[HN Gopher] Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics ___________________________________________________________________ Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics Author : geox Score : 480 points Date : 2023-10-01 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com) | [deleted] | 29athrowaway wrote: | Also | | - 90% of emissions come from off road vehicles (agriculture, | mining, etc), not in road vehicles. | | - Most of the electricity for EV charging stations is not green. | | EVs are a way to shift blame for pollution to the public so that | corporations can continue doing business as usual. Want to fix | pollution? blame yourself while I continue to make money. | richjdsmith wrote: | With the continued shift to EVs, petrol taxes just don't make | sense as a form of taxation to pay for roads. I think we should | be shifting entirely to a gross curb weight tax for all vehicles. | The fourth power law states that the greater the axle load of a | vehicle, the stress on the road caused by the motor vehicle | increases in proportion to the fourth power of the axle load. | Meaning heavier EVs _cough hummer_ , are doing x^4 damage over my | already heavy car. | | Capturing vehicle taxes by weight should incentivize lighter | vehicles, and therefore, less tire wear. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law | j-bos wrote: | Why not just tax tires? | eep_social wrote: | Just let's please not require a government-approved mileage | tracking device to make sure that each vehicle is charged it's | fair share. That's one really nice property of gas taxes they | will be hard to replace without going full dystopia, and there | is a significant contingent that doesn't give a shit about the | privacy and security implications. | nhumrich wrote: | Every car already has a way to track its own mileage without | requiring GPS | cheschire wrote: | I remember replacing the worm gear on my odometer and | wondering how many miles were "lost" from it while it | wasn't turning during those 6 months or so that I was | getting around to the project. | | Not that I'm advocating a Orwellian tracking system be | installed. Just saying I can see how existing systems could | be argued against. | eep_social wrote: | Not all states require periodic inspections. Who will be | checking those odometers? Is it the honor system or are we | requiring a third party inspection? | tadfisher wrote: | They should require periodic inspections. Too many | vehicles here are too dangerous for public roads, and | having bald tires, no brakes, and rusted out suspension | just makes them worse. | jdeibele wrote: | In Oregon, there are two metro areas (Portland and | Medford) where vehicles must be tested because of air | pollution concerns. If you have a pre-2005 vehicle, I'm | pretty sure they still use a measuring device to see how | many pollutants your car generates. For model year 2005 | and later, they hook their computer to your car's OBDII | port and ask the car's computer how it's feeling. If the | computer says "fine", they pass you and you can renew | your registration. | | Comparatively recently, they let mechanics and quick | change oil places do the test for 2005 and later cars, | giving them the option of charging a fee for it. | | Oregon doesn't have vehicle safety inspections but it | doesn't seem unreasonable that I could go to the official | DEQ or DMV locations if I wanted to have my mileage | inspected or maybe pay Jiffy Lube a bit extra because | they're closer and their hours are more convenient. | | The issue with that is that, though, is the same problem | with taxes: many (most?) people aren't going to want to | come up with the money to pay their mileage bill on the | spot. There don't seem to be great answers for that. | | Oregon has a pilot program where they put a device in | your car and charge your credit card 1.9 cents per mile. | https://www.myorego.org I'm sure that's what they'd like | to have people do but I don't know how many people want | to do that. | nerdponx wrote: | All 50 states will adopt them if federal highway funding | becomes contingent on having them. | yellow_postit wrote: | Not every state has inspections. So the infrastructure to | check/validate odometer readings is lacking. | | Maybe some yearly assertion of mileage and random selection | rate yearly would suffice. | avalys wrote: | All you need to do is require people to report their | odometer reading when they renew their vehicle | registration, and have huge penalties for willful mis- | reporting. Traffic stops and service records at tire | shops, oil change places, etc. provide plenty of evidence | to prosecute someone, and if the penalties are severe | enough, the threat of enforcement will be enough to keep | most people honest. | wnoise wrote: | A tire tax would also work, except for the unfortunate safety | implications. | eep_social wrote: | Yup. The second order effects are tricky. Gas tax was an | elegant solution that will not be easy to replace. | PartiallyTyped wrote: | It would most likely hurt the working class more than | anyone else. | morelisp wrote: | Yeah, my car should be tracked by its manufacturer, my cell | carrier, my phone, the mapping software in my GPS, the four | random apps I gave location permission to and forgot about, | the traffic cameras, my neighbor's door cameras, but god | forbid the government actually trying to reduce pollution by | getting a raw distance number once a year. | notatoad wrote: | > as a form of taxation to pay for roads | | at least in the US, and i believe most countries, gas taxes | haven't really paid for roads for a long time. Gas taxes go | into the general fund, and road maintenance and construction | comes out of the general fund, but gas taxes cover less than | half the cost of roads. | artisanspam wrote: | The Ford F150 is the best selling car in the US by a long-shot | and it's a gas guzzler. Given that, I don't think consumers | care a lot about how much they pay in taxes when deciding on a | vehicle to purchase. | | I don't think this'd have the incentive that you're suggesting | it would unless something else is done, such as increasing the | tax overall. | wcunning wrote: | The most popular F150s are significantly less gas guzzling | than my 2005 sedan that I replaced with an F150. Not to | mention that my F150 is more capable in winter conditions | (major importance in Michigan) and more capable for the DIY | stuff I do (I actually do regularly get lumber, plywood, | drywall and other things that only fit in the 8ft bed that I | actually bought). All while using less gas... Efficiency has | gone up markedly in the 13 years between that 2005 and the | 2018 F150 I bought. The weird thing is that you can get an | F150 with significantly better real world mileage than an | Escape, which is massively smaller, lighter, more | aerodynamic, etc. Consumers are smarter than you're giving | them credit for here. | OxO4 wrote: | How so? The 2023 models of the F150 seem to get about 17.19 | MPG [0] which is significantly worse than the 32.34 MPG [1] | of the 2023 Escape. | | [0] https://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/f-150/2023 | | [1] https://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/escape/2023 | reducesuffering wrote: | A new F150 is getting 19 city / 24 highway, while ten year | old Prius are getting more than double that at 45mpg. Every | single trip you make in an F150 without lumber is more than | double the gas guzzling than current state of the art. New | Prius are 57mpg and AWD. And I've fit tons of plywood, | furniture, and even a 50 gal. water heater in my Prius. | fooblaster wrote: | Not to mention how dangerous these large trucks like the | F150 are to pedestrians. It's a real shame vehicles like | this have been normalized. | teruakohatu wrote: | > With the continued shift to EVs, petrol taxes just don't make | sense as a form of taxation to pay for roads. | | In New Zealand soon EVs will face Road User Charges, which mean | they pay a per km tax as all diesel vehicles do today. The tax | is based on the class of vehicle and so EVs won't be charged | more than a diesel cars. | rodgerd wrote: | Unfortunately the RUC in New Zealand is strongly regressive, | with massive subsidies for heavy vehicles. | mnahkies wrote: | New Zealand plans to charge road user charges for EVs next year | AFAIK. This is a per km tax, though don't believe it has a | weight consideration | wldlyinaccurate wrote: | All vehicles in NZ pay road user charges; EVs have just been | exempt to encourage uptake. There are RUC weight classes but | they only exist to separate light (<3500kg) and heavy | (>=3500kg) vehicles rather than distinguish between a Nissan | Leaf (1600kg) and a Ford Ranger (2100kg). | verve_rat wrote: | Uh, no. All non-petrol powered vehicles pay road user | charges. | | For petrol vehicles we tax the petrol instead. This is | because the cost of compliance is much cheaper (for the | government and the car owner) if we tax the petrol. We | don't do that for desil vehicles because a large about of | desil is used by farm equipment and other off road | vehicles. It's easier to do road user charges than to have | a refund scheme for desil taxes. | bdcravens wrote: | Texas is applying an annual surcharge on EV registrations of | $200/year (as a dual EV family in Texas, I can't disagree with | the logic) | epivosism wrote: | Isn't the proper tax on tires? The more you shed, the faster | they need replacement. So cars which shed a lot of | microplastics would both use up more tires, AND would pay more | tax. So as the tax increases we correctly linearly decrease | tire use. | | It would be a mistake to over-punish EV users compared to ICE | just because the _average_ weight of an EV is heavier. (We know | the weights, we don 't need to average by class) | | This would reward companies for inventing tech which would wear | our fewer tires, leading to less pollution. | Kirby64 wrote: | This is two different things though. | | Road use tax is intended to be used to pay for road | maintenance and infrastructure. It's why if you live on a | farm you can get tax-free diesel that is dyed red. You aren't | using the road/infrastructure, so you shouldn't need to pay | the tax. | | If the goal is to reduce tire microplastics, the tax should | be specifically based on tire lifespan, which is already well | known. It's called UTQG. | | Today we tend to conflate tax on pollution and tax on | infrastructure though, since gas guzzler cars use much more | gas (and cause more pollution, theoritically, all else equal) | than the wear on the roads themselves. If this was truly | about taxing externalities, it would be 3 taxes. Tax based on | weight, tax based on efficiency, and tax based on tire tread | life. | owlstuffing wrote: | >Today we tend to conflate tax... | | Today we conflate supplying more of our earnings to the | government and solutions to problems. | Kirby64 wrote: | The alternative being government restrictions or bans on | 'high particulate' tires or something of that nature, if | the aim is to fix tire dust. | | Which of the two seems more feasible? An outright ban, or | an economic incentive that encourages consumers to choose | lower particulate tires which thereby applies economic | pressure to tire companies? | dunnelbloom wrote: | [dead] | xyst wrote: | I'm not surprised. Americans alone traveled a staggering 3.26T | (yes, TRILLION) miles (5.24T km) in 2022. [1] That's a metric | shit ton of tire wear particles leaking into the environment. | | This is a direct result of how shitty our cities are designed. | Single zoned swaths of land. High dependency on car centric | transportation. None to minimal alternatives for anything else. | Massive subsidies for various road infrastructure across all | levels of government. Billions of dollars of handouts (sorry, | "subsidies") for O&G industry which generates trillions of | profits collectively... | | There's only so much a single person can do. We need regulation | at all levels of government. O&G and auto industries need to | start paying reparations. Producers of plastics need to be taxed, | regulated, monitored. Cities need to be redesigned/rebuilt. | | [1] https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10315 | hbarka wrote: | Curious which is worse for our health and environment, tire dust | or brake dust? | nologic01 wrote: | This is a strong a warning as any for people not to get too hang | up on greenhouse gas emissions as the holy grail of | sustainability. It creates the wrong mindset. | | What we have drifted into is a tech supported civilization that | is covering the planet from corner to corner with myriad of | footprints (emissions, particulate and chemical pollution of all | types, habitat alteration or destruction etc). | | The story of ozon layer depletion was an early warning. | Greenhouses another dimension. Microplastics and nitrates another | etc etc, with no end in sight. | | Imagine homo sapiens communities spread around in the billions | and a steady stream of polluting stuff emanating from them, not | temporarily but continuously and _forever_. | | This is the challenge we are facing and its monumental. How to | take that out-of-control, scant regard for externalities tech | enabled economic "growth" mindset and turn it around. | | Bold ideas are welcome. Burrying heads in the sand not an option. | trgn wrote: | > Bold ideas are welcome. Burrying heads in the sand not an | option. | | It's simple. It's more mobility options, especially safe active | transportation. EVs are still cars. It's a change in the | margin. What is really needed is people biking, walking for | their daily errands instead of using a car. | | As for the safe part, it does not require anything special. The | aspirational world of the future will be made real with | bollards and trees. The american brain today cannot comprehend | this. Yet it is a certainty. | avalys wrote: | You're basically saying that you want to force everyone to | live in a city - a super dense developed area where all your | daily needs are within walking distance. Not everyone wants | to live in a city! | kylebenzle wrote: | I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem | indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working | solutions to the tire dust issue but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get | funding. | | A Billion dollar industry and NO ONE cares about cleaning it up | if it means increasing costs by 5% or more. | | It has been WELL KNOWN for 50 years! We are basically | aerosolizing carbon in MASSIVE amounts right where we live and | work. Almost like we are purposefully manufacturing microplastics | and dumping them in the air as fast as we can. Imagine taking | every new tire and just grinding it down into a fine dust then | blowing in into the air and dumping it into the rivers. That is | what we are doing, AS FAST AS WE CAN. | | (For anyone that cares, the solution is natural rubber, which | costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its | better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for | the environment but Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out | refuse to fund research or even block innovation in natural | rubber. | | [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish | XorNot wrote: | Why would natural rubber be better then synthetic rubber for | this problem? Asbestos is natural and toxic as hell. | | Natural rubber currently has the property of being mostly | inside trees not being ground up into a fine powder - but | there's no obvious reason at scale it would be any better | except in terms of "slightly less wear over time". | | Is it's chemistry fundamentally different? | sesuximo wrote: | If I want to buy a good-for-the environment tire, what should I | buy? I don't care about the price unless it's insane | WalterBright wrote: | Steel wheels. | whaleofatw2022 wrote: | Something with a low durometer that rides harsh. Ironically | may be worse gas mileage than other tires. | xnx wrote: | Keep your tires properly inflated. Go easy on the accelerator | and brake pedal. You'll be doing much more than the average | person. | paddy_m wrote: | Can natural rubber be made as soft as synthetic rubber? What | kind of rubber is used on race cars (and dirt bikes)? Cost is | much less of an issue for those markets. | bri3d wrote: | Natural rubber is used extensively in higher-end applications | (race cars, trucks, aircraft). However, almost all tires are | some hybrid of the two. Generally, natural rubber is used in | the construction of the tire "carcass" and sidewalls while | synthetic rubber (compounded with a gazillion and one other | things) is used to construct the tread. | | The basic issues are pretty intuitive: | | * The supply of natural rubber is constrained by the ability | to grow the plants which produce it. | | * It's hard to make synthetic rubber with polymer chains as | long as those in natural rubber (isoprene), so natural rubber | tends to be more pliable and stronger, while synthetic rubber | (styrene) tends to sheer off into microparticles. | | * However, natural rubber degrades more rapidly when heated | and cooled, and is more difficult to control in order to | achieve a desired level of stickiness at a given temperature | (which is basically what tires are aiming for). | | I think that OP's research would be quite interesting to | learn about more, as my understanding is that tire | manufacturers employ hundreds of chemists who are dedicated | full-time to attempting to replicate natural rubber | synthetically in an efficient way. | nerdponx wrote: | > Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund | research or even block innovation | | What's in it for them? Keeping bad press about tires out of the | public view? Fear of lower profit margins? | chmod600 wrote: | Chemically speaking, how is natural rubber different from | plastic while still having such similar properties? | kylebenzle wrote: | Great question! Its super simple, it is ONLY the length of | the hydrocarbon chain, a better quality natural rubber has | really long chains (10,000+ atoms long) that last a LONG time | and are VERY stretchy. Synthetic rubber (or plastic) is | shorter (1,000 atoms long) and doesn't last as long. | | Thats