Do away with cars

[Tyr]

Cars suck.
I hate cars.
They have their uses sure but the way short sighted idiots destroyed the world in the 20th century in order remould it to be more car friendly...simply criminal stuff.

So. A challenge.
How can we make it so that automobiles (no technicalities by making everyone go around on motorbikes please) simply never become a big deal?
They can still exist of course. But they should be kept in a position where they're regarded in the way they were in the 20s; generally just toys for the rich or for people who needed them for business, used only for local travel.

 

[Mike Stearns]

You probably can't totally do away with cars, but considering the average pattern of usage is that they get driven to work/school and then sit in the parking for 6 to 8 hours, it should definitely be possible to come up with a more effecient way to use them, which might very well mean building a lot less of them in process.

 

[CalBear]

Make everyone poor.

Poor, grinding poverty poor. If you are struggling to get enough food to survive a Chevy is not in your future. Traffic jams are not common in the poorest countries.

As an alternative come up with a POD that allows the Soviets to dominate more of the world. Cars were an almost unimaginable luxury for the average Soviet citizen, still are for the residents of the DPRK. Possession of one was/is a clear status marker.

The reality is that automobiles are such a convenience that without some level of either grinding poverty or serious government intervention they will proliferate.

 

[Tyr]

Make everyone poor.

Poor, grinding poverty poor. If you are struggling to get enough food to survive a Chevy is not in your future. Traffic jams are not common in the poorest countries.

As an alternative come up with a POD that allows the Soviets to dominate more of the world. Cars were an almost unimaginable luxury for the average Soviet citizen, still are for the residents of the DPRK. Possession of one was/is a clear status marker.

The reality is that automobiles are such a convenience that without some level of either grinding poverty or serious government intervention they will proliferate.

Or less government intervention.
All that road building did a huge amount to encourage their uptake

 

[Apollo 20]

Cars suck.
I hate cars.
They have their uses sure but the way short sighted idiots destroyed the world in the 20th century in order remould it to be more car friendly...simply criminal stuff.

So. A challenge.
How can we make it so that automobiles (no technicalities by making everyone go around on motorbikes please) simply never become a big deal?
They can still exist of course. But they should be kept in a position where they're regarded in the way they were in the 20s; generally just toys for the rich or for people who needed them for business, used only for local travel.

By the 1920s, cars had become a mass consumer product, at least in the US. The Ford Model T ended production in 1927 with some 15 million units produced. Production started in 1908.

In the US, at least, getting rid of the car altogether is really difficult to imagine. For those who lived in rural areas, cars were a quantum leap forward in mobility and even in large cities they removed from the landscape the massive amounts of horse manure that previously existed. If you think air pollution from cars is bad, imagine huge piles of horse manure everywhere in a densely built city...

Perhaps a more realistic approach is that they become a big deal and then gradually go away as public transportation options become better, at least in cities. To some extent, this is happening today with services like Uber and a millennial generation that is much less car crazy than generations past. Still, though, in most parts of the US, a car is not a luxury, it's a necessity.

 

[marathag]

Cars suck.

How can we make it so that automobiles (no technicalities by making everyone go around on motorbikes please) simply never become a big deal?
They can still exist of course. But they should be kept in a position where they're regarded in the way they were in the 20s; generally just toys for the rich or for people who needed them for business, used only for local travel.

Motorcycles suck in Minnesota for much of the year.

When it is nice, you still can't take the Missus and the rest of the Nuclear Family on the annual vacation on a motorbike.

Cars exist for the same reason that there were wagons and buggies along with horses.

 

[PhilKearny]

You would really need a point of departure well before the 1920s. Really, you would need one prior to the 20th century.

As CalBear pointed out, cars are convenient--particularly in rural areas. Henry Ford saw the Model T as a way of aiding the farmer and liberating the farmer from the farm.

Thus I think to stop the rise of the automobile you need to have an alternative. This probably require a much better rail net. Perhaps some improvements in streetcars with electric traction. Precursor advances in electrical power generation and transmission might make this possible.

A greater light rail system would reduce the demand for cars. The earlier growth of the electrical generation and transmission industries might funnel resources--including human capital--in this direction and away from the individual vehicles, further slowing the development of internal combustion automobiles.

