this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Trains only run on a specified track and there isn't one near me. A car isn't bound by a track and can go anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

and there isn’t one near me.

That's exactly the problem that this community wants to fix.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But that's a certain level of naivete. I've lived in Europe and in the Western US, and for people who have lived in urban or suburban situations their whole lives, they simply can't comprehend the vast tracts of land that exist in most of the US. Public transport isn't viable when your nearest neighbor is at least five acres away.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well yes, if you live in the middle of nowhere with literally no one else nearby, then public transport obviously doesn't make sense. But that's not where most people live.

A large part of the population in the US doesn't have access to public transport not because it wouldn't be viable, but because car-centric infrastructure was built instead. And often better designed cities were bulldozed to make room for it.

I was also going to recommend the Not Just Bikes video @[email protected] linked, definitely check it out!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

True, but a lot of US real estate, even in big cities, started out agricultural. Those underpinnings are still affecting them today, given that they are less than 300 years old. They just don't have the history of being piled on top of each other that Europe has. The original American inhabitants didn't have the infrastructure Europe has had since the Romans, even if their population HAD been so concentrated.

The U.S population density is less than half that of Europe, even today.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Please. I have gone to Italy and seen far vaster landscapes in the mountainous areas than I've ever been cognizant of in the United States. And yes, I saw these locations from the window of a bus taking the highway system. The key thing is, people are not going to those far-out locations frequently. Actual transit problem-solving relates to the broad majority of the use cases people have, not about abstractly going to a pin thrown on a map.

NJB summarizes why this argument is dumb better than I do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can't put railways everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Trains could have intercity connections. Walk/bus to the train, ride the train, walk/bus to your destination.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have metro+train and it already wears me out so much that alI arrive at the office tired. I can’t imagine how I would survive through 3 different transit options twice a day

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do the same and if anything, it just helps me wake up or wind down after a long day. Out of pure curiosity, how does it wear you out?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don’t know, I could not even imagine the transit switch to be not overwhelming, it’s just way too many changes for me in a short span of time, like too many tasks. go down, wait for metro, try to not miss the stop, get up on escalator, go to platform, wait there, it’s just sucking out energy out of me, if I spent all that time just sitting on the train yes I unwind and I love it but dragging my laptop around and standing and waiting and having to concentrate instead of getting into the flow is disruptive for me. Plus I feel like underground is super dark and dirty and on the bus I get nauseous from so many braking and stopping and all the vibrating from the road

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sure you're aware part of that anxiety can come from the unfamiliarity. I'm surprised it doesn't end up being compared to the stress of merging from an on-ramp in a car, or watching crosswalks for pedestrians, or even just backing out of a driveway in some people's cases.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

100% anxiety from unfamiliarity. My last job had me flying over the US (terrible but it was for a renewable energy company and I was part of the Ops team). The first trip, I missed my flight, on which was my overnight bag.

But from that first flight, I knew exactly what to do, where to go, and when to do it.

If people take time to learn these systems over time, then these fears go away. Just takes courage to learn something new

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

can go anywhere

As long as there's road, no serious traffic, and fuel stations along with rest stops.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

which is practically everywhere

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You must be new at this

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is your brain or advertisements :)

In reality:

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Thats not really true and you know it. Cars are like trains, limited mostly to paved roads that need to by built.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you seriously trying to tell OP that he's lying about not living near a train? Or are you trying to say that the part about them running on a fixed track isn't true? Either way, this is a really dumb take.

Also, you clearly haven't been to rural areas, where dirt and gravel roads are common. Cars handle those just fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But those roads are far more numerous and further reaching than train tracks. Trains go from a to b. Cars can go which ever route you want. And you don't build train tracks around a house.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Thats not true also. Rails have junctions that alow switching tracks and work like a normal road. The reason theres more roads is irelevante as it depends on investment. Some places invested more into roads and others did in rail. Check out old rail maps on the US