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Not Just Bikes / r/fuckcars / Urbanists / New Urbanism / Car-Free / Anti-Car - People and grifters who hate personal transport, freedom, cars, roads, suburbs, and are obsessed with city planning and urban design
The author didn’t mention this because he’s enamored with small grocery stores, but I find it funny that bugmen demand absolute space efficiency when it comes to transportation and housing but have zero problem having 20 identical grocery stores which carry fewer unique items and whose combined area is larger than the single large grocery store. Also, the large grocery store can be stocked directly from a semi, whereas the smaller stores need a fleet of vans/small trucks.
The “big box” grocery store is more efficient and their economies of scale are not exaggerated. There are plenty of places where a small store could be set up, even in single-family zoned areas, but the economics is just way in favor of the big store. The only thing more efficient is online shopping which removes the store entirely.
It’s just funny that people who demand you use centralized transit and live in large shared buildings instead of small individual ones for efficiency reasons also want distributed stores instead of centralized ones despite their inherent inefficiencies.
The price discount between something like a Walmart and even a Kroger in the current landscape is nuts, saying nothing of a Bodega. Part of that is due to logistics; Walmart has a shit ton of trucks and the weight to get deals. A Bodega has no such purchasing power.
2. Walmart draws people into the store than just food. You want a TV? Think about getting a oven roasted chicken for dinner on the way home while you're at it. That helps offset the cost, other shit in the store.
3. Big parking lots, in store pick up, and as such the incentive to load your car as high as possible. A Bodega, you'll be lucky to get parking a block down, meaning you'll be carrying shit, limiting your load. With a car right there in the parking lot, that workers can even have my shit ready when I get there, my limit is my trunk and passenger seats. As such Walmart makes more money, prices go down, and I want to shop there more.
The price discount between something like a Walmart and even a Kroger in the current landscape is nuts, saying nothing of a Bodega. Part of that is due to logistics; Walmart has a shit ton of trucks and the weight to get deals. A Bodega has no such purchasing power.
2. Walmart draws people into the store than just food. You want a TV? Think about getting a oven roasted chicken for dinner on the way home while you're at it. That helps offset the cost, other shit in the store.
3. Big parking lots, in store pick up, and as such the incentive to load your car as high as possible. A Bodega, you'll be lucky to get parking a block down, meaning you'll be carrying shit, limiting your load. With a car right there in the parking lot, that workers can even have my shit ready when I get there, my limit is my trunk and passenger seats. As such Walmart makes more money, prices go down, and I want to shop there more.
The articles so far, author says more will be forthcoming, are mostly spot on. He's 100 percent on why the urbanists are retarded. But we need all the small bodegas because they'll somehow OWN DA JOOZ
This is out of 815,000 people. Now just an estimate but let's say half have difficulty using a ramp.
Such, we have 25,000 people that cannot use ramps that need a way to get around. What could be the answer?
Banning cars for a vast majority of the population or maybe their is an alternative?
What sort of wizardry is this?
So an alternative is to have paratransit that drops a disabled person off at the door of their destination but they want to ban the vast majority of cars?
A couple questions remain, so let's address them?
How many paratransit vans do you need?
Well the residents to bus ratio is about 1 bus to 1,000 resident but let's double the paratransit vans. As such, we will have 50 paratransit vans that a disabled person can schedule a service for.
So an alternative is to have paratransit that drops a disabled person off at the door of their destination but they want to ban the vast majority of cars?
A couple questions remain, so let's address them?
How many paratransit vans do you need?
Well the residents to bus ratio is about 1 bus to 1,000 resident but let's double the paratransit vans. As such, we will have 50 paratransit vans that a disabled person can schedule a service for.
Or just let cripples drive their own car. I had an aunt and uncle who are crippled and require wheelchairs to move around but they have their own van with a chairlift. They board the back, my aunt would climb into the driver's seat, and drive using hand controls. It gives them a lot of freedom and it's relatively easy for them to drive cross-state for family gatherings.
I began and ended my previous piece agreeing with the premise that modern suburbia is terrible. In between I dunked on a snarky midwit who was making absurd arguments in service of the absurd premise that banning cars is desirable and serious policy. But it’s important not to get Finkled into...
What a great series so far, glad to see someone else finally address and refute urbanists. I do agree that as time went on Jason Slaughter's videos have gotten more and more retarded. He's either running out of ideas or never had any good ones.
