“Giving people more viable alternatives to driving means more people will choose not to drive, so there will be fewer cars on the road, reducing traffic for drivers.”

Concise, easy to understand, and accurate. I have used it at least a dozen times and it is remarkable how well it works.

Also—

“A bus is about twice as long as a car so it only needs to have four to six passengers on board to be more efficient than two cars.”

  • Rozaŭtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    25 days ago

    You can use the same logic to also argue that finding a parking spot will be easier. And if more people cycle there is more demand for separated bicycle lanes, which means drivers don’t need to share the lane anymore with others.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      Also, if the car park is smaller due to fewer people driving, it means it will be easier to remember where you parked your car, and you won’t have to walk as far to the destination. It also means you can fit more stuff in the same space, so you won’t have to drive as far to get to the places you want to go, saving you time and fuel!

      These arguments are won and lost on the phrasing.

      • Emerald@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        and you won’t have to walk as far to the destination

        I enjoy the parking lot walk

    • BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      Yeah but how does it not boil down to “don’t drive, then you’ll park easy” in an argument?

  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    25 days ago

    Someone can logically agree to something but emotionally still hate it.

    Logically, car drivers should understand and appreciate the zipper merge, bc it makes traffic better. But emotionally it’s too difficult for them to let someone in ahead of them.

    Same thing you can explain about alternatives to cars making traffic better. But when they see money or (God forbid) space on the road going to infrastructure other than cars, it will feel like a zero sum game again.

    That is the biggest challenge I’ve experienced in trying to promote alternatives

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      Opposition to the zipper merge might be a regional thing. Where I’m from, people can zipper merge just fine, especially after the state transportation agency put up a bunch of billboards telling people to do it.

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        24 days ago

        Lmao no cars around here will still form miles long line ups because they all think it’s an asshole move to skip the traffic, somehow not realizing that it wouldn’t be possible to do that if they just utilized both lanes until the merge.

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    25 days ago

    I’ve found that a lot of people see the use of public transport as horrors beyond comprehension, and think cycling would kill them instantly.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      But that’s fine, no need to convince them to use mass transit.

      The approach is to improve infrastructure - good buses, frequent routes, dedicated bus lanes, trains to feed from the suburbs, subway, etc.

      Make it more convenient to use, and people will start using it. But you need to stop designing everything around cars, like every single store can’t be a cube in the middle of a huge parking lot…

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        25 days ago

        People just like privacy and playing their own music without headphones. You are just inventing a caricature.

        • yrmp@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I certainly love hearing their speaker systems and modified exhausts from thousands of feet away.

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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          25 days ago

          Some people like eating ice cream for breakfast. Just because you like something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea or free of long term consequences.

          “But I like it” is not a sufficient justification for destroying our living spaces.

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            24 days ago

            What are you talking about? I said they are making up a fake person and you go off on a side rant.

            • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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              24 days ago

              People just like privacy and playing their own music without headphone

              You said “people like” and one of my peeves is people trying to justify bad things (eg: cars everywhere, single use plastic) with “but I like it!”

              • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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                24 days ago

                Where did I justify it? I said they invented a person and made no comments on the validity.

                • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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                  24 days ago

                  …is this an AI?

                  You said that people like music without headphones and having privacy as a reason, a justification, for taking a car over mass transit.

        • Emerald@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          People just like privacy

          A car drivng on public roads is only a false sense of privacy.

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      25 days ago

      People get weirdly anti social about public transit. Like, “I don’t want to have to be around other people!!”

      Sometimes it’s racism. Sometimes it’s just… anti social.

      Personally I think anti-social people can go leave society, and the rest of us can build a better, more cooperative world.

      • Emerald@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Personally I think anti-social people can go leave society, and the rest of us can build a better, more cooperative world.

        Ah yes… put all the anti-social people into their own society. I’ll call it a “suburb”. We won’t regret making car dependent suburbs.

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        24 days ago

        Tell me you’ve never been assaulted by a drunk guy on a train without telling me you’ve never been assaulted by a drunk guy on a train.

