US and Canada were persuaded to fuck up so badly. I know, it's a long video, but you'll probably be stuck in stand-still traffic this week for longer than that anyway, right?
It's been a long time since I saw this level of Wake Up Sheeple in the wild! Who says the old internet is dead.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:49 PM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's been a long time since I saw this level of Wake Up Sheeple in the wild! Who says the old internet is dead.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:49 PM on January 18, 2023 [6 favorites]
I know, it's a long video, but you'll probably be stuck in stand-still traffic this week for longer than that anyway, right?
This is my favorite because I'm never in a car ride longer than 15 minutes (it's a running joke that everything in my city is 15 minutes from everything else), but if I took the bus I'd have the time to watch the video three times in a row. I would love love love if that weren't the case though!!
posted by brook horse at 5:00 PM on January 18, 2023
This is my favorite because I'm never in a car ride longer than 15 minutes (it's a running joke that everything in my city is 15 minutes from everything else), but if I took the bus I'd have the time to watch the video three times in a row. I would love love love if that weren't the case though!!
posted by brook horse at 5:00 PM on January 18, 2023
I like how we're not supposed to take "memes and snark" too seriously because no one is actually saying you're a bad person for not immediately ditching your car.
But also we're all "car-brained" and "no one needs to live outside a city anyway."
I know that sure makes me feel like I'm not being judged and we're all in this together against the powers and power structures that want to kill the planet but make it our fault. I feel so understood and like my concerns about how we're gonna do this and what doing this actually looks like and how my ability to live will be affected.
Sheesh.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 5:18 PM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
But also we're all "car-brained" and "no one needs to live outside a city anyway."
I know that sure makes me feel like I'm not being judged and we're all in this together against the powers and power structures that want to kill the planet but make it our fault. I feel so understood and like my concerns about how we're gonna do this and what doing this actually looks like and how my ability to live will be affected.
Sheesh.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 5:18 PM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
traffic evaporation
Again, this is building the moral judgment into the analysis. Yes, if you drastically increase the price of a commodity, you'll reduce the number of people using it. But imagine making the same argument about health care. If we reduce health care access (or drastically increase it's price), demand evaporates. I don't imagine anyone thinks that's a good result because they haven't baked in the same moral condemnation.
posted by Galvanic at 6:00 PM on January 18, 2023
Again, this is building the moral judgment into the analysis. Yes, if you drastically increase the price of a commodity, you'll reduce the number of people using it. But imagine making the same argument about health care. If we reduce health care access (or drastically increase it's price), demand evaporates. I don't imagine anyone thinks that's a good result because they haven't baked in the same moral condemnation.
posted by Galvanic at 6:00 PM on January 18, 2023
That's simply not plausible. The very name -- "induced demand" -- implies that people aren't making a choice but are being pulled into doing something.
"Induced" in this case means "caused" or "gave rise to".
"Adding more lanes to the freeway induced more trips by automobile between the hours of 5am and 10 am" is not a biased statement.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:14 PM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
"Induced" in this case means "caused" or "gave rise to".
"Adding more lanes to the freeway induced more trips by automobile between the hours of 5am and 10 am" is not a biased statement.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:14 PM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thanks for that micro car video, that was informative. Looking forward to micro cars coming to North America. Pretty cool that they are commonly used as mobility devices. So far I think I've only seen one. It used to park on the sidewalk (without blocking the sidewalk) outside McDonalds in North Portland. Maybe it still does!
I am loving the vocabulary words in this thread. Motornormativity. Cochismo. I have another sweet sweet word to share. Patriarcarro.
posted by aniola at 6:26 PM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
I am loving the vocabulary words in this thread. Motornormativity. Cochismo. I have another sweet sweet word to share. Patriarcarro.
posted by aniola at 6:26 PM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Adding more lanes to the freeway induced more trips by automobile between the hours of 5am and 10 am" is not a biased statement.
Of course it is. It assumes that people wouldn’t have wanted the product otherwise. Write the same sentence with health care in mind and see what you think. “Adding more doctors to hospitals induced more people to get sick and need treatment.”
Really?
posted by Galvanic at 6:28 PM on January 18, 2023
Of course it is. It assumes that people wouldn’t have wanted the product otherwise. Write the same sentence with health care in mind and see what you think. “Adding more doctors to hospitals induced more people to get sick and need treatment.”
