I’m getting a lot of ‘but my car is more convenient’ arguments lately, and I’m struggling to convey why that doesn’t make sense.

Specifically how to explain to people that: Sure, if you are able to drive, and can afford it, and your city is designed to, and subsidizes making it easy to drive and park, then it’s convenient. But if everyone does it then it quickly becomes a tragedy of the commons situation.

I thought of one analogy that is: It would be ‘more convenient’ if I just threw my trash out the window, but if we all started doing that then we’d quickly end up in a mess.

But I feel like that doesn’t quite get at the essence of it. Any other ideas?

  • @[email protected]English
    16•7 months ago

    My car does about 5,000km a year, and almost all of it is with a passenger. Taking kids to school and sports. It’s also a 930kg car.

    It’s faster, cheaper, and more convenient to catch a train to the office in the city in peak hour.

    However, there’s no way I’m going to use PT to lug around a full trolley of shopping or multiple baseball bags with catcher’s gear and 3 kids.

    Basically my point is - travel less, travel lighter.