By the way, that crop at the end of Jason looks like the same one in my OP...
Is it possible he read my thread?
I began and ended my previous piece agreeing with the premise that modern suburbia is terrible. In between I dunked on a snarky midwit who was making absurd arguments in service of the absurd premise that banning cars is desirable and serious policy. But it’s important not to get Finkled into...
The underlying idea--our built environment in North America can be improved without going full bug man--is a good one. Kind of a shame it is buried under a big pile of Edgy McEdgelord talk. The author should just make an account here where he can say nigger as much as he wants and stop getting a thrill from being so edgy.
The author didn’t mention this because he’s enamored with small grocery stores, but I find it funny that bugmen demand absolute space efficiency when it comes to transportation and housing but have zero problem having 20 identical grocery stores which carry fewer unique items and whose combined area is larger than the single large grocery store. Also, the large grocery store can be stocked directly from a semi, whereas the smaller stores need a fleet of vans/small trucks.
The “big box” grocery store is more efficient and their economies of scale are not exaggerated. There are plenty of places where a small store could be set up, even in single-family zoned areas, but the economics is just way in favor of the big store. The only thing more efficient is online shopping which removes the store entirely.
It’s just funny that people who demand you use centralized transit and live in large shared buildings instead of small individual ones for efficiency reasons also want distributed stores instead of centralized ones despite their inherent inefficiencies.
I have no problem with smaller grocery stores but I do have a problem with how they assume the way they live their life should be adopted elsewhere:
I like buying groceries in small quantities. It allows us to eat whatever we’re in the mood for that day. And with two boys who eat a lot, it’s good that unexpected grocery trips are quick. Small grocery trips make it easier for our family to eat healthy, fresh food, and we’re less likely to buy food that goes to waste.
I love how he just handwaves away a few dollars like they are nothing. In reality, I suspect a $10 to $20 difference. Furthermore, it's very nice that he has the ability to cook every single day given that he sets he own fucking schedule and most of his work related physical exertion is clicking a mouse but how about a mother that is a janitor and father that works a production line?
While I am sure some can plan out daily meals, commute longer on public transit, go around to different shops to get all the right ingredients, then cook a daily meal, eat with the family, put the kids to bed, cook another meal for lunch , then clean, and go to bed, I would venture some find it easier to do meal preps or just reheat leftovers.
But here is NJB / Jason suggesting that everyone should adopt his bougie lifestyle.
Adam something epicly proving how a tram is objectively better than a proposed gondola system. Now I don't know if these gondolas would actually work (can't trust a tech startup), but he just completely ignores the potential advantages of not needing to get rid of half the traffic capacity to be built (of course according to these people a road with 1 lane is efficient as one with 100 lanes because of "induced demand" or something), not having to deal with fixed routes and fixed stops, being able to get on at any time, novelty, and not having to be surrounded with dozens of urbanites. It doesn't stop the evil cars therefore it is bad
Adam something epicly proving how a tram is objectively better than a proposed gondola system. Now I don't know if these gondolas would actually work (can't trust a tech startup), but he just completely ignores the potential advantages of not needing to get rid of half the traffic capacity to be built (of course according to these people a road with 1 lane is efficient as one with 100 lanes because of "induced demand" or something), not having to deal with fixed routes and fixed stops, being able to get on at any time, novelty, and not having to be surrounded with dozens of urbanites. It doesn't stop the evil cars therefore it is bad
Good luck building a tram in places where gondolas are used:
Adam criticizes the startup's gondola system for essentially being Personal Rapid Transit but he is too stupid and smug to realize what he is criticizing.
PRT literally takes the density of transit and combines it with the ability to go directly to one's destination. It is superior in every way to traditional transit from vehicle utilization to wait times to transit times. His smug statement "Do you know what other transportation method has big metal boxes offering non-stop rides and flexible routes cars and they are the most inefficient space and energy wasting transportation there is?" completely misses the point because the whole point of PRT is to have a minibus on demand that takes a group of people directly to their destination. Traditional transit CAN NOT DO THIS. PRT is denser than cars and doesn't require parking, so the space usage comment doesn't make sense. Trains are also only energy efficient if they don't have to stop, but if they do, it takes a lot of energy to get them back up to speed and PRT minimizes this by not stopping unnecessarily. PRT is also MORE efficient than traditional transit because it can dispatch an appropriately sized pod for the number of passengers instead of having 50-100 person buses carrying a handful of people (or no one) during off-peak hours, and its actual real-world carrying capacity can be higher than a normal train line due to shorter headways.