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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          24 days ago

          I’ve taken trains daily in the NYC area (not counting the pandemic) for almost 30 years. So, no, your cliché is wrong.

          • svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            23 days ago

            Good for you. I was assaulted on a train from London to Manchester before I learnt how to drive.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      I would bet a lot of that is unfamiliarity. “I don’t know where the route is or how to get to the bus or what the schedule is or how long I have to wait or whether I’ll be able to get home at a reasonable time or how I can pay. “

      Some of this is part of infrastructure. Yes, in the US buses are unpredictable, always seem delayed, and it’s tough to figure out where they go. Yes there aren’t very many and service can end early, and schedules tend not to be posted. Sometimes the payment system is one that rare riders won’t be familiar with.

      At least some of the time subways are a “more acceptable” form of transit and I believe it’s the predictability, better signage, you can spend time figuring out the fare machine without being on the spot for delaying the transit. Subways even have the reputation of running more frequently than buses. These are all things bus transit could have too

      For me, even being familiar with transit near me, it was much easier when I rode often enough to get a monthly pass rather than deal with fare paying

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      I’ve found that a lot of people see the use of public transport as horrors beyond comprehension,

      Depending on where you are, this can be just an accurate observation.

    • nednobbins@lemm.ee
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      24 days ago

      That seems to be highly dependent on where they are.

      In some cities, everyone on public transport behaves themselves. They’re clean and there’s no fear that they’ll be harassed or assaulted. Some people really like that and get afraid or skeeved when they think about some public transport systems.

      In other cities public transportation riders are expected to “live and let live”. Officials won’t stop you from doing anything unless it presents an imminent danger. Some people love the freedom from that sort of system and hate the idea of someone forcing them to behave a certain way.

      There are, of course, many reasons why certain public transport systems are more like one than the other; money, age, geography, preferences, etc. While there are great arguments for public transportation and I’m a huge fan of improving the infrastructure around it, I can also recognize that a lot of people’s actual experience of public transport doesn’t paint it in a good light.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    “A bus is only helpful when it actually runs regularly. And by ‘regularly’ I don’t mean one each morning and another one each afternoon”.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      23 days ago

      somehow even turborural areas here in sweden can manage it, so there’s no reason other places can’t do the same.

      the crucial thing is that you don’t have to run public transport literally everywhere, just run robust services between population centres (as many ones as you can manage) and build infrastructure such that people can get to the closest stop and transfer onto the public transport there.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      I don’t know what it’s like in other places but I tend to find that in cities with an actual dedicated serious transportation agency, busses run every hour at minimum. Even regional busses in the small city where I attended university ran 6-8 times a day per line for three very similar routes. Local busses ran every 20-40 minutes depending on time of day. That’s shocking good for a city of 50,000 in America.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        It might surprise you, but there are people living outside of large cities.

        • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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          24 days ago

          The point seems kinda moot outside of cities.

          Are you expecting a bus stop outside every farmhouse? Who’s going to ride it, cows?

          Or in a small town where everything is reachable on foot within fifteen minutes anyway and the road has like 2 cars per minute? Regional bus service that takes you to nearby towns that comes a few times a day is probably as good as it gets.

          • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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            24 days ago

            Regional bus service that takes you to nearby towns that comes a few times a day is probably as good as it gets.

            And exactly that makes people drive in cars into the cities.

  • Dr. Dabbles@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    You’re coming at this from a perspective that suggests people should have alternatives to cars, or maybe even that people deserve alternatives to cars. And that’s fundamentally not how a shocking number of people think. Heaven help you if you suggest things like low cost fares for the poor or even free access to public transit.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      Most people I have found care relatively little about the topic. They drive and think in terms of driving only because that is the context they have been exposed to their entire lives, and there’s not really their fault.

      If someone really is that deep into the rabbit hole then nothing you say will change their mind, so don’t waste your time.