it, it is the exact same "product" just a chain that | gets longer and longer and changes its physical properties as | it grows. | traveler01 wrote: | Noob here, but aren't the best tires made from natural | rubber? Or am I mistaken? | alt227 wrote: | Genuinely interested here. If natural rubber and plastic | are exactly the same thing, then why is natural rubber | being advocated as a much more environmentally sound | alternative? Would'nt the dust from natural rubber tyres be | just as problematic as the plastic is now? | crazygringo wrote: | Yes this is exactly my question as well. | | Is the dust just as bad for the environment, but natural | rubber wears more slowly due to the longer chains? | | Or is the dust somehow a less harmful kind of dust? | spqr0a1 wrote: | It's more than just the chain length. The most common | synthetic rubbers are styrene-butadiene copolymers. Natural | rubber is polyisoprene. While it is true that shorter chain | synthetic polyisoprene is available, it is a much smaller | part of the market than styrene-butadiene. | dpeckett wrote: | Does look like both natural and synthetic polyisoprene is | at-least somewhat biodegradeable: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92035/ | clnq wrote: | I'm curious to hear some thoughts of an expert - how much does | natural rubber reduce the pollution for 100 miles driven by a | tyre? Can you think of any alternative technical solutions? Can | you think of any political solutions? | blackoil wrote: | Would it be still cheaper if all tires are made from natural | rubber. We shouldn't have old forests destroyed for rubber | plantations. | kylebenzle wrote: | There are two main working solutions that have ALREADY been | used and proven to work since WWII. | | First: a fungal disease has wiped out ALL the rubber trees in | south america, thats why we cant grow in it the Western | hemisphere, a fungus. If we could grow it here we would and | it would drop the price by A LOT. But, we already have a | solution, a transgenic species that is resistant, nonsense | Government regulation and moronic "public opinion" is the | only thing stopping this from fixing the rubber problem | overnight. | | Second: sounds funny, but ever break a dandelion stem in half | and see the white stuff come out? That latex, PURE high | quality latex. Let that latex air dry and you rubber! No | refinement necessary. During WWII they supplied most of the | war effort with rubber from dandelions! Yes, it works, its | not efficient but progress has been made and with ANY funding | at all it could easily produce enough higher quality natural | rubber for ALL our need and enough to export. | | The ONLY problem is that companies make too much money | producing low quality "disposable" tires that they will NEVER | switch. | | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ [2] | https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish | westurner wrote: | "Rubber Made From Dandelions is Making Tires More | Sustainable - Truly a Wondrous Plant" (2021) | https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dandelions-produce-more- | sust... : | | [I'll leave in the hashtags from when I wrote this up to | remind myself at the time:] | | #DandelionRubber Tires; #Taraxagum | | > Aiding the bees and our environment | | > _Now, Continental Tires is producing #dandelion rubber | tires called #Taraxagum (which is the genus name of the | species). The bicycle version of their tires even won the | German #Sustainability Award 2021 for sustainable design.,_ | | > _"The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists | shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire is a unique | product that contributes to the development of a new, | alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials," | stated Dr. Carla Recker, head of development for the | Taraxagum project._ | | > _The report from DW added that the performance of | dandelion tires was better in some cases than natural | rubber--which is typically blended with synthetic rubber._ | | > _Capable of growing, as we all know, practically | anywhere, dandelion needs very little accommodation in a | country or business's agriculture profile. The #Taraxagum | research team at Continental hypothesizes they could even | be grown in the polluted land on or around old industrial | parks._ | | > Furthermore, the only additive needed during the rubber | extraction process is hot #water, _unlike Hevea which | requires the use of organic solvents that pose a pollution | risk if they're not disposed of properly._ | | > _Representing a critical early-season food supply for | dwindling #bees and a valuable source of super-nutritious | food for humans, dandelions can also be turned into coffee, | give any child a good time blowing apart their seeds--and, | now, as a new source for rubber in the world; truly a | wondrous plant._ | | Taraxacum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum | Logans_Run wrote: | A less hashtag version: https://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/Crop | Op/en/indus_misc/chemical/r... | | _Other Common Names Include: Dandelion, Kazak dandelion, | TKS, rubber root. Latin Name: Taraxacum kok-saghyz | | Dandelion roots also contain substantial amounts of the | starch inulin, which can be fermented to produce fuel | ethanol._ | | USDA Report from 1947 entitled "Russian Dandelion, an | Emergency Source of Natural Rubber" https://archive.org/d | etails/russiandandelion618whal/page/n1/... | Hel5inki wrote: | There are many people who would be willing to buy these | tires if your claims of being more cost-effective and | better for the environment are actually true. You have a | PhD in this, so why aren't you doing it? | dpeckett wrote: | Interestingly my great grandfather headed up research | efforts on breeding fungal resistant rubber trees at a | national research institute in now Sri Lanka. Man he'd be | rolling in his grave at the thought of public opinion and | cheap (and non-biodegradable) synthetics holding back | natural rubber production. | | Synthetic rubber being the largest microplastic source in | the world is an incredibly stroke of irony. Reminds me of | us discovering that adding tetra ethyl lead to fuel might | not be a wonderful idea. | pstuart wrote: | Fascinating fact about dandelions! A nice Fraunhofer video: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVJL2GYRHY | pierat wrote: | Well you can't make things TOO good! How else would you | sell more shit to the proles? | | We were (or at least I was) told in school that capitalism | allowed our civilization to make and sell things we used to | only dream about. And when I learned the truth, it was that | capitalism was only concerned with how much to sell. If | that meant making your products cheaper/worse/less durable | on a creeping basis, then that's what the company did. | | Capitalism itself is subject to enshittification that | affects all products and services. | crazygringo wrote: | > _the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than | synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, | cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment_ | | Is it? I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. | | Natural rubber tires still produce tons of dust, I can't find | any reference to it being less harmful in our lungs, and even | natural tire rubber seems to biodegrade on the order of | _thousands_ of years. | | Natural tire rubber is still extremely processed. It's nothing | like the raw latex that comes out of the plant. | | So how is it 1000x better for the environment? Or even 2x | better, honestly? | | I'd love to believe it, but I'm surprised I can't find any | references easily. Everything I can find refers to it being | more sustainable to manufacture. Nothing about its effects on | pollution. | kwhitefoot wrote: | We already use a lot of natural rubber in tyres. At least in | the winter here in Norway. And those tyres are made by Nokian, | Michelin et al. | standardUser wrote: | Can someone explain why rubber - not a plastic - makes up the | majority of plastic in the ocean? They do say "synthetic rubber", | but from what I am reading those are also not considered a type | of plastic. Not that the definition matters too much, but I think | it's important not to use language that could be construed as | being purposefully disingenuous to make an argument seem more | dramatic, since doing so undermines the argument. | anon84873628 wrote: | Most writing uses "plastic" to mean any synthetic polymer, even | non-organic ones like silicone. I don't think this is | deliberately disingenuous or even ignorant; it would simply be | awkward and mostly irrelevant to use precise technical terms | every time. | | Technically rubber is elastic, not plastic. But even | "thermosetting plastics" aren't physically plastic _anymore_. | Silicone is synthetic but not organic, while lots of organic | polymers aren 't synthetic. All the public really cares about | is "shit that doesn't belong in the ocean". | c54 wrote: | Synthetic rubber is a type of plastic | standardUser wrote: | Citation please. | redwall_hp wrote: | A dictionary would suffice. | | "Plastic" is a general term that covers any polymer-based | material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic | | Tires are made of synthetic elastomers which are all | polymers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber | | Elasticity has no bearing on whether something is a plastic | or not, and any attempt to use it as a distinction would be | pointlessly arbitrary. Silicone is certainly a polymer... | usrusr wrote: | Any elasticity threshold you might come up with to separate | one from the other would be completely arbitrary | choeger wrote: | > Indeed, the scale of these emissions is significant. | Particulate emissions from tires and brakes, particularly in the | PM2.5 and PM10 size ranges, are believed to exceed the mass of | tailpipe emissions from modern vehicle fleets, as per a study | published in Science of the Total Environment this year. | | This simply cannot be true. Tailpipe emissions have more mass | than the gasoline that gets burned. A car uses several liters od | gasoline per 100km. I am pretty sure no car loses several | kilograms of tire or brake matter over 100km. | Cort3z wrote: | Exactly. Not saying this is good news either way, but I can go | multiple years on a set of tires, and majority of the mass is | still there when I go to charge tires. | | Perhaps they mean just the mass in the pm2.5-pm10 size | spectrum? | anon84873628 wrote: | Indeed, the sentence says "particulate emissions" not gaseous | emissions. | anon84873628 wrote: | They are talking about particles in the PM2.5 and PM10 size | range, not the mass of all emissions... | comradesmith wrote: | Aren't a lot of the tailpipe emissions gaseous? Like carbon | dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and water? | bilsbie wrote: | I wonder if we could switch to a biodegradable plastic. | blueflow wrote: | biodegradable vs durable, pick one. | RetroTechie wrote: | The article mentions that tire dust largely consists of | "ultrafine" particles (<100nm). | | Perhaps it's possible to use compounds for which precisely | those fine particles bio-degrade quicker than for currently | used compounds? | | Big-object & fine particle properties are different enough to | look into this, no? | caymanjim wrote: | I would really prefer that my tires not biodegrade. | clnq wrote: | What if they're biodegradable far outside their useful | lifespan, or only when a chemical is applied to them in a | controlled way? | mlsu wrote: | Has anyone here ever lived near a freeway or even moderately busy | road? | | I made the mistake of renting next to the freeway. Noise was | perfectly tolerable, but I could not use my back porch, because | after just a few weeks, everything had a fine coating of black | dust. I could not keep my windows open in the summer. I was | certainly breathing this vile shit the entire time I lived there. | | This doesn't surprise me in the least. Every time it rained you | could see streaks of black sediment trails where rivulets would | collect and concentrate it. It flowed completely unfiltered | straight into the ocean. Poison. | | The negative externalities around cars are incomprehensibly huge. | And yet, we have more of them than ever, they are getting bigger | and bigger, and they laugh in our face with "green leaf" or | "PZEV" decals. It's demonic. | baggy_trough wrote: | The positive externalities are even more enormous, which is a | problem for environmentalists. | robocat wrote: | > positive externalities | | I really don't think you meant to use the word externality | here. And the other replies so far are not about positive | externalities. | | Perhaps roads are an indirect positive externality - roads | are useful for bikes and buses, also useful for demarcation | between properties or areas and addressing!!! | | https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp | whoknowsidont wrote: | >The positive externalities are even more enormous | | What do cars specifically positively provide? NOT including | the positives that exists due to constructing infrastructure | around that mode of transportation (artificial issues). | high_priest wrote: | I am a person that has actively chosen to live without a | car, despite work in automotive industry. Recently I wanted | to take my vintage computer in a large crate, to a LAN | meeting, but I would not be able to transport it without a | car. Which forced me to order a taxi, which is a car for | hire... I maybe could have been fine with a cargo bike, but | it would not be satisyingly safe for me or the cargo. I | have also heard the perspective of children safety. When | they need to be transported to a communal education center, | it is said to be much safer and convenient to put them in a | large, crashproof car, than stuffing them in a bicycle | trolley while it is raining. | WalterBright wrote: | [flagged] | CharlieDigital wrote: | Mobility; unfortunately, the public transit infrastructure | in the US isn't that great and the sprawl means that cars | have become a necessity. | | Many areas simply can't be served efficiently by transit. | burkaman wrote: | That isn't an externality, that's just the direct | function of a car. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | But this is not an inherent property of cars. It is only | true because we invested all our transit dollars in | highways. Cars are not inherently better and roads are | not free. If we invest more in public transit we can | reduce our need for cars. | CharlieDigital wrote: | Agree, but there's no political will and even if there | was, it would take decades. | baggy_trough wrote: | I'd like to know why you think cars are not inherently | better as it seems very obvious that they are. That is | why people overwhelmingly prefer to use them. | naavis wrote: | In places with decent public transportation people do not | overwhelmingly prefer cars. | tmnvix wrote: | For a start, you have to store them at either end of your | journey. | derkades wrote: | Only when infrastructure is built in a way that makes | cars the most convenient option. | Mawr wrote: | No mode of transportation is truly inherently better | since they all have unique strong and weak points, but... | | Cars as the main method of transportation are obviously | _not_ good. They 're too inefficient, no matter how you | look at them. Manufacturing, infrastructure requirements, | footprint per person, energy use, impact on human health | and the environment. Cars suck. | | People use whatever's most convenient and that's | realistically going to be whatever the government has | invested in the most. | | The more car dependent a society, the more degenerate it | is. This is hard to understand due to how car-infested | most of the world is. Watch some videos by the Not Just | Bikes channel on youtube [1] to see what the world | _could_ look like instead. Here 's some poignant examples | (direct links): [2][3][4][5]. | | And here's an obscure video that exemplifies what's wrong | with car culture: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWi4gHm6pjQ. This is what | a brainwashed society thinks like. | | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes | | [2]: https://youtu.be/muPcHs-E4qc?t=464 | | [3]: https://youtu.be/AOc8ASeHYNw?t=204 | | [4]: https://youtu.be/oHlpmxLTxpw?t=361 | | [5]: https://youtu.be/c1l75QqRR48?t=290 | V__ wrote: | People prefer a lot of things, it's almost never an | indicator for what is better or worse. By most metrics, | cars are a worse alternative. However, if the | infrastructure has already been built around cars, it's | hard to change that. | whoknowsidont wrote: | >NOT including the positives that exists due to | constructing infrastructure around that mode of | transportation | | This is what this statement was trying to address. If we | built everything around using ziplines we couldn't go "OF | COURSE ziplines provide a net positive." That'd be an | incredibly silly statement. | suprfnk wrote: | Being by far the most convenient way to travel from home to | pretty much any random location. | | Speaking from the Netherlands with a relatively good public | transit system. | hgomersall wrote: | That's not an externality. That's what you pay for. | baggy_trough wrote: | A huge boost to economic productivity and growth by | increasing the flexibility of land usage, for example. | globular-toast wrote: | Positive externalities? How does someone else driving a car | possibly have a positive external effect? | | Perhaps you don't know what an externality is. Congrats, you | are one of today's lucky 10000. | mlsu wrote: | That must be why walkable areas like Manhattan or London are | so inexpensive, right? | jdblair wrote: | I lived in West Oakland for 10 years. Not immediately adjacent | to a freeway, but surrounded on 4 sides by a freeway within a | half mile. All flat surfaces are eventually are covered in | black grit unless it rains. I assume it was not just tire dust | but also diesel soot. | micromacrofoot wrote: | also brake dust, which until fairly recently used to be | asbestos | dilyevsky wrote: | It's probably mostly soot from the exhaust. I'm few blocks away | to railroad (caltrain) and the windows facing the tracks have | same black residue | goalieca wrote: | Cars have fairly clean tailpipes these days. Older Diesel | train engines still in service are disgusting. Construction | vehicles are also pretty bad. The worst are large ocean going | vessels burning bunker fuel in port which is illegal but very | cheap. | infecto wrote: | I always assumed it was mostly from the soot of diesel | rigs. I know they have gotten cleaner in recent years but | diesel is still pretty dirty. I remember an apartment I had | in SF near some of the muni lines that still ran diesel and | it was absolutely disgusting outside the window. | dilyevsky wrote: | Caltrain is diesel yes. They are replacing most with | electric locomotives any year now | Symbiote wrote: | I lived for a year in a building between a busy railway (with | some diesel trains) and a busy road. | | The windows on the railway side gained a gritty, black dust. | On the road side it was an oily black film. | downrightmike wrote: | The only real solution is mandating light and heavy rail. | California was hit hard by the car companies that bought out | the rail and got replaced it with roads. And now we have even | more reason to use rail everywhere we can. Maybe after the | nimby boomers die off, we can actually made things make sense. | mushbino wrote: | I lived near 880 in Oakland and always had massive amounts of | this super fine sticky dust. They call that 880 corridor cancer | corridor. My friends who lived next door who I was renting | from, their son got leukemia and they think that had something | to do with it. | beowulfey wrote: | Same experience. I probably took a few years off my life with | my year by a freeway in LA. So much black crap on everything. | userbinator wrote: | That's more likely to be brake dust. | nerdponx wrote: | Do tires shed more dust at higher speeds? I wonder if this has | always been a known but unstated problem, or if increasing | highway speeds are causing it to get worse. | Forbo wrote: | Great question, I have no idea. I wish the nationwide 55mph | speed limit were reinstated, if only to reduce oil | consumption. Added bonus that it might actually encourage | more public transit and walkable cities. Nobody will take | this idea seriously, the US is far too addicted to cars and | lacks the density. | whaleofatw2022 wrote: | We don't even enforce truck speed limit. On top of being | more inefficient/dangerous due to weight, it tears roads up | faster. | cscurmudgeon wrote: | > I wish the nationwide 55mph speed limit were reinstated | | In places like SF and LA, even existing traffic laws are | not enforced due to "equity". | | https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Equity-in-Highway-Safety- | Enfo... | verve_rat wrote: | That link you posted says nothing of the sort. | burkaman wrote: | Seems like it from a couple studies, for example: https://www | .sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972.... | | Vehicle weight is also a significant factor, so EVs will make | this particular problem worse. Still worth the tradeoff, but | obviously not using a car at all is the best option. | Etheryte wrote: | Are you sure about the tradeoff bit? If my memory doesn't | fail me, there was an article on HN recently that covered | how EVs are environmentally more friendly, but health wise | worse exactly because they generate more tire particles. | Kirby64 wrote: | I'd like to see if that included brake particulates. My | understanding is brake particulates is a large | contributor to the mix of 'unhealthy ultra-fine dust' | from cars. Most EVs should bring down the brake dust to | almost zero, since the vast majority of braking is done | via regenerative braking. | burkaman wrote: | I'd be interested to see it, that's not an obvious | conclusion to me. The health difference of an EV is a | percentage increase in tire particles but a complete | absence of tailpipe emissions. I would not expect tire | particles to be the more significant factor, especially | when the impacts of microplastics are so unknown. | | Tailpipe emissions are a significant problem (https://iop | science.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab35fc), and I | know this is an extreme example but you can literally | kill yourself by just leaving a car running in an | enclosed space. EV tailpipe emissions are not fully | replaced by electricity generation emissions, even if you | get your power from 100% coal (and you don't). Power | plants are much more efficient than internal combustion | engines. | Etheryte wrote: | I believe this [0] is the article (with discussion at | [1]). To cherry-pick two quotes to contextualize what I | recalled: | | > "Tires release 100 times the amount of volatile organic | compounds as a modern tailpipe, says an analyst." | | > "Moreover, tire emissions from electric vehicles are 20 | percent higher than those from fossil-fuel vehicles. EVs | weigh more and have greater torque, which wears out tires | faster." | | I'm not sure how all of this works out in the grand | scheme of things, or how accurate those claims are, but I | think those are issues that surely deserve more looking | into. | | [0] https://e360.yale.edu/features/tire-pollution-toxic- | chemical... | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37569137 | dietr1ch wrote: | They should as cornering and braking exerts a higher force on | them, so they should wear faster. | badtension wrote: | That's why so many people are cautious about "EVs to save us | all", to put it mildly. | | We are so focused on climate change and greenhouse gases that | we do not see a lot of other issues and may exacerbate some of | them in the process of decarbonisation. | jayd16 wrote: | This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I've lived in | Los Angeles my whole life and the difference that clean air | standards make is obvious. The black dust isn't just tire and | brake dust. It's also soot and it used to be much much worse. | | Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when | we're done with ICE noise and exhaust. | oatmeal1 wrote: | Generally agreed, but the noise from cars is mostly | friction and turbulence (and honking/sirens). Switching to | electric won't solve that. | wizofaus wrote: | I would think having a vehicle be entirely electric must | allow more options in terms of car body shape and even | tyre shape/material that could possible reduce noise (and | particulate) pollution even further. And certainly if we | could reduce the vehicle weight (I gather the current | generation of EVs typically weigh 25%+ more than their | ICE equivalents - and cars have generally been getting | heavier over the last couple of decades anyway, which is | a trend that we desperately need to reverse, and won't | happen without legislation). Having said that, as a | cyclist the idea of not being able to hear cars around me | is somewhat disconcerting. | Kirby64 wrote: | The car noise problem is partially solved (or improved) | by EVs, actually. The tires used on EVs tend to be | efficient (low rolling resistance), which translates to | less noisy tires. Additionally, their body shape tends to | aim towards very aerodynamic so they have less turbulence | noise. If they didn't do this, their efficiency would be | much worse so it essentially becomes a necessity. | | It's pretty evident when you drive next to a large | vehicle with knobby tires meant for off-roading (Jeeps | seem to commonly have these). The tire noise is easily | MUCH louder, even ignoring any engine noise. | | The other thing, broadly, is road construction can lead | to a huge difference in noise from highways. I'm sure | you've experienced huge differences depending on the road | surface. | bmitc wrote: | > the noise from cars is mostly friction and turbulence | | Agreed. I can't even hear the engine in my car on the | highway over tire and wind noise. | kwhitefoot wrote: | People on the outside can hear it though. | bmitc wrote: | I don't think they can unless the car is not moving. The | point is: the dominating sound pollution from a car is | from sources that are not removed in EVs. | bmitc wrote: | > This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. | | I really don't think it is. We're thrusting ourselves into | just new problems. Yes, we move away from old problems that | gas-powered cars have, but we move into new problems. For | one, EVs perpetuate the _idea_ of the car, which is perhaps | the most dangerous part. Then, there 's all sorts of new | things like building out the infrastructure required for | EVs and mining the new materials. For example, have you | looked into the areas where lithium mining occurs? It is | not a clean process and brings its own new problems, | especially for the local people. You have foreign owned and | operated companies move in and suck out manufactured value | from the land, all the while polluting the local ecosystem. | It's oil all over again. | | It isn't contrarianism to point out that a solution is not | the solution everyone thinks it is. Yes, we should probably | switch to EVs, but we should be switching away from cars as | a whole. But we're not. Cars are selling more than ever. | It's not contrarianism to simply look at facts rather than | hype. | sokoloff wrote: | Cars are selling, despite their high economic price, | because they're _incredibly useful_. | | Make competing modes of transit at least one of _more | useful at no more cost_ or _no less utility but at a | lower cost_ and people will switch incredibly quickly. | That 's a tall order, because the modern automobile is a | wonder of transport speed, comfort, and convenience. | wizofaus wrote: | I'd only add "...because they're incredibly useful, AND | government policy has consistently favoured such a mode | of transport over all other alternatives". The amount | spent by governments on maintaining road infrastructure | dwarfs all other transport spending, the amount of land | dedicated to parking and driving space is mindboggling, | and of course the amount spent on ensuring the global oil | industry has been able to reliably and safely deliver | fuel to vehicles is beyond comprehension* (and almost | certainly one of the reasons the transition to EVs will | be slower than technology might otherwise allow - vested | interests with billions to lose will do anything to keep | their share of the spoils). Not to mention the fact that | we've yet to actually start truly paying for the long | term environmental and health costs of allowing our | cities to be so dominated by a single mode of transport. | | *) it's estimated up to 20% of the US's defence budget is | spent protecting oil supplies for a start, which | effectively acts as a subsidy of around 70c a gallon. | midasuni wrote: | Cars have such a low price because the cost of them is | not born by the person purchasing them. | jh00ker wrote: | One application of (EV) cars is the robotaxi. Once this | solution reaches critical mass, car ownership as we see | it today will drop off. | | If I can send my car out to be a robotaxi while I'm at | work and/or :^) asleep, then how much do I care that MY | specific vehicle return to bring ME home, when I could | just use any other robotaxi available? So then I don't | own a car at all and ownership elsewhere falls and the | number of total cars drops to the number needed to handle | only the maximum number of simultaneous rides. | bmitc wrote: | Robotaxis don't have anything to do with and certainly | aren't dependent upon EVs. I highly doubt robotaxis ever | make it. And at that point, why not invest in other | infrastructure. It's pointless to have big vehicles | carrying one or two people. | ltbarcly3 wrote: | > It isn't contrarianism to point out that a solution is | not the solution everyone thinks it is. | | Literally nobody thinks that EV's will reduce | microplastics. What are you even talking about? | | EV's have the potential to dramatically reduce our | reliance on gasoline. Current EV technology is far from | perfect, but do you think people will just stop having | personal transportation? Do you think it's better to keep | using gasoline cars forever? So you agree that some kind | of non-gasoline personal vehicle is likely to be dominant | for some time as a method of personal transportation, | unless you are just ignoring reality completely or think | that people will magically change how they live in even | more fundamental ways without incentives to do so, which | is magical thinking. So EVs are inevitable, since there | is no other credible alternative to gasoline personal | vehicles that is even proposed, and EVs are starting to | displace gas vehicles in significant numbers. | | So keep shouting as much as you like about how we need to | 'stop normalizing the idea of a car' but just realize | that less than a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of | 1% of the world will even bother to listen to it, and in | the meantime we are likely to end up building several | billion electric cars before another alternative comes | around. If you want to change the world, develop the | technology that makes it make sense to act the way you | want people to act, because nothing else will persuade | anybody. | bmitc wrote: | > Literally nobody thinks that EV's will reduce | microplastics. What are you even talking about? | | Not that, for starters. | | Is there data that proves inconclusively that electric | vehicles _AND_ the new infrastructure and mining and | every other systematic thing that comes along with them | and doesn 't currently exist is _actually_ (not just | hopes and dreams) less impactful on the environment? | Because as far as I can tell, your comment relies on | that, and I haven 't seen that data. I could care less | about holding on to gas-guzzling cars. I would just like | to understand things better before jumping headlong into | a "solution" that may or may not be any better. And there | are massive incentives for companies to jump into EVs, so | there is a lot of conflict of interest with EVs. Can | corporations and investors be trusted when they stand to | make a fortune? | | Again, my point is to reach an understanding. I do not | currently understand why EVs are some bastion of hope | when it comes to cars. The best data that I have seen | does not account for disposal of batteries nor the | mining, long term maintenance and upkeep and continual | use of EVs, infrastructure, etc. when it comes to EVs. | And if they are better, then where is the crossover point | when all this is considered? Is it 10 years? 50 years? | | And yes, I do think re-enforcing the car is not a good | idea. You can think it's unrealistic, and sure, in the | short term it probably is. But we shouldn't just throw | our hands up and reach for a new "solution" that just | brings new problems. | arghwhat wrote: | EV's will not save us all, but every combustion engine still | running is actively killing us. | | Would be better to walk, bike, take public transport or | similar or course. And if your area makes that not viable, | consider fixing that. | | (All the famed bicycle paths in Copenhagen are relatively new | - they can be added anywhere.) | dlahoda wrote: | EV bikes sure. price and weight of good EV bike dropped for | last 5 years. | valianteffort wrote: | I don't know where you live but everything is too far apart | in American suburbs. How you would fix that without tearing | it all down? And it's totally impractical for transporting | a family around. | | Road tripping. Visiting far away family. Day at the lake or | beach. Going camping. How do you convince people to give | all of that up and just be content with whatever is 15min | away. | estebank wrote: | It is already a huge change if people who drive to thir | offices didn't. People going camping or driving across | the country aren't the problem. The Dutch do that as | well, what they don't need to do is _having_ to drive to | go fetch milk or get to work. I have my dentist, grocery | shop, restaurants, coffee shops, gym, bike shop, bank, | park, hardware storeband bus stops within 15 minutes from | my home, and all of those are in a residential | neighborhood of an American city that to my Latin | American sensibilities is _too_ residential and spread | around. The level of density needed to support "15 | minute cities" is much lower than people think, but it | means allowing there to be a bakery in the corner of your | block within a residential neighborhood, and wrestling | some space in the commons from inefficient forms of | transportation in favour of more efficient ones. | InSteady wrote: | >wrestling some space in the commons from inefficient | forms of transportation in favour of more efficient ones. | | And underused parking lots. Dear god the huge, empty | parking lots. | InSteady wrote: | Many e-bikes have 100+ mile range. In theory you could | have a few backup batteries for longer trips. | | You could also rent a car for the 5 or so days a year the | average person is doing anything other than commuting, | shopping, and other local activities. | jacobolus wrote: | Residents of American suburbs should have to pay for | their full costs (infrastructure and maintenance, | environmental, healthcare, services, ...), and if many | people can't afford it, we should do a universal cash | subsidy to every resident at the federal level to make up | the difference so the transition is not so damaging, then | let people decide if they really want to spend that whole | amount on paying the actual costs of their lifestyle or | if they would prefer to move to a more efficient living | arrangement and keep the cash to do something more | productive with it. | | The USA subsidizes the suburbs to an absurd degree, | pushing most of the costs into the future and making city | dwellers pay more than their share for the rest. | | Living in a relatively large house in the suburbs should | in principle cost several times more than living in a | flat in the city, because it requires vastly more | infrastructure and the amortized cost of services is much | higher. But our broken economic system has flipped this | around and made suburbs extremely artificially cheap, | while making most of the building practices that make | denser walkable neighborhoods possible illegal under | building codes and local ordinances. | avalys wrote: | This is an interesting theory, but I'm not sure you can | prove it. What's a way in which the USA "subsidizes" | suburbs? | wyre wrote: | Roads, utilities, emergency services... | matthewfcarlson wrote: | Per mile, small urban roads were millions of usd a mile | (see department of transports annual report and it varies | by region). Maintenance is even worse. It's the 5th | highest expense for most cities (US census survey of | local and state governments 2020). | | Of course the suburbs don't make sense, you have a half | mile of road out to a neighborhood and another half mile | of street in the neighborhood itself. The percentage of | property taxes going to the road is probably just a few | percent points. With only a few hundred houses, it would | take decades to raise the 1-3 million to replace the | road. | macinjosh wrote: | That we pay for with our taxes? How much property tax | does one in a high rise apartment pay? | | My suburban neighborhood also has a metro tax district | that funds the roads sewers etc. | jacobolus wrote: | Initial infrastructure is often paid for with up-front | cash transfers from the federal/state government and | long-term loans, then the long-term maintenance is | supposed to be funded by local taxes but in many cases is | set up to be more expensive than the long-term available | tax base, so infrastructure just starts falling apart and | then either taxes go up or maintenance is put off and | people left holding the bag are screwed, or external cash | bailouts make up the difference. | | In either case, the suburbanites (especially near the | beginning of the construction cycle) and initial | construction companies are getting a huge subsidy from | everyone else (and from future generations) to promote an | inherently unsustainable and destructive living | arrangement. | | It's a kind of Ponzi scheme, and like any other Ponzi | scheme, at some point the music stops and then the whole | system is in an extremely precarious place. | yowlingcat wrote: | I don't think it's broken. I think it's working as | intended, but what it's optimizing for (people raising | families) is perhaps not what you'd like for it to | optimize for. Whether it's the right or wrong thing to | optimize for is another conversation, but you may be | surprised about what the collective political will of the | US expresses. