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Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by eximius on Saturday April 08, 2017 @01:52PM (#14068067)
I very much enjoy my vehicle, so I am biased... BUT...

Freedom of Movement is very much not a luxury. You might argue that lacking these 'luxuries' does not prevent you from going anywhere, but it is very much a restriction of otherwise freer movement Also, it ignores the inherent timeliness our society has developed which make lower variance delays much more desireable.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by notatoad on Saturday April 08, 2017 @02:04PM (#14068127)
Freedom of movement is not a luxury, and i never said it was. But travelling in a personal vehicle is absolutely a luxury.

If you truly believe that freedom of movement is a right that should be applied to everyone, you should be arguing in favour of improved public transit and any other solution that isn't a personal vehicle, because personal vehicles aren't accessible to everybody. In addition to being financially out of reach for many, they cannot be used by the visually impaired and by people with certain motor function impairments, the young, or the old. Something as important as freedom of movement should be serviced by something that is accessible to all.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by scythe on Saturday April 08, 2017 @02:35PM (#14068272)
Using disabled people as a bludgeon to deprive the middle class isn't sticking up for the little guy, it's abusive. Disabled people have problems on trains, too: elevators are often broken and it's hard to move in a crowd. There are simply disadvantages to being less able, which is not the same thing as being deprived of your ability to do something by someone who holds power over you. Insisting on the equivalence of such a thing brings to mind the character O'Brien from a certain dystopian fiction.

Traveling in a personal vehicle affords drastically more freedom of movement (you are literally in control of your movement) than any form of public transport and while it's not necessarily a need that should be subsidized by the state it is nonetheless a curtailment on freedom when the state deliberately makes it less convenient than it had been.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by pg314 on Saturday April 08, 2017 @03:17PM (#14068501)
> Traveling in a personal vehicle affords drastically more freedom of movement (you are literally in control of your movement) than any form of public transport and while it's not necessarily a need that should be subsidized by the state it is nonetheless a curtailment on freedom when the state deliberately makes it less convenient than it had been.

The state should make it less convenient. In the past they have been massively subsidizing it with free roads and military interventions abroad to safeguard the oil supply. Furthermore cars and gasoline should be taxed much more heavily to compensate for the negative externalities of cars: noise and air pollution and countless traffic victims (35.000 motor vehicle deaths in 2015 in the US alone [1]).

Your freedom to get somewhere in a car is not absolute (e.g. you have to follow roads), it should be balanced against other freedoms. Ponder this: cars have impinged on my freedom to go certain places (e.g. highways or certain neighborhoods that no longer have sidewalks) on foot.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by scythe on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:50PM (#14068948)
>The state should make it less convenient

First, this is not what I was responding to. Parent claimed that restricting the freedom to use cars was not an impingement on personal freedom at all, because not everybody can drive a car. That is a different question than whether it is a tolerable infringement, and it is precisely the denial that people have a legitimate interest in car use that I have characterized as Orwellian.

Second, your comparison is equally silly. Complaining that I cannot walk on the highway is like complaining that I cannot drive my car through a building. It is normal that you cannot move literally everywhere. The question of the freedom of movement being infringed necessarily relies on the change in freedom relative to what was previously possible, and highways take up a small proportion of land which is hardly comparable to reducing by half or more the number of car-miles a person can afford to drive (or taking their car completely).

>Furthermore cars and gasoline should be taxed much more heavily to compensate for the negative externalities of cars: noise and air pollution and countless traffic victims (35.000 motor vehicle deaths in 2015 in the US alone [1]).

They are already taxed to compensate for those externalities, by requiring drivers to buy insurance policies that cover damage they may cause. There cannot always be the argument that because there are externalities, taxes must be raised. At some point the taxes have to be enough. This is yet more absurd gaslighting by rich jerks who like to push people around.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by TheCoelacanth on Sunday April 09, 2017 @04:38PM (#14074244)
Taxes on cars don't even cover the full cost of roads. They don't even begin to cover the negative externalities caused by cars.

Insurance policies only cover damage that is directly attributable to individual drivers like traffic collisions. They don't cover any of the damage caused by air or noise pollution.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by closeparen on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:05PM (#14068722)
And mass transit infringes your freedom to wander on to train tracks.

Any reasonably time-efficient transportation system is going to deny pedestrians some space.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by Dylan16807 on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:35PM (#14068872)
Show me a neighborhood or city that's only accessible via train track and I'll agree the comparison makes sense.
Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by pg314 on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:38PM (#14068890)
Absolutely. My point was that none of those freedoms are absolute, and they should not be treated as if they were.
Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by michaelmrose on Saturday April 08, 2017 @03:06PM (#14068430)
It is only as convenient as it has been because the state forces businesses and apartments to provide the parking required to enable this for free out of their own pockets. Removing regulations requiring this can't be said to be curtailing your freedom.

As you said paying for parking is just a disadvantage of hauling around several tons of metal, which is not the same as being deprived of your ability to do something by someone who holds power over you.

Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by oceanghost on Saturday April 08, 2017 @02:14PM (#14068182)
You are grasping at straws.
Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by drdeadringer on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:47PM (#14068936)
How?
Re:How not to create traffic jams: Don’t let people park for... by CalRobert on Saturday April 08, 2017 @04:55PM (#14068989)
And yet freedom of movement is severely curtailed throughout the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam