This is from the Washington Post. If it were from the L.A. Times, maybe it'd carry some weight with me. Having grown up in south Texas and Arizona and then, post college, moved to NYC and now Baltimore, I can attest to an enormous culture divide in car culture between, at least in my experience, the two regions.

One, it's just not practical to do without a car in the southwest. In many places, Lyft style services aren't a viable, reliable option for things like driving yourself and your sisters to school every day and then a part-time job after. I've yet to come across a smartphone that has this functionality. And, I'm going to risk making a sweeping generalization here, the stereotypical Texan parent would look at you sideways if you suggested they be your full-time chauffeur.

Two, car culture in the southwest is not just about the classics. I mean, everyone loves a classic, but there is a certain love reserved for your beater, for the freedom it affords you, and the memories you end up associating with it. One of my best friends had a '68 Mustang, and it was all beat to hell. There was a hole rusted through the floor in the back that was perfect for emptying any beverage should the need suddenly arise. My other friend in our clique had a Dogde Neon. And I had a wood paneled, 1980's station wagon, clearly nicknamed "The Woody". Now, the guy in the Mustang clearly had the coolest vehicle, but the guy in the Neon was the most fun to be in the passenger seat with, and I was the only one with a car that basically had a twin bed in the back for making out in. It was high school, and we placed emphasis on the fun times, not the cars, and the cars ended up embed with those memories such that I'd never have traded "The Woody" for the Mustang.

Third, road trips. Honestly, people on the east coast seam to just not be as familiar with this concept. And, if I have to explain it, well, you won't understand it. But, some highlights... Calling parents from a pay phone to ask permission to borrow car for road trip, but, calling from California. Being tailgated through three states because we pissed off some guy when passing him in Florida, and hoping we didn't run out of gas before he did, or New Orleans. Meeting a person from the UK in San Diego, and them taking unplanned road trip to San Fran, then back to Phienix, AZ. Taking a photo of the speed gauge cause your going 110 mph, the laughing your ass off cause you somehow didn't notice the fuel needle was deep into E, and now you're hitch hiking to a gas station in the middle of nowhere on I-8. The calming emerald glow of an oil refinery in the middle of a cool South Texas night, windows down, because it's pretty much always a road trip going anywhere in Texas. Round trip from Tucson, Az to Charleston, S.C to pick up a friend just getting out of the military, making sure to stop to bar-b-q on the beach any chance we could afford. I could go on.

Phones will not replace that. Phones will not replace tailgating. Parents are not a substitute for a drivers license. Public transit could never have provided me such memories. And I'm saying all this as a fierce advocate of bike commuting and public transit. Gas cars will certainly go the way of hitchhiking, but America is too big and has too many amazing pockets of culture and adventure for the car, or whatever fills its role in the future, not to have a place in our lives that is far, far from mundane.