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A comment on Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a disaster. Parent comment

Re:Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a... by lispm on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @05:50AM (#15292034)
> Electric ground transportation is the future.

You can already use trains in a large scale: most larger European cities are well connected and have extensive local transport systems. Next the public sector will invest a lot of money into electrical busses and their infrastructure. E-Bikes are already very popular. Cars will take a few more years...

Merkel's government had ambitious goals, but industry and public was not ready - without substantial financial incentives, which would have been another problem.

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Re:Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a... by dom0 on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @07:35AM (#15292576)
+1

Many people commute by train from the "suburbs" or the smaller cities sprinkled around the larger cities, partly because it's convenient, partly because traffic is really bad in major cities.

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Re:Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a... by toyg on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @08:54AM (#15293175)
> partly because traffic is really bad in major cities.

This is particularly relevant in the European context, where most cities were not built for cars and now cannot be significantly altered.

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Re:Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a... by lispm on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @09:21AM (#15293410)
Well Germany had the unfortunate advantage of having many of their cities complete destroyed. I live in Hamburg, which was flattened by bombs. After the war the cities were rebuild - for cars..
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Re:Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a... by pgeorgi on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @08:58AM (#15293209)
> now cannot be significantly altered

And why should we? (as in: I consider car-friendly cities a bug, not a feature)

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Re:Angela Merkel’s record on environmental policy has been a... by wutbrodo on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @11:57AM (#15295205)
Sure, no one's suggesting they _should_ be altered, but evidence from the entire world suggests that most people (partly in a political context) are too dumb to understand the concept of the damage done by a car-friendly/human-unfriendly city design. So external barriers like the one described here tend to be the only defense.
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