Fuck Cars
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
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Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
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No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
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Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
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No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
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No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
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No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
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No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
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@ajsadauskas @heatofignition @mondoman712
I'm trying to engage charitably but it honestly feels like you keep ignoring my question. When can Australia raise gas prices more?
@owen @heatofignition @mondoman712 The really big missing piece of the puzzle in Australia — even the major capital cities — is the frequency of suburban bus services.
Here's the timetable for a typical Melbourne suburban bus route: https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/stop/15701/allambanan-drdorset-rd/2/bus/#StopPage:::datetime=2024-03-02T21%3A00%3A00.000Z&directionId=193&showAllDay=false&_auth=f308870091d891540e8a71291593644d70d97c0fb737e7cc29342c6a7802e96d
If you want to financially penalise people for driving, I think at a minimum you need to get that service up to a 10 minute all-day frequency.
Regional and rural transport services are another weak spot as well.
And I think you're more likely to get the results you're after if the increase in driving costs (however it's implemented) comes either at the same time, or after services are improved to a reasonable standard.
@ajsadauskas @heatofignition @mondoman712
You keep ignoring my question which just confirms my suspicion that the answer is "never."
If your answer is "only after every person in Australia has 10 minute transit service within a 15 minute walk (20 hours a day??), your practical answer is never. Because that will never happen.
And you haven't even engaged with my point that you're equity analysis is just vibes. You haven't actually done any cost/benefit analysis.
@ajsadauskas @heatofignition @mondoman712
However if we decide it's ok to make it expensive to own a car, we actually can envision a world where everyone lives within transit because people will choose to do that.
And the money we raise from fuel taxes -- which are mostly paid by wealthy and middle class earners -- can be used to actually expand transit.
@owen @heatofignition @mondoman712 Here's where there is a big difference between the US and Australia.
The wealthiest parts of Australia's capital cities are in the inner-city, which already have access to good public transport.
The poorest areas tend to be the outer suburbs, where public transport is a half-hourly bus, and cycling involves navigating a six-lane stroad with no protected bike lane.
It's the opposite to the US, where in many metro areas the wealthiest white residents live in outer-suburban gated communities and the (often Black) working class have traditionally lived in the inner city.
The wealthiest suburbs in Melbourne are served by the (mostly inner-city) tram network. Toorak, Brighton, Kew, Camberwell, and increasingly Fitzroy.
And the poorest tend to be in the outer suburbs.
There's a whole history of why it played out differently to the US.
But the big factor for why someone lives in, say, Carrum Downs in outer southeast Melbourne (where the local public transport is by bus) is because it's all they can afford.
In the US, where the wealthiest people live in the outer suburbs, raising gas prices to encourage them to move to the inner city where there's better public transport would probably work.
The difference is that in Australia the wealthiest people actively avoid the outer suburbs.
It's the working class who tends to live in the outer suburbs.
Most Carrum Downs residents would gladly choose to live somewhere like Brighton or Toorak with good public transport. If they could afford it.
That means there needs to be decent alternatives to driving if you're going to increase the cost of driving.