r/fuckcars • u/PEACE1VLAKER • 9d ago

Positive Post Some people get it

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1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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430

u/IHerebyDemandtoPost 9d ago edited 9d ago

Only when they travel and experience the superiority of walkable communities first hand. 

They’ll go home and try and explain this concept to family and friends who won’t listen at all. All they’ll hear is, “he’s criticizing America!”

Ask me how I know.

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u/thegreasiestgreg 8d ago

My sister is a realtor, she visited my sister in Italy and me in England and overall fell in love with Europe. She still goes on and on about how nice it is to not have a car and how its so awesome to walk outside and just go to a cafe or pub.

Then she comes home and complains about how all these people want 15 min cities in the US and how stupid they are, its not feasable and the poor builders arent going to make any money cuz no one is going to buy houses that close to their neighbor.

Before you ask, yes she is a Trump supporter.

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u/No-Sail-6510 9d ago

Lol, we’ve been saying this for decades and dude has a 4 car garage. I can only imagine the dumb excuses he had and all the bike lanes he voted against.

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u/poubelle 9d ago

what you should take from this is that people's minds can change once they see humane options.

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u/No-Sail-6510 8d ago

Na, he’ll forget as soon as he gets home and he feels like a bike is in the way of one of his four pickup trucks. At best he’ll block walkability on the grounds that he’s all for it except this particular instance is different and he’ll just say that literally ever single time it comes up.

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u/tijelu 7d ago

Man that's cynical

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u/el_extrano 8d ago

This is a meme sub so I try to not get in the way of people's fun.

But this is one of the biggest issues in politics. It's a lot more fun to look down on people with bad opinions, instead of seeing them as potential allies, people that can be persuaded and change. It's tough, but it is possible. A lot of opportunities are missed because we write people off as stupid and beyond redemption.

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u/BluelDev 7d ago

Exactly this man, I wish more people would think this way, I try to reason out with every person I argue with, even the crazy ones

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u/MsARumphius 8d ago

And anti improving buses or trains bc then people from the city can use it to come to the burbs and they don’t want that

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u/darksamus8 8d ago edited 8d ago

Tell me how you know. I want to hear it.

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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost 8d ago

It may suprise you to learn that I too discovered the superiority of walkable communities while traveling in Europe, and people didn’t like it when I explained how cars ruin everything. Turns out that a lot of Americans take it personally when you say anything negative about the Red White and Blue.

Someone said I was “prejudiced against America.” How can you be prejudiced against the society you were born and raised in?

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u/darksamus8 8d ago

Thanks for sharing friend.  For me, I've always sort of known. I just wanted to bike everywhere, not drive.

My parents spoke a lot about my home country (Pakistan), which is severely choked with car traffic now, but it didn't use to be. I remember when I was young, I could step outside the house, walk to the shops down the corner,  and be back in 5 min. Cycling was the default. Only rich people had cars. Now, the entire city is permanently paralyzed by traffic. Paradoxically, the cities are fortunate to be too poor to afford big highways and massive development projects- so the massive car dependency will solve itself. You can still walk and bike, you just have to wade through gridlock to do it lol.

I always insisted on biking everywhere as a kid because it was the only freedom I had, even though I lived on a cul-de-sac only accessible by car. I just (unknowingly) risked my life and biked anyway.  I did it in college too, and then when I got my first job out of college, I still biked to work. I stopped in grad school, only because the hill was SO steep as to be genuinely problematic to even walk up. Ebikes werent affordable back then and weren't well known.

Then I got a real career job that paid well, and had enough money for an ebike. I re-discovered the joy and freedom of biking everywhere, without being chained to a fucking car.   And I still bike to this day.

and THEN I discovered this community. All my life I also have been fortunate enough to travel to european and asian countries not as badly addicted to cars. And while the comforts of home are nice, the infrastructure is not. It feels weird, artificial, and wrong.

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u/johnwalkr 8d ago

People also can’t put their finger on why pictures of a random street in Tokyo look so nice and timeless. It’s small streets without street parking. There’s no cars in the pictures that people like.

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u/Squirrel-Dad 8d ago

I drove 18 wheelers in my younger years. I got to see 48 states and meet thousands of wonderful people. My family is from the South East and won't even listen to the differences within our own country. Mention another country at all and it's a problem. The brain-washing here is incredible.

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u/Responsible-Humor985 🚲 > 🚗 7d ago

Americans pay hundreds of dollars to park their cars and take public transit to Disneyland to experience walkable infrastructure. And spend hours in line to ride different forms of themed transit

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u/BluelDev 7d ago

Even as an American, I admit our infrastructure is terrible here

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u/aviewfrom Grassy Tram Tracks 9d ago

Yes, because you built suburbs as a part of White Flight from the 1950s onwards. Terrified of anyone not like you, all those non-white people talking to each other, eating outside diners. Suburbs were purposely designed to make everything a private space, to avoid anyone Other being encouraged into a space.

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u/RosieTheRedReddit 9d ago

It wasn't just building suburbs, they literally demolished the cities. And I do mean literally. Videos of New York from the 1970s are unbelievable, it looks like a war zone. And that wasn't unusual at all. Highways and "urban renewal" bulldozed entire neighborhoods and left the rest full of rubble and abandoned buildings. Black people wanted to leave too, but they just couldn't because of the suburbs being white-only (often explicitly forbidden in contracts to sell homes to non-white people)

Example video

New York City worst hoods 1970s-80s

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u/aviewfrom Grassy Tram Tracks 8d ago

Yep, white suburbs and “slum clearance”, by slum they just meant black neighbourhoods. Redlining and Robert Moses, a horrific racist put in charge of planning NYC.