Really?
posted by Galvanic at 6:28 PM on January 18, 2023
Isn't one of the explanations for induced demand that people are now able to take trips at the times they'd prefer instead of scheduling them for low-traffic times? So e.g. instead of running errands on the weekend or mid-day when traffic is bad, they're able to do them before work or otherwise earlier in the day.
Which means while it may not make congestion any better, but it's not necessarily changing how many trips are taken. Just shifting around when they happen.
posted by brook horse at 6:33 PM on January 18, 2023
Which means while it may not make congestion any better, but it's not necessarily changing how many trips are taken. Just shifting around when they happen.
posted by brook horse at 6:33 PM on January 18, 2023
Or, you know, voting. “Adding voting stations just induces more people to vote!”
posted by Galvanic at 6:35 PM on January 18, 2023
posted by Galvanic at 6:35 PM on January 18, 2023
Can we let the derail about induced demand rest? You've spent ~1/10th of this thread dueling interpretations of the term arguing by analogy & going "if you change out one concept for another, one statement sounds like a different, much worse statement".
It's not going anywhere new.
posted by CrystalDave at 6:41 PM on January 18, 2023 [7 favorites]
It's not going anywhere new.
posted by CrystalDave at 6:41 PM on January 18, 2023 [7 favorites]
Wait, am I inducing demand about inducing demand? Eek!
posted by Galvanic at 6:54 PM on January 18, 2023
posted by Galvanic at 6:54 PM on January 18, 2023
I neither particularly know nor care about induced demand. I’ve also missed some comments due to only checking this thread in my recent activity feed at irregular intervals, so I’m not going to even try to comment on the specific application here.
But I do know and care something about English, and about biased versus unbiased statements eg. in terms of the very first basics of survey design such as we will be discussing in about two weeks in a course I’m currently teaching. The “just” turns an unbiased statement into a biased statement. “Adding more voting stations induces more people to vote.” is a factual observation. “High doses of stimulant drugs just induces heart attacks.” adds an editorial layer to the factual statement.
posted by eviemath at 7:09 PM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
But I do know and care something about English, and about biased versus unbiased statements eg. in terms of the very first basics of survey design such as we will be discussing in about two weeks in a course I’m currently teaching. The “just” turns an unbiased statement into a biased statement. “Adding more voting stations induces more people to vote.” is a factual observation. “High doses of stimulant drugs just induces heart attacks.” adds an editorial layer to the factual statement.
posted by eviemath at 7:09 PM on January 18, 2023 [3 favorites]
The induced demand derail is frankly ridiculous and pretty self-evident hence I haven't responded to it so far and I suspect 99% of people reading it think so too.
If you lower the cost will consumption increase? Yes, for both hospitals and roads. So I'm not sure why you say "induced demand is a ridiculous concept" - it's not controversial that it exists.
You seem to be confused as to why road traffic is treated differently to healthcare? Obviously, it's because every additional car ride literally destroys the environment by emitting CO2 and poisons the local atmosphere with toxins. While there's no negative negative externality involved in providing more healthcare.
Again, I don't see how any of this is controversial.
As a side note, since healthcare is cheap, I've visited the ED for relatively minor issues - chest pain, which turned out to be nothing, and an infection, which wouldn't really have killed me to wait until I saw a GP in the morning, but getting the antibiotics into me 12 hours earlier would be better. If visiting the ED cost $5000, yeah, I wouldn't have gone. So this is induced demand, but for every 5 people who visit it for minor issues, perhaps you could save one person from more severe complications or even death, which could cost society even more in the long run - think about long term disability.
Can we make the same argument for road traffic? Yes - for outer suburbs which are poorly connected - dirt roads, or even single lane roads with no road lighting like the one I live in - upgrading the roads can improve the lives of the people living there, giving us better access to education, jobs, healthcare, etc. You just have to balance the positives and the negatives.
But if we're talking about a metro area 4 lane highway in two directions being upgraded to 5 lanes each way at the cost of $2 billion? That's a pretty terrible use of funds and induced demand will just mean the 5 lane highway will end up congested after a few years and you're back to square one.
posted by xdvesper at 7:12 PM on January 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
If you lower the cost will consumption increase? Yes, for both hospitals and roads. So I'm not sure why you say "induced demand is a ridiculous concept" - it's not controversial that it exists.
You seem to be confused as to why road traffic is treated differently to healthcare? Obviously, it's because every additional car ride literally destroys the environment by emitting CO2 and poisons the local atmosphere with toxins. While there's no negative negative externality involved in providing more healthcare.
Again, I don't see how any of this is controversial.
As a side note, since healthcare is cheap, I've visited the ED for relatively minor issues - chest pain, which turned out to be nothing, and an infection, which wouldn't really have killed me to wait until I saw a GP in the morning, but getting the antibiotics into me 12 hours earlier would be better. If visiting the ED cost $5000, yeah, I wouldn't have gone. So this is induced demand, but for every 5 people who visit it for minor issues, perhaps you could save one person from more severe complications or even death, which could cost society even more in the long run - think about long term disability.
Can we make the same argument for road traffic? Yes - for outer suburbs which are poorly connected - dirt roads, or even single lane roads with no road lighting like the one I live in - upgrading the roads can improve the lives of the people living there, giving us better access to education, jobs, healthcare, etc. You just have to balance the positives and the negatives.
But if we're talking about a metro area 4 lane highway in two directions being upgraded to 5 lanes each way at the cost of $2 billion? That's a pretty terrible use of funds and induced demand will just mean the 5 lane highway will end up congested after a few years and you're back to square one.
posted by xdvesper at 7:12 PM on January 18, 2023 [11 favorites]
This is my favorite because I'm never in a car ride longer than 15 minutes (it's a running joke that everything in my city is 15 minutes from everything else), but if I took the bus I'd have the time to watch the video three times in a row. I would love love love if that weren't the case though!!
I, too, once lived in a good location in a medium sized city. The obnoxious noise was still there, but traffic wasn't really an issue for me. Adding car lanes was viable to solve most of the congestion issues that existed because the issues were mainly caused by bottlenecks and the place was growing slowly. The bus system was nearly worthless, but the city did invest in at least having a minimum viable cycling infrastructure in most of the places that mattered. They were also working hard on reversing the trend of hollowing out the walkable areas of the city in favor of car storage.
Larger cities are an entirely different story. There's no room for more cars and still having a viable city left, yet they continue to increase in population.
posted by wierdo at 7:13 PM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
I, too, once lived in a good location in a medium sized city. The obnoxious noise was still there, but traffic wasn't really an issue for me. Adding car lanes was viable to solve most of the congestion issues that existed because the issues were mainly caused by bottlenecks and the place was growing slowly. The bus system was nearly worthless, but the city did invest in at least having a minimum viable cycling infrastructure in most of the places that mattered. They were also working hard on reversing the trend of hollowing out the walkable areas of the city in favor of car storage.
Larger cities are an entirely different story. There's no room for more cars and still having a viable city left, yet they continue to increase in population.
posted by wierdo at 7:13 PM on January 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is reminding me of the Kellog's worker strike, and how a boycott would be ableism, because some people can only eat one brand of cereal.
No change to the status-quo allowed.
posted by Iax at 7:59 PM on January 18, 2023 [4 favorites]
No change to the status-quo allowed.
posted by Iax at 7:59 PM on January 18, 2023 [4 favorites]
Back to the topic of the article, which is motornormativity. Notice anything usual about the term "traffic evaporation" (which I think is a great concept and practice, by the way)? Yep! There it is! What kind of traffic is the term normalizing? Motor vehicles!
Other motornormative language examples of the top of my head: parking, parking lots (I'd like to see "car parks" replace parking lots - it's already used in some Englishes), traffic, traffic jams. I'm sure there's a bunch more.
posted by aniola at 9:49 PM on January 18, 2023 [4 favorites]
Other motornormative language examples of the top of my head: parking, parking lots (I'd like to see "car parks" replace parking lots - it's already used in some Englishes), traffic, traffic jams. I'm sure there's a bunch more.
posted by aniola at 9:49 PM on January 18, 2023 [4 favorites]
- Examples of other types of parking - bike parking, benches
- This is also a parking lot (link goes to image of OHSU bike parking with hundreds of bikes parked)
- Anyone who is traveling is traffic
- This is also a traffic jam (link goes to image of crowded NYC sidewalk)
posted by aniola at 9:56 PM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
- This is also a parking lot (link goes to image of OHSU bike parking with hundreds of bikes parked)
- Anyone who is traveling is traffic
- This is also a traffic jam (link goes to image of crowded NYC sidewalk)
posted by aniola at 9:56 PM on January 18, 2023 [2 favorites]
arguing by analogy & going "if you change out one concept for another, one statement sounds like a different, much worse statement".