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a | voting majority support for the idea that "American | suburbs should have to pay for themselves." | Retric wrote: | American style suburbs are worse for raising a family | than living in a city. Long commutes practically remove | one or more parents from the equation 5 days a week. Long | bus rides compromise sleep and exercise etc. | | All for a back yard that's rarely used and worse in just | about every way than a nice park. | | What they are is a cheap imitation of the wealthy | enclaves near cities that only work because so few people | can afford to live in them. You can imitate such | buildings cheaply, what you can't do is build or maintain | the support structures which made such places so | appealing. | macinjosh wrote: | My superior air quality, lower crime rate, and better | schools disagree with your assessment. | Retric wrote: | Don't confuse socioeconomics for inherent advantages. | Adjusted for income people live longer in cities, they | are thus objectively safer. | | Wealthy parts of cities have vastly better schools and | less crime than the average suburbs, but the American | middle class abandoned cities. Air pollution again can go | either way, suburbs often have surprisingly terrible air | quality made worse by long commutes. | jacobolus wrote: | "Better schools" (by which most people mean higher test | scores) is largely a proxy for parental wealth - which is | correlated to better food, housing security, more quiet | time, less family stress, less external responsibilities | for students, less toxins in the home, more academic and | extracurricular support, etc. - and has a relatively | limited impact per se on individual student outcomes. | That is, if you took all of the wealthiest families' kids | and transplanted them to the "worse schools" they'd still | statistically do just fine, because they would still have | all of the other advantages that make most of the | difference. | | Much of this kind of neighborhood sorting for "school | quality" in my experience comes down to wealthy white | parents not wanting their kids mixing with poorer people | or racial minorities based on prejudice (i.e. assumptions | generated from ignorance and psychological "disgust" | responses gone haywire). | mmatants wrote: | Suburbs are not the only place to raise kids though. | Probably not the best place for it either. | CalRobert wrote: | Cars are great for all that, and an electric cargo bike | like an urban arrow is great for all the things nearby, | IF you have safe infrastructure. Plenty of people have | cars in my Dutch city but it's still safe to do local | things by biking and walking | kmeisthax wrote: | You start by not making the problem worse. Stop building | stroads[0]. Liberalize the zoning code and allow mixed- | use development. Get rid of parking minimums. | | The upside of how sparse American suburbs are is that we | can repurpose all the junk/wasted land with normal market | incentives. Roads can be thinned and the land handed back | to the owners of that land, along with the setbacks that | are used to force people to maintain water-intensive | lawns[1]. Upzoned buildings can be redeveloped to higher | density or turned into small commercial stores as market | forces dictate. Anyone who wants to hold out can still do | so. | | None of this requires absolutely banning cars[2]. People | will stop driving as cars become less necessary for daily | suburban life. Road trips can still happen. So instead of | families with three or four cars, maybe they only have | one or two. As car infrastructure is used less, it can be | repurposed for transit networks that _don 't suck_ - i.e. | BRT, light rail, or tram systems with dedicated rights of | way. | | "15 minute city" doesn't mean "you should only ever | travel 15 minutes on foot and anything further will be | stopped by the pollution police". It means "building a | city so that everything you need is closer and more | convenient". | | [0] Surface street / highway combos, i.e. roads with 3 | lanes on each side, highway speed traffic, no pedestrian | infrastructure, and business access. They try to do | everything and fail at everything. | | [1] Incidentally this was sold as a way to stop | communism, somehow | | [2] OK, but can we still at least ban the giant Escalade | mega-SUVs that let you run down like ten kids without | even seeing them | meesles wrote: | Agreed. Even solar + wind - when the buzz started it was all | rainbows and butterflies because we found a silver bullet to | energy! | | There is no such thing as free lunch. If you start absorbing | massive amounts of solar, you will have some effect on the | environment that we have absolutely no clue about. Same with | interfering with wind patterns and ocean currents, which | would happen with energy generation at true humanity-scale. | | Critical thinking left the room a long time ago. | gmadsen wrote: | with global warming, shouldn't absorbing massive amounts of | solar be a good thing? | luis8 wrote: | Looks like nuclear with proper waste disposal is they way | to go | seb1204 wrote: | It is not. Proper waste disposal is an unsolved issue | that extends beyond so many human generations. Also I | suspect that social licence and NIMBYism will make it | impossible to build them in time to save us from global | warming. | seb1204 wrote: | Not sure what to make of your comment. Are you suggesting | we don't use any technology? All our actions have | consequences on the planet. However your comment seems to | suggest that by adopting wind and solar we are buying into | an issue we would not have otherwise. | XorNot wrote: | What do you think happens to solar energy which doesn't | land on a solar panel currently? Say it lands on a dark | coloured roof? | DarmokJalad1701 wrote: | > What do you think happens to solar energy which doesn't | land on a solar panel currently | | It magically disappears from this universe of course. The | photons know if it is actually being of use to sentient | humans and decides to wreak havoc (in some as yet unknown | fashion) only in that instance. | aperson_hello wrote: | Decarbonization will have negative externalities. Yes, even | environmental ones. I'd argue that those externalities are | necessary and delay to mitigate them is going to be worse | than fixing them later. | bluedino wrote: | If you live next to a farm field, you get the same thing. | | And at certain times of the year, the "dust" smells like | manure. | FrontierProject wrote: | That can't be from tires tho, a farm field won't have tires | in it more than 3 or 4 times a year. And it probably smells | like manure because pumping manure onto fields is one of the | most common methods of fertilizing. | spandextwins wrote: | Years of creating artificial reefs from old tires are catching | up. I wonder how sharp those people are? Next we should find | about how those giant ships that blow their exhaust under water | and kill all life. | westurner wrote: | > _Years of creating artificial reefs from old tires are | catching up._ | | People probably don't even realize that most tires are | synthetic rubber and thus are also bad for the ocean. | | Is there a program to map the locations of old synthetic tire | reefs, and what is a suitable replacement for reef | reconstruction and regrowth? | DoingIsLearning wrote: | Perhaps you misread. The microplastics in the ocean are from | airborne tire particles, as in from cars' tires rubbing on | roads, that get washed away into the ocean. | | You could build cities of tires in the ocean and they would | probably not be significant compared with normal tire friction | in normal vehicle use. | | Also most of those reefs will be covered by debris and ocean | flora, synthetic rubber is mostly decomposed by friction or UV | radiation if it's left alone and covered in ocean stuff it will | arguably be insignificant compared to your personal | contribution of eroding tires on your way to work. | usrusr wrote: | In other words: sooner or later every bit of synthetic rubber | that is part of the tire when it leaves the factory and that | isn't part of the tire when it goes to wherever those things | go at EOL will eventually be washed away by rain. And then it | either becomes inland sediment or make its way into the | oceans. | markx2 wrote: | I remember watching Formula 1 in the 80's. The amount of | 'marbles' from tyre degradation was amazingly high. If you have | seen a race with a dry line after rain it was that striking. | | And yet now, very few marbles, it would seem though that they are | a lot smaller. | gcanyon wrote: | The obvious solution is to switch from plastic back to paper | tires. /s | | But seriously, I think EVs help with lower brake emissions, since | regeneration is a different process. The issue with tires is at | least partially a choice: drive like a normal person and you | don't have to emit (much -- there's still the extra weight) more | tire bits. | | I wonder if it's possible to design tires from materials that | will biodegrade in the ocean/environment, or at least sink? | infecto wrote: | So many comments here about American spread which I agree on but | how to fix it? Even in the Bay Area where cars are hated it's | pretty much a requirement at some point. I always had a dream | that some commercial developers built tried building some | communities where green space and commercial store front was | baked in. Essentially building some tasteful strip malls in the | center of the community and making sure a grocery store leased | part of it. | | Then I always realize that it's actually probably pretty hard to | manufacture this. Which grocery store do you get to move in? Do | you allow liquor stores or do you just let the market decide what | moves in? You have to have some influence by building it and | planning it though. | | That always leaves me down the road that I think it's partially a | failure at the local government level and how we do zoning. At | the same time though I dont think Americans want to live Asian | style in massive apartment skyscrapers or in close quarter | multistory buildings with store fronts on the first level. It's | as much of a cultural problem as it is zoning. | sparker72678 wrote: | TIL that "microplastics" sources include tires. Had no idea. | modeless wrote: | I'm glad people are looking at how to reduce the impact of tire | dust. I expect we can make big improvements because it's not | something we've optimized for yet. | | Not mentioned in the article is that EVs also dramatically reduce | brake dust because the brakes are hardly used compared to an ICE | car. | lb1lf wrote: | Surely brake dust must be negligible compared to tire and | asphalt dust? | | I recently replaced the brake pads on my Land Cruiser; 70,000km | (45,000 miles) since they were last replaced. This is a large, | heavy 4x4, yet the amount of brake liner worn from the pads | must have been on the order of a pound, if not less. | ilyt wrote: | > Surely brake dust must be negligible compared to tire and | asphalt dust? | | Brake dust is kinda different problem. Yeah it puts particles | in the air, but most of it is pretty biodegradable (carbon | and iron), and rest of it could _probably_ be made that - | technically loss of efficiency here could be compensated for, | which is far harder for tyres. | kylebenzle wrote: | I worked on this indirectly for 4 as as part of a pdh at Ohio | State. We have had the solution to this problem since then but | because natural rubber is slightly less profitable for the | companies (it lasts too long and it too high quality) they use | synthetic rubber. | | Tire dust is a problem becuase we WANT it to be a problem the | solution is available but it is impossible to get funding | because the tire companies don't want to use it. | | Thats it, that is how capitalism works. Make millions upon | millions of people sick so that 3 companies can make slightly | higher profits. | | [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish | christkv wrote: | I was going to say natural rubber seems like the logical | solution for this. | cscurmudgeon wrote: | > Thats it, that is how capitalism works | | But we don't live in a pure capitalistic society. | | Where is the govt's role in this? We pay 30-40% of our | earnings for govt to do nothing while politicians become rich | enabling this? | geysersam wrote: | Seems the issue is that we don't vote on the right | politicians. I refuse to believe there are no politicians | who could get behind regulating businesses that refuse to | adapt superior technology for the wrong reasons. | _dark_matter_ wrote: | Can you link to this research? Is there any tire company | using this technology? If the people cared we could either | pay a premium for them, or regulate | kylebenzle wrote: | Yes! All the big tire companies, Goodyear, Michelin and | Firestone have a "natural rubber" development department | and every couple years they come out with a "green tire" | which they quickly drop and forget about. | | As for the "technology" of natural rubber, yes again, ALL | military aircraft tires are only natural rubber, people | know, when it matters use ONLY natural rubber. | | Again, we use choose to use and pollute with synthetic | rubber because it is more profitable for the companies to | sell us more tires that ware out more quickly. They know | this and its on purpose. | | [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish | olalonde wrote: | This is a naive and incorrect view of economics. Tire | manufacturers employ synthetic rubber because that's what | consumers want (probably because it's cheaper even when | accounting for the lower longevity?). They do not just | get to dictate which products enter the market. | | Which makes me highly doubt your claim that natural | rubber tires are both superior AND cheaper. If you are | right about that, I'm sure there are VCs who would be | more than happy to fund you... | shepardrtc wrote: | That's the point, natural rubber tires are slightly more | expensive. I think the parent said it was like 5% more | somewhere above? Tire companies will go the cheapest | route every time, so it's up to the government to make it | more expensive to create synthetic rubber tires. Maybe | start charging them for ocean cleanup. | jillesvangurp wrote: | Also EVs have no tail pipe emissions. At all. An ICE vehicle | converts 100% of it's fuel into toxic tail pipe emissions. The | tire dust is marginally the same for the same weight. We are | not talking a new set of tires every other month for EVs. And | there is very little brake dust indeed. So, what are we really | talking about here exactly? | | Well that's more complicated. Articles like this don't come out | of the blue. There's an extremely well funded effort by fossil | fuel and ICE car manufacturing companies to spread FUD about | EVs. They are looking at double digit percentage drops in | demand for their product in the decade ahead. That's going to | impact them financially in a big way and they have a huge | financial interest in slowing that down. And their tool of | choice is misinformation. Little white lies, lots of half | truths, twisted facts, lies by omission, etc. | | That's not to say tire particles in ocean water aren't an | issue. But the reality is that most of those particles come | from ICE vehicles right now. | stavros wrote: | Do they? How does that work? Why does it matter in what way the | friction on the axle is generated? Whether I am grinding two | metal on metal to generate friction or I'm charging a coil | shouldn't matter to how much dust the tire generates, for the | same amount of deceleration, should it? | | Unless people are just slamming on their brakes and leaving | tire marks when they have the option of coming to a gentle | stop, which I don't think anyone would do? | | EDIT: Apparently I misread "brake dust" for "tire