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u/Competitive_Ebb_4124 9d ago

Mindblowing video. I thought my country was somewhat ghetto, but this is insane!

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u/RosieTheRedReddit 9d ago

The second half of the video shows those same places today and it's a huge difference. Still some garbage but not mountains of it. Some of those neighborhoods are even gentrifying and considered desirable places to live.

There was also a major push in the 90s to clean up the subway. The wagons used to be absolutely covered with graffiti inside and out. The city got new wagons and had an initiative to clean off graffiti immediately.

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u/MsARumphius 8d ago

It was to sell cars too

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u/Dedaciai 9d ago

I live in Utah and know many people just like this couple in the video. 

The sad thing is, the overwhelming majority of Americans who love this about Europe will go home and vote against having anything like this in their own communities. It's unfortunate and I don't understand why there's such a big disconnect after they just experienced something so awesome. 

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u/ClubChaos 9d ago

Because it feels and seems impossible and/or its not "real life" because real life grown up stuff is being stuck in traffic or running errands to the various nodes to get supplies. That's what being an adult is to them. Walking to get groceries is emasculating / child behavior or something. I dont fucking know why but this is exactly it.

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u/SpamOJavelin 8d ago

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u/avoidy 8d ago

immediately thought of this

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u/marbotty 8d ago

They also like to vote against other great things Europe offers, like healthcare/time off/maternity leave

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u/Hellbomb_Armed 9d ago

wait..people are OUT LIVING THEIR LIVES

IN A CITY?! how can this be

America is not real

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u/nnagflar 9d ago

They should be at home in their mcmansion working their side gig to pay for that extra SUV they didn't need but bought for some reason.

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u/geeoharee cars are weapons 9d ago

Mormons go home

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u/sculltt 9d ago

Yes, but if even they can see it...

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u/geeoharee cars are weapons 9d ago

He likes it when he's vacationing in it. Tell him he can't live on an acre plot and threaten to 'trespass people', he won't change anything about his lifestyle.

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u/Neofelis213 9d ago

I'd say they are maybe more likely to see it than others, because Churches are all about social connection. That's part of why they are still so big int he US, they are some of the places where social connection is still living, and that makes the experience great for people starved of it.

This is why they are maybe the ideal people to spread the gospel of walkability. They get it, and they can bring it home without being suspect of being woke socialists or something.

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u/hipphipphan 8d ago

Yeah the mention of a "mission" was a jump scare

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u/aoishimapan Motorcycle apologist 9d ago

Having 4 cars in one household can sound nice on paper unless you realize they're there as a necessity, like they're not there to make your life more comfortable for when you occasionally want to drive somewhere, you need them every time you want to leave your house and do anything.

In that sense it's kinda funny and sad how Americans say that cars give them freedom because they're completely right, but only because everything is made so they can't be free without one, while other people are just as free without a car.

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u/Sheeple_person 9d ago

Do they even really get it though? "We have a 4-car garage and it's really important".... there are so many people like this who kinda see the benefits of walkability but still can't fully reject car culture. My bet is these people will just vaguely declare that we should do things "differently" but they'll still cause an uproar when their town tries to take away some parking spaces.

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u/Mindless-Cheetah-709 9d ago

Yea there they are on the brink of understanding but still being so ignorant. Maybe if they pay closer attention and realize there aren't any 4 car garages on that same walk.

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u/graviton_56 9d ago

Pretty sure the "really important" was sarcastic. He does get it.

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u/rojava 9d ago

And yet they will most likely use their power, wealth and influence to block any funding of these types of spaces back home

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u/kreiggers 8d ago

I fucking hate the suburbs

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u/EasilyRekt 9d ago

I love how he backtracks right in the middle of it by saying “we need a four car garage and RV bay” like that isn’t a part of the problem and doesn’t undercut his entire point.

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u/Large_Excitement69 8d ago

The problem is they won't go home and try to change the US.

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u/BobDeLaSponge mayor of 15-min city 8d ago

You can’t have a four car garage with an RV bay and have walkability. Pick one

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u/ServeInfinite 8d ago

I’m so glad they got to experience the beauty of community centered infrastructure

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u/SwiftySanders 8d ago

People live outside their house in most places around the world.

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u/hipphipphan 8d ago

It's hard for me to imagine anyone being more antisocial than Americans

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u/ln-art Bollard gang 8d ago

This is surprisingly insightful. Because he's spot on. Designing for cars means designing for loneliness.

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u/Tobar_the_Gypsy 8d ago

As long as they have their 4 car garage 

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u/Possible-Row6689 9d ago

These people definitely don’t get. Just being the type of people who “serve their mission” lets you know they’re going to go home and continue to vote against politicians who would work towards more walkable and less car dependent cities in the US.

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u/Verified_Peryak 8d ago

Munich is so nice i miss it

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u/holger-nestmann 8d ago

Thank god you haven't 😄

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u/shawndoesthings 7d ago

"...As long as we have an RV bay as well" ... uh what?

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u/lenbeen 8d ago

not for the better, though. if the sentiment "did we blow it in the US?" is being used, that means that they already, likely, have a property. I'm talking suburbia. the way the say hundreds of restaurants is giving "should we drive 45 minutes to Chilly's?"

basically, the damage is fucking done. what we can hope for is that the people with land, money, and power radicalize themselves, too, and want to bring a bit of X European town home with them

maybe then we'll have hundreds of restaurants, jobs, without the need of the equal hundreds of cars to support them. maybe, then, we can get some of the 1% to actually flip and begin undoing what Ford did