Cars don't belong in cities, says Top Gear's James May

I know that James May was always the hippie of the group, but I'm still happy he said it.
- Captain Slow will reach the correct conclusion...after some time.

Could not be more correct. Public spaces and transit, cities need to be for the people that live there. Not for suburban commuters
- I just wish cycle theft wasn’t as prevalent as it is. If journalists can track down the shipping of stolen cycles, cops should be able to stop it.
  
  Agreed theft is always a issue, there are ways to try and mitigate it. Proper storage, dedicated parking, lighting, cameras or security. Not all all 100% full proof though, not going to lie. Cars even get broken into when all these above listed items are in place.
  Side note, I know in Europe it's common to have a secondary "beater bike" in the city, you ride your bike to the train in your local town, then grab your beater in the city train station.

The polar opposite to Jeremy Clarkson
- Factually incorrect, because there's proof May and Clarkson were both at the same pole.
  
  Yes, but have you ever seen them in the same roo... Oh.

James May added: “The thing that really bothers me is road sectarianism. Quite a few people in cars seem to be somehow offended by people riding bicycles because they’ve paid all this money for a car and think therefore they should be rewarded for it, but often they’re just not using the car very intelligently.” 👍
- I have to admit I'm a bit guilty of this, but from both sides. I bike more than I drive, and when I'm driving all cyclists are a menace and are in the way, but when I bike all drivers are reckless idiots who are trying to kill me.
  
  The rule of the road is that any one going slower or faster than you is a menace, this applies to everyone with pedestrians being at the bottom of the food chain.
  
  I still think about the time I passed a bicyclist on the road, reached a red light, and saw him pass between all the cars that had just passed him to stop in front of me again. We all had to pass him again.
  
  To be fair most cyclists in major cities have a death wish. I don't have another way to describe wearing all black in winter with no lights driving against traffic in a car lane (where there is also a dedicated, separated bike lane), and ignoring all stop signs and traffic signals. It's a death wish.
  Yes it's mostly doordash et al, but just because doordash doesn't care about it's workers doesn't mean the workers don't have to.

He's always been the one that's not as much of a cock as the other two
- What did I miss about Hammond?
  
  Hes a cock
  
  Constantly upside down when he gets in the driver's seat
  
  He tended to just ape the Orangutan. Heh. Ape. Orangutan. See what I did there?
- Oh, right, I didn't remember which one he was.

Never forget Top Gear’s episode racing through the center of London. Results as follows:
Bicycle
Boat
Tube (public transit)
Car
It wasn’t even really close.
- For the lazy https://youtu.be/CkOzNK4l8KY

Obviously TV stars are the right people to ask about city planning. Because city planners and architects have given up the concept of automotive cities as recently as 1970 and nobody has been giving a fuck since then. On of the fathers of the original idea, Le Corbusier, declared the automotive city as failed because of the sheer number of cars . The automobile revolution had, in his opinion turned into an automobile explosion and no reasonable concept could handle the volume of traffic that were far beyond the estimations the original idea was based on. Nevertheless reasonable political reactions on the total failure of dealing with permanently increasing inner city infvidual traffic are still an exception. Because Hans Wurst and Joe Moron must have their car an arm's length away from their sofas or they'll either die from exhaustion walking to the convenience store or from acute lack of beer and potato chips...

This times 1000 any dense cities with sufficient transit should be car free.
- with sufficient transit
  That's an unnecessary qualifier. Cities without sufficient transit should also be car free – and get sufficient transit.
  
  Difference is that some metros are a car centric hellscape
- If you banned private vehicle use in cities without sufficient transit, overnight such transit would, as if by magic, suddenly appear. Private bus services are a thing.
  
  @WoodScientist @buzz86us I wouldn't advocate doing it in that order, but you are right.
  
  and those are private vehicles, commercial as their use may be.
- These are the kinds of statements that make people think all leftists are fucking crazy.

You all heard Captain Slow.
Hand over them keys.
Actually, that would be amazing. Unfortunately, living in a major North American city, I don't have enough wealth to be without a car.
- Man I really wish we weren't so entrenched in this car-centric city planning philosophy. Public transit just doesn't get it done around here compared to abroad.
  
  Cars need lots of space. Streets and roads need to be wide, and parking lots are needed when cars are not in use.
  These factors push everything far apart. If you think of North American shopping plazas in suburban areas, they are generally large empty spaces with parking lots between stores.
  If you want to cross the street or road to the Walmart or HomeDepot in the plazza accross the one you are in, you generally need to drive or walk 20 min or more, and you need to walk to a main intersection with pedestrians signals, good luck trying to cross 4-6 lanes of suburban traffic with shopping bags.
  Let alone, local transit stops are located outside the plaza's at a major intersection generally with a 15min walk to the store entrance.
  The urban planning is extremely inefficient and poor.
  
  Works fine as long as you don't mind being late. Limiting your travel times. Tripling the length of your commute. And braving a mobile-psychiatric dayroom environment in order to go anywhere..

