I'm all for banning cars but what exceptions exist and how could they be codified into law while preventing abuse
For example people with jobs that require carrying a lot of equipment: plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc. . We don't want everybody to suddenly "be a roofer"
17 replies
also, disabled, immune-compromised, competent elders etc unable to use public transit
Banning cars is stupid. The goal should be to make cars the least viable option. Plumbers, electricians and roofers might be an example of people who need cars and that's fine.
We're always going to need exceptions, look at ambulances. We need roads that go to your house because who knows what tragedy may befall you. You might only need an ambulance once every ten years, if that, but we still want high quality roads that go to your house.
and to do every day business
If the streets people live on are small and slow, and the streets connecting those streets are big and fast (and not gridlocked or something), you have already achieved that in walkable cities. But in less dense areas that wouldn't really be a solution. I totally agree with you, but the car doesn't cause the same problems everywhere, neither are the solutions to those problems. Yes the car should be the least viable option, but the closer people live together to more easy it is to have a financially interesting alternative.
the major problem is too many cars going far too fast
My point is that the too fast problem is a problem experienced everywhere that can be fixed everywhere, but the too many problem is only experienced as a problem in the denser areas (that includes sub-urbs imo), and is very hard to fix in the rural areas.
I think to a large degree the Netherlands has this sorted. Zoning and traffic engineering that encourages non-automotive transport (ie direct route only exists for walking/chcling) with well developed non-automotive networks and well developed public transport. Not to say all the answers are there, but conceptually I think that’s the solution - Make it inconvenient and expensive to drive. Also, restricted roads. Busses and tradespeople and delivery can enter a road but cars cannot - there will always be abuses of any system.
Brilliant question
Since cars are expensive i think people won't go to the lengoths of pretending to be tradesmen (roofers plumbers electri. Etc) just to have a personal vehicle. In fact, other people like architects + engineers + construction workers might need one. But:
That does actually make sense. Making it so that cars are the worst option, could actually even stop the worst of our kind from even wanting to drive them in cities and towns. Villages might be more difficult, I imagine.
It's either that everybody has a car, or nobody has a car. The more cars the more economically the car infrastructure.
We either go all in or all out.
Vehicles and drivers are all separately licensed and taxed anyway - so most of the infrastructure is there.
For commercial use - tie it into the owners tax return.
Disabled people get a blue badge anyway to get the parking spaces.
What do you mean by this? In what way would it be "tied"?
'Tied' by identity, owner owns vehicle (with license) , owner pays vehicle tax and or road tax and income tax.
You could , say, tax vehicles by weight or size. Each extra metre, each extra kilogram, tax goes up, a lot.
Then , if the owner makes commercial income from activity deemed to depend on haulage, and is due to pay income/corporation tax, then they could be allowed to a claim a vehicle tax deduction. If they don't make (or won't declare to tax authority) the commercial income, then there's nothing to deduct from, so they pay the whole vehicle tax - or lose their vehicle/license.
If the owner wants to commit tax fraud by misdeclaring income, then the tax enforcement regime is already in place.
not a perfect system i'm sure , but its a possible mechanism using tax and licensing authorities that maybe already exist in many countries.
I'm a farmer as my second job and I definitely need to be able to haul stuff sometimes. I try to take my motorbike when I can, but that only works for some things. If it's just small things and the closest store carries them and the weather is not terrible (we were 36.x at almost 90% humidity yesterday, for example) and it's light (people drive like maniacs out here sometimes), I'll cycle.
Certain deliveries are an example at least in the near term (though lighter vehicles could often be used; my car is a kei-van (660cc, 2-cylinder engine, light-weight vehicle)).
Certain trades also need to carry tools and other things that can require space. Particularly if they're required to supply their own power or pressurized water (certain plumbing and drain clearing), or the like.
Living in rural Japan, the elderly and otherwise disabled folks might need help, but that doesn't necessarily mean they must have their own vehicle or that it must be single-occupancy.
Idk about other place, but here vehicle used for businesses(trades, transports) must registered as such and labelled as such, so it's clear what business own the vehicle.
I don't believe in banning vehicle tho, i believe in restricting it for certain place.
The problem is that rich people can (and do) register their belongs for "company use". Open a roofing company, buy luxury cars with company then say everything is for work, tada... It could cost them lots, but they might even find a way to deduct it from the tax, which I bet they already do.
You believe in restricting for certain places e.g around schools, I believe in restricting them country-wide.
You basically can’t. Just look at Singapore. They made cars way fucking expensive and public transportation really easy but they still have congestion.
To do it right you would need to incentive things like building without parking, building high density near public transportation entry points.
Trying to regulate vehicles directly won’t have the effect you want.