dust", sorry! | [deleted] | ninkendo wrote: | We can assume that modeless was referring to the dust | generated by the brake pads themselves, I should think... | neallindsay wrote: | I think you missed that they are talking about brake dust. | jstanley wrote: | They said EVs reduce _brake dust_ , not tyre dust. It's true | that tyre dust would be created just the same. | adrianN wrote: | More actually since EVs are heavy. They also tend to | accelerate faster than combustion cars. | idiotsecant wrote: | Parent post brought up brake dust, which is not what this | article is about. EVs definitely put less wear on brakes but | that has nothing to do with microplastics. | inferiorhuman wrote: | That said brake dust _is_ an environmental problem. | ilyt wrote: | But most of it does biodegrade so it is short time | problem vs very long time problem. | inferiorhuman wrote: | Copper, which was (is?) the most problematic part | doesn't. | stavros wrote: | I think it got edited, it said "tire dust" when I made my | comment (unless I'm mistaken, but I did check twice to make | sure). | | EDIT: Looks like I just misread the "tire dust" on the | first sentence and filled it in the second sentence as | well, huh. | bitdivision wrote: | I think GP is referring to the dust generated by brake pads. | Since EVs can use regenerative braking, there should be less | use of the brake pads, and therefore less brake dust. | | I would assume that the tyre dust will remain the same | [deleted] | _3u10 wrote: | Im glad we banned straws | cgb223 wrote: | What tools/technology exist today to remove microplastics from | water? | | This theme comes up time and time again on HN, has anyone | attempted to solve this? | Tarsul wrote: | look no further than this guardian article from this week about | bacteria that eat microplastics: | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-... | undersuit wrote: | It's not that we don't have filters. You can filter your tap | water right now of microplastics with standard filters. We | don't have the capacity to filter the world's oceans before the | microplastics enter the ecosystem. | booleandilemma wrote: | Mass production of cars was a mistake. We don't need so many | cars. I wish people realized this. It's one of the worst things | about our era. | | And I'm not a hypocrite. I don't own a car nor do I drive one. I | walk and bike and take the bus. | bedobi wrote: | Typical hackernews to have threads full of well meaning but | ultimately misguided people saying ah we have some technological | solution for this. | | The solution to this problem and _every other problem caused by | driving_ is _not driving_. Period. | | Not driving doesn't require any new technology, it just requires | getting serious about alternatives to driving. (safe, separated | bike ways, ebike and micromobility subsidies, rail, public | transit, better urban design, less subsidies to cars and trucks | of any kind etc etc - all of these have a self-reinforcing | positive feedback loop that lead to even less driving) | beedeebeedee wrote: | And changing to mixed-use zoning- that is the number one issue | in fixing our transport system | savanaly wrote: | No, the typical hackernews comment is yours. Take a very | complicated issue, present your favored simple solution without | evidence, then say "period" as if that somehow settles the | issue. | noobermin wrote: | This is backwards, social solutions are actually harder than | a tech fix, because any tech fix won't be an actual fix. It | will just be a band-aid that won't solve the underlying | social issue. | | Imagine, for example, thinking the solution to male | loneliness or alternative patriarchy is just a better | bumble/tinder. Social problems cannot be solved by better | technology simply, the problem is much more complicated than | that. | paddy_m wrote: | Not driving requires even less. It requires the local and state | governments to stop making it illegal to build the type of | dense walkable neighborhoods that we built until the 1930s. | | Let landowners build what they deem fit on their own land. | That's it (or a large part of it) | rough-sea wrote: | Yet another misguided comment. | | We cannot simply stop driving anymore than we can stop using an | increasing amount energy. There are huge portions of humanity | that live in places that depend on cars. It's a non-solution to | say people should just stop driving - billions cannot. | nicoburns wrote: | It's unreasonable to expect individuals to unilaterally stop | driving. But on a societal scale, it's entirely reasonable to | expect our governments to build infrastructure that allows | (many of) us to stop driving. That isn't simple, but neither | is it an intractable problem. | TeMPOraL wrote: | In other words: you're proposing to replace a set of possible, | if difficult, technological solutions, with an near-impossible | social solution. I'd call _that_ misguided. | | Technological solutions tend to be discussed because they can | be implemented. Social solutions may work better, but only in | imaginary la-la land where they can actually be put into | practice. In the real world, you can't " _just_ " get people to | not drive. | Uehreka wrote: | The "social solutions" are just policy solutions, and people | on HN don't like the idea of regulation, so they act like | "social solutions are impossible", when the truth is just | that "social solutions are impossible without policies I find | distasteful". | libraryatnight wrote: | Sure you can. Teach your kids cars are stupid and bad and | stop driving so much yourself. Trickle-down culture is real, | economics not so much. Also your lauded tech solutions rarely | do shit but create more problems and the businesses we hire | to implement them lie about the problems until we've all got | cancer, no air, and no water. | | Minimizing driving and making it a cultural value that it's a | tool to be used sparingly seems reasonable and about the only | solution I can actually trust when you have a culture of | selfish assholes and a society with nothing underneath it but | a pit of spikes. | xyst wrote: | The 1950s suburban experiment through cheap money (new | suburbs brought in short term influx of cash for | cities/counties), massive subsidies of highway | infrastructure, subsidies for automobile industries, | redlining housing policies, and "white flight" pushed people | towards driving. | | It can be reversed. Believe it out not, prior to the | Industrial Revolution people got around just fine. Somehow | the auto industry convinced people their dangerous machines | in the hands of commoners was a good idea. | danny_codes wrote: | Of course we can. This is just a function of public policy. | | Once our cities are re-built around walk/bike/transit, nobody | is going to drive because it will be slower and less | convenient. Just like it is in many cities around the world. | anlsh wrote: | Hah! Cars have been around for just a hundred years or so, | and yet serious efforts to reduce our dependency on them are | "near impossible." Talk about recency bias. | baggy_trough wrote: | Would you say something similar about computers? | anlsh wrote: | No. But we're talking about cars, not computers, and | their novelty is just one among many strong pieces of | evidence that a much less car-dependent society is | possible, even desirable. Perhaps you can refute the | existence billions of people on the planet who live | without commuting via car, or the dense networks of | public transit which they often rely on? | H12 wrote: | Writing off a shift towards walkability as a "near-impossible | social solution" I think is misrepresenting the nature of the | problem. | | Shifting car-centric suburbs and exurbs to a walking-friendly | lifestyle is a massive challenge, but that only covers 20% of | the population. | | The remaining 80% of the population already live in urban | areas that, in many cases, are already very livable car-free, | and are a few small policy changes away from taking a massive | step forward. | | Even a couple large municipalities legalizing accessory | dwellings, abolishing parking minimums, and rezoning to allow | business conversations of existing residential properties | could have a sizable impact. | | Additionally, many of the most expensive areas in the country | are ones that are designed specifically to support | walkability, which is a strong indicator of unmet demand for | such areas. | bedobi wrote: | > only in imaginary la-la land | | sorry but this is laughable, you don't need to imagine lala- | land or some alternate reality, large parts of the world do | not have anywhere near the car dependency that north america | does and they're fine. (in fact, they're more than fine, | they're great, they're better off) | | visit tokyo and see for yourself - a huge, sprawling city of | 40 million, including many single family home areas, where | much, much fewer people drive | hyperhopper wrote: | It's not impossible, much of the world operates without 99.9% | car usage like the USA. | | Every major European city metro area can be traversed without | a car. Hell I went through 18 countries and 35+ cities in | Europe without renting a car and only using a bus or plane | maybe 4-5 times. | | This is an entirely self-made problem. A world not reliant on | cars is not la-la land. It's a land where a car isn't treated | as more important than a human, which should be the norm and | is known to work in many other first world countries. | SoftTalker wrote: | The USA is a lot more spread out than Europe. In places | where it isn't (NYC, Chicago) you can get around without a | car pretty well. | | Guess what, in small towns in Europe and in rural areas, | most people have cars too, and they drive to get their | groceries. | enragedcacti wrote: | The northeast corridor is practically as dense as western | Europe and we have a number of car-dependent cities | denser than major transit-rich European cities. | | > Guess what, in small towns in Europe and in rural | areas, most people have cars too, and they drive to get | their groceries. | | That's fine! lets get our intra and intercity transit | solved and small town people can keep doing what they've | been doing. | mplewis wrote: | Trains aren't difficult technical solutions. | TeMPOraL wrote: | With trains, the hardware isn't the problem. The property | rights are - specifically those of people owning land and | real estate on, or near, the planned tracks. But it's still | a possible (if uber expensive) problem - the government | could eminent domain its way through. But expecting people | to spontaneously abandon cars and demand trains? That is | impossible in practice. | mminer237 wrote: | Trains aren't a solution at all in most areas. My | subdivision isn't going to build a rail line to the city 15 | miles away. That would require a total abandonment of | single-family housing at the least. | kmeisthax wrote: | Automobile dependency is not a technological problem, it is a | social problem. Enormous sums of money were spent on | lobbying, laws, and infrastructure, all just to make driving | _tolerable_. The cost of this social experiment was that | walking was made miserable and dangerous. | | A century ago people were saying, "in the real world, you | can't _just_ get people to not walk ". But they did. We | coined the term "jaywalking" to refer to _walking down a | street like a normal person_ , manufactured consensus against | it, and criminalized anything other than crossing streets at | 90 degree angles to get from sidewalk to sidewalk. All so | that people in cars could drive faster, which prior to this | would have been considered, rightfully, reckless. | | All the technological problems caused by cars are downstream | of the social engineering done to force people into buying | them. If people did not have to drive everywhere, then we | wouldn't need to worry about tire dust, fuel efficiency, | emissions, and all the other things downstream of forcing | people to drive heavy metal boxes everywhere. | | If we decided to end this social experiment, we could. | Slowly, and in degrees, of course. But generally speaking | there's a lot of people who would _like_ to not drive, but | have to, and would be willing to deal with the infrastructure | changes necessary to make that happen. | bequanna wrote: | I think your comment shows a very strong inner city, urban | bias. | | The vast majority of Americans both need and love their | cars. Very few people would support some movement that aims | to restrict automobiles in any way. | bedobi wrote: | literally every human being on the planet both need and | love their planet, including the air they breathe and the | oceans they fish in and which regulate the climate | | maybe that's more important | fnordpiglet wrote: | "We" is not nearly as many as you may believe. I would say | most people don't want to give up their car. That's why | people spend so much time maintaining their cars, polishing | them, buying nicer ones, etc. Some people want to give up | their cars, but you need everyone to want this, and they | don't. A technical solution is more likely to work than a | mass social upheaval. | bedobi wrote: | yeah wow when the only option people have for getting | around is to drive, most people will not want to give up | their car | | our argument isn't that everyone should just stop | driving, leaving everything else as is. that would, as | you point out, obviously not work | | our argument is that there needs to be feasible | alternatives to driving, which in many parts of the world | is already the case and it works great (in fact, it works | better than north american car dependency) | | i do want to call out one more thing though | | even if it was true that most people like their cars and | driving (which isn't true at all) | | given that the degree to which people drive is literally | becoming an existential threat not only to future | generations but already to us now | | should the rest of us really just go ah we'll just let it | slide then? like yes they're destroying our planet but, | they _really like their cars and driving_ | | i don't share that logic | fnordpiglet wrote: | The debate is whether we wait for society to change or we | change the technology. If cars didn't pollute the | existential threat from cars is removed. That problem is | pure engineering and tractable, while social change is | unsure and difficult thing to accomplish. | | This isn't the end of car related issues. But we can and | should address the engineering and technology addressable | things, and concurrently with the social change. As you | say it's existential. There are a lot of other issues | about car culture - the extensive use of land for car | infrastructure for instance, that are important, but not | existential. I even think making biking safer is | important, but it's absolutely not existential. A less | car dependent culture is neither necessary nor sufficient | to address the issues of tire microplastic, co2 release, | etc, as we still have the use of cars as they exist | pervasively for other reasons than going to the store. | | My point though is that people like driving so they will | drive even if it kills everyone. That's abundantly clear. | People move out of urban cores into suburbs partly | because of the car culture is more to their preference. | That's not a new phenomenon and it's not restricted to | the US. Many friends in UK, Holland, Germany, etc, moved | out of the cities for a more suburban car centric life. | So, if you can't easily change the behavior or preference | (which I never see happening in a democracy), then why | not address the ways in which cars destroy the earth? The | logic doesn't make sense to you because you posed a false | dichotomy. The options aren't "destroy the earth with | cars or save the earth without cars," because cars don't | necessarily have to destroy the earth. | | As an exercise of the imagination, imagine hydroelectric | charged hovering quadracopter electric vehicles. They no | longer produce microplastics or co2. Their batteries are | 100% recyclable. What specifically would the issue be | then? Is it absurd to imagine such a thing? Given current | technology, it's absolutely NOT absurd. Given future | technology it's fully achievable. Instead of flying | vehicles, maybe just not touching the ground is enough? | Etc. This may not be how we solve the issues, but it's a | lot more plausible in my mind than convincing everyone to | pack into an urban core and stop driving to Costco. | seadan83 wrote: | The "we" clearly refers to society at large. (I suspect | you read what you wanted to read) | | > Some people want to give up their cars, but you need | everyone to want this, and they don't | | This is moving the goal posts, nobody said everyone would | want to make s transition and a requirement for this is a | novel requirement only now introduced by your response. | | The example is akin to: 30 people are currently driving | to s grocery store 0.5 miles away. If the sidewalk to | that store didn't end after 250 feet but actually went | all the way, then 5 people would walk. If there were a | bike lane, then 3 people would bike, if there were a | decent bus, mird would ride, and finally if it were | closer.. | | The line of logic given is basically, "because 100% of | trips are done by car, nobody wants any alternative | infrastructure, and suggesting that some people would use | any alternative infrastructure is a war on cars." | fnordpiglet wrote: | If we means society at large that requires a large | portion of society if not more than a simple majority. | That doesn't exist for ending the use of automobiles. If | the goal is the reduce the impact of automobiles, assumed | from the thread being discussed, it's not sufficient to | help those who want to walk to walk to the grocery store. | That's a wonderful thing to do. But to reduce the impact | of tire microplastics, the most likely route to actually | achieve a reduction isn't to get people to walk to the | store. It's to address the microplastic debris of tires. | Better formulations, better runoff management, mass | reduction of cars. | | Maybe we can change society fundamentally. Maybe. I posit | probably not. But we can _definitely_ mitigate the impact | of our cars on the environment and must. The rest