What is Top Gear?
- Very famous show about cars. They made model compete against each other or other transportation mode in various racing contest and discuss a lot about mecanisc. It is British but also famous in France.
  
  @pseudo @jaggedcircle It had a pretty good viewership in Australia too. I think it did pretty well in a lot of countries.
- @jaggedcircle @GlobalLiberty
  11-52.
  
  ?
- One of the most successful and popular global TV shows of all time.

I regularly transit between Heathrow and downtown. It's about 13 miles or so. Regularly 45 minutes to an hour and a quarter, and as much as an hour and three quarters if there was some event letting out at the time. For such short distances I don't think I've seen any US city compare. Sure, some have bad hours or short segments of regular congestion, and I've driven from one side of the country to another, but London takes the cake for shitty driving most any hour of the day for such a short transit.
- This is insane. 13 miles for 45 minutes to an hour plus. Bike, scooter, electric something. All those cars running just to sit and wait.
  
  Have you seen Top Gear's race across london from 16 years ago? Now it's even worse
- When cities are built for cars, like liège. Then cars won't have many issues there.
  But liège is a shithole not worth visiting ☺️
  It's really fun watching cars struggle in Ghent. Just use a bike

Thought it said "cats" for a second.

We could learn from China as they've been solving this problem with EVs. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AomxytSwrkY
Cars will never go away due to the current city landscape, but things like these would significantly improve transport and livability.
- EVs still bring noise, pollution, land use, and carbon emissions from concrete. So they don't solve all the problems with cars, they should be a last resort.
- @Dalaryous @GlobalLiberty tiny cars only reduce parking space, they take up essentially the same amount of road at speed.

Bit too absolutist imo, people with mobility issues exist, i'd say most cars don't belong in cities, and it would be solved by good design, traffic restrictions etc.
when I was a kid almost all kids took the bus and walked to school, now I live opposite of an elementary school in a "socialist block" in middle europe and in the morning there is a huge line of cars dropping off kids, the school literally has a roundabout in front of it's entrance to make it easier, it's awful design, not to mention there is literally a bus stop on the other side of the school.
There is 0 reason for kids to be driven to school.
- With you first point i disagree. I think public transport is often just fine or even preferable for people with mobility issues. If they are wheelchair bound then they cannot drive. And public transport has come a long way in terms of supporting disabled people such as most trains trams buses from were I come from now support wheelchair access.
  Although I would be interested if there are any examples were taking public transport is infeasible or unhelpful to specific situations.
  
  Wheelchair bound people absolutely can drive, there are a lot of retrofit vehicles that support a wheelchair and have alternative controls.
  Maybe not ideal, but in some parts of the US not having a car is a real problem.
  
  My local public transit only commes by five times a day, and if the bus is already full, they'll not let the wheelchair user on. Ostensibly they'll send a van to pick them up, but those don't adhere to a schedule and can take hours to arrive.
  Transit around here is so bad that I've had multiple jobs tell me I'm not eligible for hire if I rely on the bus.
  
  Sure no problem, let's say you live in a village that's next to a small town and then you are sent to an appointment to another doctor that's only found in a nearby city, doing all that stuff is a lot of travelling, exhausting
- Mobility issues are the first dog whistle of car pros, and the first point to be dissected entirely.
  Handicapped people have tools they use to navigate an office floor, and they use those same tools to cross from their apartment to the corner store. Building pedestrian-friendly cities and encouraging low-speed transport like bikes and trams helps them too.
  Many handicap users also can’t drive cars, meaning public transit options suited to their common routes are a godsend. Advocates of bikes often encourage having that whole setup, so people can pick between walking, biking, or trains as needed.
- I don't really see any circumstance where a mobility-impaired person would prefer a car inside a city over just a motorized wheelchair..
  
  i would like to answer.
  What is, human settlements outside city where people also live but have to go into the city sometime?
- @kameecoding @GlobalLiberty
  Children going to school need bike trains, folks with disabilities need good accessible public transport, some might need adapted or well designed personal vehicles, everyone else needs cycles with theft-proof storage and great, cheap public transport

Agreed. Also dog's do not belong in cities.
- They can if people clean after their dog and keep them on leash in public spaces. The problem is always the people in the end.
  
  I rhink dog owners should pay a tax that would pay for weekly poop cleaning.
  Only new dog owners though, as to not penalize current ones.
- Bold claim. I'll tack onto that and say cats don't belong in cities.
  
  correct, because cats don't belong outside at all, they should be kept indoors for their safety and the safety of the ecosystem.
  
  Cats kill rats.
  Dogs need a large space to roam.
  
  @theelder @PowerCrazy join your local TNR squad

I AGREE BAN CARS INVEST IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT 250 MILLION EURO IN ONE EAR SERVED 1 MILLION PEOPLE FOR 20 YEARS!!!
BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN
- Calm down
- Can't tell if you're serious but this unironically
- Getting your opposition to do that while remaining calm is a great rhetorical tactic. Especially if they rage out with little that directly ties their outburst to you being "unreasonable".