I don't really have anything to add...just going back to the last relevant comments that were made before the troll visit.

Let's all work together to get this interesting thread back on track!

I think College 3.0 is talking more about class/race segregation that more or less persists in the form of neighborhood choice. On the one hand, there is some integration going on, but at the same time the people who integrate across lines of race and class are also re-segregating along other lines. In short, what I think College 3.0 is talking about is that part of 'the suburban dream' is the idea that people can create distance between themselves and what they don't want to be around, and now the things they don't want to be around could vary along many different notions of identity and ideology - i.e. more so than in the past when segregation was due to more simplistic ideas about race and class homogeneity, for example, and sexuality was not even on the radar except insofar as some people got married and had families and others just didn't.

College 3.0, if I'm misrepresenting your point, sorry, and please correct me.

Ah, I may have misunderstood. I thought it was more of an introversion thing, I guess. I look forward to an explanation from College 3.0

Oh yeah... I see your point. I really though coupes would dominate the car market by 2000. I guess sedans didn't disappear!

We finally got the three foot law but nothing that requires existing roads to have anything special done to make them bike friendly, including bike lanes. All bike lanes tend to be a local issue and change from city to city. But right now we are looking at a big debate over a 32 mile freeway addition that will connect the 215 to a city just east of us. The surprise is that a coalition of environmental groups from San Francisco has formed to put a stop to the freeway even if they are half a state away. It will be a big and expensive battle however because the builders already have the funding and Environmental impact study approved. These highways are not something cyclists will enjoy because in this state very few freeways allow cyclists except where there is absolutely no option other than the freeway to get from one city to the next.

However from our conversations I realize I am a bit more bold than many of the car free people you advocate for. I ride on expressways with vehicles rolling by at 50 and 60 MPH every week. Expressways most often had a 6 or 7 foot paved area to the right of the fog line that is designated as a "Bike" and emergency parking lane.

But my point is still that if they are still planning, funding and building more roads and wider roads it is because the planners envision more cars will need them.

Couldn't it be that the main reason people are driving less is that the baby boomers are retiring? If so that doesn't feel like a true cultural change, as much as the power of numbers in a statistical focus. A look at the fact "people are driving less" can lead to assumptions about shifting values, when we're really just looking at the huge influence of the boomers on statistics as they shift their influence to another age group - retired people, a group that drives less, hence fewer miles driven.

Not necessarily. These public spending projects are largely driven by public impetus to create growth and jobs. During fiscally conservative periods, public concern over spending wins out. During fiscally liberal periods, the desire for jobs and growth drives public spending on expensive projects without too much concern for whether they are really needed or if we could live without them. The idea is that if we live without them, we'll have less money to spend so might as well go ahead and spend the money to inject it into the economy.

So then there are some people who say that if we're going to spend the money anyway, why not spend it on land preservation, bike roads, hiking paths, etc. instead of motorways. These people get labelled as wasteful by so-called conservatives who are liberal, but only for motorways that stimulate more commerce and growth. Then people will argue that bike roads also generate commerce and growth, which they do, but not as much as $20,000 cars driving around carrying purchases, etc.

So until these people who care more about growth and jobs than protection of nature and quality of life wake up to the destruction they are seeding, they will create these projects purely for the sake of stimulating more growth to put more money in their pockets and forge friendships in business.

I agree with you on that one. I can see Toronto skyline from my balcony. Condo towers are growing faster then ever before...The same is happening here in my city of Mississauga. There is a serious effort being made to increase density and get everything/everybody closer together. High-rise buildings and stacked condo/townhomes are getting build all over the place. A lot of these modern condos are designed to be more family friendly and they have all kinds of amenities which makes a family life easier. High-rise building are not just for young single hipsters or unmarried young professionals anymore, many condos are perfectly suitable for raising a family. A lot of baby boomers are also choosing to sell their houses and move into condo apartments.

You just don't get it do you ??:rolleyes:...Economic growth and job protection is extremely important....Quality of life is dependent on healthy strong economy and good employment opportunities...