Hmm, why does that sound familiar?
posted by overglow at 12:49 AM on January 19, 2023
Hmm, why does that sound familiar?
posted by overglow at 12:49 AM on January 19, 2023
Mod note: Galvanic, it’s time to take a break from this thread.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 5:15 PM on January 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 5:15 PM on January 19, 2023 [2 favorites]
Galvanic did have a bit of a point worth engaging with, had they been using it properly. Demand is indeed telling us something, but it often isn't what it seems and even when it is, it isn't necessarily the right course of action to slavishly satiate demand by creating more of the same thing.
To use their healthcare example, demand for ERs might exceed capacity. We could just build more ERs, but that's terribly expensive. We should be certain that the demand for ER capacity is actually due to emergencies and not because people just want to be able to see a doctor without an appointment or on short notice for non-emergent conditions. Or it may be because of a lack of primary care availability. In either of the latter two cases, we can serve more people and get better health outcomes by spending the money on urgent care facilities or on training more family doctors.
Similarly, if demand for cars goes through the roof because people need to haul more stuff than can fit in one, the better solution than having people buy two or three cars and pay other people to drive the extras for them in a convoy is to make trucks.
In the case of induced demand, we are being shown that there is unmet demand for transportation. The best way to meet that demand may be to build more lanes, but it might also be to build a rail line or otherwise improve transit. The existence of unmet demand is important information, but you can't view it uncritically if you want to solve the underlying problem. Sometimes you just do the thing, sometimes you do something else that serves the same or similar purpose, and sometimes it's best to just do nothing and make people figure it out because the demand is for something unacceptably harmful or impossible to give. There's a lot of demand for air travel directly to Manhattan, but nobody thinks it's worth bulldozing half the island to put in an airport large enough to satiate that demand.
posted by wierdo at 12:58 AM on January 20, 2023 [12 favorites]
To use their healthcare example, demand for ERs might exceed capacity. We could just build more ERs, but that's terribly expensive. We should be certain that the demand for ER capacity is actually due to emergencies and not because people just want to be able to see a doctor without an appointment or on short notice for non-emergent conditions. Or it may be because of a lack of primary care availability. In either of the latter two cases, we can serve more people and get better health outcomes by spending the money on urgent care facilities or on training more family doctors.
Similarly, if demand for cars goes through the roof because people need to haul more stuff than can fit in one, the better solution than having people buy two or three cars and pay other people to drive the extras for them in a convoy is to make trucks.
In the case of induced demand, we are being shown that there is unmet demand for transportation. The best way to meet that demand may be to build more lanes, but it might also be to build a rail line or otherwise improve transit. The existence of unmet demand is important information, but you can't view it uncritically if you want to solve the underlying problem. Sometimes you just do the thing, sometimes you do something else that serves the same or similar purpose, and sometimes it's best to just do nothing and make people figure it out because the demand is for something unacceptably harmful or impossible to give. There's a lot of demand for air travel directly to Manhattan, but nobody thinks it's worth bulldozing half the island to put in an airport large enough to satiate that demand.
posted by wierdo at 12:58 AM on January 20, 2023 [12 favorites]
Almost every single parent will at least yell abusively at their children to install fear of cars in them. Many engage in corporeal punishment, smacking and/or violently yanking their children 'just in this one particular case' because instilling car terror is seen as the key to a child's survival in this world we've made. A modern developmental stage that's required before any kind of even extremely limited independence is allowed is learning how to navigate the murderways as safely as possible. These beliefs and norms are so pervasive we don't even really notice how insane they are.
That's motornormativity.
posted by srboisvert at 3:47 AM on January 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
That's motornormativity.
posted by srboisvert at 3:47 AM on January 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
In the case of induced demand, we are being shown that there is unmet demand for transportation
We shouldn’t even assume that! Maybe we’ve built our cities so people who don’t want to drive have to drive - the demand for groceries or schools etc isn’t the same as a demand for transportation.
Which is related to the highrises vs Barcelona question, sort of - centralizing consumers is more efficient if production is also centralized, but maybe we shouldn’t be centralizing either of them so much.
posted by clew at 9:49 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
We shouldn’t even assume that! Maybe we’ve built our cities so people who don’t want to drive have to drive - the demand for groceries or schools etc isn’t the same as a demand for transportation.
Which is related to the highrises vs Barcelona question, sort of - centralizing consumers is more efficient if production is also centralized, but maybe we shouldn’t be centralizing either of them so much.
posted by clew at 9:49 AM on January 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Complaining that some technical terminology in one discipline is abstruse and doesn’t mean what you expected it to mean is one thing.