  • trainsaresexy@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    A lot of people choose not to live in the city with good transit because housing is too expensive, so they live in the 'burbs. All that extra money means they can get a fancy new car lease. They drive into the city and because cars are allowed everywhere 24/7 there is no reason for them to look for alternatives in high traffic zones.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Have you ever considered that for many people not living in the city this “extra money” simply does not exist?

      • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        I’m convinced that everyone else on Lemmy is so poor that purchasing the device they use to access this site was one of the worst financial decisions available to them.

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          23 days ago

          The median house price in the US is >$400,000. Rent around here for a 2bd is 2500, and I don’t even live in a place with mass transit.

          Unless you’re buying a new phone every month, it’s not affecting your ability to buy a house or rent an apartment in a city.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      That’s the old way. There’s no real difference in pricing now until you move into the exurbs. For more and more people it’s better to pay a bit more and not have to commute while having easy access to the city’s amenities.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    I don’t understand why people are so married to the thought of driving to and from work every day. You just worked 9 hours, and you want to drive through rush hour?

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      So you don’t have to work, and therefore no need to commute? Lucky you. Normal people still have to work for a living.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        And here it is. The only other option you can think of is to be unemployed. You’re so tied to the thought of a driving commute you can’t even imagine anything else.

        • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          You’re so tied to the thought of a driving commute you can’t even imagine anything else.

          I am not tied to a driving commute. The point is that for a lot of people, a commute by public transport or bike simply is no viable alternative. As long as you dwell in the city center 99% of your life, you will not encounter this, but outside the city, public transport is a joke.

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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        23 days ago

        They want to either live in walking/biking distance of work, have a mass transit system that gets them to work, or work remotely.

        Normal countries don’t require every person drive to get to work.

        • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          Normal countries don’t require every person drive to get to work.

          There are a lot of jobs - the majority, even - where WFH is not an option. A baker is not making the bread at home. And those people are often forced to change employments for a number of reasons. And they simply cannot just chose where to live due to financial constraints.

          All this “fuck cars, use bikes and public transport” is just a dream of a wealthy white collar society who has lost the touch with reality.

          I’m not against bikes and public transports. On the contrary. But unless those two options are actually viable, condemning cars is just a stupid idea. You cannot expect people to up their commute from 30 minutes one way to 3+ hours, just because the city dwellers don’t like their cars.

          • rwtwm@feddit.uk
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            23 days ago

            The point seems to have gone quite a long way over your head. The person above is advocating for a system where transit/active travel is the easy option. Not one where you have to up your commute by 500% to do the right thing.

            It’s not, “just use transit”, it’s “please make it easier to do so”.

            • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              It’s not, “just use transit”, it’s “please make it easier to do so”.

              Exactly my thoughts. The current situation is decidedly different, though. I would not mind public transport being an alternative, but at the moment, in many places, it simply is not.

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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            23 days ago

            what? only rich people drive to work lol, poor people take public transport because that’s hilariously much cheaper, especially since all the cheap housing is in cities.

          • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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            All this “fuck cars, use bikes and public transport” is just a dream of a wealthy white collar society who has lost the touch with reality.

            Do you think ~90% of the 30 million people in Shanghai are all white collars who lost touch with society? What about 99% of Singapore?

            You cannot expect people to up their commute from 30 minutes one way to 3+ hours, just because the city dwellers don’t like their cars.

            These places public transit, including intercity, is far, far superior to driving, so people use it. In America, our public transit is garbage, so people don’t use it.

            • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              Do you think ~90% of the 30 million people in Shanghai are all white collars who lost touch with society? What about 99% of Singapore?

              Those places are so densely populated that they can afford a good public transport system. But look at other cities in the world - or, more precisely, their environment - and you will soon see a serious lack of public transport once you leave the cities. Yes, people are living there.

              These places public transit, including intercity, is far, far superior to driving, so people use it.

