Cities around the world that are reducing car access

Probably not the best way to keep cars from dangerous parking at a Birmingham school...

Rail systems move people at efficiencies thousands of times greater than even the widest of roads meaning cost per user is a fraction of roads. In Ireland since about 2000 we've spent the guts of €20bn on new roads and less than €1bn on rail If that were the other way around we'd be like Japan, Limerick would have a metro.

Life is not better due to cars, what a silly statement, the reason people have such long commutes is specifically because of car availability. If they were never invented nobody would have built mcmansions in the middle of nowhere with the intention of driving an hour every day to a city for work. Before they were afordable the vast majority of people commuted by walking we had a more extensive rail network and tram network.

Pedestrianising a few city centre streets would still leave tens of thousands of km of roads there for people to drive on which should more than satisfy any supposed moral imperative.

I am not against cycling. I am very procycling. I am against people who claim cars are a net negative. People tend to be rational. Not all journeys can be made with bikes.

It would certainly be interesting to read a peer-reviewed paper on whether cars are a net positive or negative.

But considering road deaths, environmental impact, health factors (inactivity/emissions/etc), and considering the large number of people who don't own a car, I can see why some people would find cars to be a net negative. Rather than being "against people" on the point, it might maybe the better use of energy to accept that their circumstances differ from your own and that you will struggle to "win them round" so to speak.

I say all this as a car owner who drives quite a lot by the way.

Not all journeys can be made with (by) bikes? Absolutely. There's barely a person on the planet who thinks that all journeys can be made by bike. The issue at hand is actually around "not all journeys can be made by car" though. We have as a country and along with many other countries, tried for around 60 years to make it possible to perform all journeys by car, but are now coming around to the realisation that it's just not possible or even particularly desirable. The net outcome of that is that we are generally reversing some of those car-centric efforts now. This particularly impacts urban, congested areas. As you say, most people are rational: most people understand this.

It was a hypothetical scenario, journey times on intercity routes were longer because it was 100 years ago, rail technology has moved on. Journeys within cities were actually faster though because there were no cars blocking everything up. The average commute time was lower than 15 mins before cars.

Cars have planely not been immensely positive. Despite massive investment in safety, decades of effort and becoming a world leader in road safety, we still have 133 deaths by car annually. A premature death costs the economy about €20,000,000. That's just from accidents, more than a thousand people a year die from air pollution in Ireland . In March and April 2020 during lockdown, hospitalisations of people with asthma attacks dropped to 0, pre covid there were hundreds of hospitalisations with asthma per month. Then we spend another 1 billion per year on road infrastructure. Ireland doesn't have a car or oil industry, everything we spend on cars is stimulus for Germany, Japan and Saudi. Cars are literally costing us trillions of euros, increasing our average journey times and damaging our health.

I think basing our society around cars is up there with the worst things to happen in the 20th century, it completely ruined everything

I saw that, surely it's fake?

I am completely pro-cycling and cycle everywhere within Dublin myself, and want car access reduced within urban centres - but, life is much better with a car. If you want to do anything outside of towns and cities you need a car.

Depends on what you enjoy doing in life, see post above.

Where did I say anything about people enjoying commuting long distances? I was refuting a post that was saying life isn't better with a car - in my opinion it is better. As I said in a previous post, Swiss people have access to the best public transport in the world and lots still have cars - probably because life is better with the car rather than without it.

Did I say that? I don't need a study to back up my opinion, just like you don't have one to back up yours. I do work for a Swiss company and travel there often and get to ask my colleagues these questions however.

Yes I am telling you that I prefer having a car, and no I am not applying this logic to everyone - you seem to be for some reason.

My point is for a lot of people, no matter the quality of public transport in the country they live, having a car enhances their life. I would argue particularly those who have access to good public transport because it's a want as opposed to a need.

You seem to be conflating me saying a car does make life better with saying that everyone wants to drive their car all of the time, to every location.