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

[Susanna]

That's basically the first thing he brings up when he talks about vehicles, that there will be traffic jams and blockages that hinder the use of a car so offroading may be your only option. He still grossly generalizes things and omits entire classes of vehicles for some reason.

Even with an offroading car, you're not going to get past the traffic jams. Others will have had the same thought, "I can get past this if I just drive on the grass for a bit", and even if a few vehicles actually get through that way, idiots in SUVs and sedans are going to get stuck in the mud very quickly and then even the sides of the road are blocked. You'd still have to walk out of the city and hope you can find a car in the countryside, except others will have had the same idea and every farm within 50km will have no vehicles very soon.
I just don't see how a car would be practical in an apocalypse. Post-apocalypse absolutely, when you've got workforces clearing the roads and producing ethanol or wood-gas or other fuel substitutes, but not during the apocalypse. I suppose the exception is if it's a climate apocalypse where the oceans have boiled away or something, and you can just Mad Max around on the seafloor. That would be a fun apocalypse. Unless the climate apocalypse is a water surplus apocalypse and everyone who doesn't have webbed feet and gills needs to live on boats. In that case I'm team oil tanker, if only for the nicotine.

 

[quaawaa]

Even with an offroading car, you're not going to get past the traffic jams. Others will have had the same thought, "I can get past this if I just drive on the grass for a bit", and even if a few vehicles actually get through that way, idiots in SUVs and sedans are going to get stuck in the mud very quickly and then even the sides of the road are blocked. You'd still have to walk out of the city and hope you can find a car in the countryside, except others will have had the same idea and every farm within 50km will have no vehicles very soon.
I just don't see how a car would be practical in an apocalypse. Post-apocalypse absolutely, when you've got workforces clearing the roads and producing ethanol or wood-gas or other fuel substitutes, but not during the apocalypse. I suppose the exception is if it's a climate apocalypse where the oceans have boiled away or something, and you can just Mad Max around on the seafloor. That would be a fun apocalypse. Unless the climate apocalypse is a water surplus apocalypse and everyone who doesn't have webbed feet and gills needs to live on boats. In that case I'm team oil tanker, if only for the nicotine.

Look up hurricane evacuations. They make highways one-way and can clear out entire cities in relatively little time. As long as there’s some notice, traffic jams aren’t an issue.

Houston before Hurricane Rita

The mass evacuation prompted by Rita was one of the largest emergency evacuations in U.S. history.  At least 2.5 million people evacuated ahead of Rita, with a majority leaving the Houston area. Most of the evacuations occurred in Texas, with fewer evacuees in Louisiana. The House Research Organization (HRO) of the Texas House of Representatives estimated that as many as 3.7 million people evacuated from the Texas coast between Corpus Christi and Beaumont. Approximately 1.7 million vehicles were involved in the mass evacuation in Texas compared to an anticipated 445,000.

If there’s an imminent nuclear missile or something else completely unpredictable, you’re not getting to safety on something as slow as a bike.

The only case I can think of where people died in a traffic jam trying to escape a disaster is the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California. Their urbanist government had removed all but one lane from one of the only roads out of the town in a “road diet”, which caused the death of over 80 people who were unable to flee. Good luck getting far enough away from a wildfire on a bike and even if you could, you’d have to leave all of your possessions behind.
Story (Archive)

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I'm probably even less knowledgeable about this stuff than Max Brooks, but wouldn't a car face issues pretty quickly? Whether the apocalypse is a zombie horde or disease or whatever, people are going to rush to leave the cities, which will cause jams. Whether from people simply dying at their wheels and blocking everyone else, or accidents leaving wrecks blocking the road, or whatever. When the first car stops, others are going to stop after it very soon, and everyone behind them is going to abandon their vehicle and proceed on foot, blocking the road for probably kilometres. With a bicycle you could get past that stuff easily. In a car not really. A smaller motorcycle sort of makes sense as long as going around the traffic is an option, but if they block the entire road you're probably not going to be able to carry it over cars? I don't think fuel would be a huge issue, you can siphon it from abandoned cars along the way, but eventually that's going to run out too. Petrol does expire, after a winter or two even the petrol stored properly underground at gas stations would be pretty bad, no?