PRT's only downsides compared to traditional transit are cost (though that's moot with the corruption in public transit organizations) and complexity; it was 30 years ahead of its time and really needed computers to coordinate the pods. This company believes that stringing wires is cheaper than making concrete bridges and towers necessary for a rail system, but their idea isn't really dependent on gondolas at all.
Urbanists hate PRT because it is 20th century technology and they're obsessed with never moving beyond the 19th Century (only for certain things though...). They also hate it because the 21st century version of PRT is self-driving cars. They can't exactly come out and admit that the optimal form of transit is a computer-controlled car/bus after investing so much time and energy promoting trains, can they?
Adam, unlike the transit developers of the 1950s and 60s, is blind to transit's problems and has no interest in fixing them. I wish we could go back to a time when urban planners wanted to improve people's standard of living instead of wanting to cram them into the smallest space possible.
I think there are two issues. One is that these fellas are mainly responding to the kneejerk reaction of "those are commie blocks and thus bad", so they talk about how commie blocks were actually good, instead of how the principle of commie blocks was good, and can give very nice living situations with modern technology.
Second is that modern developments, due to rising costs everywhere, are expensive and even designated affordable sections are not really affordable to the lowest classes, so modern developments and renovations of old buildings are seen as gentrification. This breeds a certain nostalgia for actual commie blocks, because those were affordable to everyone, or so they think.
plenty of commie blocks in the west, most are pretty ok when it comes to living conditions
the biggest downside to living there is the other people living there (unemployed, on welfare, criminals, third worlders, etc) which makes them and the areas around them really shitty areas in many cities. but that's not the buildings fault, it's the governments fault for subsidizing and enabling these undesirables and tolerating their antisocial behavior instead of cracking down on them.
In the video they mention that the headways decreased from 20 minutes with the old bus to near zero with the new PRT system. Wikipedia gives exact numbers:
The first system began passenger trials at Heathrow Terminal 5, in October 2010, and it opened for full passenger service 22 hours a day, 7 days a week, in May 2011. Operational statistics in May 2012 demonstrate more than 99% reliability and an average passenger wait time over the year of 10 s.
The developers expected that users will wait an average of around 12 s, with 95% of passengers waiting for less than 1 min for their private pod, which will travel at up to 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph).
Adam criticizes the startup's gondola system for essentially being Personal Rapid Transit but he is too stupid and smug to realize what he is criticizing. View attachment 4194558
PRT literally takes the density of transit and combines it with the ability to go directly to one's destination. It is superior in every way to traditional transit from vehicle utilization to wait times to transit times. His smug statement "Do you know what other transportation method has big metal boxes offering non-stop rides and flexible routes cars and they are the most inefficient space and energy wasting transportation there is?" completely misses the point because the whole point of PRT is to have a minibus on demand that takes a group of people directly to their destination. Traditional transit CAN NOT DO THIS. PRT is denser than cars and doesn't require parking, so the space usage comment doesn't make sense. Trains are also only energy efficient if they don't have to stop, but if they do, it takes a lot of energy to get them back up to speed and PRT minimizes this by not stopping unnecessarily. PRT is also MORE efficient than traditional transit because it can dispatch an appropriately sized pod for the number of passengers instead of having 50-100 person buses carrying a handful of people (or no one) during off-peak hours, and its actual real-world carrying capacity can be higher than a normal train line due to shorter headways.
PRT's only downsides compared to traditional transit are cost (though that's moot with the corruption in public transit organizations) and complexity; it was 30 years ahead of its time and really needed computers to coordinate the pods. This company believes that stringing wires is cheaper than making concrete bridges and towers necessary for a rail system, but their idea isn't really dependent on gondolas at all.
Urbanists hate PRT because it is 20th century technology and they're obsessed with never moving beyond the 19th Century (only for certain things though...). They also hate it because the 21st century version of PRT is self-driving cars. They can't exactly come out and admit that the optimal form of transit is a computer-controlled car/bus after investing so much time and energy promoting trains, can they?