Saying that the entire discipline should change their technical terminology based on your amateur interpretation is quite the flex, however.
posted by eviemath at 3:33 PM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
Saying that the entire discipline should change their technical terminology based on your amateur interpretation is quite the flex, however.
posted by eviemath at 3:33 PM on January 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have little to add to this thread except to repeat/paraphrase a comment from someone else (it was three scrolls or 50 "induced demands" ago).
If the article didnt persuade you Motornormativity is a thing, just check out the comments.
I car and ebike, mixing different forms of transit on the same system creates rage. Don't walk on train tracks, don't ride on sidewalk, don't bike in the lane, etc
Car lovers, like dog lovers and gun lovers can't admit that the object of their love has important consequences for other people and that their identify and love is a reason but not a justification for harming others.
Everytime you say "but what about the widowed orphan that is allergic to everything but cars and has to have a car to save the world with their non-negotiable 1000 mile commute through a tunnel too small for a bus but also too steep for a bike and its a car shaped tunnel and the tunnel needs cars to live too and guys this is serious"
Well, an angel get's their wings.
It all reminds me of the "i couldnt possibly not fly for vacation" or " unlimited hamburgers is the very meaning of freedom" or "i can't breath unless I cough directly into the mouth of a cancer patient and masks are diapers" things that come up everytime some people want to propose that there be less harm in the world.
So motornormativity is a subset of acquire antisocial psychopathy. The only cure is more cow-bell.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 11:50 PM on January 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
If the article didnt persuade you Motornormativity is a thing, just check out the comments.
I car and ebike, mixing different forms of transit on the same system creates rage. Don't walk on train tracks, don't ride on sidewalk, don't bike in the lane, etc
Car lovers, like dog lovers and gun lovers can't admit that the object of their love has important consequences for other people and that their identify and love is a reason but not a justification for harming others.
Everytime you say "but what about the widowed orphan that is allergic to everything but cars and has to have a car to save the world with their non-negotiable 1000 mile commute through a tunnel too small for a bus but also too steep for a bike and its a car shaped tunnel and the tunnel needs cars to live too and guys this is serious"
Well, an angel get's their wings.
It all reminds me of the "i couldnt possibly not fly for vacation" or " unlimited hamburgers is the very meaning of freedom" or "i can't breath unless I cough directly into the mouth of a cancer patient and masks are diapers" things that come up everytime some people want to propose that there be less harm in the world.
So motornormativity is a subset of acquire antisocial psychopathy. The only cure is more cow-bell.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 11:50 PM on January 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
“The Indignity of Automobile Dependence,” Alex Pareene, The AP (Alex Pareene) Newsletter, 10 May 2022
posted by ob1quixote at 7:47 AM on January 22, 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 7:47 AM on January 22, 2023
Most people drive and their experience is that breaking the rules a little bit (e.g. speed limits, parking) does not result in a bad outcome for anybody (granted, this perception is skewed because they haven't been killed in a traffic accident yet).
Most people are not chefs and are not entirely certain that fucker back there isn't pissing in the soup when nobody's watching.
each day we work, tell that cognitive distortion above to my coworker who got hit by a delivery truck the other day on a calm residential street. He decided to pull a quick illegal U-turn to make his day easier, didn't think of the possibility that a pedestrian or cyclist might be also using the road. He knocked her off her bike WITH HIS TRUCK and then drove away. She's lucky she didn't get severely injured or killed.
As a cyclist and transit-user, my personal experience of drivers "breaking a few health and safety rules" is that they almost injure, maim, or murder me on a daily basis just to get somewhere a minute or two faster. They therefore restrict the places I can travel and make it increasingly difficult for me to get around my "bike-friendly" American city as a disabled person who relies on a bicycle and transit instead of car for a whole laundry list of reasons.
Your claim is that people's experience is they like speeding and don't notice that they might almost be killing another human being or forcing them to not use public space, so it's fine, whereas they *really* don't like the idea that a chef might make them sick.
This is the very definition of motornormativity. The entitlement and lack of regard for the value of other human lives is mind-boggling.
posted by cnidaria at 10:04 AM on January 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
Most people are not chefs and are not entirely certain that fucker back there isn't pissing in the soup when nobody's watching.
each day we work, tell that cognitive distortion above to my coworker who got hit by a delivery truck the other day on a calm residential street. He decided to pull a quick illegal U-turn to make his day easier, didn't think of the possibility that a pedestrian or cyclist might be also using the road. He knocked her off her bike WITH HIS TRUCK and then drove away. She's lucky she didn't get severely injured or killed.
