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I hate point 2 and 3.
I have an avarage travel of 45-55 minutes from my home city to the city I work in. By car and by train, while the train is usually on the slower end. It takes about 20-30 minutes to get from my home to the train station by taking the bus or riding the bike. When taking the bus I also have to factor in about 15 minutes between arrival at the station and departure of the train. Then there is another 20 minutes from the train station at destination to my place of work. So it takes me 40-65 minutes longer taking the train… twice a day, making it 1:20-2:10h a day (when Im lucky bc trains over here have frequent delays). One hour ish doesn’t sound like much? Well you’ll feel it if you working 11-12h a shift or a 9-10 hour a day in a normal 9 to 5 job (starting work at around 7 a.m.).
Then there is a neat little think called night or late shifts. There is no way I’m gonna take the train here. They either take an hour longer or the bus at my home city does not drive anymore on the way back.
Demand better public transportation. Demand functioning trains and frequent bus and tram connections. But do not tell people that need to take the car for whatever reason, that they should just take the worse option and make them feel like the problem.
I hate cars. I hate driving. And I love taking the train or taking the bike within my city. But sometimes I just have to take the car. That is not my fault tho, since public transportation is not the main focus of politics over here. And thats what needs to change globally.
When I switched from using the bus to going by bike, i cut my commute time by more than half. If I were to take the car, it would halve again. Public transport is great, and necessary. But it will never be faster than a personal car for anything but large distances.
… where you live. Where I live (in central Europe) we have a subway every 2-3 minutes and you’re at worst 2 blocks away from a stop. It all depends on the infrastructure. A subway cant be stuck in traffic…
Yep. Here in Berlin traveling to my old office (when I didn’t work from home all the time) with the S or U-bahn took 30-35 minutes and by car/taxi about 40-45 minutes due to the traffic.
Berlin is one of the few german cities where public transport is done right. In cologne, where I lived, there are a lot of stops, but the inferstructure is just realy bad. They managed that trains get stuck in traffic too sometimes. And for some reason they trains only arrive in a 10-30min time window. So if you want to follow one line it’s relatively fine, but if you have to change trains you have to be lucky. In the city center still faster than driving though.
Just say central european city.
I too live in central europe and the bus line i could take from my town to the town i work in takes 1 hr to get there and back, at the end of my day the bus only departes one hour after i’m finished with work so i have to wait for the bus the same amount of time i need for both ways with my car.
They should really say a European city with a subway. Not all cities in Europe have a subway.
It was pretty obvious from my comment that I live in a European city with a subway…
I didnt say my comment applied to all European cities either.
Also, trams/streetcars in Zurich have right of way and the red lights change for them. Which is completely logical considering how many more people you can fit in them than a few cards at a red light. The problems with public transit in North America are a function of our car infrastructure.
If I rode my bike to work, my shift would be over by the time I got there. I’m really starting to like the idea of biking to work.
Nearly every city on the planet with a subway system disputes your bullshit.
It sure is nice that everyone gets to live in New York, London, and Washington.
A better solution is to reduce how much people need to travel. Instead of building trillion-dollartransit systems so people can to to the office we should be taxing the everloving shit out of office spaces for jobs that can be worked remotely.
Why not both? I live in Stockholm and work from home. I have amazing trains that I could take to work, and I’ve never had a commute longer than 40 minutes. But a 0 minute commute is still shorter than 5minute commute.
Because not everyone can live in fucking Stockholm.
An apartment within 40 miles of my office in the city costs 5x as much per month as where I live. I can’t get a fucking pizza delivered to my house, much less a bus. And unless I want to smell like a gym at work the 5+ months a year it’s over 100° outside, I need to drive to the nearest bus station if I want to take transit. So I’m already having to drive and park somewhere. Then I have to pay to park at the bus station and pay again to ride the bus that drops me off 9 blocks from my office, where I’d have to walk the rest of the way.
All told it’d add 2-3 hours to my commute and be more expensive than driving.
But if 100% of the work I do is on the computer at the office. The real solution is to not have the fucking office at all.
There are obviously other systemic problems. Cities being designed around cars isn’t the only one.
But your rage shouldn’t be directed at the people who want to make public transit options suck less.
His solution isn’t to make it suck less. His just says how great it is to live somewhere that was designed around walking because when the city was established that was pretty much the only option.
The Southern US is designed around cars because until fairly recently it was very sparsely populated, so everything had to be designed around cars and air conditioning in order to develop. It was the correct decision at the time, and changing it now is much more difficult than simply saying “be like this city that was established before the steam engine.”
Yeah that’s definitely a challenge, and I believe it is a failure of city planning.
My condo is worth $300k and is within 15min of central Stockholm. The housing crisis is definitely a problem around the world, but European cities that don’t have the missing middle problem are in a much better place.