As far as roads, the bicyclists drove the good roads movement long before motorists. Much of the automobile industry (and aeronautical industry--Wright Bros, for example) was driven by the technology developed by the bicycle industry.

 

[marathag]

Or less government intervention.
All that road building did a huge amount to encourage their uptake

Before WWI, it was common or a section of paved or surfaced road to be built, up to a Mile long.

People liked the idea of being out of the mud.

One of the reasons to have Governments is to improve infrastructure.

Roads are infrastructure.

You think Politicians are stupid?
Of course they will approve funds for roadways.

They were popular, and more important, not owned by railroad companies, who were pretty much hated across the board

 

[marathag]

By the 1920s, cars had become a mass consumer product, at least in the US. The Ford Model T ended production in 1927 with some 15 million units produced. Production started in 1908.

First year of Ford, after he left Cadillac to form FMC

Production Figures for 1903
Oldsmobile 4000
Cadillac 2497
Ford 1708
Pope-Hartford 1500
Rambler 1350
Winton 850
White 502
Knox 500

Top of the list was the Curved Dash, by Ransom E Olds. The first Mass Produced Auto.

Sold for $650 dollars, weighed 650 pounds Yes, that was the ad campaign, 'Dollar a Pound'

and had a massive 7 horsepower engine under the seat could take you to the unheard of speeds of 25 mph, not that many roads would allow it.

 

[matashowski]

IRRC, cars were sort of forced on people rather than becoming required naturally. A bunch of buisnessmen (various heads of rubber, petrolum, so on) got together and bought up the (quite popular) public transport systems and ripped them up. Read this ages ago, so sorry for no source.

 

[marathag]

IRRC, cars were sort of forced on people rather than becoming required naturally. A bunch of buisnessmen (various heads of rubber, petrolum, so on) got together and bought up the (quite popular) public transport systems and ripped them up. Read this ages ago, so sorry for no source.

Those trolley lines had been losing money (and ridership) for decades

People really wanted cars.

And with Henry Ford, if you had $295, you could get a new one, and drive it on any path you wanted

 

[PhilKearny]

Some of the areas with the least amount of driving per person are the richest areas in the world.

And traffic jams do occur in poorer countries, as individual cars are cheaper than the creation of an adequate roadnets. You can even have traffic jams without cars. (See the attachment below for an example of this.)

In the US (and many other places) market intervention would be more plausible than government intervention. At least market intervention driven by the forces of the New York bankers, such as J.P. Morgan. Morgan and many of the other financiers abhorred free competition. They wanted tightly regulated markets because they saw unfettered markets as wasteful. (And by wasteful they meant reducing their return on investments.)

Capitalists seek to restrict entry of competitors into markets to ensure that they maximize return on investment.

Consequently, another means for slowing or impeding the development of the automobile would be to have competing interests slow the course of development in favor of their competing interests, such as maintaining the profitability of railroads and streetcar companies. If railroad and streetcar transportation systems are more widespread in the 19th century, then their is less of a demand for autos and the backers rail and streetcars have even stronger interest in placing barriers to autos entering the markets.

Make everyone poor.

Poor, grinding poverty poor. If you are struggling to get enough food to survive a Chevy is not in your future. Traffic jams are not common in the poorest countries.

As an alternative come up with a POD that allows the Soviets to dominate more of the world. Cars were an almost unimaginable luxury for the average Soviet citizen, still are for the residents of the DPRK. Possession of one was/is a clear status marker.

The reality is that automobiles are such a convenience that without some level of either grinding poverty or serious government intervention they will proliferate.

 

[PhilKearny]

That is a canard (and a conspiracy theory) about the LA transport system (and part of the plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and others.

The events happened long after the rise of the automobile.

IRRC, cars were sort of forced on people rather than becoming required naturally. A bunch of buisnessmen (various heads of rubber, petrolum, so on) got together and bought up the (quite popular) public transport systems and ripped them up. Read this ages ago, so sorry for no source.

 

[Polish Eagle]

Have more immigrant groups resist assimilation to the "American" way of life and cling to urban enclaves. If Italians, Irish, Poles, and other Europeans refuse to leave the communities they build up in the cities, the suburbs don't grow nearly as fast, and car culture becomes a harder sell. Maybe a more aggressive anti-Catholic movement in the US inspires resentment toward "American" nationalism--producing a set of cultures within cultures not unlike the unassimilated Jews of Eastern Europe.

