Posted on 07/01/2013 4:19:46 PM PDT by jjotto
The New York Times ran a piece this weekend with the foreboding title "THE END OF CAR CULTURE" (and people accuse us of clickbait). Here's why you should take that claim with a grain of yellow cake uranium.
What New York Times environmental reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal is getting at is what most people are calling "Peak Car." This is the idea that car ownership and usage has peaked in the United States and is never coming back.
There's ample data to support this theory, although the most recent look at the data suggests that while the recession may have put a permanent peak in per-household ownership, car sales will probably continue to go up in the near-term.
Rosenthal does nod to the recession which, as Karl Henkel pointed out, is probably the single biggest reason why young people aren't buying cars.
But let's grant the premise. Let's say that we've reached the peak number of vehicles we'll have on U.S. roads. Let's say more kids won't get cars and the number of vehicle miles driven each year will drop.
This is not the "End of Car Culture." It's the death of "Commuting Culture," which, I'd argue, is the greatest threat to car culture.
What are the most popular vehicles in the United States? They're not Miatas or Mustangs or sports cars. They're relatively dull commuter vehicles like the Toyota Prius, Toyota Camry, and Ford Fusion or work vehicles like the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado (although in many places trucks count as both).
The NYT piece leads with a photo of teenagers hanging out at a drive-thru in 1959. They're not all driving the then contemporary equivalent of a mid-size cruiser (seen in the background), they're all driving stripped down sports cars or older, we assume modified, hot rods.
After the Suburban boom that followed a combination of white flight and the massive investment in the interstage highway system, we changed into a commuter driven culture. People had to own cars and we've been suffering from the environmental, social, and congestion-related consequences ever since.
A highway full of boring econoboxes does not create a car culture, it destroys it. A long commute causes people to hate their vehicles and leads to them buying something that compromises a sportier ride or more power for comfort and fuel efficiency. There might be a "Camry Owners of America" club, but I doubt it has the membership of the Mustang Club of America.
The fewer beige Camrycordusionltimas appliances on the road the better off everyone is.
As a car enthusiast, I believe people should take public transportation when it makes sense. They should not use their cars to get the mail from the end of the street. They should take better care of used cars instead of rushing out to buy something new every few years. They should not work a million miles from where they live thus wasting time and gas sitting in traffic.
While car sales dropping may be bad for automakers, it's not bad for auto lovers. When car ownership becomes more of a choice than a necessity, people will buy cars because they desire them, which will make the cars automakers build more desirable.
Since the recession, cars haven't gotten worse, they've gotten better. They're sportier, more attractive, more powerful and, yes, more fuel efficient all at the same time.
When we empty the roads of commuters, we free them up for the kinds of people who get in a car just for the joy of it.
That won't kill car culture, that'll help save it.
106-108 here along the Columbia. Will be looking forward to a few degrees cooler in Spokane and CDA. Looks like they are literally only a few degrees cooler at the moment.
Could you actually see the tach ?
There will always be an automoblile in the drive way!
I don’t care if the bus stops in the front yard!
‘02 Carerra in my garage...
94 Z28 Lt1 here, will always have a vert with HP!
Yes ... very distracting sometimes .. but cooler’n SHIT !!!
When I was in school one of the biggest identity groups was the “gearheads”. Talking to my kids and their friends, I haven’t seen any evidence that “gearheads” still exist. Course they may just not hang out with that crowd....
I hate Prius drivers far more than I hate inanimate cars. Prius drivers sneer at everyone else like they’re the new priesthood of environazis but then when my family drives on I-80 what do we see? We see lots and lots of Prius drivers pulled over on the side of the road by Wyoming and Utah state troopers for SPEEDING!!!
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Had a Prius guy want to race me on the turnpike. Really. I drove a Golf TDI. We ran fairly closely until we came to a looooonnnnggg uphill. He was a bug in my rearview.
I smoked him!
Lots of diesel in Europe. States wont let them in.
Same here.
There are a few young guys into older cars, not so much into anything recent with mods. More likely to drive in parades than on a drag strip.
Seems to be younger Mexicans and some Orientals into cars like small-town white guys used to be.
How about Cash for Clunkers, massive student loan debt and Obama’s youth job market crash as the causes?
"You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies." various attributions -Dr. Who, Oscar Wilde
You really need to get a more worthy object of your hatred!
In Chicago we have bicycle lanes that have ruined great two lane streets and snarled up traffic. So now it takes about 20-35% longer to get home. Thanks Democrats.
City zoning, put in place by liberals, and city permitting/licensing, put in place by unions, gave birth to the suburbs, highway systems and the car culture. Thanks libs!
Steve, I looked up your home page here and YES, of course you need to see that wonderful place. They sometimes/often host retreats, so people sort of wander around, but really, they do not care whether you're part of the retreat or just visiting. The chapel has a spectacular marble wall behind the altar. In itself, worth the visit. AND they have wonderful life-sized stations of the cross all over the property...Mass every day at 8 a.m. I sometimes get there in time. Hope you enjoy it. Who cares how hot it is?
Bike lanes in Seattle too, all over the place. Like there are tons of riders in the rain?
Their other cute trick is to time the downtown traffic lights to stop you at every single corner at rush hour. Idiotic! Not just maddening, but also incredibly bad for air quality, all those idling engines.
What jerks.
Turns out my wife has heard of it — an elderly friend attended a retreat there.
Being 165 miles away and 58 years old I am still discovering things in the Spokane area.
We will also be visiting the FSSP parish in CDA.
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