The number 1 easiest way to convince carbrains to support non-car-centric transportation infrastructure (in my experience)
The number 1 easiest way to convince carbrains to support non-car-centric transportation infrastructure (in my experience)
"Giving people more viable alternatives to driving means more people will choose not to drive, so there will be fewer cars on the road, reducing traffic for drivers."
Concise, easy to understand, and accurate. I have used it at least a dozen times and it is remarkable how well it works.
Also—
"A bus is about twice as long as a car so it only needs to have four to six passengers on board to be more efficient than two cars."
You can use the same logic to also argue that finding a parking spot will be easier. And if more people cycle there is more demand for separated bicycle lanes, which means drivers don't need to share the lane anymore with others.
Also, if the car park is smaller due to fewer people driving, it means it will be easier to remember where you parked your car, and you won't have to walk as far to the destination. It also means you can fit more stuff in the same space, so you won't have to drive as far to get to the places you want to go, saving you time and fuel!
These arguments are won and lost on the phrasing.
and you won’t have to walk as far to the destination
I enjoy the parking lot walk
Yeah but how does it not boil down to "don't drive, then you'll park easy" in an argument?
Someone can logically agree to something but emotionally still hate it.
Logically, car drivers should understand and appreciate the zipper merge, bc it makes traffic better. But emotionally it's too difficult for them to let someone in ahead of them.
Same thing you can explain about alternatives to cars making traffic better. But when they see money or (God forbid) space on the road going to infrastructure other than cars, it will feel like a zero sum game again.
That is the biggest challenge I've experienced in trying to promote alternatives
Opposition to the zipper merge might be a regional thing. Where I'm from, people can zipper merge just fine, especially after the state transportation agency put up a bunch of billboards telling people to do it.
Lmao no cars around here will still form miles long line ups because they all think it's an asshole move to skip the traffic, somehow not realizing that it wouldn't be possible to do that if they just utilized both lanes until the merge.
I've found that a lot of people see the use of public transport as horrors beyond comprehension, and think cycling would kill them instantly.
But that's fine, no need to convince them to use mass transit.
The approach is to improve infrastructure - good buses, frequent routes, dedicated bus lanes, trains to feed from the suburbs, subway, etc.
Make it more convenient to use, and people will start using it. But you need to stop designing everything around cars, like every single store can't be a cube in the middle of a huge parking lot...
People get weirdly anti social about public transit. Like, "I don't want to have to be around other people!!"
Sometimes it's racism. Sometimes it's just... anti social.
Personally I think anti-social people can go leave society, and the rest of us can build a better, more cooperative world.
No need to call people who are not overly extrovert "anti-social".
Personally I think anti-social people can go leave society, and the rest of us can build a better, more cooperative world.
Ah yes... put all the anti-social people into their own society. I'll call it a "suburb". We won't regret making car dependent suburbs.
I would bet a lot of that is unfamiliarity. “I don’t know where the route is or how to get to the bus or what the schedule is or how long I have to wait or whether I’ll be able to get home at a reasonable time or how I can pay. “
Some of this is part of infrastructure. Yes, in the US buses are unpredictable, always seem delayed, and it’s tough to figure out where they go. Yes there aren’t very many and service can end early, and schedules tend not to be posted. Sometimes the payment system is one that rare riders won’t be familiar with.
At least some of the time subways are a “more acceptable” form of transit and I believe it’s the predictability, better signage, you can spend time figuring out the fare machine without being on the spot for delaying the transit. Subways even have the reputation of running more frequently than buses. These are all things bus transit could have too
For me, even being familiar with transit near me, it was much easier when I rode often enough to get a monthly pass rather than deal with fare paying
I’ve found that a lot of people see the use of public transport as horrors beyond comprehension,
Depending on where you are, this can be just an accurate observation.
That seems to be highly dependent on where they are.
In some cities, everyone on public transport behaves themselves. They're clean and there's no fear that they'll be harassed or assaulted. Some people really like that and get afraid or skeeved when they think about some public transport systems.