As a cyclist and transit-user, my personal experience of drivers "breaking a few health and safety rules" is that they almost injure, maim, or murder me on a daily basis just to get somewhere a minute or two faster. They therefore restrict the places I can travel and make it increasingly difficult for me to get around my "bike-friendly" American city as a disabled person who relies on a bicycle and transit instead of car for a whole laundry list of reasons.
Your claim is that people's experience is they like speeding and don't notice that they might almost be killing another human being or forcing them to not use public space, so it's fine, whereas they *really* don't like the idea that a chef might make them sick.
This is the very definition of motornormativity. The entitlement and lack of regard for the value of other human lives is mind-boggling.
posted by cnidaria at 10:04 AM on January 22, 2023 [10 favorites]
One apt framework for describing the wild claims I'm seeing in this thread about breaking traffic rules as a driver ("well, I haven't killed anybody yet!) is normalization of deviance.
posted by cnidaria at 10:21 AM on January 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by cnidaria at 10:21 AM on January 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
you can't build your way out of congestion in cities. This isn't controversial, being backed up by at least 50 years of experience.
Barring a few tourist light rails in cities like Denver it pretty much seems like we’re sprawling suburbs out in every direction. I guess that’s what you mean? Public transportation in Chicago, NY, Boston and DC sort of exists and nearly everywhere else is an underfunded afterthought. Since BART’s half-assed implementation in the SF Bay it seems like attempts to reduce congestion just mean more suburbs and wider freeways.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:52 AM on January 24, 2023
Barring a few tourist light rails in cities like Denver it pretty much seems like we’re sprawling suburbs out in every direction. I guess that’s what you mean? Public transportation in Chicago, NY, Boston and DC sort of exists and nearly everywhere else is an underfunded afterthought. Since BART’s half-assed implementation in the SF Bay it seems like attempts to reduce congestion just mean more suburbs and wider freeways.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:52 AM on January 24, 2023
As a partial tech fix, we could've deeply subsidized bike helmets with built-in 360° cameras. Ideally, these 360° cameras should've some button that uploads the previous 5 min and next 1 min (and also upload on falls), but already the rare-ish cyclists' helmet cameras have resulted prosecutions for "close passes" by cars.
It'd pay off the subsidy really fast assuming fines were enforced. I suppose the helmet maker could provide the subsidy itself, and advise in prosecuting motorists, in exchange for some of the fines. At least in the UK they give drivers 3-9 points out of 12 for passing cyclists closer than 1.5m (5 ft), so just a couple offenses disqualifies drivers. A bunch of £1000 to £1,800 ($2000) fines made the UK news too.
Around fines, moving violation fines remain way too low in the US. We've fines linked to income in Finland and Switzerland, which really should be the law everywhere, along with some substantial minimum fine if you don't earn much of course. It appears 22 km/h (13mph) over the limit in a 50 km/h (31 mph) zone costs like 0.83 % of your yearly income in Finland. And $1 million is the current record holder for a traffic fine, set by someone in Switzerland.
I'd much prefer if private cars just disappeared of course, but aggressive enforcement did curb drunk driving, so if enough people loses their drivers license, and enough of their income, due to passing cyclists too closely etc then eventually they'll cut back.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:15 AM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
It'd pay off the subsidy really fast assuming fines were enforced. I suppose the helmet maker could provide the subsidy itself, and advise in prosecuting motorists, in exchange for some of the fines. At least in the UK they give drivers 3-9 points out of 12 for passing cyclists closer than 1.5m (5 ft), so just a couple offenses disqualifies drivers. A bunch of £1000 to £1,800 ($2000) fines made the UK news too.
Around fines, moving violation fines remain way too low in the US. We've fines linked to income in Finland and Switzerland, which really should be the law everywhere, along with some substantial minimum fine if you don't earn much of course. It appears 22 km/h (13mph) over the limit in a 50 km/h (31 mph) zone costs like 0.83 % of your yearly income in Finland. And $1 million is the current record holder for a traffic fine, set by someone in Switzerland.
