Thinking about the big cars/SUVs/utes in Sydney at the moment. I think there's probably an evaporative cooling effect (thanks https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporative-cooling-of-group-beliefs) that makes things look even worse than they 'are', in areas like mine.
Erskineville has really high rates of people cycling, walking and taking public transport to work. So who's left in vehicles? People who need them - so genuine tradie utes, heavy vehicles, etc. And people whose identity is involved in driving and (...)
their vehicle, even when it's objectively expensive and inconvenient - and these people nowadays are overwhelmingly choosing these high-fronted SUVs and 'trucks'.
So we have streets where the parked cars, mostly used for occasional weekend trips, are a mix of smaller and older cars. But the vehicles actually passing me (as I stand at the bus stop musing) are on average larger.
Is this effect inevitable with any increase in sustainable mode share?