 

[BlackentheBorg]

A couple of ideas (make of them what you will) --

1. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen is brought out by Count Zeppelin, who subsequently destroys it to prevent competition against his airships.

2. After a reverse-Industrial Revolution, horses become the dominant form of transport. The lower class can only afford to ride on sheep, which leads to the success of a Welsh take over of Great Britain.

 

[BlueTrousers]

You would really need a point of departure well before the 1920s. Really, you would need one prior to the 20th century.

As CalBear pointed out, cars are convenient--particularly in rural areas. Henry Ford saw the Model T as a way of aiding the farmer and liberating the farmer from the farm.

Thus I think to stop the rise of the automobile you need to have an alternative. This probably require a much better rail net. Perhaps some improvements in streetcars with electric traction. Precursor advances in electrical power generation and transmission might make this possible.

A greater light rail system would reduce the demand for cars. The earlier growth of the electrical generation and transmission industries might funnel resources--including human capital--in this direction and away from the individual vehicles, further slowing the development of internal combustion automobiles.

Except that even in Europe, which thanks to geography was blessed with an excellent rail network, cars took off and many marginal rail lines closed. The car offers the advantages of privacy and convenience that public transport can never compete with. In cities, cars are probably a liability, but even in the suburbs rail or bus would be uneconomic as a replacement. In rural areas, the car is an indispensable replacement for the horse and cart.

To keep the car down needs a sustained deliberate effort on the part of those running society. That means either an oppressive society that sees personal mobility as a threat to be controlled, or else a hyper-technocratic one that has determined that cars are inefficient, and to hell with the preferences of individual. Keeping the world poor would help, but is neither necessary nor sufficient for the end goal.

 

[Old Airman]

Well, ComBloc countries mostly did that (a car was a luxury, not a necessity). It wasn't as convenient and comfortable as a Western car-based society, but it was livable. So, drawing from the experience, here's how you should do it:
1. Commercial fleet stays. Trucks, delivery vans, different commercial vehicles aren't going anywhere.
2. Car ownership is restricted by, let's say, punitive taxes, making personal cars unavailable to anyone but top 1% It can be done in democratic society with market-based economy if, let's say, majority of population buys into the "Global Warming caused by humans" early enough.
3. Get rid of small farms. Your farming/agricultural population should reside in villages no smaller than 1000-2000 residents (small towns, in American terms) and agriculture should be based on large holdings employing extremely powerful machinery.
4. Public transit in a countryside. There should be a bus network connecting those villages with bigger ones. Buses should be at least hourly for the morning/afternoon, once in a couple of hours off-peak. It would allow anyone who has business in town, to get there and back in a single business day.
5. Public transit in a city (any city) should allow to get from point A to point B in an 1-1.5 hour for a trip starting and ending after 6 am and before 1 am next day. If it was possible for Moscow of 1980 (and it WAS possible) it is doable for any city.
6. Taxi (or Google driverless car) service to supplement the public transit.
7. Some sort of supplementary "mobility options" for ppl in wheelchairs on other mobility-challenged. Surprisingly, Soviet system opted for government-supplied microcars. But in modern society it can be shared driverless cars, for example.

 

[bsmart]

Well, ComBloc countries mostly did that (a car was a luxury, not a necessity). It wasn't as convenient and comfortable as a Western car-based society, but it was livable. So, drawing from the experience, here's how you should do it:
1. Commercial fleet stays. Trucks, delivery vans, different commercial vehicles aren't going anywhere.

Which means you still need to have a network of good roads.

2. Car ownership is restricted by, let's say, punitive taxes, making personal cars unavailable to anyone but top 1% It can be done in democratic society with market-based economy if, let's say, majority of population buys into the "Global Warming caused by humans" early enough.

I don't think you could raise the tax high enough in a prosperous democratic society to do this. SInce the roads would be there for the commercial vehicles the desire for their use for recreation/personal use would fester. I don't think you could create the 'Global Warming' argument soone enough to negate the desire.

3. Get rid of small farms. Your farming/agricultural population should reside in villages no smaller than 1000-2000 residents (small towns, in American terms) and agriculture should be based on large holdings employing extremely powerful machinery.