I'd much prefer if private cars just disappeared of course, but aggressive enforcement did curb drunk driving, so if enough people loses their drivers license, and enough of their income, due to passing cyclists too closely etc then eventually they'll cut back.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:15 AM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
We should penalize drivers more based upon their vehicle choices too, so less visibility means higher fines.
"Frontover fatalities (where drivers accidentally run over small children) have increased 3,800% in the last 30 years in the US"
posted by jeffburdges at 8:26 AM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
"Frontover fatalities (where drivers accidentally run over small children) have increased 3,800% in the last 30 years in the US"
posted by jeffburdges at 8:26 AM on February 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Around size, there is a bug/loophole in CAFE regulations where larger vehicles have less ambitious fuel-economy targets, so we really need direct fuel economy incentives, like making larger vehicles pay more per km/mile driven.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:17 AM on February 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 9:17 AM on February 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Those vehicle size loopholes exist because both political parties have a consensus that business owners should in no way ever be inconvenienced. You see it over and over again in local minimum wage legislation where they exempt all medium to small businesses that make up something like 90% of all minimum wage jobs (and quite routinely engage in wage theft). The United States had a revolution to be free of one tyrant and replaced them with millions of petty tyrants that we call small to medium business owners.
posted by srboisvert at 1:09 PM on February 6, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 1:09 PM on February 6, 2023 [6 favorites]
This video from Strong Towns covers one city's experience with eliminating parking minimums in one part of the city. It has not by any means changed things overnight, but it has allowed for some progress.
Fayetteville is actually a super interesting place to look at if you're interested in the effects of zoning and changing standards for roads on walkability and the ease of cycling. When I lived in town during high school I felt very comfortable walking and biking and riding a moped around on streets with pretty much zero infrastructure, in many cases without even sidewalks in the older part of town. Narrow streets with poor sightlines meant people drove reasonably slowly and were on alert for people/animals/things in the road. In more recently developed areas it was a completely different story.
Sure, you're probably less likely to crash your car into a ditch or a tree or whatever, but that safety for drivers comes with a dramatic decrease in safety for everyone else and a much higher likelihood of any crash that does happen involving severe or even fatal injury to vehicle occupants due to the higher speeds that drivers feel comfortable with. Fewer crashes, but more severe when they do happen both in terms of injury and financial loss. Run off the road and hit a tree at 15 mph, it's probably fixable. Same thing happens at 35 or 40 and it's toast.
posted by wierdo at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Fayetteville is actually a super interesting place to look at if you're interested in the effects of zoning and changing standards for roads on walkability and the ease of cycling. When I lived in town during high school I felt very comfortable walking and biking and riding a moped around on streets with pretty much zero infrastructure, in many cases without even sidewalks in the older part of town. Narrow streets with poor sightlines meant people drove reasonably slowly and were on alert for people/animals/things in the road. In more recently developed areas it was a completely different story.
Sure, you're probably less likely to crash your car into a ditch or a tree or whatever, but that safety for drivers comes with a dramatic decrease in safety for everyone else and a much higher likelihood of any crash that does happen involving severe or even fatal injury to vehicle occupants due to the higher speeds that drivers feel comfortable with. Fewer crashes, but more severe when they do happen both in terms of injury and financial loss. Run off the road and hit a tree at 15 mph, it's probably fixable. Same thing happens at 35 or 40 and it's toast.
posted by wierdo at 7:22 AM on February 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Relevant to this discussion: American Cars Are Getting Too Big For Parking Spaces. Particularly the closing paragraph:
It’s easy to imagine the backlash that may ensue from any effort to charge people with large vehicles more for parking, even though the suggestion that people who use more of something should pay more than people who use less is one of the most basic tenets of economic theory and the basis of capitalism. But now, everything with a hint of stifling Traditional American Values is part of the culture wars. And, somehow, big cars have become part of that worldview. But there is nothing traditional about huge cars. The evidence is all around us. Just look down.posted by gentlyepigrams at 12:41 PM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
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The questions are not asking "exactly the same things". In each case, the driving question is completely different from the non-driving version. For example, "Risk is a natural part of driving" is a completely different kind of statement to "Risk is a natural part of working". I don't think these results prove anything at all, and it's a huge leap to say they're demonstrating unconscious biases of any kind. If anything, I suspect these results are part of a wider study investigating audience credulity on Twitter or something – the extent to which if you declare you have evidence that show x, people assume that that is what your evidence shows.
posted by cincinnatus c at 9:09 AM on January 17, 2023 [32 favorites]