The Houston hurricane evacuation jams were miles outside of the city limit, but most people made it okay. However fucked those fleeing the city are, you aren't going to make it 40+ miles on a bicycle. If that's your plan you are fucked.

 

[Baraka Obama]

an apocalypse. ... the apocalypse. ... a climate apocalypse where the oceans have boiled away or something, and you can just Mad Max around on the seafloor. ... a fun apocalypse ... a water surplus apocalypse

You know at some point just kill me.

The living would envy the dead in a nuclear apocalypse, honestly if it's so bad that we're talking about not having fuel to drive away shit has really hit the fan.

A casual war breaking out though? In Ukraine lots of people fled the east in a normal ass car.

A wildfire? You're racing against time and hoping urbanists haven't road-dieted the arterials but you can get out.

A world ending apocalypse? Just give me a quick death.

 

[Chuck McGill]

You know at some point just kill me.

The living would envy the dead in a nuclear apocalypse, honestly if it's so bad that we're talking about not having fuel to drive away shit has really hit the fan.

A casual war breaking out though? In Ukraine lots of people fled the east in a normal ass car.

A wildfire? You're racing against time and hoping urbanists haven't road-dieted the arterials but you can get out.

A world ending apocalypse? Just give me a quick death.

Seriously. Most of the doomsday prepper stuff is geared around the variety of 'slow collapse' scenarios that are far more probable than da big boom, but less entertaining to watch a plucky group of survivors on TV struggle through. It's so obvious that most of fuckcars is thinking of The Walking Dead, and not local insurgency, natural disasters, supply chain disruptions, or other disasters that will disrupt life in your area but not indefinitely so. In those scenarios, even having a gun, a vehicle, and a few weeks worth of food and water will improve your odds of survival drastically. If the nukes start flying or we've reached the point where the zombies have overrun the military and government, I'm saving the last bullet for myself.

And I'm assuming fuckcars thinks that bicycles are going to be the more pragmatic option over the long haul, since the idea that sitting in an exposed vehicle that travels a maximum of 20mph with no cargo space in a crisis is so ridiculous I'm not even going to bother debunking it. But the reality is that the bike is going to be subject to the exact same issues that a car would in a long-term situation with limited access to heavy industry, minus perhaps petrol concerns. Eventually your chain and other metal parts are going to rust. And good luck replacing those rubber tires, those are going to be useless within a few years. Anyone that thinks a bicycle is the more practical option there is just a brain-damaged redditor addicted to the dopamine rush they get from saying "ACKSHUALLY".

 

[CFC-12]

I wonder how hard they would nut if they knew notorious hack Max Brooks said a bicycle was one of the best transportation modes possible in a zombie apocalypse in The Zombie Survival Guide. An excerpt from the book (which I still have a copy of from 16 or 17 years ago):

Best option imo would be an older diesel pickup with minimal electronics. Gas powered cars and trucks would be unwise because gasoline starts to lose its volatility pretty much immediately after being produced. Anyone whose left gas in a lawnmower over the winter probably knows this. Also ethanol gels up pretty fast which fucks your fuel system.
Diesel fuel lasts longer if you can avoid water contamination, and once THAT goes bad diesels can run on basically any liquid hydrocarbon if they're tuned for it. Diesels will run on motor oil and that shit is shelf stable pretty much indefinitely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zHlxeu_yuM

I mean yeah, you still gotta source it from somewhere, but it's the apocalypse! Just go take some.

 

[quaawaa]

A story in two parts:

Article (Archive)
Source (Archive)


Source (Archive)

 

[Skeletonized Cow]

The living would envy the dead in a nuclear apocalypse

In the current era, assuming you can shelter for a month or two, survival post nuclear war isn't going to be too bad actually. The melts your face off radiation will die off quick enough that you'll be able to live without fear of nuclear poisoning after the initial sheltering. The most deadly aspect of a nuclear war will probably be the "nuclear autumn" that will hurt food production for a decade or so after the war. Depending on the exact scale of the war, proper civilization might even continue in a battered, but semi-functional state.