To do this in the U.S. you would have to change the entire way that the American frontier developed. There is no way you could live in a centralized town and farm a 640 acre 'section' which is how the homestead act divided the land. There would be too much time spent travelling to and from the fields. Also how do you define 'small farms' I know people who grew up in areas where 'small farm' was 300 acres. That is an area almost 1 mile by .5 miles) Why would I want to waste time travelling back and forth to town every day? I would just build a shack on the farm if I own it.

4. Public transit in a countryside. There should be a bus network connecting those villages with bigger ones. Buses should be at least hourly for the morning/afternoon, once in a couple of hours off-peak. It would allow anyone who has business in town, to get there and back in a single business day.

Who is going to pay for this bus service? The ridership isn't going to pay for the fuel let alone the maintenance and equipment. How far apart do you envision the villages being? I would say at best you could count on once a day service in each direction to most 'villages'

5. Public transit in a city (any city) should allow to get from point A to point B in an 1-1.5 hour for a trip starting and ending after 6 am and before 1 am next day. If it was possible for Moscow of 1980 (and it WAS possible) it is doable for any city.
6. Taxi (or Google driverless car) service to supplement the public transit.
7. Some sort of supplementary "mobility options" for ppl in wheelchairs on other mobility-challenged. Surprisingly, Soviet system opted for government-supplied microcars. But in modern society it can be shared driverless cars, for example.

Again who is going to pay for the infrastructure to build the 'any city' transportation network? Even systems that are considered 'World Class' don't meat these standards in major metro areas and they get huge government subsidies. If the Metro area is 50 miles across than you are demanding average speeds of 35-50 MPH DOOR TO DOOR to get a 1-1.5 hour trip. I don't think it is doable. How big is London? New York? they have some of the most efficient transit systems and I don't think either could claim 1.5 hour trip times from any point in the city to any other point.d

I question if anyone who thinks cars could be 'done away with' ever lived in a rural environment. The closest you are going to get to a public bus system is the 'yellow school bus' which makes one run into school in the morning and a second one back out in the evening. And some of those rides are an hour in each direction. Other than that even with a family car you probably made one or two trips a week 'into town'

 

[The Gunslinger]

Ah the good old days when a man needed a team of horses to get him to and from town. Of course, in those days it was a day trip and not a ten minute drive. And he had to feed, care for, and shelter the horses when he wasn't riding them. And at any point they could trip, or get sick and die by accident and be horrifically expensive to replace because insuring animals was extremely cost prohibitive.

Yes, truly the automobile is a scourge on mankind.

 

[The Gunslinger]

Which means you still need to have a network of good roads.
I don't think you could raise the tax high enough in a prosperous democratic society to do this. SInce the roads would be there for the commercial vehicles the desire for their use for recreation/personal use would fester. I don't think you could create the 'Global Warming' argument soone enough to negate the desire.
To do this in the U.S. you would have to change the entire way that the American frontier developed. There is no way you could live in a centralized town and farm a 640 acre 'section' which is how the homestead act divided the land. There would be too much time spent travelling to and from the fields. Also how do you define 'small farms' I know people who grew up in areas where 'small farm' was 300 acres. That is an area almost 1 mile by .5 miles) Why would I want to waste time travelling back and forth to town every day? I would just build a shack on the farm if I own it.
Who is going to pay for this bus service? The ridership isn't going to pay for the fuel let alone the maintenance and equipment. How far apart do you envision the villages being? I would say at best you could count on once a day service in each direction to most 'villages'
Again who is going to pay for the infrastructure to build the 'any city' transportation network? Even systems that are considered 'World Class' don't meat these standards in major metro areas and they get huge government subsidies. If the Metro area is 50 miles across than you are demanding average speeds of 35-50 MPH DOOR TO DOOR to get a 1-1.5 hour trip. I don't think it is doable. How big is London? New York? they have some of the most efficient transit systems and I don't think either could claim 1.5 hour trip times from any point in the city to any other point.d

I question if anyone who thinks cars could be 'done away with' ever lived in a rural environment. The closest you are going to get to a public bus system is the 'yellow school bus' which makes one run into school in the morning and a second one back out in the evening. And some of those rides are an hour in each direction. Other than that even with a family car you probably made one or two trips a week 'into town'

Even if you did change the homesteading process, you'd still see continual consolidation and bigger and bigger farms. Making a go of it on 160 acres is nigh impossible in this day and age.