This is highly dependent on your location and life circumstances. I live in Eastern Europe, have resources to easily buy a couple of cars, yet choose not to. I prefer to walk or cycle.
> People talk about bicycles, but 0 degree or snowy weather makes that horrid
In Amsterdam, people cycle in -10°C when there's 10cm of snow on the ground (I did so myself). While a little unpleasant, apart from walking it was the only viable means of transport: the metro and trains were cancelled because of snow, and cars and buses were mostly stuck in traffic jams because there were so many crashes everywhere. (Someone tell the Dutch about winter tires!)
I cannot see an entire society doing this, in areas that range from small towns to medium sized cities.
The wind doesn't cut through proper clothes. I try to avoid the roads as well, but the bike paths work well where I live, even when the temperature goes down to -20°C.
Please try it again it's not really the same experience if you choose to do it. All your problems described above are easy to solve, if you have resources to buy a car[1]. Ice bark roads are navigable with cheap winter tires (it does take you 40% longer to traverse though). I need to have a change of clothes and layers. good gloves, shoes and socks are vital below -12° if you bicycle for and 1 hour in such conditions it's going to hurt alot.
[1] You might need to sell the car though, which might not be an option, but in the long run you should come out ahead
I assume that the parent post meant 0°F which is around -18°C.
I would be surprised to learn someone over the age of 16 doesn't have their license in a new england suburb. In my limited experience public transit is terrible in smaller US cities.
The truth is in NYC I don't even think about owning a car. In fact the opposite is true, sometimes I think to myself "wow, I'm so glad I can live my life and don't have to worry about all that car related stuff."
I'm not saying that's true anywhere else. I'm not telling you to feel guilty about owning a car. All I'm saying is that in NYC in 2018, no, life really isn't limited without a car. This isn't virtue signaling this is a calculated part of life for many people living in major cities. Public transit isn't perfect but the cost/benefit of car ownership overhead just isn't worth it in some places.
i dont know what the value of 'i live in nyc and i dont need a car' provides. everyone already knows most people in nyc doesnt need a car. the problem is getting people in the densely packed urban areas to understand not all people can (or wants to) live without a car. likewise europeans, we get it, a lot of you dont need a car.
there is very few places in the US most people can function without a car. Philadelphia, NYC, and DC that I can think of. I guess SF, but walking around there was really hard for me.
In Philly, I can walk nearly everywhere and get what I need. like you, it would cost me a ton of money even if I were given a car. I dont need it, and I dont want one. However, I am also a bit trapped in the city. if I want to do any hiking or anything 'outdoorsy', I either have to ask someone to give me a ride or I simply cant do it.
The OP argues not owning a car is a "virtuous shtick" and then: "You have no social life with no car" and "People here [hacker news] don't get how limited your life is without a car."
Such ridiculous claims deserve to be challenged since the OP seems to be speaking about car ownership in general, not just people living in suburbs.
Cars are responsible for many problems including wasted space, noise, visual and air pollution, danger, and unpleasant urban space breakdowns.
The Highway and Automobile culture are symbols of totalitarian cultures which deny people more sustainable and equitable alternatives for mobility and transport - Vandana Shiva, February 19, 2004.
The reality is that most people live in dense Asian urban environments, and this trend is increasing. More and more people rely solely on public transport, and this is a good thing for society and the environment. If everyone carried on like Americans or Australians, global warming would be insane. Let's encourage pluralism and change. Cars have had their chance - the 1950s called and wants its suburban utopia back.
There's also a bit of good fortune involved. I was young, single, and healthy. But I'm older now, and there are times when I simply cannot afford to use public transit or walk. If you get the flu, you don't even have the choice; walking fifteen minutes to get medicine or food is agony. And you always have to walk fifteen minutes, just to get to the transit spot. You feel the weather a lot more as you age; a brisk rain shower is rougher on you at 40 than at 20.
And come on, what can be more totalitarian than restricting the ability of people to move beyond a tiny radius apart from communal vehicles that can be shut down on a whim?
The thing with walking is that it's very much a "use it or lose it" thing; people who never owned cars are much more likely to keep walking.
I know a lot of broke people who live within less than a two minute walk of a bus stop and could not possibly afford a car. You might want to consider how the built environment has dictated your choices.
Also on the point of cost, cars are incredibly expensive, especially in the US where everyone seems to have massive vehicles. If you live without one, in a pedestrian friendly area you'd find the costs of using a bus or subway would be a small fraction of your car costs.
Actually cars are dirt cheap in the US compared to Europe. Taxes are low, second hand cars can be had for basically nothing, and gas is cheap.
Also, the Americans or Australians comment is a bit of a broad stoke, no?
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... and order by 'emission per capita'.
There's nothing to "get". His experiences are his experiences. I've also tried the living-without-a-car thing, and in both Atlanta and the Bay Area, it's about as fun as... I don't know, walking on hot coals or something. The fact that you feel otherwise (while living on a salary that allows you to talk about "offloading assets") doesn't invalidate his actual life.
How is calling a taxi every time you need a car any better than using a car you own in these areas? I do agree that the need for parking spaces is improved.
Outside a sufficiently dense city the pros might not outweigh the cons, but if walking/cycling/transit can cover most of your travel you probably don't need a car for the other half. I only have one for leaving the the city.
Um. Do you have... kids? Spouse?
In the UK, a 10 mile radius will probably encompass 4 or 5 different towns, each of which will have their own centre, and will provide _most_ of what you require, and public transport is sufficient for most people (there will always be exceptions).
> A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one.
I invite you to come and live in the UK. Many of the cities, and even towns, are perfectly liveable in without personal cars. Yes there are things you can do with a personal car that you can't do without one, but that applies to most products in our lives.
Of course they can. Why can't they? They have chosen not to. We can agree on that. But you think they can't? Why not? What do you think people did before cars?
But not having a car is virtuous! It takes an incredible toll on our world to enable cars. Mining is the most polluting industry of all time, followed closely by oil extraction and then refining. Then you gotta burn all that oil to actually drive the car.
People here don't get how limited your life is without a car. You are limited to a ten-fifteen mile radius for everything, unless you use inefficient public transport which tacks on a huge time tax for even basic trips. You are captive to that transport, which means something like being called in is hard to impossible, as well as many duties of your workplace; dropping deposits off to a bank after hours as a manager, for example. That transport doesn't even expand your range that much, maybe one or two towns over; the time for further is so long as to be prohibitive.
Even with walking, you wind up spending far more time and expense on basic tasks. Instead of shopping one day you need to shop five, just because you can't fit more than a couple bags of goods. If you are on the bus, you can't even easily use perishables; 30-45 min one way is the norm. You can't do things like buy a mattress without tacked on delivery fees and more time spent waiting to receive it. If anything happens where you simply can't walk like doctor or dentist visits (because doctors don't always stay in walking distance of most people) that's an expensive cab or uber both ways. Sometimes its even worse...jury duty can be in the county courthouse 30 min by car and an hour and a half by bus.
You have no social life with no car. Not every town can simply cluster everything in one place; the downtown can easily be 30 minutes away from where people live. It took me an hour to walk to the comic shop one way; the bus would had made that longer, not shorter. Dates are impossible because of that; if the nearest date spot or bar isn't within five minutes, what do you do?
A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one. Everyone assumes driverless cars might save us, but they have yet to prove they can even navigate a highway during a New England winter, which is what you'd need to do to replace a commute. People talk about bicycles, but 0 degree or snowy weather makes that horrid, as well as high heat. Please stop assuming cars are this evil thing that more walking and biking will solve; they wont, not at all.