Ironically, cars/trucks might be a priority to rebuilding post nuclear war. Since most oil platforms on the ocean should survive, and land-based derricks wouldn't be nuked, some degree of fuel access would easily return. Bicycles, on the other hand, since they can't be used for hauling cargo will *not* be prioritized. And since the rubber in tires is made of petroleum usually, that shit is going bye-bye a decade or so post nuclear war.

 

[BulkForceFive]

The urbanist critique of pickup trucks isn't really based on any of the real problems with current pickup truck design, it's entirely in bad faith. It's all just a skim coat over the same left-right political arguments that pervade everything else. In fact I don't like calling these kind of people 'leftists' since all of their politics seem to come from some place of deep personal disturbance as opposed to a historical base of liberalism or socialism or whatever. "Why does that guy have such a big vehicle?" Who cares? Are you paying for it? No? Then shut up.

Make no mistake, if automakers reverse the current trend of bloatmaxxing vehicles, the urbanist bugman will continue his crusade. "Why do you need jump seats in the back? Why do you need a six-foot box? Why do you need more than 100 horsepower? Why do you need a powered vehicle? Why do you need a bike with a cargo rack? Why do you need to leave your pristine government-supplied cuckpod for any reason at all?" These are the people that reminded the teacher to hand out homework, strictly out of spite.

 

[Eternal Gopnik]

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"I wear a long black peacoat because it is warm and very stylish"

Buddy, you look like a fucking faggot with your obese frame stuffed in a peacoat, I'm sorry to tell you.

And oh lawdy, it's a troon stuffed in a peacoat, too.


LMAO

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Almost like the government solution is inferior to the private sector

The problem is that isn't even acknowledged. There's a certain number of subjects and arguments they won't touch because it runs contrary to their arguments.
- The existing school bus system introduces from a young age that public transit sucks
- Incentivizing "diversity" over neighborhood convenience makes school district maps a complete disaster and prevents kids from "walking to school"
- Crime in public transit is real and standing up to it only makes you a villain to be eaten alive by a corrupt DA
- Almost every "suburban" area has apartment complexes and duplexes, it's not all "single family zoning"

There's others too, I can't think of them.

Maybe it's just because I don't visit /r/fuckcars, but it seems like they're less obsessed with "just build an apartment building without parking bro" because they know Culdesac was an abject failure as far as the benefits touted.

 

[An Sionnach Seang]

The thing that they don't seem to realize is that while driving did drop a modest amount, it was transit that was absolutely destroyed by lockdowns. And that didn't just happened in the US, it also happened in Western Europe and cars gained in % share of passenger-km.

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this is true: bus operators assumed everyone would be staying at home, and reduced the capacity and frequency of bus services accordingly
problem is, round my way they were wrong, because most people using the bus to get to and from work could not work remotely, so reliability went down the shitter - buses that once ran every 20 minutes were reduced to once an hour, and because they banned standing passengers and didn't let anyone else on once all the seats were full, you might have had to wait several hours for a bus with free seats
most people in that situation lost patience and called a taxi instead

as a result, the operators have completely shot themselves in the foot in terms of reputation and trustworthiness, and passenger usage not recovered since then

 

[quaawaa]

Maybe it's just because I don't visit /r/fuckcars, but it seems like they're less obsessed with "just build an apartment building without parking bro"

Just yesterday they were cheering a planning change that forced an apartment tower in Boston to have zero parking spots and mandate as a term of the lease that residents would not get a street parking permit:


Article (Archive)
Source (Archive)

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Only one and a half of the things in the list is required to drive:



By "legitimate conspiracies" (archive), he means oil companies deciding to continue to extract oil after a researcher warned them about global warming.