Back on topic, even if you could work from home, it would still take you over an hour to go grocery shopping or buy a pizza, which is a huge problem. Both of those things are within a 15 min walk for me.
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I think the point here is that suburbs and cities have such dogshit public transit and bike infrastructure that people do everything by car. Nobody is telling those who live in rural areas to bike 30km to get groceries.
Guess where most people live and want to live?
I’m in Vancouver, while the system needs some improvement, the skytrain gets me right to the airport, with trains every few minutes. No parking nonsense. Driving, with traffic, is much longer. Bussing has some express routes so the trips aren’t so many stops also. until the system wxpands develooment the consideration is looking for a place nearer a stop or station.
A bike is faster in my city if you are decently fast, but a bus or trolley is faster than cars during rush hours, because we have public transit lanes, so while everyone in their tin cans is stressed yelling at the dumbass who just cut them off im breezing past, listening to a podcast, meditating or catching a quick ten minute nap before work.
I tried taking my family out on a weekend on transit. 40 minutes wait for a bus that had any room, an hour to travel 10km, and it cost us $10 each way for the family. I live in a major city but our transit is trash. It’s not fit for a city of this size.
That sounds horrible. Public transportation is such a vital thing for citys to function properly as a place to live and not just work in. And dont get me started on small towns or the countryside where not owning a car basically means you’re fucked. I cannot wrap my head around how politicians just fail to see this. Climate change might be the most urgent, but by far not the only argument for better public transportation.
It’s not fit for a city of this size.
Tokyo would like to have a word with you. It’s not public transit in and of itself that is the issue, it’s the implementation.
I think you read that wrong. They aren’t saying public transit doesn’t work in a city that size, but the public transit in their city isn’t up to the standard it should be for a city that size.
You’re right, I see it now. My bad!
How likely is it that your home and work are 20 minutes away from train stations because your region prioritizes cars?
Its not just likely, thats the case. But living in the inner city is expensive here. And thats the case in most of the country.
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This is one of my favourite meme format for some reason.
This memes community should be named 'Wannabe Activitists"
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Literally
I’d love to see someone bring a shopping cart amount of groceries on a bus or train
You don’t. If you live where cars are not needed, e.g. Tokyo, you’ll just walk to your nearest small grocer and get the ingredients you need. That’s what I did when I stayed in Japan for work.
So you have to essentially grocery shop before every meal? That doesn’t sound super efficient. Especially when cooking for a family.
This also still doesn’t help with throwing like a big party where you need a large amount of food.
Edit: So yes, all the responses are basically shop every day. I wish I had that kinda time.
Just walk in to the local shop on your way to/from wherever else you’re going (or just to get out of the house for two minutes if you’ve been working from home) … that way you can have fresh ingredients every day, and you’re walking a bit regularly so you don’t get overweight easily
I used to buy ingredients for my meals every second day while living in Europe. Always what I wanted or was on sale. No meal planning for the week and making a huge order / weekend mall spree.
It’s super simple. You stop there on your way home. When I was in Berlin, I would generally hit up the grocery store a few times a week. I did not have to worry about produce going bad because it would be used with one of my meals on the next couple of days.
Typical car brained take.
How do disabled people who can’t walk far get their groceries then? 🤔
Delivery services, probably
Or, if we’re changing cities already we could make more accessible homes and public transit. If someone in a wheelchair can’t get onto a train you’ve made the train wrong.
I traveled up and down the East Coast with my dad when he was in a wheelchair. Every city was a little different but Amtrak has made their trains this way. A special ramp is needed, which has to be fetched by someone. Baltimore was the worst about it, but they did get us on just fine, and kicked a guy out of the handicapped starting. New York City was incredible. Dude hung out with us until our train showed up and made sure we got on and situated before regular boarding started. Though I think he had dealt with something similar personal and took it upon himself. DC was at about the level you’d expect and was pretty pleasant.
Great to hear, that is actually a lot better than I would have expected. It would still be ideal if you could use it as easily as someone not using a wheelchair but we do have to live in the real world and accommodating everyone is complicated and expensive.
Man. There’s a Korean drama on Netflix… I think it was All of Us Are Dead. The apartment building had a bodega-like grocery either on the first floor or connected to it. If we’re going to redesign, can it be like that, maybe?
Absolutely it could be like that, mixed use buildings are something we really lack in North America and are the lifeblood of a city
And that really worries me. The government should offer free options for people like that. Uber Eats and Instacart exploits the hell out of people like that.
And that’s something we can look into, but it’s no reason to stop walkable towns.
No one said it was.
See, I knew one of you motherfuckers was going to come in here and make it obvious you just don’t care about the actual facts, you’ve already made up your minds and seek to make up everyone else’s minds for them.
