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What does the future hold for the automobile?
The Orange County Register ^ | October 14, 2017 | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 10/15/2017 6:12:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

For a generation, the car has been reviled by city planners, greens and not too few commuters. In the past decade, some boldly predicted the onset of “peak car” and an auto-free future which would be dominated by new developments built around transit.

Yet “peak car,” like the linked concept of “peak oil” has failed to materialize. Once the economy began to recover from the Great Recession, vehicle miles traveled, sales of cars, and particularly trucks, began to rise again, reaching a sales peak the last two year. Instead, it has been transit ridership that has stagnated, and even fallen in some places like Southern California.

Demographics — notably the rise of the millennial generation — were once seen as the key to unlocking a post-car future. Yes, younger people have been slower to buy cars than their predecessors, much as they have been slow to get full-time jobs, marry or buy homes, but more are now driving, so to speak, the car market, representing the largest share of new automobile buyers.

Convenience can’t be banned

The persistence of personal transportation has little to do with the much hyped “love affair” with the automobile but convenience and access to work. Simply put, with a few notable exceptions, Americans live in increasingly “dispersed regions.” Transit works brilliantly, as Wendell Cox and I demonstrated recently in a paper for Chapman’s Center for Demographics, to downtown San Francisco and a few other “legacy” urban centers, notably New York which accounts for a remarkable 40 percent of all transit commuting in the United States.....

(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society; Travel
KEYWORDS: automobiles; automotive
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To: BobL

It’s “been done”

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_white_bicycle_revolution

THE WHIMSICAL ANARCHISM OF THE WHITE BICYCLE REVOLUTION
In the summer of 1965, Dutch designer and political activist Luud Schimmelpennink suggested a simple radical scheme that would eventually change the world. Schimmelpennink had an idea for creating a more sustainable environment by giving away free bicycles for communal use in Amsterdam’s city center. The suggestion was called the “White Bicycle Plan” and was part of a series of “White Plans” devised by the Dutch anarchist group Provo.

Provo is a Dutch word for “young trouble-maker” and was considered an appropriate name for a group of young anarchists to carry out political “happenings” and stunts that were inspired as much by DADA as by Herbert Marcuse. Provo was formed by artist and anti-smoking campaigner Robert Jasper Grootveld, writer and anarchist Roel van Duijn and activist Rob Stolk in May 1965. Their motivation, they explained, was to fight back against capitalist society that was “poisoning itself with a morbid thirst for money,” where its citizens were “being brought up to worship Having and despise Being.”

...In 1965, Provo announced their plan to stop all personal motorized transport within Amsterdam, making the streets safe for the public and only accessible by walking, cycling or public transport. Provo presented their proposal to the municipal authorities, suggesting that they should buy 20,000 white bicycles every year giving them away free for public use. This proposal was rejected by the local politicians. Provo then decided to supply 50 free bicycles themselves—this was the “Witte Fietsenplan” or “White Bicycle Plan.”

However, as soon as these 50 white bicycles were made freely available they were impounded by the police on the grounds the bikes were not “lockable.” Apparently, all bikes in Amsterdam at that time had to be lockable. Undeterred by the police actions, Provo waited until the bikes were returned and they then fitted each bike with a simple combination lock with the number painted on the bike’s frame. Of course, some of the bikes were stolen, but the White Bicycle revolution had begun.

Provo’s ideas may seem obvious to us today, but in the 1960s, they were considered radical, threatening and dangerous to society. This was the start of a bicycle revolution that has spread across many European countries today, with bikes being readily (and often freely) available for use. In 2010, Glasgow-based art collective NVA launched a new “White Bicycle Plan” donating 50 bikes for use across the city...


And even today Leftists are pushing this in cities. Houston “rents” bicycles around town and there are calls to close Westheimer to motor traffic and make it a market square.


41 posted on 10/16/2017 4:14:31 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Did Barack Obama denounce Communism and dictatorships when he visited Cuba as a puppet of the State?)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

>>How is Uber different from calling a cab?

There isn’t the investment in taxi medallions or licenses.

Time has come to lift the restrictions on access to the marketplace for those who want to drive a car for pay.


42 posted on 10/16/2017 4:17:37 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Did Barack Obama denounce Communism and dictatorships when he visited Cuba as a puppet of the State?)
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To: Fresh Wind

Ubering the world would continue to nickel and dime consumers.

Much more expensive to hire a car each way whenever you want to go someplace. And now Uber accepts/requires tips (since the drivers can rate customers, you’d best comply).

And I have a 35 mile commute each way to work. I guess I’d have to move or get a new job.


43 posted on 10/16/2017 4:22:48 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Did Barack Obama denounce Communism and dictatorships when he visited Cuba as a puppet of the State?)
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To: a fool in paradise
They (including some FReepers) will tell you that the money you save on buying a car, fueling it, paying insurance on it, and maintaining it will more than make up for Über fees.

Maybe so, but how much is your freedom worth to you?

It's worth a **** of a lot to me.

44 posted on 10/16/2017 4:40:00 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (Hillary: Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect 2 billion dollars.)
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To: taildragger
"...charging times come down to 5 to 10 minutes ( Some claim they are their )..."

It's easy to charge cells in parallel. The problem is keeping the battery from catching on fire when you do that.

45 posted on 10/16/2017 5:01:27 AM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: a fool in paradise
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.” - Barack Obama

Didn't this loser keep the White House colder than 72 degrees?

Didn't this loser fly his butt and moochelle's on different planes?

46 posted on 10/16/2017 5:05:28 AM PDT by ealgeone
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Oh no, no F1, Indycar or NASCAR races? No, thanks...I think autos will be around..


47 posted on 10/16/2017 5:32:15 AM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is :-))
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To: palmer
"The problem is keeping the battery from catching on fire when you do that."

Good point. Their are 15 to 20 batteries claiming they have the solution and taking in VC money or are internally funded. Of this group many are in the "solid state battery" space, were the electrolyte is supplanted with a permeable membrane. With the membrane, they are also claiming no the risk of fire from "dentryting" (Li creating mountain ranges under a microscope and causing the fire problem ) they can go to pure Lithium vs the Li-Ion mixture which I believe is diluted w/ graphite. With the pure Li, they can then up the energy densities....

48 posted on 10/16/2017 7:19:52 AM PDT by taildragger (Do you hear the people singing? The Song of Angry of Men!....)
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To: a fool in paradise

Uh yeah, I can expect exactly that, assuming I can pay for it and that foreigner doesn’t want a poke in the booger cage for sticking it into other people’s business.


49 posted on 10/16/2017 7:42:20 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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