In other cities public transportation riders are expected to "live and let live". Officials won't stop you from doing anything unless it presents an imminent danger. Some people love the freedom from that sort of system and hate the idea of someone forcing them to behave a certain way.
There are, of course, many reasons why certain public transport systems are more like one than the other; money, age, geography, preferences, etc. While there are great arguments for public transportation and I'm a huge fan of improving the infrastructure around it, I can also recognize that a lot of people's actual experience of public transport doesn't paint it in a good light.
"A bus is only helpful when it actually runs regularly. And by 'regularly' I don't mean one each morning and another one each afternoon".
I absolutely agree.
But if mass transit had the same investment as road infrastructure gets, it'd be a slam dunk.
somehow even turborural areas here in sweden can manage it, so there's no reason other places can't do the same.
the crucial thing is that you don't have to run public transport literally everywhere, just run robust services between population centres (as many ones as you can manage) and build infrastructure such that people can get to the closest stop and transfer onto the public transport there.
I don't know what it's like in other places but I tend to find that in cities with an actual dedicated serious transportation agency, busses run every hour at minimum. Even regional busses in the small city where I attended university ran 6-8 times a day per line for three very similar routes. Local busses ran every 20-40 minutes depending on time of day. That's shocking good for a city of 50,000 in America.
Im actually surprised how well I am able to get to the city from my village. If I drive 3km with my bike to the next village I am able to get to the city every 30 Minutes.
If I drive 20 miles I can pay $10 to park in a lot where my car is guaranteed to be broken into 3 times a year so I can pay $8 to take a bus for the last 3 miles. And it only adds 60 minutes to my commute each way, provided I catch the bus!
Not everyone lives in Europe where cities were located and developed prior to cars and where being outside for 10 minutes isn't lethaly dangerous in the summers for a significant percentage of the population.
You're coming at this from a perspective that suggests people should have alternatives to cars, or maybe even that people deserve alternatives to cars. And that's fundamentally not how a shocking number of people think. Heaven help you if you suggest things like low cost fares for the poor or even free access to public transit.
Most people I have found care relatively little about the topic. They drive and think in terms of driving only because that is the context they have been exposed to their entire lives, and there's not really their fault.
If someone really is that deep into the rabbit hole then nothing you say will change their mind, so don't waste your time.
One of my coworkers believes bicycles cause car congestion. All car congestion, even the stuff on highways.
A lot of people choose not to live in the city with good transit because housing is too expensive, so they live in the 'burbs. All that extra money means they can get a fancy new car lease. They drive into the city and because cars are allowed everywhere 24/7 there is no reason for them to look for alternatives in high traffic zones.
That’s the old way. There’s no real difference in pricing now until you move into the exurbs. For more and more people it’s better to pay a bit more and not have to commute while having easy access to the city’s amenities.
I don't understand why people are so married to the thought of driving to and from work every day. You just worked 9 hours, and you want to drive through rush hour?
Yea, I have been lucky to get an appartement near my place of work, only 5 min by tram. And I cant imagine having to spend in total 1-2 hours driving to and from work every day. It feels like such an incredible waste of time, when the only thing you can do is listen to music/radio/podcasts. I want to read, play my steam deck or just work on my laptop.I dont want to fight with traffic and havong to concentrate on not killing myself with the tons of metal with which Im urgently rushing around with.
So you don't have to work, and therefore no need to commute? Lucky you. Normal people still have to work for a living.
As a car guy myself (barely), I think it's crazy that people are against mass transit.
Trains, teams, and busses are better by every conceivable metric, if your departure and destination is within like 20km of city outskirts. That's almost all traffic. If govts and people invested as much into mass transit as they do into roads, it'd be a no brainer. So much faster, and safer, and more convenient.
Let cars just be for rural folks and hobbyists.
Usable mass transit 20km from the city? Now that would be nice. But it is still science fiction for most people. Today you are lucky if you have working mass transit just inside the city limits.
I do "cars should not be the default". It seems to resonate with people.
