Roody

When you stop and think about it, it's almost like Fox News getting huffy about the "war against Christmas". It's easy to defend something that's fully ensconced in our society. It's just hard to understand why people think Christmas (or cars) needs defending. If you want to spend your time defending something, choose something that is actually threatened. Like the environment, bicycling safety, or free speech.

SmallFront

Or, for some us, we just can't muster the anti-car venom, even if we are car free or car light. Some of us might even feel that it's counterproductive to fight for banning of cars in cities, especially in big US cities, when even some more bike lanes and some more thoughts as to how to integrate biking into the cities, and "equal rights" would be great and would attract more cyclists all around.

Some go that extra step and becomes fundamentalists about things, and some of us don't. That is where the fundamentalists are called "anti-car", because that is what they are. They focus less on being car free and thus pro-cycle themselves, and more about being against cars on behalf of everyone else.

Roody

If you think you are hurting my feelings by calling me anti-car, you are very wrong. That's just an inaccurate word that you made up, and it does not describe me at all.

I know that cars will eventually be banned or strictly limited in most cities before much longer, for the simple reason that they are not a practical choice in dense urban areas. I don't have to try to make that happen because it will happen. I just want to make the transition as quick and painless as possible. And the best way to do that is not to be "anti-car" but to be in favor of better infrastructure and land use that makes it possible for people other than motorists to use the public roadways.

so really the only differences between you and me is that I'm more outspoken than you are, and you choose to label me with a negative term. Otherwise, our philosophies are very similar, but I'm a little snottier about it than you are.

Mobile 155

Do you have a time frame? What will be the first Large American city?

SmallFront

I don't think it hurt your feelings. But if you cannot see there's a difference between being pro-cycling and anti-car, and a difference in focus between fighting to get more people to ride a bike and trying to restrict car travel, you must be too entrenched. But anyway, it was as much a response to you as it was to ironwood and the stuff he said that you agreed with.

Hmm, and since when does being pro-cycle (or even car free) mean that one has to be anti-car when, as you seem to say, it will happen naturally?

No, there is a difference: I am not a fundamentalist, but a pragmatist. You seem to think that one has to be against cars in general to want to do without cars. I don't. So at a very fundamental level were are anything but alike.

No, the term is a more specific one, just like there is a difference between fighting for equal rights when it comes to gender (father's rights, equal pay and so on), and being a fundamentalist feminist or the male equivalent. Granted, things aren't black and white, and sometimes strange bed fellows emerge, but to claim that you and me are alike is akin to claiming I am the same as a fundamentalist feminist, when I am in fact not fighting against the "patriarchy" or anything like that, but fight for equal rights across the board.

When it comes to bicycles, I have no lust for a car free society. I don't care. I would love it more people would ride bikes, but it's up to them. I have chosen for myself that I don't personally want or need a car, and have bought a cargo bike, not because of political ideology but because it is easier in so many ways, it is cheaper, and I get "free" exercise. My gf has a car, because she needs one for her job, and I sometimes ride with her. Do I think she, or even our neighbour, should do without? I don't care. With that said, my neighbour asked me the other day if she could get a ride on my (cargo) bike, and I was happy to let her have a go.

Perhaps she will buy one herself down the road, but she already has a bicycle, her daughter has a bicycle, but they also have a small car (a compact, I belive you guys call it). They probably use the car three days a week, and for the rest they bike around. I mostly bike (or take public transport - or both).

I don't have an ideologi that says cars should not be allowed. It might be easier to ban motorised boats/yachts as a starting point. No-one depend on those things to make a living. At least not the non-charter boats. They pollute like hell, take up nice areas where we could have much more active people going about, and when that utopia is reached, we could work on getting our "stuff" delivered without a polluting aircraft, truck, or train.

Yes, we still need to have all of those, as well as some taxi cabs and busses and whatnot.

In short, I don't see your position (or that of ironwood) to be any different pr any less sectarian than that of motorists who thinks that bikes should not be on the road at all.

Nope, just because we both like to have more people on bikes or less congestion in cities, doesn't mean our "philosophies" are very similar, and that the biggest difference is that you're "a little snottier about it". We differ at a fundamental level.

Roody

Yeah, the more I read of your ideas, the more I agree with this one sentence.

Roody

I would guess 40 to 50 years, but it will be a gradual and sporadic process. The first large carfree city will probably be Washington, DC. Anything else, I will answer on the thread about predictions, where it's more relevant.

CbadRider

I did some clean up. The ankle-biting and insults (thinly veiled or direct) need to stop, now. Anyone who continues will be asked to leave the thread.

CbadRider
Forum Administrator

memebag

I'm pretty new here, but my take is that the self identified "car free" posters who are defending their status and self worth the most. Maybe I just haven't encountered the car people yet.

