this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
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The specific numbers dont matter.
If you take 1 million cars with an average useage time of 1 hour a day and reduce that by 10 minutes thats roughly the same as taking 1 in 6 cars off the road from an emisions standpoint.
Make it 500,000 cars and reduce it by only 5 minutes its roughly the same as 41,000 cars worth of emissions that werent pumped out of exhaust pipes.
No it doesnt solve everything. Yes a well designed public transport system would be a much bigger environmental benefit. But its something that could be done with current tech and without massive infrastructure overhauls with a real tangible benefit for the environment and society.
The numbers do matter because the numbers are literally your entire argument. You're arguing building for cars is more effective, you cannot make arguments about effectiveness without numbers. Alternative transport methods can be done with current tech since alternative transport methods literally existed before cars. There are plenty of examples of places that aren't car-centric, and most major car-centric cities weren't originally built around cars. I honestly have no idea how you could have thought that's a remotely reasonable argument? It's utter nonsense.
Even if your massive infrastructure overhaul argument was valid^1^, we're literally talking about a hypothetical scenario where you can pump absurd amounts of money into a project.
^1.^ ^It's^ ^not,^ ^just^ ^build^ ^other^ ^infrastructure^ ^instead^ ^of^ ^more^ ^roads.^ ^From^ ^a^ ^strictly^ ^capitalist^ ^perspective^ ^it^ ^pays^ ^for^ ^itself^ ^when^ ^more^ ^space^ ^can^ ^be^ ^used^ ^for^ ^taxable^ ^business^ ^instead^ ^of^ ^the^ ^dead^ ^weight^ ^of^ ^parking,^ ^and^ ^those^ ^businesses^ ^are^ ^more^ ^accessible^ ^to^ ^foot^ ^traffic^ ^making^ ^them^ ^more^ ^profitable^ ^and^ ^therefore^ ^generating^ ^more^ ^taxes.^ ^Not^ ^to^ ^mention^ ^the^ ^maintenance^ ^costs.^