is | "nice to have." | | I don't think I ever say anything about 100% of trips | done by car implies a lack of desire to less car | reliance. Truly, this is reading what you wanted to read, | and a clear ascribing of a bone headed intention on my | part. But reducing reliance isn't enough to change the | problems meaningfully. As has been noted elsewhere the 5 | minute drive to the store doesn't compare to the 2 hour | drive of the 18 wheeler trucks distributing and | redistributing the products from farm to store. Nor does | it compare to the work commute, nor does it compare to | the weekend outing to the mountains, with four or five | hours of driving total, 50x or more the trip to the | store. | | I lived many years in NYC, and I walked to buy groceries. | It was good (although as my family grew the logistics of | carting that much food in a push cart got tedious to be | frank). But even in nyc I found myself increasingly | buying things via delivery, especially non perishable | items. Public transit takes _so long_ to get from one | part of the city to another, often two hours round trip, | that I found myself buying anything I needed on Amazon. | Which then brought delivery trucks into the picture. Uber | and Lyft and taxis were a constant part of life, even | with a pretty complete transit system, simply because to | get to a specific place not on a major line you had to do | multiple transfers and the total commute time ballooned. | Then you have to add in how incredibly unpleasant public | transit can be - hot trains, insane people attacking | people randomly, being pressed back to back for an hour | with a huge crowd of strangers, break downs of signaling. | | Now I have a car and I live in a place that is walkable, | but is adapted to cars better than NYC. I enjoy walking | and biking, but I will never live in a car hostile | environment again. | bedobi wrote: | > car hostile environment | | wow, talk about orwellian language conditioning. other | people take issue with me making needless trips in urban | spaces with my multiton, polluting, dangerous, | microplastics emitting private automobile... poor me i | live in such a car-hostile environment... give me a break | fnordpiglet wrote: | I'm not sure where the condescension comes from, but I | didn't ask for pity. I moved, as do many people in nyc | for this very reason. | seadan83 wrote: | You make some interesting points. I'm just trying to say | this conversation thread is starting to talk past one | another. | | The 'we' was referring to the full population of people | and basically stated a significant subset of that 'we' | are willing to entertain (what are currently non-viable) | solutions. | | In other words, a problem exists for 100 people, and | about 15 of them are willing to change their behavior | that would help resolve the problem confronting the whole | population (of 100 people). | | Thus, the tit-for-tat, the OP is not suggesting a simple | majority or any kind of majority is required to change | their behavior, but is lamenting that a significant | minority would change their behavior if they could, if | they were enabled. | | It's another way of saying, "those of us who would bike, | or walk, or would bus - would do so if there were the | slightest investment in those modes of transport to make | them more viable". | fnordpiglet wrote: | Yeah and it's absurd we don't make things more | accommodating. However case in point I live almost | exactly 0.5 miles from a Safeway. There are bike lanes | throughout my part of the city and nice sidewalks with | accessible ramps. I've literally never seen anyone ride | their bike to the store. Probably there are also hills | and folks don't want to ride uphill with groceries but | it's also just not registering as an option in most | people's mind. Nothing stops them at all. It's just not | their habit or preference. But I am glad the infra | exists, just I see people use it more for pleasure than | necessity. | Capricorn2481 wrote: | > Automobile dependency is not a technological problem, it | is a social problem. | | This is what the commenter said. | avalys wrote: | Not driving is not a solution. | | The reason zoning in the US requires developments to take cars | into account, is that people in the US want cars. And if | someone builds a new residential or commercial development that | doesn't recognize this reality, it creates problems for | everyone as people have nowhere to put the cars that they | definitely want to use. | | Yes, there are some people who live in cities and are happy to | have the entirety of their life limited to the region they can | walk to, or the places where government-organized mass | transportation can deliver them like cattle. But those people | are the vast minority. Everyone else wants a car. | d0gbread wrote: | Chicken and the egg. You can't really make people not want | cars without better alternatives, which requires investments | that aren't being made. | | I want a car, because I need a car. But put in a few bullet | trains and offshoots, a business model for vehicles that | enables access to a $100/month consumer fleet of shared | vehicles so I can grab a truck, minivan, whatever as needed, | and I will happily skip ownership. | avalys wrote: | This is a fantasy. In general, people don't want a shared | vehicle. If they did, everyone would own a 5-year-old | Toyota Camry, and not luxury pickup trucks, sports cars, | Mercedes and BMWs, etc. | | The idea that these people are just sheep blinded by | marketing is ludicrous. You might spend $5 on a beer | instead of $4 because of marketing. You buy a $60,000 new | vehicle over a $15,000 used one because it's a good product | that you actually want. | bedobi wrote: | in places where people don't need to buy neither a $15 or | $60k private automobile, they don't buy any of them, they | just ride the train or a bike like normal people do | | visit tokyo, paris or any other transit oriented city and | see for yourself | ilyt wrote: | And that still solves not all that much because you still have | to feed the city by fleet of trucks, and still need to have a | fleet of vans to deliver all of that to the stores you now walk | or cycle to. | hyperhopper wrote: | Are you insinuating a single truck carrying supplies for | _thousands_ to a store is even remotely comparable to | _thousands_ of cars driving to the store? | | You're comment can be distilled to "well the solution is many | orders of magnitude better than the status quo, but it's not | perfect so it's equally bad" | anlsh wrote: | Not much? Do you drive? Do you see the number of consumer | vehicles on the road versus the number of trucks/delivery | vehicles? If we could work towards a huge reduction in | consumer vehicles on the road, even if we just replaced them | all with busses, that'd be a huge improvement in gas | consumption, traffic, (sub)urban sprawl, and more. | throwaway920102 wrote: | Or you know we could just all kill ourselves and that would | solve the problem too but people like realistic solutions. | Natural rubber exists and we don't have to use synthetic | compounds in tires, we can just have shittier tires. | | Why do you propose no driving rather than shittier, more | expensive driving? | mplewis wrote: | No one suggested you kill yourself. Just that we build more | trains you can take. | noobermin wrote: | I hate to minimod, but this comment absolutely does not deserve | to be flagged. It's not flaming or baiting, it isn't violating | guidelines or spam or anything. It's not trolling. | | The downvote is for disagreement. Do not flag to downvote, | please. FFS let's keep up the standards here and not devolve | into reddit. | pornel wrote: | It's weird they focus blame on passenger vehicles when trucks are | so much heavier. | | Shift the freight to rail. No plastics to shed. Much more energy | efficient. Can be fully electric. | danny_codes wrote: | Seriously. America has spent 80 years punting their | infrastructure backwards. It's so embarrassing. | [deleted] | verve_rat wrote: | Sweet! Can we unban plastic straws now? The vast majority of them | end up in landfill, not the ocean. | audunw wrote: | It's great to bring this problem up. But the focus on EVs is a | distraction. | | > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more from their tires due to | their higher weight and high torque compared to traditional | internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. | | It's covered in this panel discussion on Fully Charged: | https://youtu.be/LeHakmL6eEc?si=ebBAn8RSDhmmLfHI | | Fleet operators don't see any significant difference in tire | wear. EVs have higher torque but that doesn't matter unless to | drive like a mad-man. EVs also allow you to drive very smoothly | with no sudden jerk in torque. | | Cars have been getting heavier long before EVs came around. One | of the problems is that EVs are all new. Too many of them are | bigger than they need to be. But that also goes for new ICE | vehicle models. | | I'm not too worried about the weight of EVs long term. Batteries | are expensive. Increases in energy density, increase in vehicle | efficiency and decrease in weight tends to have very significant | effect on the amount of batteries you need to cover a certain | range, which has huge impact on the price. | | What we need to focus on is infrastructure for walking, biking | and public transportation. An E-bike has made it just possible | for me to bike to work in a reasonable time. So I drive our EV | less and less to work. | [deleted] | demondemidi wrote: | > What we need to focus on is infrastructure for walking, | biking and public transportation | | And busses, light rail, intercity trains. | | But America associates one-car-per-person with all kinds of | twisted politics and self-esteem anxiety. | | We need a psyops program to wean people off cars, and it will | take a decade or more. Just look at the anger in any HN thread | that is critical of cars, it runs deep. | moffkalast wrote: | > look at the anger in any HN thread that is critical of cars | | On the other hand: https://old.reddit.com/r/fuckcars | xyzelement wrote: | // But America associates one-car-per-person with all kinds | of twisted politics and self-esteem anxiety. | | America offers various lifestyles, from big cities like NYC, | Boston, etc where a car is a liability, to near suburbs that | are well served by transit (eg, NYC tri-state area) where you | probably need a car but your daily commute doesn't involve | it, to more spread-out and rural living where car is | absolutely necessary. | | This speaks to a trade-off between density and car- | dependence. People across the globe face similar trade-offs | (eg: 50% of Dutch persons own a car, 86% of French households | do...) | rafram wrote: | But we can do better. 92% of Americans own a car, only | slightly higher than the rate in France, but the average | American drives twice as many miles in a year as the | average French person does [1]. There are a lot of trips | that will always need a car. Lots of people still want to | own a car, even if they live somewhere with a good rail | network. But they don't need to drive it as much. It's not | that they're being forced not to drive, it's that rail is | such a great option for getting around that there's simply | no need to use a car for most trips. That should be our | goal in the US. | | [1] https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file- | americans-driv... | danny_codes wrote: | > We need a psyops program to wean people off cars, and it | will take a decade or more. Just look at the anger in any HN | thread that is critical of cars, it runs deep. | | That 10 billion of car ad spend per year adds up. | coryrc wrote: | Be willing to enforce civility in public. In Japan 7-year-old | kids can ride the subway; here we have junkies burning | fentanyl, vagrants with pitbulls, and "showtime". Gee, why | wouldn't I want public transit to be an inseparable part of | my life? | demondemidi wrote: | You are conflating two vastly different issues as part of | pro-car propaganda. There is a drug epidemic AND there is a | homeless crisis. | | Those have nothing to do with investing in public | transportation. | | Your agenda is showing, lay off the NewsMax, my friend. | coryrc wrote: | No, I lived this. I want to live where I can bicycle | entirely (and mostly did, because transit is often | dirty). I'm working toward spending a few years in Japan | and later the Netherlands. But only because we can't have | nice things in the USA. I'm not going to live where | junkies own all public spaces and kids get stuck on | needles and die. | cscurmudgeon wrote: | > What we need to focus on is infrastructure for walking, | biking and public transportation. | | And better tires. | dragontamer wrote: | > EVs have higher torque but that doesn't matter unless to | drive like a mad-man | | Its not torque that matters. Its simply friction and normal | force. And that's directly caused by weight. Tire Wear is | something like (weight^4), so small increases in weight will | have huge increases to wear-and-tear. | | --------- | | I think the real issue is that 3000lbs to 4500lbs, while a | significant increase in tire wear, is still small compared to | the big 5000lb to 8000lb vehicles that people use in practice. | I'm sure a 4500lb EV is bad, but I'd expect a 6000 lb SUV or | Truck to be worse (and a 8000lb electric-SUV to be the absolute | worst). | | But beyond just consumer cars are semi-trucks, which almost | certainly are the top tire-wear vehicles on the roads. I'd | expect almost all of the plastic from "tire wear" to come from | a semi-truck (again, weight to the power of 4), given their | grossly increased weight. | | > walking, biking and public transportation | | Semi-trucks are replaced by trains. Not by walking and biking. | I mean, I want more walkable paths and all. But this | _particular_ problem is solved with freight trains. | | Last-mile is difficult. Do we want 100-people in a neighborhood | driving 100x cars to a store? Or would we rather have 1x large | truck deliver a (heavier) package to 100x different people? | We're screwed in both cases, and rail can't save us. | | But trains don't use rubber and trains wheels / rails are made | from steel. I'm sure some particles fly off as iron (or iron- | oxide/rust), but surely much less than rubber given how much | stronger steel wheels / steel tracks are. | highwaylights wrote: | Or people just get their groceries delivered. Way more | convenient, not expensive anymore (I get unlimited deliveries | for a fairly paltry annual fee), and saves on journeys as the | truck just loads up on lots of people's deliveries all at | once. | | It also scales better - if more people are having groceries | delivered then each trucks stops become more closely | clustered (unless the computers involved are just doing a | poor job). | galangalalgol wrote: | As the tire wear varies with the square of the weight we | are comparing: | | 100x(car weight + grocery weight)^2 Vs (Truck weight + 100x | grocery weight)^2 | | I couldn't find an empty weight for a box truck that could | carry that much but assuming 10klbs total, and that grocery | weight is negligible to the car, it looks like thebtruck is | slightly better. It doesn't seem like a clear win. | ok_computer wrote: | Honest question how does shear force proportional to torque | not factor in? Coefficient of friction is shear over normal. | Mechanical properties are a function of temperature and quick | startups assuredly contribute to wear. An extreme example is | drag racing. Cars are highway driving in steady state | cruising for more miles and time but in the US around town | driving has stop lights. | djhedges wrote: | Even at steady state cruising the the tires are flexing and | stretching with each revolution. Tires are round but a | driveway is flat. If you look at the contact patch of the | tire it flattens a bit to confirm to the driveway's shape. | Now visualize with each revolution that flatten part of the | tire is cycling around the wheel. | | At a microscopic level there's a lot edges in the road | surface that we don't fully appreciate which also | contributes to tire wear. | http://insideracingtechnology.com/tirebkexerpt1.htm | undersuit wrote: | >Do we want 100-people in a neighborhood driving 100x cars to | a store? Or would we rather have 1x large truck deliver a | (heavier) package to 100x different people? | | Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and the | rest can be serviced by a smaller truck? | dragontamer wrote: | My overall point is that the "last mile" we're just screwed | unless we fundamentally redesign our neighborhoods and | shape of our cities. | | Its pretty damn obvious that as the USA is laid out right | now, we don't have any good last-mile solutions outside of | 100x different people driving to the same store and picking | up what they want. And its not like houses are going to | pick themselves up and move to a store, and given zoning | laws no one is going to move a store into a neighborhood | either. (People won't like the crime that comes with it). | | So whatever, that's that. I don't see this issue changing. | But I do think that the truck/rail situation can change. | Fewer people are in the decision-making process for train | vs truck, and factories can be designed (and/or redesigned) | to fit trains. | | I'd assume that its easier to convince one or two factory | owners to switch from truck-based to train-based | logistics... rather than convincing 100x homehowners to | vote at the next HOA meeting to start a city-campaign legal | change to change the local zoning laws and possibly lower | everyone's housing values by increasing crime in the | neighborhood during this rise in shoplifting going on right | now... | bobthepanda wrote: | IIRC there is a push in some areas to switch to e-bikes; | while they carry less, you also don't need a CDL to ride | a bicycle and there is a chronic shortage of CDL drivers. | nerdponx wrote: | There's no shortage of anything except training and | wages/benefits. At some point, companies are going to | have to bite the bullet and start training their own | employees. The horror! | bobthepanda wrote: | There is a legitimate lack, partially because the federal | guidelines for holding a