Machka 

You haven't been into the Road Forum yet, have you.

ironwood

I've looked at it, but I'm too old and am allergic to spandex, or I became allergic to it when I found it was owned by the Koch brothers.

Machka 

Nevermind the spandex, go back into the Road Forum and have a look at all the symbols of success and wealth ... or in other words ... the bicycles.

Or perhaps even better, check out the Tandem Forum.



N+1!!

ironwood

I know what you mean,but I prefer the C&V forum, and the thread "your catch of the day...saved from the dump". Maybe this is just a form of reverse snobbism.

Ekdog

I'm proud to be anti-car!

I've worked to limit their access to the city center in my town, which has reduced accidents, improved the air quality, reduced the emission of greenhouse gases and made our town more livable.

If this makes me a "fundamentalist" in the eyes of some, I respect their opinions. I realize that my ideas are not in line with the majority of people's, but I strongly believe that minority opinions should be allowed in a sub-forum such as this one.

memebag

Really? Does anyone here actually believe the auto or oil industries would pay someone to post on this sub forum?

Ekdog

There's no doubt that people are paid to troll online.

memebag

Really? I doubt any oil or car company would pay people to post here. What evidence is there of it? What possible benefit could it produce? I know they all have PR and social media departments. Editing their Wikipedia pages, sure, they do that. But stirring up poop with a handful of bicyclists? That just sounds like a paranoid delusion.

Artkansas 

I tend to think that, though I haven't yet found a smoking gun.

At the same time, the LCF is such a tiny and nearly invisible sub-forum that I can't believe it's worth anyone's time to assign a writer or writers to come and harry us.

ironwood

Very few American cities have retained their historic core, that is' a dense urban center, where there are a lot of personal interactions. Highway construction and misguided urban renewal(removal) destroyed a lot of neighborhoods. In Boston it was the consruction of the Central Artery, and the extension of the Mass Pike into the city which did the most damage to the city. Fortunately the extension of I95 into the city was stopped; There is now a nice bike path along the proposed route. The central Artery is now underground. Boston is a great city to walk in; cycling, still not so much.

I wouldn't be surprised if automotive traffic was restricted in some parts of Boston and Cambidge; A lot of motorists wouldn't object because it is next to impossible to drive there.

I don't know about DC, I've never really enjoyed walking there.

I-Like-To-Bike

Welcome to LCF!

rebel1916

I ride a Van Dessel Rivet ($2K frame and fork) with Centaur. I drive a 10 year old base model Buick Century inherited when my wife's Grandma passed away. The bike is way blingier.

B. Carfree

https://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...in-decades/?hp

As they say, it's a start.
Okay, this is a special weather event, which seem to be more common now than ever, but it is an acknowledgement that personal cars can be such an inappropriate technology in an urban setting that they should be banned. Today the ban is for the snow and ice. However, I think Roody is correct that there will be bans for other reasons, like we simply want to use that space for something less destructive, in the not-so-distant future.

Chris L

That isn't entirely true. I was actually one of the mods when LCF was originally set up, and it was actually derived from the A & S forum. In fact, LCF started life as a sub-forum of A & S. Basically, A & S at the time was full of flame wars between people who were car free and those who weren't, and it was thought that giving the car free people their own forum would put a stop to it. Of course, that didn't happen for two reasons. Firstly, people in LCF continued flaming each other about the same topics that were being debated on A & S previously, and the A & S people simply started flaming each other about Vehicular Cycling -- proving that most people really wanted the "excitement" of a good flame war more than they wanted a sensible discussion with like-minded individuals.

Some time later (after I left the mods for my own reasons), Utility Cycling was created, presumably so that people could have sensible discussions on the practicalities of doing things with your bike without all the flame wars. Of course, UC had very few posts, while the same flame wars that characterised LCF continued unabated. Proving once again, that most people really wanted the "excitement" of a good flame war more than they wanted a sensible discussion with like-minded individuals.

The question here is whether we really need a third proof that most people really want the "excitement" of a good flame war more than they want a sensible discussion with like-minded individuals.

Roody

I'm sure your memory is better than mine. I'm just glad the forum has been here all these years, providing lively and mostly civil conversations as well as conveying much useful information. I love this place!

Chris L

Yeah, I'll admit that I'm kinda glad it's here too. It's not often I experience boredom, but when I do I can come here and read through some of the flame wars involving your goodself, Machka, ILTB, Ekdog and some of the other protagonists basically telling each other to post elsewhere, with several "warning" posts from moderators, then have a chuckle to myself when people suddenly rush to defend the forum from any implied criticism by claiming to have "mostly civil conversations".