Maybe instead of treating every single discussion of anything like an epic shitfight, you all should just pool your money together, buy your own land, incorporate it as a separate county, and build your own walkable cities and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
holy shit dude why are you so mad?
How do disabled people who can’t drive get their groceries?
About 2 seconds of critical thinking leads you to this magical solution called “someone helps them” in both cases.
I’m not like super pro car or anything but your argument in my experience doesn’t really hold up. I work at a farm and we have a lot of elderly folks come in and shop by themselves. They drive themselves and shop themselves but I doubt they could do that with a walker and if they didn’t have a car I doubt they’d be finding a different way to come out here.
Rural life is a whole different beast from urban. I won’t ever make the argument that rural living people shouldn’t have cars. So yeah, plus one for that argument.
Rural life definitely, but I’m in suburbia hahaha. I just can’t imagine public transportation being able to replace what a car can do for elderly people
If the individual is so bad off they can’t manage to get on a (more robust than we currently have) form of public transit, I really question if they should be driving. The simple fact of life is that at a certain point, maintaining complete independence isn’t a reality. This isn’t a bad thing, we should be moving towards embracing building the systems we need for people to get help at that stage of life.
“someone helps them” Who?
Friends. Family. Building facilities. Government programs.
The simple fact is that at some point, people just can’t be completely independent. It’s the nature of growing old. This is only really a problem because we have such a strict independence culture, where if you can’t do for yourself, you may as well just die, society doesn’t have time for you.
If we recontextualize this, and see growing old and more feeble not as some personal failing and instead as the symbol of a long life, if we start looking out for those around us, and if we start building up the facilities we need to allow people to gracefully enter elder-hood without stigma, we’d all be a bit better off.
“Someone”, duh!
And that just shows a lack of empathy or life experience.
You can’t always get help so you need to be able to get where you want to go on your own, and that means disabled people need cars.
In what world is a disabled person able to board a car on their own but not a bus or train? And in what world are those busses and trains not staffed with people to help? Are we talking self-driving busses and cars with wheelchair driving options as a standard?
Edit: Seems the response is for the disabled person to: JuSt SpEnD mOrE mOnEy ; but we couldn’t possibly be bothered to spend more on public transit to make it more accessible.
At least in my country, bus drivers that need to help people in the wheelchair to get up on the bus are already at the edge of their patience. Don’t even talk about helping them stuff seven bags of groceries as well. That’s why unfortunately, taxis are still a necessity
I think the best solution, if we can redesign our cities, is to incorporate more mixed use buildings, or at least more mixed zoning. Why even have to have a bus if your building has a connected grocery and 3 other small shops on the same block.
These issues only really exist because everything is SO spread out. We have strict zoning regulations that mean having a grocery in a residential area is at best a challenge, and realistically impossible. This means we have to go further for the most mundane daily tasks, and this means we need more robust transportation, including cars.
ETA:rereading this it looks like I’m making an argument for no cars, buses or anything. I’m absolutely pro expanding public transportation, merely stating that if things were slightly different, you could eliminate the bus entirely from this situation specifically
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The car is in their driveway, where is the bus?
If we want piblic transport, and I certainly do, we need better aguments than this one.
Sure this applies for suburban or rural life. Everyone has the space to have a car there. In a city, which is what my entire argument stems around (you can see elsewhere in this thread where I state I wouldn’t ever dream of taking cars from rural people), it’s more like “the car is in the parking garage connected to the apartments. And the bus stop is just in front of the apartments, maybe down on the corner”
I didn’t say it had to be an individual who needed to help. It could be any number of programs, services, or even yeah, individuals.
I mentioned mixed use buildings in another part of this thread, something like an apartment complex with a bodega-like grocery on the first floor or directly attached. What about moving more towards that kind of building? There are a ton of solutions that don’t require cars.
With their wheelchair?
How do disabled people who can’t drive get their groceries in a car centric city?
If you can drive a car, you can probably also drive an electric wheelchair. This should be sufficient to take public transit or go to a nearby store.
By having specially designed cars that enable them to drive.
Even the ones who by the nature of their disability can’t do anything mentally or visually taxing, like drive, don’t disprove or negate the need for cars because everyone else with disabilities need them to get around. Public transport simply isn’t suitable enough for them.
Even old blind people who can’t pass driving tests use Uber or Lyft, because public transport simply isn’t safe or suitable enough for them, especially during grocery runs.
Even old blind people who can’t pass driving tests use Uber or Lyft, because public transport simply isn’t safe or suitable enough for them, especially during grocery runs.
You are assuming a car centric city here. In a walking and transit oriented city, it is safe and suitable for blind people to be independent and move by themselves. Only cars make the cities unsafe and the lack of transit makes it unsuitable to use something else than a car.
And I am assuming that because they are the norm you’re complaining about in the first place.