Source (Archive)

 

[sum ting wong]

I love when they list a bunch of things that are supposed to make me decide to hate cars all of sudden but all it does is make me hate the government more.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Just yesterday they were cheering a planning change that forced an apartment tower in Boston to have zero parking spots and mandate as a term of the lease that residents would not get a street parking permit:
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Article (Archive)
Source (Archive)

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Only one and a half of the things in the list is required to drive:
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By "legitimate conspiracies" (archive), he means oil companies deciding to continue to extract oil after a researcher warned them about global warming.
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Source (Archive)

"I always counter that with expanding rail networks".

Oh, so a government system that only runs when it wants to and can be heavily monitored? Galaxy brain comeback there.

Several years ago, I remember a METRO officer harassing a homeless and chronic abuser of the system, straight up telling him, "If you board that train, you're under arrest". Luckily, you don't have to be a fare-jumper and all-around problem, the government can and will decide to make an example of a pleb that steps out of line.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Rubber is a type of tree and bikes need tires as well. Worst case scenario cars could always use solid wheels like carriages and early cars did:

Fun fact about latex and natural isoprene based polymers(which is what people are really after), they are found in over 12000 species of plants, now of course most of those aren't commercially or even practically viable, but some really common plants like lettuce and dandelions are close if only I had my old Grantville Gazettes I would be able to tell you guys more.

 

[WelperHelper99]

The problem is that isn't even acknowledged. There's a certain number of subjects and arguments they won't touch because it runs contrary to their arguments.
- The existing school bus system introduces from a young age that public transit sucks
- Incentivizing "diversity" over neighborhood convenience makes school district maps a complete disaster and prevents kids from "walking to school"
- Crime in public transit is real and standing up to it only makes you a villain to be eaten alive by a corrupt DA
- Almost every "suburban" area has apartment complexes and duplexes, it's not all "single family zoning"

There's others too, I can't think of them.

Maybe it's just because I don't visit /r/fuckcars, but it seems like they're less obsessed with "just build an apartment building without parking bro" because they know Culdesac was an abject failure as far as the benefits touted.

I can tell you school buses left a impression on me. Made me want a car more. Force public transit on people and I promise you'll only make more "car brains"

I love when they list a bunch of things that are supposed to make me decide to hate cars all of sudden but all it does is make me hate the government more.

Half of what they list is regulation. The government goes overbord with it a lot, like killing the mini truck

 

[quaawaa]

They've figured out a solution to their romantic problems:


There is a zero percent chance that an actual woman would have any trouble finding men in the Bay Area. Practically every local government there is urbanist and she'd have no issues finding a similarly-minded person to date.
There's also no way that a woman would say that BART is safer than driving.
This is also the only post made by the account, so I've voting troll.

Public transit in Oakland is not safe.

Even though I think OP is a troll, the rest of the thread is serious.


A lot of people share their problems finding love:





Source (Archive)

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A new plan to create a walkable paradise: invade a small city and outvote the locals:






Source (Archive)

 

[Trennschleifer]

They've figured out a solution to their romantic problems:
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There is a zero percent chance that an actual woman would have any trouble finding men in the Bay Area. Practically every local government there is urbanist and she'd have no issues finding a similarly-minded person to date.
There's also no way that a woman would say that BART is safer than driving.
This is also the only post made by the account, so I've voting troll.
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Public transit in Oakland is not safe.

Even though I think OP is a troll, the rest of the thread is serious.
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A lot of people share their problems finding love:
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Source (Archive)

Damn, if only there was like, a vehicle that makes dating fucking easy cause you can drive it anywhere, do anything, or even, you know, put the seats down and just smash in it.
And lmao at the OP. I don't know any women who prefer going out at night in public transport, and that even in my relatively small, landlocked country with great, and actually safe public transport. Most get spooked as fuck during the night when all the clubbers and drinkers are out and about. And I don't even blame them.

 

[WelperHelper99]

A new plan to create a walkable paradise: invade a small city and outvote the locals:
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Source (Archive)

The last one wants to take over Wyoming. Fuck off. I actually like that state because it's so pretty and untamed (and the hotels are really good because people get stuck for a night a lot because of wind or snow, I know, it's happened to me). Speaking of wind, while they have tons of freight trains, I don't know how well a lighter passenger train would fare with the environment there.