              That is totally fine. I was not talking about city dwellers, they do have access to public transport in most cases. I’m especially talking about the people not living in the city centers.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                23 days ago

                That’s not actually true. Our decentralized system of roads and cars is actually more expensive than a robust rail and bus system. And I’ve been to other places, in Europe and South America. They all have better developed mass transit. You don’t need to be South Korea. You just have to be willing.

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    As a car guy myself (barely), I think it’s crazy that people are against mass transit.

    Trains, teams, and busses are better by every conceivable metric, if your departure and destination is within like 20km of city outskirts. That’s almost all traffic. If govts and people invested as much into mass transit as they do into roads, it’d be a no brainer. So much faster, and safer, and more convenient.

    Let cars just be for rural folks and hobbyists.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      Usable mass transit 20km from the city? Now that would be nice. But it is still science fiction for most people. Today you are lucky if you have working mass transit just inside the city limits.

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    25 days ago

    Assuming that they’re thinking about it logically, not as an identity issue. If they’re not, the double-think is incredible. My city is about to launch an BR(ish)T transit system, and some of the NextDoor comments are wild. One woman is convinced:

    1. The BRT platforms in the median are dangerous because they’ll get too crowded for everybody to stand inside; and
    2. BRT will be a failure because nobody will ride it.

    In my experience, carbrains usually think that nobody will use the alternatives at all, so it’s just a waste of space and money that could be spent on cars, and that traffic congestion is the result of corrupt politicians pocketing all the tax money that could magically fix it in some unspecified way.

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    24 days ago

    Y’all either circle jerk on hating cars/car culture or try to meaningfully convince people to move away from car culture. This community will never convince “carbrains” in its current state. Accept that and have fun circle jerkin’ or pivot and try to change minds.

    Asking “why doesn’t this group we actively shit on supporting our thought process?” or “how do we get them to change/agree?” is silly.

    • diskmaster23@lemmy.one
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      Like you are going to have a choice? Economically, we can’t continue down the road of a car dependent society.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        Oh the car companies know. They’re helpfully starting up subscription services for cars. And when cars go self-driving they’re going to make the subscription a rideshare like service. Coming full circle back to the trolley cars they killed.

  • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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    25 days ago

    A bus is about twice as long as a car

    ??? You’ve either got tiny buses or are driving stretch limos

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      A 2025 Toyota Camry is 4.84 m in length. A typical US school bus is 10.5 m in length. The school bus is 2.18 times as long as the car.

    • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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      23 days ago

      The buses around here are 40 feet long. A Toyota Camry is 16 feet long; a Chevrolet Silverado 1500 is just over 19 feet long. Add in 4 feet of buffer distance when stopped, and the bus is longer than 2 Camrys, but shorter than 2 Silverados. Take the average of cars on the road, and it’s legit to say that a bus is about twice as long as a car.

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Most people aren’t against funding public transportation. They are against taking the cars away. This line of thinking is going to work on a dozen people lol.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      The solution to that is to… not tell them that you want to take their car away. Because if you are a rational urbanist, you don’t.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Not in my experience. They mostly want to take public transportation away because of taxes. Of course they don’t realize that cars cost them way more in taxes between gas subsidies, needing wider and more roads, needing more police to deal with traffic, property damage, and deaths rather than real crime, etc… Not to mention higher insurance rates as traffic increases and maintenance costs.

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    25 days ago

    Your argument doesn’t work to make anyone stop driving cars, though. It just makes them pro non-car in the sense of freeing up traffic so they can drive their car quicker. It doesn’t make themselves take anything besides their car.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      You don’t need to convince anyone. People will convince themselves if they are given the appropriate environment. This is about convincing them to support the construction of that environment.

      Think about New York. It’s subject to the same cultural influences as the rest of the US but public transportation use remains high because the infrastructure is good and competitive with driving.

    • Phegan@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Honestly, if this gets people to advocate for me effective public transit so I can take it, I am fine with that.

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      People are stupid and biased towards the current state of things. Even if they support you now so they can drive their car better, if there’s a good bus route or whatever in five years they’ll probably use it.