That's the popular dogma spread by growth-worshippers but the reality is the opposite; i.e. that quality of life improves when sustainably affordable lifestyles have been established where growth can recede without diminishing that quality of life. Think about biking for transportation, for example. If everyone did it and the price of fuel suddenly went up to $20/gallon, the net effects of the cost-increase would be far less far-reaching. Shipping would become more expensive but what would need to be shipped? Not cars and car parts. Likewise, if efficiency was maximized, existing goods could be repaired and mostly only small parts would need to be shipped while the number of larger goods, appliances, etc. manufactured and shipped would go way down. This economic model of maximum efficiency is abhorred by the growth/jobs people so they support artificially-accelerated decay/obsolescence economics that give them more business to do, but that costs more fuel/energy and waste.

Instead of expending tons of money building huge motorways that cost manifold the cost of a bike road for the sake of generating growth and jobs, why not just build the bike road, spread the money for it out among more people by hiring each person for less hours, and let them spend their additional free time traveling by biking/hiking or just spend more time walking and biking around where they live? That would conserve resources, preserve land, make people healthier and happier, thus lowering the amount of spending needed to achieve health and happiness, and generally improve the health of the planet by allowing more nature to flourish with less land-clearing for roads, parking lots, buildings, etc..

I used to have an 11th floor office, and one day I looked out and was shocked to see that a new skyline had developed almost overnight, far to the southwest. Since there was a local firehall tower in the same direction, I used milermeter.com to to extend a straight line from my office to the tower and on, and discovered that the line hit directly on the intersection of Hurontario and Burnamthorpe - meaning I was seeing massive central development in Mississauga.

Now, my house is under renovation and I am staying temporarily at Yonge and Sheppard, and I am in a forest of highrises that have also sprung up in a flash. It's mind-boggling what's going on.

That's part of it, but they aren't being replaced by as many younger drivers. In turn, that's partly economics - the precariat generation doesn't have as much money or job security.

I think that accounts for some of it. but all age groups are driving less, with Millennials actually leading the pack.

I think we should keep in mind that the actual numbers are not that huge. What's most meaningful is that this has reversed a trend that has continued almost since automobiles were first invented, over a century ago.

Oh, I never specifically mentioned race or class.... although (especially in my town these days), race and class are low hanging fruit. I think in some cases, things may genuinely be "race" things. But that's often made much of because race is easy to see on the surface. As previously mentioned, I think there's a much bigger "thing" behind and beyond our current obsession with making everything a "race" thing.

There is nothing inherently wrong with introversion. I'm extremely introverted, thoughtful to a fault sometimes. That's not a bad thing unless I let it inhibit me from relationships. Contrarily, relational isolation *is* inherently dangerous. People need community, and an introverted person can engage in community and relationships just as well as an extroverted person can set aside "quiet time" for self-reflection/meditation in solitude. It's just counter-intuitive to do the opposite of what we're naturally inclined toward and it takes more deliberate choices and work. (See Susan Cain's book "Quiet" for more really interesting discussion about the positive contributions to society of introverted people!)

So, it's a humanity "thing". Lots of white people want to get away from other white people. Regardless of race, class, religion, and other earthly categories people fall into, I still hold to my original assertion that people will naturally separate and distance from one another regardless of the categories because that is a basic characteristic to humanity.

Unless, of course, people choose to push themselves in the opposite direction of their natural inclinations. Some natural inclinations are benign; some are big-time temptations to self-harm and harming others. To bring the idea home, I think in most (but not all) aspects the current automobile culture makes the temptation to isolate much much easier.

Very interesting post. I think people share a desire for isolation with another strong desire for companionship and community. These desires are sometimes in conflict, both within the individual and in larger social groups. Both desires (almost like drives) seem to be important for human happiness and even for survival. I think cars are used to foster both desires. Cars can be a way of isolating, or a way of bringing people together for common pursuits. Is it any wonder that cars have such a hold on people for different reasons, even as they become more and more outmoded when it comes to transportation?

Now you're starting to see it. I think we desperately want to believe that science is our "new" god.... and we are evolving into creatures of rational, cold science. I understand the attraction, wanting to believe big data can explain why we do the things we do, why we drive or don't drive, why we use social media, or do things that hurt ourselves to "cope" with pain, for example binge eating or alcoholism. But the truth (still) is that the human creature is an irrational creature. :) It's not in fashion to believe this anymore, but that doesn't make it untrue.