Adam, unlike the transit developers of the 1950s and 60s, is blind to transit's problems and has no interest in fixing them. I wish we could go back to a time when urban planners wanted to improve people's standard of living instead of wanting to cram them into the smallest space possible.
Your mention of PRT reminded me; it's basically filling the same role auto rickshaws do in south and south east Asian countries. The cities have bus systems that a lot of people use but those only stick to the main roads. If people don't live close by to the bus stop, there are usually numerous rickshaws lined up waiting by the bus stop. They usually take 1-2 families to their desired destinations. Hell of a lot more time saved than having bus routes into every corner.
Err, what? What does this have to do with traffic laws? Regardless I'm pretty sure speed governors are going to eventually be mandated in the future so I'm not sure what this hand wringing is all about.
Also some amusing stuff in the replies incessantly worrying about "mansplaining":
Time to summarize and review some videos NJB promotes. Like this one:
Yet Another Urbanist lives in Reno without a car and this is because he would rather deal with the "atrocious bike infrastructure" than with the many frustrations of driving.
Points out the many instances of bad driving that other drivers have to deal with on a regular basis.
Then says he doesn't want to call them bad drivers because ackshually the problem is with the design. You will be surprised that he doesn't bring up anything about blaming traffic engineers themselves as other urbanists are wont to do.
YAU says it's a sort of a "too many cooks spoil the broth" situation because people are forced to get in a car and also the drivers license requirements are lenient, then the driving conditions become worse for everyone.
Then goes over said license requirements in Nevada, starting with being able to get a learner's permit at 15½.
Also, YAU seems to have learned the proper term for "stroad", which is arterial road, so he instead says "arterial stroad" at one point here. Very classy and totally not retarded.
YAU says 16 is far too young to get a license and says "studies have shown" to prove this. At least he does provide studies in the description but I'm skeptical since anyone can find any study that says anything they want. That and I'm skeptical of urbanists in the first place. (This is despite me instinctively agreeing with his statement.)
Anyways, long story short, YAU blames these "lenient requirements" for the roads being full of bad drivers, then advocates for more strict requirements. These sound reasonable to me but I take them with a grain of salt.
Also elderly drivers are bad too. And reiterates that cars are so needed it feels like taking away their license removes their ability to be a productive member of society.
Another reason to have stricter requirements is because drivers are not good at assessing their own skill and routinely think they are above average.
YAU says this is because they aren't told they're bad when they block the crosswalk, run a red light or park on a red curb blocking a bike lane, except for when the police does. And blames the infrastructure not being updated to fix drivers' mistakes.
This is applied to people rolling stop signs, and YAU says we need to add traffic calming measures like speed humps to fix this.
Then goes on about surveys where people cite that they drive drunk or tired or do other stupid and retarded shit. And that it only takes one person to put themselves and everyone around them in danger.
Blames drunk driving and tired driving on bad zoning laws and inadequate transit options. Had to do a double take when I heard this. Apparently people don't have an option to use a taxi or an Uber, or don't drink, or just not drive, but urbanists don't like personal responsibility so I guess it figures they don't talk about those options.
Goes over road rage as well and blames it on people getting stressed about from driving because driving is so stressful.
Therefore, we need alternatives so people can have relaxing commutes. Cites a study saying biking improves your mental health or something.
When YAU switched to biking to university he immediately felt the "burden of transportation" lift from him. By that he means not worrying about having enough gas(?) or finding parking(???) or affording the cost of a vehicle (ok, more reasonable).
Ok I am tired of this guy, he's basically just repeating himself (and other urbanists) now. Even repeats the thing about 15 minute cities at the end too.
In conclusion, he sounds right but sometimes says some dumb shit so I remain skeptical. At least he managed to make a video without once bringing up the Netherlands (except to cite a study from Utrecht).
Thumbnail is a bit too on the nose. At least he outright admits it.
WB Productions likes shopping malls because you can walk in there and its inventor Viktor Gruen did too (apparently Gruen also coined the "third place" urbanists are now harping on about).
Time for some history. Viktor Gruen grew up in walkable Vienna, then when he went to America during WWII, he was horrified people were driving cars and living in the suburbs.
So he created the shopping mall so people could have a place to walk around in the suburbs.
Unfortunately city planners tossed out the other stuff he wanted in his planned community like schools, apartments and parks, because they wanted to maximize profit.
