Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
Don't conflate two different things. Big Auto is not Big Oil. Oil companies had little involvement in roading infrastructure. Before gas cars became popular, oil companies were doing just fine selling other products such as heating oil and kerosene. The first 'Big Oil' company was Standard Oil,Big Oil not only prevents sensible adjustments to infrastructure to take place, it deliberately ruined sensible infrastructure in the first place to make room for cars:
In supplying gasoline to motor car drivers, 'Big Oil' was simply responding to demand.Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its cofounder and chairman, John D. Rockefeller, among the wealthiest Americans of all time and among the richest people in modern history. Its history as one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations ended in 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was an illegal monopoly...
In 1904, Standard controlled 91% of production and 85% of final sales. Most of its output was kerosene, of which 55 percent was exported around the world...
Standard Oil's market position was initially established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility. While most companies dumped gasoline in rivers (this was before the automobile was popular), Standard used it to fuel its machines. While other companies' refineries piled mountains of heavy waste, Rockefeller found ways to sell it. For example, Standard bought the company that invented and produced Vaseline, the Chesebrough Manufacturing Co.
In the early days electric cars were preferred in cities because they were much more user-friendly. All you had to was plug it in to charge the batteries, and go. No nasty liquids, no fumes, no back-firing, virtually no maintenance, and most importantly no hand cranking. Anybody could drive an electric car, while gas cars needed a strong man who was mechanically minded and willing to risk breaking his arm (or worse) starting the damn thing.
But electric cars had downsides too. Lower range - fine in the city but not for rural areas that didn't have electricity. Low speed, again great for cities but not so great for long distance travel. And they were more expensive than gas cars. A gas car had the advantage that you could carry extra fuel and stockpile it where you needed it, whereas electric cars needed a mains electricity supply nearby (which was far from universal in those days). Then the electric starter motor was invented, and gas cars took off because now anyone could drive them.
The idea that 'Big Oil' pushed motor cars onto an unwilling public is ludicrous. People bought them because they wanted them, and they wanted them because they were a huge advance over the horse and cart - especially in places like the US where large distances were involved. In 1908 when Henry Ford introduced the Model T, 54% of Americans lived in rural areas. Roading infrastructure expanded to meet the needs of those drivers, not city dwellers (who were quite happy walking or using public transport).
Of course car makers promoted this new technology in glowing terms without mentioning the downsides, and naturally they wanted better roads etc. to support motor cars. But people didn't have to buy them. Even after Ford dramatically lowered the cost of production, a motor car was an expensive item to purchase and maintain. The average person needed a good reason to spend that kind of money - and they had one - freedom. The freedom go where you wanted when you wanted without wasting too much time getting there. That's not something they were brainwashed into believing - it's inherent in human nature.
Of course in reality it wasn't that simple. The more cars you have the more roads you need, and when everybody drives into the city at once you have a big problem. Cities have been struggling to provide sufficient infrastructure ever since motor cars became popular. But they struggled to deal with horse traffic before that.
This wasn't a conspiracy dreamed up by Big Auto and Big Oil to get people hooked on gas cars, it just happened - because everyone wants a better life for themselves, but nobody looks at the big picture.
To a large extent that's true. They wouldn't be so popular if it wasn't. Just because we weren't born with wheels doesn't mean the desire for effortless mobility isn't inherent. For millennia we only had animals to satisfy that desire, and they had considerable downsides.The current state of things is what makes Stout and others like him think that cars are just something that appeals to human nature
Back in the 1960s we used horses on the farm. Then the farm bike was invented by a guy from New Plymouth in New Zealand. These have low gearing suitable for riding hilly country at low speed. My dad got one and put a tray on the back for the dog to ride on. He got rid of the horse soon after. I never learned to ride a horse properly, but it only took a minute to get used to the bike (though it was quite funny to see my dad kneeing the bike's fuel tank to make it 'go faster').
More than just a couple of bike paths here. The only problem is cars are more versatile and a lot less effort, so few people ride bikes. However that is changing now as electric bikes are becoming more capable. It is quite possible to ride on cycle ways all the way to the next city, and with how clogged the motorway is at peak traffic time not much slower! But not great in bad weather or when you have cargo.A couple of bike paths don't do the trick. You have to do something akin to (or even better than) what was done in cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen.
I wasn't that impressed. The city seemed crowded, and that was a long time ago when its population was much lower. Things weren't as rosy back then as you imagine.Some people don't like videos and prefer text. However, one of the things I love about the (as always) excellent video from Climate Town is the footage of big-city streets before they were usurped by cars: the first minute of the video!
The Truth About Horse-Drawn Carriages in New York City
Hang on a minute, that was in 2007!There are over 200 horses in New York City working nine hour shifts, carrying carriages that weigh hundreds of pounds...
New York has the highest horse-drawn carriage accident rate in the country...
It costs the city hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to monitor the horse-drawn carriage industry, and a 2007 audit by the city’s Comptroller revealed that the horses are not adequately cared for. They’re kept in rundown buildings, in tiny stables without enough room to comfortably lie down or move around. The buildings do not have adequate fire protection, some are not required to install sprinkler systems, and the horses are forced to use steep ramps to access different floors. Once a horse hits the streets of New York, his life expectancy is cut in half

New York, manure and stairs: when horses were the cities’ nightmares
If 200 are a problem, imagine the chaos caused by 170,000 of them!There are times when the solution to a specific problem becomes a revolution, although not necessarily a positive one.
This is the case with the invention of the automobile in the nineteenth century, partly in response to the transport needs of a world in midst of an industrial era, and partly to address a much more mundane cause: horse poop...
The increase in population made these animals somewhat inconvenient: the horse-drawn carriages, in addition to noisy, hindered traffic in the streets, caused fatal accidents (in 1900, 200 New Yorkers were runover by these passenger vehicles) and, above all, were large producers of manure.
[New York City] was a thriving urban centre by the end of the nineteenth century, with around 3.5 million inhabitants who, logically, needed to move around the town. At that time, there were about 170,000 horses also living in NYC... By a quick calculation, we can estimate that each day in New York between one and two million kilos of equine excrement were "produced" every day...
The accumulation of faeces intensified with the rain, becoming a pestilent fluid that seeped into the basements, attracting all kinds of rats, flies and other disease-transmitting insects... when these animals died, their carcasses were abandoned on the streets, creating an additional health issue.
The situation was so dire that in 1898, New York Mayor George E. Waring Jr. organized the first international congress on urban planning, with manure as the "star" theme...
Measures were put in place... staircases to access buildings, sewerage infrastructure was improved, and the first streetcar lines appeared (horse-drawn, but able to carry more passengers than a carriage); in addition, public transport was encouraged and street cleaning crews (known as White Wings because of their white uniforms) were established.
All of this contributed to stopping every citizen from using his or her own horse, and thus cleaning became manageable.
However, the real solution would arrive years later with the widespread use of cars. Years would go by before they became popular, and although nowadays it seems contradictory, two centuries ago, the automobile was a ‘green’ solution to the problem of horses and their manure.
But hey, I bet it was Big Oats who manipulated people's thinking to the extent where it didn't even occur to them to try looking outside the box.

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