Assuming that they're thinking about it logically, not as an identity issue. If they're not, the double-think is incredible. My city is about to launch an BR(ish)T transit system, and some of the NextDoor comments are wild. One woman is convinced:
- The BRT platforms in the median are dangerous because they'll get too crowded for everybody to stand inside; and
- BRT will be a failure because nobody will ride it.
In my experience, carbrains usually think that nobody will use the alternatives at all, so it's just a waste of space and money that could be spent on cars, and that traffic congestion is the result of corrupt politicians pocketing all the tax money that could magically fix it in some unspecified way.
A bus is about twice as long as a car
???? You've either got tiny buses or are driving stretch limos
Probably an American posting.
The buses around here are 40 feet long. A Toyota Camry is 16 feet long; a Chevrolet Silverado 1500 is just over 19 feet long. Add in 4 feet of buffer distance when stopped, and the bus is longer than 2 Camrys, but shorter than 2 Silverados. Take the average of cars on the road, and it's legit to say that a bus is about twice as long as a car.
Y'all either circle jerk on hating cars/car culture or try to meaningfully convince people to move away from car culture. This community will never convince "carbrains" in its current state. Accept that and have fun circle jerkin' or pivot and try to change minds.
Asking "why doesn't this group we actively shit on supporting our thought process?" or "how do we get them to change/agree?" is silly.
Welcome to social media, not sure where you've been all this time lol
Like you are going to have a choice? Economically, we can't continue down the road of a car dependent society.
Oh the car companies know. They're helpfully starting up subscription services for cars. And when cars go self-driving they're going to make the subscription a rideshare like service. Coming full circle back to the trolley cars they killed.
But it's so satisfying.
I want a "Carbrain" bumper sticker...
Your argument doesn't work to make anyone stop driving cars, though. It just makes them pro non-car in the sense of freeing up traffic so they can drive their car quicker. It doesn't make themselves take anything besides their car.
You don't need to convince anyone. People will convince themselves if they are given the appropriate environment. This is about convincing them to support the construction of that environment.
Think about New York. It's subject to the same cultural influences as the rest of the US but public transportation use remains high because the infrastructure is good and competitive with driving.
Honestly, if this gets people to advocate for me effective public transit so I can take it, I am fine with that.
People are stupid and biased towards the current state of things. Even if they support you now so they can drive their car better, if there's a good bus route or whatever in five years they'll probably use it.
Tried it doesn't always work
I think that actual, legitimate carbrains (me, self-defined driving enthusiast) are such a small demographic that their opinion doesn't matter.
I think there are many, many more people that don't give a shit about driving but do it out of necessity."Carbrain" refers to a person who believes that driving and personal transportation as synonymous and thinks accordingly when deciding to support or oppose transportation infrastructure and urban planning projects.
Maybe don't make up names to call us, that would help us listen to you a bit.
Maybe don’t identify with the demographic the term applies to since it’s entirely by choice and such a stupid thing to base your identity around.
As a carbrain myself, I like the name. I would enjoy the irony of a bumper sticker with it.
On topic though, I can't imagine a valid argument AGAINST better public transportation. Everything about it would make us carbrains' driving experience safer and just...better.
🙄
This community is "fuck cars". If people can't be a little mean about cars and their lovers here, where?
“A bus is about twice as long as a car so it only needs to have four to six passengers on board to be more efficient than two cars.”
Sure, except where 1 bus causes a traffic jam, where 3 cars don't.
And how exactly does that work then smartass? 3 cars are imo more likely to cause a jam than a bus.
Unfortunately they put giant protected bike lanes in my city that prevents the bus from pulling out of the lane when it has to stop. It's an absolute 🤡 show.
When the bus driver decides he can run on a yellow light to turn right (left side drive country), when there is not enough space to keep that length of a vehicle in the target road.
If it were 3 cars, 2 would go and fit in 1 lane each of the target road and the third would show some understanding and wait for the next green.
You expected a high effort answer with a diagram? Sorry. You decided to *ass me. Now read what's above and visualise it yourself.