He really wanted his hecking car-free planned community of the future so he kept designing them.
Several of his designed malls kept falling through or failing so he moved back to Austria.
But it was too late, people kept building shopping malls and they were the exact kind of car-centric awfulness he wanted to avoid.
He continued to hate them until he died.
WB says shopping malls were a "third place" to him and admits he still has a fondness for them.
He says the fundamental flaw of Viktor Gruen's ideas is that you can't build a carless walkable city in the middle of car-centric suburbia. He points out each of his plans specifically catered to cars and parking and says it's insane he somehow missed this point.
Therefore, destroy the suburbs. Of course the Netherlands gets trotted out as the gold standard of this, urbanists don't have any new ideas. Even down to the "they were so car focused in the 60s but that didn't work so they ripped it all up!" talking point. And WB wants to visit the Netherlands one day of course.
WB brings up how the social life feels different and says this is because of something something "separated by metal boxes on wheels." You will not be surprised that he never once suggests that this might be because of the fundamentally different demographics of the Netherlands and America, but then again no urbanist ever does.
"The way we have built our landscape in America is literally keeping us apart from each other." Gee I fucking wonder why America's built a landscape that is literally keeping people apart? Could it be because of what happens when people are put together? No, it must be the evil carbrains...
"So how do we solve this?" Repeats the "mixed-use zoning is illegal" talking point along with the whole nine yards about needing to build public transit and walkable neighborhoods and whatnot. No other solutions (like enforcing laws on the culturally diverse) are considered.
"I think if they can make this change in the Netherlands, then we can do it here as well." Again, missing the differences in demographics and immigration between the two countries.
In conclusion, shopping malls bad because you can't live in them, so they're ineligible for the car-free utopia of the future urbanists want. Move to the Netherlands!
Blames drunk driving and tired driving on bad zoning laws and inadequate transit options. Had to do a double take when I heard this. Apparently people don't have an option to use a taxi or an Uber, or don't drink, or just not drive, but urbanists don't like personal responsibility so I guess it figures they don't talk about those options.
I find it amusing how many people on r/fuckcars, and now this Yet Another Urbanist guy, hate cars because muh heckin drunks/junkies. If it wasn't for those damn dirty carbrains, they'd be free to stumble onto the tram and vomit in your lap!
All this stuff like speed govenors is just going to get ripped out by the owner, trust me, I work with car guys lol. As for speed bumps, that shit just demolishes my suspension, which i have a nice one, with coil springs and multi link, which i intend to keep running smooth like butter. Fuck off.
All this stuff like speed govenors is just going to get ripped out by the owner, trust me, I work with car guys lol. As for speed bumps, that shit just demolishes my suspension, which i have a nice one, with coil springs and multi link, which i intend to keep running smooth like butter. Fuck off.
My area has a lot of speedbumps and I can confirm it just wrecks your suspension and is awful if you drive anything that rides lower to the ground. You inadvertently end up with people buying bigger cars so their spines are rattled every 2 minutes.
My area has a lot of speedbumps and I can confirm it just wrecks your suspension and is awful if you drive anything that rides lower to the ground. You inadvertently end up with people buying bigger cars so their spines are rattled every 2 minutes.
It just shows a lack of respect and a hint of that trademark socialism Fuckcars is known for. "Oh you paid a shit ton for your car, just got the oil changed? Too bad, I'm going to make you pay for new shocks now because cars are smelly!"
the fact this guy doesn't have his own thread already surprises me.
His entire youtube channel is a treasure chest of non-stop autistic cringe.
Riding his bike through the George Floyd riots while blasting gay disco music on a boombox to yell at people
Putting a car horn on his bike to honk at drivers as he dangerously passes them.
His infamous "attempted education"
I'm tempted to make one. Though I don't know much about him personally. Might be fun to investigate, see what floats up to the top
The self restraint of that driver is awe inspiring, I hope he is doing well.
The cyclist is such an entitled cunt for butting into what is obviously a guy having a bad day. Also his "are you having a toxic masculinity moment" when they driver was contemplating his next actions is such a shitty thing to do and I think any beatings that followed that is 100% justified.
This guy right here is a prime example of why people hate those that treat cycling like a lifestyle. Smug, arrogant, entitled, and no sense of self preservation.
