this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
315 points (97.0% liked)

Fuck Cars

15409 readers
701 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
toaster@slrpnk.net
grue@lemmy.world
Toaster1@lemmy.world
315
A researcher asked 10 people to go car-free for 20 days. None wanted to continue (www.brisbanetimes.com.au)
submitted 1 week ago by lnxtx@sopuli.xyz to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
152 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Article about an experiment from Brisbane, Australia.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] switcheroo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I wfh so I only drive once a week and that's to stock up on groceries. The grocery store is a number of miles away-- way too many for me to be able to bike and return with bags.

Having food shipped would just mean putting another car on the road anyways. Or has guzzling truck.

If I could afford to move, not sure how feasible it would be to have something within a mile or two anyways since I'd still need to bring back a ton of heavy bags. I'm old.

:(

[–] 8oow3291d@feddit.dk 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

European cities have grocery stores within walking distance. I walk to mine, no problem.

[–] Jiral@lemmy.org 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is really not about Europe or US. Even the US has cities and neighbourhoods that are like that. In most places however, it is illegal to build such places new and their supply is so ridiculously low that most people could not possibly afford to live in such a place, or those places, or those places are so poor and dangerous that they aren't good places to live for other reasons.

The problem is car centric urban design. Most people don't get it that they do not only have to drive by car because everything is so far away but everything is so far away because everyone is expected to drive by car. You can change that but it takes a lot of time and the political will to do so.

[–] possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I live in a center city area, but the problem I have is that it's a food desert like lots of center cities are. The small independent grocery stores usually have too much shrink to remain open so it leaves me with three options that are all equidistant and not walkable. I fill a 55L messenger bag and transport it via bike but it's quite uncomfortable carrying that much weight compared to just hopping in a car.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] kunaltyagi@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago

Couple of miles away feels dystopian.

Imagine a video game where all activity is in one region and you need to periodically gather resources from a much different region.

This mechanic would flop hard.

[–] ___@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago

If one delivery truck is making 100+ deliveries a day, it should be partly or fully eliminating dozens of vehicle trips. Even if that truck pollutes more than the typical car, I'm sure the decrease in vehicle miles traveled more than compensates for it.

Is there a place you could live that has half-decent biking infrastructure and groceries within a few miles? An electric cargo bike or even mobility scooter could handle those trips. While a good one may cost a few grand, that's still cheaper than operating a car for a few months.

[–] _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

Amateurs...

[–] Pringles@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

I live in an area where you don't have to have a car, you can do most things without. But you'll have to pry my car keys from my cold dead hands because it is so incredibly more convenient and faster to have one.

Edit: noticed the community. To be clear, I'm all for good infrastructure for people who don't own one, I just wouldn't go back to the days where I didn't have one.

[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Myself, and probably a good percentage of this community dont just have a blanket hatred of cars. It's mainly about how car-centric design sucks, even for people who drive cars.

Many cities that are designed with good public transit are also way easier to drive in. If 99% of people have to drive into a city center for work, or school, or groceries, or whatever, everything has to be really spread out for enough parking, roads need a lot of lanes and a lot of entrances/exits, so driving is stressful, and you still end up spending a lot of time in traffic.

With competent infrastructure for walking/biking/public transit, the mode share for cars drops, and driving actually gets easier since you aren't competing with everyone else.

[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, I have a kid. From groceries to doctors appointments and camp and activities, doing all this without a car would be a nightmare. That said, I buy used, pay cash, and own a little Honda hatchback that sips gas.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] bassad@jlai.lu 3 points 1 week ago

The real question is would you ditch your car if it were more convenient and faster to go by bike or transit, or with a shared car service for extra and week-end trips?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] kepix@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

there is a reason they dont use a bike in the first place

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Yeah, seems like a study ripe for bias.

If you ask a person who lives near decent transport infrastructure (or near work) to take public transport, it's no big deal.

Honestly, biking is a problem for showing up to work sweaty.

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

I've had 2 catalytic converters stolen now. Its just not worth the hassle to have more costly maintenance on a machine that already requires regular costly maintenance

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Wish I could. I have a company work truck, and I need to dramatically downsize my personal vehicle.

[–] TwilitSky@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's nice to have the OPTION. Moving from NYC to Bay Area, I definitely feel the effects of losing robust public transportation.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›