# cars: my annoyances with cars in cities

i currently live in a high density area and i learned to despise cars. they are noisy, inefficient and take up way too much space. there is no place for cars in inner cities. in fact allowing cars makes a few things more inefficient:

• the road and parking infrastructure takes up a lot of space, pushing everything even more distant from each other further excarberating the need for assisted transportation.
• having cars around slows down walking through the city because i now need to wait for the cars to pass whenever i cross streets.
• walking around is more stressing because of the extra noise and awareness needed due to the cars. it is much harder to meditate thorough my walk.
• people using cars do not use the public transportation system, so it has less chance improving. i often hear people use cars just because they do not like the public transportation. but that is just because they do not complain in a way that is visible to the public transportation. if they were forced to use the service, they would be intrinsically motivated to improve it one way or another.

i understand that cars are very practical tools but i believe over the long term they lead to less efficient cities. and no matter how technologically advanced we make cars, city dwellers simply should not require cars. but as long as we allow cars in the cities, a lot of people will not be able to imagine existing without them. there is a quick way to teach people living without cars though. just ban all cars except the public transportation, ambulances and other licensed infrastructure supporting vehicles. perhaps the transition should be slower than an overnight ban but the endgoal should be the complete ban. maybe start with a small inner circle for the ban and then slowly extend the ban with more and more nearby streets every year until after a decade or two the whole city is car free. this would be a shock for a lot of people. they will get used to it though and find creative alternatives to whatever things they required cars for. if a population is forced to evolve, it will evolve. if some people still miss sitting in cars, they can always go live on the countryside. in exchange city dwellers can enjoy the efficiencies and benefits of car-free living.

published on 2017-12-10

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