I guess I understood you wrong as referring primarily to segregational instincts, albeit not along traditionally simplistic class/race lines. As for isolation, I don't think it's a natural inclination and, what's more, I don't think that what you're calling 'isolation' within automotivist culture is really isolationist except to the extent people want to control the communities within which they do interact, namely private homes and workplaces. I.e. instead of just being open to interacting with people in public, people have decided they want to experience life in a series of 'invitation-only' parties that include homes and workplaces. They have become somewhat spoiled about not having to deal with any kind of conflict or disagreement and having to even say anything that disagrees with someone else feels confrontational to them, so they just politely go along with whatever someone says and then avoid inviting them back for the next dinner party, or in the case of a workplace, find some way to isolate or fire them.

It takes some bravery to interact comfortably with anyone who approaches you in public, on public transit, etc. Your skin has to be a bit thick and you can't respond to people with fear or negativity without risking hostility, so you have to learn to connect with people on some positive level regardless of how they may look (or smell) to you. If nothing else, it's usually possible to at least regard someone with respect for whatever it is they've been through to put them in an aesthetically compromised state. Even crazy people can carry on interesting conversations if you figure out what interests them and you're up to it.

Yes, hiding in a car can avert having to even bother with the possibility of interacting with others directly. You don't have to worry about what to say to other drivers in their vehicles and you can still get some positive emotions out of letting someone into a lane and getting a wave of thank you in response. People are experiencing community out there on the roads in their motorized machine suits. They are also feeling super-connected when listening to radio DJs or music on their sound systems.

There's no shortage of community; just a shortage of organic community in which there is geographical continuity between one social experience and the next. Yes, there is a certain geographical continuity in driving through a city, but it doesn't occur at natural human speeds the way walking or biking through a pedestrian-rich area does. And how much does it enrich people's driving experience to have visual engagement (or just see) other human being, especially when they're walking or biking? Even when you just make eye-contact with other drivers, it's a bit more human than staring at tinted windows and a reflective windshield. Still, it is a more materialistic form of social interaction because speaking is all but impossible . . . but then modern life has reduced many people to purely materialistic beings who favor silent contact with others over informational exchanges - probably just because it takes effort to get their minds out of objectification mode.

But people on this forum have said that one reason they love riding is because it can be a peaceful "alone" experience. When walking, one can still tune out the outside world, or tune out just human or social aspects of the world. Even on the bus, which is probably the most intensely social transportation mode, it is not that hard to tune out fellow humans with an iPod, book, or just a blank facial expression. Of course, none of them is as intrinsically isolating as an automobile. You almost have to be alone when driving, or else accompanied only by people of your own choosing. About the only way to chat with a stranger while driving is to roll down your window at a stop light or pick up a hitchhiker.

I suspect most of us would ride on a highway shoulder, but the average bike commuter lives in an area where it's not necessary.
It's true we are still building roads to accommodate a growing population, but the rate is slowing, and as you point out, more resistance is appearing. I guess those San Francisco activists feel that it's not just a local issue - they must figure the air and water resources that affect all of us are at risk from the highway extension. Or they feel it is partly coming from their taxes and they don't want it spent that way.

probably most of us aren't as reductionist as you are implying, If we were all rational we would persuade people to our points of view on this forum but of course we never do :)

I take it then, the reason people disagree with your positions is that they are irrational? :)

Perhaps you could explain your concept of who are the people "we" includes, and what is their alleged point of view?

My take is that as used on the umpteen LCF political, economic and sociology "discussions", "we" encompasses about half a dozen posters, at most, who believe they are the true spokesmen/representatives for all car free people (whatever the reasons for their car free status) and that any contrary view to the alleged wisdom (on any subject) spouted by "we/us" represents an insult or troll at best, or at worst a foot on the necks of the downtrodden of the Earth.

My they write sophisticated robot software these days. Pretty soon it really will pass the Turing test.

I think the evidence doesn't support most road construction to fix congestion problems. New roads lead to huge increases in driving. New roads are usually as congested as the old ones in a vary short time. They are almost always a waste of taxpayer money.

What's Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse | WIRED
Induced demand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My prediction is that governments will build a lot fewer roads in order to relieve congestion. In fact, they might even reduce roads without increasing congestion. Of course, road building will continue in areas that are adding to their populations.

+1

It's always the same old disproven rhetoric from the same old handful of faithful, true believers, of this new man-made modern religion of environmentalism. These posts belong in the (politics and) religion forums.