>>72257

>This is pretty much worthless without knowing what routes they had to take.
>Was it a 20 minute e-bike drive over flat land? Was the local place to get groceries close enough?

I checked if I paraphrased correctly. I did.
The author told of her experience living in a home in the literal woods of Brandenburg without a car.
Here is a link, as far as I can tell taz is down, otherwise I would have posted it earlier.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220418072505/https://taz.de/Leben-ohne-Auto/!5846129/
How is it different when her one-way-trip to the shop was 15km instead of 10km? It is not like it would have any implications for you or anyone else. She having a grocery store next door won't move another one further away from you or the other way round.

>If you want people to drive less, give them an incentive to do so.

The article did not argue one way or the other.
My personal opinion: I do not think that the government can or should try to guarantee that long commutes or even personal car ownership remain viable under all circumstances. History has shown that government can and will not guarantee that you are fed under all circumstances, for that matter.

>I grew up among hills. Apart from e-bikes not really existing back then, public transport was (and still is) a catastrophe, so it was necessary to get a car right away

Is a lack of public transport a natural precondition that can not be changed, or is it the result of political decisions and economical developments?
There used to be many rural branch lines narrow-gauge railways which were shut down during the 1950s-1990s, when passenger numbers declined as people switched to the car. Then the car became a necessity.

>People drive 20km to and from work, at the very least.

The way most people live is enabled by the car. But car dependency is a vicious circle. Cars and their parking lots take up huge amounts of space. What makes shopping without a car difficult is that all the shops are build way out in commercial zoning and are surrounded by parking lots twice the size of the shop. It is not cities that are loud and dangerous, it is mostly cars that are loud and dangerous. The noise we associate with cities is mostly the noise of car-traffic. The dangers we associate with traffic are the dangers of car-traffic. And the noise and danger is what drives people, people with children in particular, out of cities, so they need to drive their cars more. Parking lots also need more

>Even on flat ground that takes more than half an hour by bike. What about people who have to commute 50+ km?
>have to

I only partially buy the "have to" part. I know that the employment office is in the habit of demanding insane commutes from welfare recipients, even for part-time-work, to the point where it becomes economically senseless to even work, but will refuse to up-front the cost for a move. This is stupid, can't put it any other way. Other than that, long commutes are mostly a personal choice. Most people choose their own jobs and accommodation, after all.

>They spent like two hours each morning and evening just commuting, changing trains and all that. FOUR HOURS PER DAY JUST FOR COMMUTING.

So what should be done about it? Build more highways, so their commute can be shortened? That would only generate more traffic and noise and ruin more neighborhoods so more people would decide to live further out.

>Don't get me wrong, after I have moved and won't have those long commuting distances like I have now (100km), I will definitely drive as little as possible. Bike is out of the picture because of a condition I have, but maybe I can even try and go by foot.

Good luck on that.

>But what articles like this showcase extremely well is that the only people who have no problem with banning something are those not affected by the ban.

The article did not argue for banning anything. The author described her experiences. She writes that driving cars ruins the planet, which it does, but I suspect that this is what angered some people. They probably were not angered by her telling them that starting in October, she needed two pairs of gloves because her fingers got cold.

>I don't smoke so I wouldn't care about banning cigarettes, but you go ahead and try that and see the outcry. The other way round it's with legalization of weed. I don't smoke weed either,

Neither do I, or at least not in the past 12 years.

>so I couldn't care less if it's legalized or not,

The line of argument is flawed. Obviously, not everything someone thinks convenient for personal reasons should be legal. A murderer might argue that murder should be legal, at least in his particular situation. Would that make him right?

>yet the very same "save the planet" people

Do you think the planet is not in need of saving or the planet is not worth saving? What is it the "save the planet people" have wrong?

>people have been figuratively and literally seething for years and decades now. And smoking weed does affect young brains, as does the modern internet. Maybe we should ban smartphones for children under 18 then?

Arguments that can be made. But what off it?

My point was that
people love driving. And they get very angry when someone questions driving. And heating. Any increase in cost of energy comes at an immense political cost.

>>72277
Oh god what a trite slog. Is there a school where those people learn how to write in the most annoying way possible?
But it is as I suspected: They really don't actually need the car. She even says both have home office compatible jobs. And the electricity just comes from the plug, so it's all good, isn't it?
The main problem of public transport being neglected is only mentioned en passant. How the author FEELS and how her boyfriend has no driver's licence is more important. And it's telling that she accepts her parents SUV right away because she knows that hauling shit around with a bike has its limits.

So the first point, which this article doesn't really talk about is how shitty public transport outside of cities is. And I am absolutely convinced that the government SHOULD improve public transport if they want people to drive less.

>It is not cities that are loud and dangerous, it is mostly cars that are loud and dangerous. The noise we associate with cities is mostly the noise of car-traffic. The dangers we associate with traffic are the dangers of car-traffic.

Cars driven by city people? So yeah, it is cities and frankly I don't understand people who live and work in the city and still have a car. I would ditch mine the instant I could. If they don't want commuters to drive into the city, why not create more park and ride places outside the city? You drive to the city, not inside, and then use the public transport.

>Other than that, long commutes are mostly a personal choice. Most people choose their own jobs and accommodation, after all.

Yeah, if you're an unbound single maybe. But you can't always choose everything and have to make compromises.
The way you are talking strikes me as you being someone who is extremely privileged mobility-wise.
And not everyone is ready to move to the other side of the country just for a job. You talk about people preferring long commutes, but you're ok with them moving around all the time? Not everyone likes being a nomad. I have moved five times since 2015 and I hate it and I really don't want to anymore. I want to stay in one place for at least five years for change, without having to follow jobs - because not everyone can find work everywhere, too.
So no, long commutes are not mostly a personal choice and most people choose the accomodation that goes with the job or the job that goes with the accomodation, not both at the same time. You have to be lucky for that.
Being able to that is a luxury, a big one.
Of course the underlying problem is tolerating that kind of practice and how commutes of an hour are still deemed "annehmbar".
But if there was some kind of law that prohibited commutes of more than 30 minutes, what happens if you take a new job? Leave your family and get a flat close to your job so that during the week you only live for your job and only go home on weekends? Lots of people already do that and it's not a nice existence.

>So what should be done about it? Build more highways, so their commute can be shortened?

No, certainly not. I meant to illustrate just how insane commuting can get. And those people didn't choose to do that. Do you think the author of that article would have been able to keep up the bike lifestyle if she weren't able to work from home?

>The article did not argue for banning anything.

No, but it argued in favor of e.g. speed limits on the Autobahn, which is fucking retarded, as those who want to save gas already do (like me) and the handful speeders left vanish in the background noise. Making combustion engines unsustainable for normal people amounts to banning them. But if you don't need a car, why would you care? It's that kind of attitude, not what is getting to be banned/legalized specifically. If they want people to drive electric, why don't they have something like an exchange? Turn in your Diesel and get an Electro for at least 50% off, or make a 1:1 exchange.

>Do you think the planet is not in need of saving or the planet is not worth saving? What is it the "save the planet people" have wrong?

That was not the point. The point what that these people are hypocrites. Floriansprinzip, wasch mich aber mach mich nicht nass, etc.
People like Gottfried are consequent and I can respect someone like that.

And last, I can only speak for myself, I don't like driving in traffic and if I didn't need a car, I wouldn't have one. Hell, some years ago I had plans of selling mine until I realized I still do need it. And go ahead and tell my mom to heat less, see how that goes.
Obviously we all wouldn't have these problems if since Schröder our politicians didn't constantly choose to make us more and more dependant on Russia and simultaneously completely fuck up energy politics especially in the renewables field.