CDL rule out anyone who uses | marijuana. | corethree wrote: | infra is not going to change in the US. Too much | individual ownership at stake. | | For example I care about the environment but not enough | to throw away a one million dollar suburban house for it. | | Basically to fix this problem is essentially to cause | current suburban housing to depreciate in value until the | property has become essentially worthless which is | against much of the populations self interest as many | people own homes. Either way, this kind of thing has sort | of already happened in Japan. | | That being said in CA there are measures to combat this | problem. ADUs and SB-9 to increase density, but adoption | has not yet been that wide spread. | lifeisstillgood wrote: | >>>Either way, this kind of thing has sort of already | happened in Japan. | | Can you explain? | corethree wrote: | In japan most physical houses are worth more than the | property they stand on. That's why real estate prices in | japan constantly depreciate. | | The only place where this isn't true are big urban cities | like tokyo near really good locations. | | See source: https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-estate- | faq/popular-myt... | | Nobody really talks about why there's this dichotomy | between Japan in and the US. The reasoning is | multifaceted. One of these things is infrastructure. | Japan cities have extremely good infrastructure and are | super clean. Living in Tokyo is close to living in a | futuristic utopian cyberpunk society. So people know that | the urban way of life is 100x better. | | The Western US is centered around suburban life where | everyone drives cars. Property is spread out and not much | is invested in cities on the west coast. People don't see | the value of city life as much. The east side of the US | is more hybridized where rural and city properties are | valued for different reasons. | | Much of this dichotomy between countries is driven by | lack of land in Japan and a lowering population. However | this just pushes japan ahead of the curve. As energy | becomes more and more expensive all economies will | inevitably shift to becoming more like japan where | suburban properties become more and more worthless. | wnoise wrote: | > (People won't like the crime that comes with it). | | Does crime come with it? I certainly wouldn't expect | that. | dragontamer wrote: | People don't shoplift at their neighbors homes. They | shoplift at grocery stores and whatever. | | Crime happens at places of commerce. That's just... how | it works. Places of commerce have both goods to steal | (especially useful black-market goods, like Tide | Detergent) and cash-registers to steal from. I'm not | saying like "murders" or whatever, but when a | neighborhood has +100 police reports in a month, the Real | Estate agents notice that and home values drop. | | That's just... how it works. Its not necessarily about | "which crimes are actually dangerous" or whatever, people | just pay attention to crime heatmaps and don't really | look into the details. | | You stick a store designed to sell to homes, that store | _will_ have homegoods, including Tide Detergent, in | stock. That Tide _will_ be stolen, its just so easy to | steal, easy to sell in the black market. That stolen good | will be reported on police reports (so that the store can | get back its insurance, or write it off or whatever they | plan to do accounting wise). That police report will drop | nearby home values. | wcarss wrote: | If people think grocery stores existing within walking | distance of their homes will lower their home values, due | to some rise in shoplifting in the news implying crime in | their area, then the war for any sensible policy | decisions is lost. | | That's like ten carts before a horse or some brawndo has | what plants crave shit. I can walk to the grocery store | where I live -- my house is worth more _because_ it has | decent access to amenities. | uoaei wrote: | Can you quote actual statistics, not merely | sensationalizing articles, demonstrating an increase in | shoplifting? As far as I've seen there is no evidence to | back up this common assertion. The narrative that is | floating around is doing a lot of work to convince people | it's true but where are the facts? | dragontamer wrote: | No. | | Empirically, myself and my sister have witnessed | shoplifters personally in recent months. I know this is | anecdotal data, but anecdotes (especially personal ones) | are enough for myself. At least in my area, it seems like | shoplifters _are_ on the rise. | | I don't need to prove it to other people on the internet. | My own eyes with my own life is enough proof for me. If | that's not enough for you, whatever. Seeing news reports | that others are seeing similar rises matches my "gut | check". | | ------------ | | Now people stealing food from grocery stores is... you | know... the lowest level of shoplifting. These people | aren't stealing like, luxury goods. They're clearly just | trying to survive. Its not like a criminal gang or | organized crime that'd be deeply rooted and/or difficult | to deal with. | | IMO, its weird that people would rather shoplift than to | apply and/or use a WIC card (food stamps). So its a | conundrum for another day in any case, its a crime | (albeit relatively victimless. Sure sucks for the staff | and the grocery store but I've seen worse...). But its | still speaks poorly for neighborhoods and makes people | feel less safe. So yeah, it needs to stop. But I can 100% | believe that shoplifting is on the rise today. | Anecdotally at least. | | There's other low-level crimes, like obviously not-paying | for the subway, that I think is on the rise by my eyes as | well. These also make people feel unsafe and/or | unappreciated (tax dollars wasted, etc. etc.) and is bad | for our neighborhoods. | | I do know that statistically speaking, the personal | savings rate of people has declined, wages haven't kept | with inflation, etc. etc. So these actions make sense in | the greater economic situation IMO. | | I don't necessarily want a police crackdown to throw all | these people in jail. But we do need to do something, | maybe make WIC cards easier to apply for (at every | grocery store for example), or stuff like that. We | literally have a food-stamps program, why aren't people | using it? Why are they shoplifting instead? | | -------- | | If I cared, I probably would start by interviewing / | personally talking to cashiers at my local grocery store | before I trusted online articles anyway. And I'd suggest | you do the same if you cared about this issue. The | internet is just not as good a source of information as | the front-line workers here. | | Every grocery store clerk has a feel. Talk with them next | time you visit the store, don't be a political asshat | about it but it wouldn't take more than 1 or 2 minutes to | ask them if they've noticed more shoplifters. Obviously | don't eat up all their time either (they're on the job | after all). With luck, you might see a manager watching | all the clerks who'd have more freetime to talk about | shoplifters too. | CableNinja wrote: | Housing density, and radius of "walkable" to the average | human. | | I live in a neighborhood full of small apartments, single | level duplexes, and single family homes. What stores are | walkable? The liquor store, and gas station, and if i | really feel like it, dominos and 7-11, both of which are at | least 1/4 mile one way. Most others in this area, dont get | those even. Past that its about a mile one way to the | actual grocery store. And then after all the shopping, i | have to walk back, now with 50+lbs of groceries. | | Honestly, all this we need more walkable cities stuff, i | get it, yes, you should be able to get places by walking, | but really, its just not even feasible most times if youre | going to be buying something. Im not gonna walk home from | best buy 4+ miles away heaving a huge TV on my back, no one | will. We invented transportation that didnt involve humans | using their legs because we are slow, and easily over | encumbered when carrying things. Theres a reason we saw an | explosion of carriages way back. Its easier to haul more, | and much faster, than if a person, or even many people at | once, were to do it. | | Housing density is a huge factor in a lot of this, but | having swaths of tall purely apartment buildings is also | not the answer. People want single family homes and other | styles for many reasons. They wont be going away anytime | soon. And even if they did, the only answer is _very_ mixed | use zoning. | | One of my favorite examples, in downtown Denver, there is a | tall apartment building, stacked on top of a large chain | grocery store, it includes parking for the store, and spots | for the building, under the building too. This is what i | would consider peak use, and what people complain about | walkable cities really need to focus on. Having a city you | can walk anywhere is great, but you need to be able to get | to the societal needs without having to walk far. Of course | the grocery store also serves for a large part of that | neighborhood, and distance to the store is a variable, but | this mainly serves multiple buildings in a small area. The | big problem is all the space we waste dedicating to | parking. It might be more expensive, but you can gain a lot | more use if you force parking lots to have shops | above/below them, and that reclaimed flat land can then be | used for the mixed use building. Parking is also not going | away, like i said, we invented carriages for a reason. | Howwwweeeeevvvveeerrr all of this comes with a number of | caveats, like the ridiculous price to lease a storefront, | build the building, etc, and of course its just a feedback | loop that gets worse as we waste more space, space becomes | premium. | | All of this is to sum up my point, walkability is variable | by person, and changes greatly depending on if youre going | to have to be carrying things, and theres never going to be | good "walkable" cities, short of nuking a city and starting | over, you wont make it vastly better, especially with the | politicians and government we have now. | swores wrote: | So people in your type of neighbourhood maybe can't start | walking everywhere right away, but you don't need to also | think "walking is out forever" - you can start lobbying | your local politicians, and voting for the ones who want | to improve things rather than sit in their 4x4 enjoying | the status quo. | | (And personally if I lived somewhere unwalkable I'd move | home to address that, though I appreciate there can be | reasons to either not want to move or to not be able to | move.) | lazide wrote: | Though folks who prioritized that would probably not move | to such a place in large numbers? | | Unless they changed their mind to that state due to some | major economic shifts after the move anyway. | badpun wrote: | A mile to a store is a very comfortable distance. I've | lived in such situation for a couple of years and just | walked to the store a couple times a week, hauling back a | couple of kilograms of groceries in my backpack every | time. I needed the walk and the exercise anyway, and this | way I was killing two birds with one stone. | lazide wrote: | So no kids? | dataflow wrote: | How far do you think people should be willing to walk to a | store? | Gibbon1 wrote: | My data point when I lived in SF is I would walk a third | of a mile with two bags of groceries. But didn't really | want to walk half a mile. | | Back when I lived in San Jose I could also walk to the | store because way back in the 1940's they put a | pedestrian walkway between two streets which dropped the | walking distance from my house to the shopping center | from half a mile to again a third of a mile. | | Which brings up something I think is over looked. Which | is the layout of streets in post war housing tracts makes | the distances you need to walk twice are far as they | could be. With zoning changes, money and some eminent | domain we could make things better. | undersuit wrote: | People should walk as far as they are willing to walk. | CableNinja wrote: | As i mentioned in my other post. Thats not far for most | people. More than 1/4 mile and people will not hesitate | to get the car | swores wrote: | I'm sure there are many people for whom that is true, but | there are also many people who would laugh at the idea of | driving two miles instead of walking, or laugh at the | idea of driving six miles instead of cycling (even with a | bag or two of shopping). | | I think a lot of the difference between people comes down | to their childhood - what they learned as default | behaviour. Though obviously people can change as they | grow up too, either personality wise or having | health/physical reasons they either can't walk far or | can't drive at all. But my point is that just because | some people feel that 3 minutes is the maximum time for | walking before a car should be used instead it doesn't | mean that short distance is an immutable fact, and many | people could get used to walking slightly further | distances and discover that no only is it not the end of | the world, but it's even a good way to stay or become a | bit fitter and healthier! | Animatronio wrote: | I was just thinking - why don't they make electrified | coin-operated shopping carts that you can take home and | return when you're done with them? That would greatly | extend the carrying capacity of a single person and maybe | make car trips redundant. | desas wrote: | Because nearly no-one wants to walk to the store, walk | home, walk back to the store to return the cart and then | walk home again. | | I never drive to the store and I still wouldn't do that. | Animatronio wrote: | You'd keep the cart until next time you need it. | CableNinja wrote: | Thats just buying a shopping cart with extra steps | Symbiote wrote: | Are you serious? That's 400m. One lap of the athletics | track. Should take about 4 minutes at walking speed. | | Aren't there shopping malls in the US longer/wider than | this? | | I think I walk further than that between buildings to get | to the canteen at lunch time. I tell people I live | "really close" to a metro station and it's 380m away. | redwall_hp wrote: | I'd say most people in overly car-centric areas balk at | walking from the far end of a Walmart parking lot. | [deleted] | jayd16 wrote: | I wouldn't mind walking to the store now and then but | usually I make fewer trips for more than I could carry. | undersuit wrote: | So you're going to drive a multi-ton vehicle instead of | bringing a folding cart? | avalys wrote: | Yes, because we're a wealthy and productive society and | the fruits of human progress in the past 300 years have | allowed us to build a civilization where nearly everyone | can afford to use a multi-ton machine of nearly | incomprehensible complexity and sophistication to carry | them around, instead of pushing a cart like a peasant | 5,000 years ago did. | seanp2k2 wrote: | Check out eg https://youtu.be/hmk5cxpAfcw where he's | flying by all the cars stuck in traffic on his human- | powered peasant wheels. | | Auto companies lobbied governments and put out propaganda | to get cities to rip out street cars and rail in the | early 1900s. They did this to sell more cars, so this is | what we get. | avalys wrote: | If you want to ban cars from New York City, that's fine | with me. Do you realize that NYC makes up 0.008% of the | land area in the United States? | avalys wrote: | Your young and fit rollerblade dude doesn't seem to be | carrying much in the way of groceries or supervising any | young children. | | What about the single mother of three with a disability? | Should she push a cart to the grocery store? Who is | watching her kids while she does this? | undersuit wrote: | Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and | the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck? | undersuit wrote: | Yes we can afford this now. In the context of "Tire Dust | Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics" how long | can we afford this? Just like dumping Freon, and CO2 into | the atmosphere have long term consequences that require | our society to change, how long can we go aerosolizing | rubber? | seanp2k2 wrote: | I wonder how hard it would be to capture this with some | kind of aero device in the wheel wells of vehicles. Given | what F1 teams can do with aero, it doesn't seem like a | huge stretch to be able to suck up these particles at the | source and pass them through a filter bag like a | household vacuum or something. | uoaei wrote: | That's a fascinating idea. I hope someone (you?) pursues | it. | avalys wrote: | Governments have paid very little attention to this | problem to date. It seems like regulation on chemical | composition of tires might be warranted. I don't have a | problem with that. | | The fanatic anti-car people will actually reduce the | chances of meaningful regulation being passed here - as | they won't be able to resist trying to use this | opportunity to actually make cars more expensive and less | accessible to people, and reduce overall car use, etc. | | Thus, reasonable people who are not fanatically opposed | to cars will be suspicious of whether the proposed | regulation is really needed, or just an excuse to achieve | socio-political goals that can't be achieved directly. | | This is exactly the same dynamic that affects other | issues, e.g. gun control. The extremists will block | reasonable progress. | amanaplanacanal wrote: | Unfortunately we have been pushing the costs onto | everybody else: as evidenced by climate change and micro | plastics. And now the bill is starting to come due. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | I have a wheeled shopping cart thing (not sure what to | really call it, but it's the standard one). I can only | fit some milk and a few things in there, it is no where | near as capable as my car. I still use it, since I don't | like driving to the store (we live near 3 big grocery | stores, and a soon to be closed city target), and it's | useful for getting snacks to school when it's my turn, | but I don't see it as a car replacement. | lazide wrote: | When it's easier and (value of time) cheaper, why not? | undersuit wrote: | You seem to have different issues than the person I'm | replying to. Maybe your situation is different. If you | nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away by walking maybe | your situation requires a different solution than someone | who has expressed interest to walk but stated that they | might buy too many groceries to walk that home. | lazide wrote: | Nope. A car is convenient (the comment I was replying | too) in both situations! | | Weird, eh? | beedeebeedee wrote: | > Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and | the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck? | | Single-use zoning. Most people in the US live in areas | where you can't walk to a store. | seanp2k2 wrote: | For example, San Jose: https://youtu.be/SWtb3GsLrTI | doubled112 wrote: | The nearest store is a 45 minute walk (one way) from my | townhouse. I'm not in the US, but Canada. Driving drops | that to 8 minutes. | | The sprawl is real and I just don't always have 1.5 hours | to dedicate to grabbing bread. | mzmzmzm wrote: | This kind of gets at the root of the problem. Take away | cars, and the whole North American built environment is | just not worth as much as the pyramid scheme of real | estate we have in place of social safety nets. | ryukafalz wrote: | > The nearest store is a 45 minute walk (one way) from my | townhouse. I'm not in the US, but Canada. Driving drops | that to 8 minutes. | | Assuming an average adult walking speed of 3 mph, I'm | guessing that's somewhere in the ballpark of 2.25 miles? | So something like 11 minutes at an average cycling speed | of 12 mph, yeah? The distances here don't feel | insurmountable. | doubled112 wrote: | It isn't the distance that is insurmountable by bike, no. | | Alone it would be fine, I know what I'm doing. If I add | my children to the mix, it is a little sketchy due to | what I'd consider tricky spots. | | There are no sidewalks, no bike lanes, no curbs, a | squeeze over a bridge where two cars won't fit around the | corner simultaneously, and a couple of roundabouts that | drivers just don't understand (one normal, one mini). I | can't quite trust them to do the right things. The | drivers or my children in this instance. | ryukafalz wrote: | Sure, I don't doubt that the infrastructure is terrible | for cycling. It is where I live in the US too. But I | think it's worth calling out that the distances involved | often are well-suited for cycling, even if the streets | today aren't. | | Where the distances are okay but the streets aren't, | safer streets can make cycling feasible. Where the | distances are too far for cycling, you need both safer | streets _and_ a shift in land use to get people out of | their cars. Both are doable in the long term, but the | former is much more tractable in the short- and medium- | term. | undersuit wrote: | Yes _now_ , but I have assume to were talking about | improvements and the future of "walking, biking and | public transportation" since adunw started this thread | with that sentiment. | slackwaredragon wrote: | A lot of people can't look beyond their own generation | and if it's something that takes 20-30 years to realize | they just simply think it's too difficult. I see this | with my generation (Gen-X), newer generations and even | older generations. | ZeroGravitas wrote: | The report they cite has a litte icon of a train in their | solutions infographic section, page 89: | | https://www.systemiq.earth/wp- | content/uploads/2020/07/Breaki... | neon_electro wrote: | My Bolt EV has a curb weight of 3624lbs; there are examples | of vehicles that could have dramatically lower impact, but | it's frustrating that GM doesn't seem inclined to keep cars | like this in production. (Yes, they're hinting at producing | the Bolt EV in the future, it's unfortunate that they can't | just keep producing the current Bolt until then) | Stinky_Lisa wrote: | Last mile can be resolved with drones and bikes. I wouldnt | even be opposed to consider going back to horses. | swores wrote: | Are horses actually environmentally friendly? I know that | having a pet dog can be one of, if not the most, un- | environmentally friendly things a person can do due to the | amount they eat, so I could imagine horses having the same | problem and not being as good as electric cars yet alone | electric bikes, but I don't know anything about horses so | maybe they're very efficient eaters? | | I do know that back before cars, places like NYC had many | tens of thousands of horses working in the streets, leading | to huge amounts of horse shit everywhere (so much so that | even though it does have industrial uses, it's value was | practically zero), plus something like half a dozen horses | dying on the streets every day and being left to putrefy - | so some logistical improvements compared to last time | needed at the very least, though 120 years ago people | weren't caring much about the fuel efficiency comparisons. | aksss wrote: | Yep, horses are massively expensive to own. Aside from | required caloric intake, think living space, waste | disposal, pests, specialized care (farrier), vet bills, | tack, grooming. Ugh. | [deleted] | downWidOutaFite wrote: | I was in the market for a small electric city car and found | out that we're not allowed to have small cars in the US. | Europe and Asia have really nice small city cars under | 2,000lbs but none of them are available here. I believe the | smallest car sold in the US is the Mini Cooper around | 3,000lbs. I actually ended up with a souped up street legal | golf cart and it's worked out well for my purposes of picking | up kids and groceries within a 5 mile radius, though I'm in | the Bay Area where the weather is not too extreme most of the | year. I'm not sure why this market is neglected. | dragontamer wrote: | Doesn't really matter in any case. | | The bulk of the problem is 5000lb+ vehicles. F150, SUVs | like Suburbans, etc. etc. I'm not even sure if people are | using these big vehicles to carry their families around, | its probably just single-person drivers in most cases. | | I'm not even sure how to approach the weight problem. We | have plenty of cars in the 3000lb or 4000lb range but more- | and-more people are pushing 5000lb+. | redwall_hp wrote: | A tax during annual registration based on axle weight to | the fourth power times the number of miles driven since | the last odometer reading. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law | | There are some horrible states without annual | inspections, but they should be federally punished until | they comply. If we could force every state to have a | drinking age of 21, using access to highway funding, then | there's no reason the same thing couldn't be done for | vehicular taxation. It would increase state tax revenue | anyway... | enragedcacti wrote: | The Mitsubishi Mirage is available in the US and comes in | at just ~2100lbs, but it really ends up just serving the | purpose of showing how huge of a gap there is in the | American market. The fact that Mitsubishi can make a | 4-door, 40mpg, 2100lbs car that passes US regs on a | shoestring sale price shows that other mfgs could but just | don't have the incentive to. You have the cancelled Chevy | Spark at 2246lbs, the 2-seater Miata at 2,341lbs, and then | the next lightest is a Versa with +500lbs on the Mirage. | redwall_hp wrote: | The Honda Fit, which is very popular, isn't even sold in | the US anymore. Curb weight is low 3000s, all of the | passenger seats fold down, it parallel parks trivially, | and it's fun to drive. It's basically a 90s Civic. | | I'm angry about this often, as mine is over fifteen years | old. If I had to replace it with a new car, I'd want | another Fit. The closest thing on the market is probably | a hatchback Civic...and the whole reason for the Fit | existing is because international pressure made the Civic | too large and heavy for the desirable tax bracket in the | Japanese market. | | And it's not even small for the Japanese market, because | they have the whole kei class, with strong incentives to | drive smaller cars. Which is how it should work | everywhere: severe tax penalties for larger cars, to | promote public safety and fairly pay for the fourth-power | law that affects road wear. | Synaesthesia wrote: | The important point is there are far greener alternatives than | EV's. EV's cost a lot of resources to build, which means a lot | of environmental destruction and carbon output. Plus as we see | they still contribute to this tyre dust problem. They are not | the holy grail. Rail, public transport, e-bikes and better city | design is. | djaychela wrote: | This argument about EV resource use for construction is | fossil fuel industry FUD. The difference is outweighed within | a year or two of driving versus an ICE vehicle. | swores wrote: | It can be simultaneously true that EVs are absolutely a big | improvement over ICE vehicles, and that switching all | vehicles to EVs doesn't solve 100% of the problems - | therefore it's good to both continue pushing to move to | EVs, and to push for alternatives as suggested by GP. | goalieca wrote: | > Fleet operators don't see any significant difference in tire | wear. | | Larger vehicles have larger tires. The size of a tire on a | Tesla is a lot bigger than on my small sedan. They may both go | 150,000km but one surely pollutes more. | djaychela wrote: | True, but you should be comparing like with like here. A | similar sized ICE vehicle will have similar sized tyres to | the Tesla. | goalieca wrote: | A similar sized ICE vehicle by weight will be much larger | in volume. I compare a Tesla sedan with an actual ICE sedan | and not a 3 row minivan. | Kirby64 wrote: | Comparing a Tesla sedan to common ICE sedans... | | Tesla Model 3 uses 235/45R18 tires. The tires that come | with the car have a treadwear of 500, so ~50k miles of | use. Quite middle of the road in terms of treadwear, and | you can get much stickier (and much lower life) tires | such as the Pilot Sport 4S. | | 4 competitors for the sedan in the luxury class: | | BMW 330i uses 225/45R18 | | Audi A3 uses 225/40R18 | | Lexus ES250 uses 235/45R18 | | Mercedes C300 uses 225/45R18 | | Tire size seems all nearly identical to me. Some small | variance, but broadly extremely close. | oxfordmale wrote: | For equivalent sized vehicles, EVs are heavier, simply because | current generation batteries still do not match the energy | density of fossil fuels. | | There is even discussions to start using concrete for roads to | handle the increased weight of EVs. | maxerickson wrote: | FWIW, chemical batteries won't ever match the energy density | of fossil fuels. | | Of course they don't need to, so it's not really an | interesting comparison. The range/mass of the entire | drivetrain is probably a reasonable comparison. | djaychela wrote: | A kia Nero EV is ~200kg heavier than the ice version. That's | equivalent to two passengers. The weight delta of large | vehicles is far more of an issue than drive train | differences. | chiefalchemist wrote: | > Cars have been getting heavier long before EVs came around. | One of the problems is that EVs are all new. Too many of them | are bigger than they need to be. But that also goes for new ICE | vehicle models. | | I'm not too worried about the weight of EVs long term. | | Given the rate of climate change / ecological damage, what | definition are we using for "long term"? | | That aside, you've might have buried the lede. The switch over | to EVs should represent an opportunity to revisit and evolve | what personal transportation could look like and should look | like[1]. Instead we've taking the same *old* bigger, stronger, | faster paradigm and replacing petrol with a plug. Humans' role | in the bigger broader picture isn't changing. It's the starus | quo with a solar panel. | | There's a better than fair chance we're going to regret | squandering this opportunity. | | [1] Similar happened with the pandemic...an opportunity to | revist and rethink was quickly swept aside for back to the | status quo. ASAP please. That's great for the status quo but | certain a concern for the long term. | danny_codes wrote: | Exactly. Designing transit systems around cars was a colossal | mistake. Now that the data are clear, it's time to rebuild. | Over the next few decades, we need to tear down existing car | infrastructure and replace it with walking/biking/transit. | | A side benefit (aside from the particulate pollution, energy | waste, noise pollution, high death toll, increased inter- | destination distance, decreased QOL) is that it'll be like an | order of magnitude cheaper. Cars are a rather expensive way to | get around. The Netherlands actually considers biking to be | +17cents per mile (as in, considered revenue), because of | reduced healthcare costs. | avalys wrote: | Transit systems are designed around cars because people want | to use cars. This idea that it was some kind of a massive | conspiracy from the auto manufacturers is just bullshit. | | Yes, cars are expensive. We can afford cars today. No one | wants to get poorer and go back to walking. | qwerpy wrote: | The car shaming mindset makes sense if you live somewhere | like Japan where transit is clean and fast, and you don't | have problematic people who assault other riders and do | drugs. As a family man living in a large American west | coast city, there is no way I would ever give up my car | lifestyle. | Fricken wrote: | Cars are the leading killers of kids in America. | avalys wrote: | So? No matter what actions you take, _something_ is going | to be the leading killer of kids. By itself that | statement means nothing. | ilyt wrote: | > Fleet operators don't see any significant difference in tire | wear. EVs have higher torque but that doesn't matter unless to | drive like a mad-man. EVs also allow you to drive very smoothly | with no sudden jerk in torque. | | Time-to-replace-tyre is insignicant. If tyre manufacturer is | tasked with making EV tyre with same durability as normal tyre | they will just make rubber and grooves thicker. | | Also technically heavier car on wider tyre might use them up at | similar rate than lighter car on skinnier tyre (as load-per-cm2 | would be similar) but obviously produce more dust. | | > Cars have been getting heavier long before EVs came around. | One of the problems is that EVs are all new. Too many of them | are bigger than they need to be. But that also goes for new ICE | vehicle models. | | It took ~20-30 years for average ICE car to get ~30% heavier. | EVs add another ~30-50% on top of that increase. | | For any comparable ICE, EV will be heavier. | notacoward wrote: | > the focus on EVs is a distraction. | | Indeed. | | > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more | | ... for the same capacity. Isn't it funny how people focus on | per-vehicle numbers for one segment? There are more oversized | gas-burning pickups and SUVs than electric _anything_ , plus | millions of diesel-burning vehicles that are even heavier. But | _somehow_ those all get left out of most stories on this topic. | Truly a strange coincidence, everyone forgetting the same thing | all at once. | SoftTalker wrote: | Sounds like a lot of hand-waving to rationalize a downside of | EVs: they are heavy and chew up tires. | jungturk wrote: | The downside applies to "heavy vehicles" more generally, | which includes most battery-bearing EVs in addition to most | pickup trucks and SUVs driven in the US. | qwytw wrote: | > Too many of them are bigger than they need to be. But that | also goes for new ICE vehicle models. | | That's a very American centric claim. The gap between ICE and | EV weight is relatively much higher in many other places where | smaller cars are more popular. | xbmcuser wrote: | Yeah this is something that probably will start outside the | western world. In poor countries as solar and batteries keep | getting cheaper we will start seeing new shapes for vehicles | which wont look the same as cars of today. Such vehicles will | have a hard time getting cleared for the streets in the | developed world because of decades of laws and red tape. | mzmzmzm wrote: | I think your final point is key. Apart from curb weight, the | reason to emphasize EVs might be just to remind people that | they're not a panacea for the environmental collapse we're | speeding towards. Instead of inventivizing car-free and car- | light living, policymakers would rather not distrupt anything, | simply swapping EVs for ICE vehicles in the same miserable | sprawl. Yale's findings underline that this can't happen. | lb1lf wrote: | Batteries are still heavy. | | For instance, the VW id.3 (small-ish EV) has a curb weight | 250-450kg (550-1,000lbs) more than my wife's gasoline VW | Passat, a quite spacious estate wagon. | robertlagrant wrote: | I doubt an ID3 weighs only half a ton. Probably at least | three times that? | jazzyjackson wrote: | >> more than | lb1lf wrote: | It is close to two tons, I was (clumsily, it appears, but | English is my third language, so please bear with me) | trying to state that an id.3 compact is 250-450kg | (depending on configuration) heavier than a gasoline- | powered estate. | robertlagrant wrote: | Aaaah - gotcha. | userbinator wrote: | "Yes, and?" | | It's time we just stopped caring and propagating this doomer | scaremongering. Researchers looking for things will certainly | find them, not necessarily because they're true, but because the | null hypothesis doesn't bring any fame or fortune. | danny_codes wrote: | > Researchers looking for things will certainly find them, not | necessarily because they're true, but because the null | hypothesis doesn't bring any fame or fortune. | | Are you saying that the researchers did faulty science? Or that | you don't think microplastics are a problem? | userbinator wrote: | Both. | | Remember when microwave ovens were thought to cause cancer, | and then cellphones a few decades later? You can find plenty | of "research" to support those claims. | | Just like RF, humans have been exposed to microplastics for | over a century now. The biggest difference is that | sociopolitical ideology has become more pervasive and | environmentalist virtue-signaling is now fashionable and | brings in the fame and fortune. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-01 23:01 UTC)