this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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You'd need both, honestly. Electric cars are a great idea in a lot of situations. The problem with electric cars is that countries like the United States will need 300 million or more just to match current car usage because the country is so car dependent. I grew up in a rural area in the US and had to drive 30+ minutes just to get to a grocery store. If I wanted to take public transportation I'd need a ride from someone with a car to get to the station or walk 2+ hours. Not only that, but most cities that are car dependent don't even have the infrastructure for mass public transportation. They'd have to redesign the entire city just to get anything besides buses. The car dependency is so deeply built into cities that it would cost astronomical amounts of money just to get a basic train system. It's why most cities just opt for a new bus route.
Buses are still good. They have electric buses in Prague. There’s the BRT invented in Brazil and brought over successfully to England. Mass transit doesn’t need to be trains. Turn a lane into a dedicated bus lane and put some ticketing stations outside and you have a BRT solution.
Edit: hit submit by mistake.
And restructuring our cities to live a less carbon intensive live is critical. Yes it will cost a lot. It’s still needed.
I don't disagree. I would use public transportation if I could. I do think that it is kinda silly to say electric vehicles will solve everything about climate change when the top 20 corporations produce 80% of pollution. The restructuring of our cities to support these kinds of things is very important as well. I'm just saying that electric vehicles will be a necessary component that we, unfortunately, cannot rule out. Even if everyone had access to public transportation we would still need vehicles. And it would be better to have electric ones.
Alright, so we’re saying the exact same thing.