If they’re not, then go move to one.
It’s as simple as that. But you don’t get to demand other people lose their cars just because you don’t like them, especially disabled people that will always need them as no walkable city will replace the individual autonomy, carrying capacity and convenience a car provides.
You seem to live in a car centric city with really shitty public transportation. My city has decent regular bus service and for those who need extra help, they have more handy centric busses that will directly pick people up on a schedule. I think even the tiny town I grew up in has a service that does the same because there are tons of older people that are not able to drive. We also have a shuttle service to the train station if you live too far away from one.
There are solutions to these problems that tons of cities have had no problem implementing. It sounds like either yours is not one of them or possibly it is not a service you need so you just plain do not think about it.
Public transport simply isn’t suitable enough for them.
Ding dong, you’re wrong. Walkable cities are more accessible for everyone than the carcentric dystopia.
Ding dong, you’re wrong.
I have an older retired mother who uses a cane and can easily move about once she gets into the store by using the cart to stabilize herself. Taking public transportation is a no-go where she lives, because the one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned here yet, is crime. As an older woman with a walking aid, she’s the prime target for criminals, who also know old and elderly tend to not trust banks and use cash.
I do what I can to help and support her, however this is not always feasible, and in her words, she’d “be damned if she wasn’t able to get out of the house and do her damn shopping herself”.
And she’s able to drive just fine. But I guess she should give up her car, her freedom, so you can feel better about, whatever the fuck you think it is that getting rid of cars will fix.
I said walkable. Didn’t mention public transport. But go and fly off the handle, you brainwashed twat.
At 85 years old my Mum can’t drive or walk, she does her own shopping with an electric mobility scooter and occasionally needs the help of others … that works fine for her because she lives in what might be called a “15 minute city” these days.
We don’t. They want us to die.
I’m a bit floored by this being a question at all, my condolences. Depending on the disability, a bike, e-bike, mobility scooter, or microcar.
So in other words, disabled people still need cars – they can’t ride bikes or e-bikes and scooters are too small for them – and you didn’t think about what you’re saying.
What? I said it depends on the disability. Depending on why you can’t walk to the store, a bike or e-bike might work. Not every disability is the same. I know people that can’t walk to the store but can use an e-bike.
How is a mobility scooter too small for a disabled person? It’s literally designed for the purpose. And by Microcar I mean what you see in Amsterdam as microcars, not ‘a small car’.
As a disabled person who can’t drive, I ride my ebike everywhere. I can easily fit a week’s worth of groceries because it’s a cargo bike, which makes it even easier to balance and steer because of the way it’s weighted.
Im lucky to live in an area that is becoming increasingly bike friendly. 10 years ago I barely left the house because it wasn’t safe to ride on the road, and I couldn’t afford uber/taxi, and there were no accessible bus stops near me.
When something is more than 20km away I will take a bus or an uber - but there’s no reason that uber couldn’t be a microcar, or a light vehicle (like an electric version of the old milkman lorries) for those that need ramp access or electric wheelchair transport.
At the moment in many places, disabled people are already forced to use paratransit systems because adaptive cars and taxi services are prohibitively expensive.
There will always be a need for some people, and some communities to have and depend on cars. The goal is to reduce this to as few people as possible by making it easier for those that are able to choose other methods.
Generally there is at least one bus stop or train stop by a grocery store. The amount of walking is roughly the same.
The reason you haul entire shopping carts at once is because the trip to the grocery store is a big planned deal. That’s also the reason people buy bulk items and then let half of them expire.
The “ideal” for bikers and train riders would be easier, quicker trips to small stores to get ingredients for the next few days. I find I’m able to fit most of my needs into one pannier.
This changes sharply if you’re buying for more people than just yourself.
The reason I haul entire shopping carts at once is because I don’t want to waste time shopping every day. A big 2-hour haul per month vs. 1-2 20-minute trips to the local corner konbini every day. Plus some of the bigger bulk stores deliver (this is Hinode, Tokyo; rural ones probably don’t).
Buying in bulk is far less expensive: you pay less (duh), but you spend a lot less time on it too. If I’m buying groceries just-in-time and the nearest shop doesn’t have the ingredient I need that day, I have to go to a different shop for that one item. Lots of time wasted, and a lot of stress on top. You can’t change your mind later either, because you’ve already bought ingredients for that one meal. So I prefer to have things buffered in stock, and resupply in advance. You also use far less plastic packaging that way, e.g. buying a 25-liter premix syrup canister instead of hundreds of coke bottles.
Not to mention that the grocery stores that are well located are usually more expensive. The cheaper options exist in less number and so it makes it less convenient or sometimes not possible at all to get to on a normal work day.
You can save a lot of money that way.
And I’m in Europe FYI.
You save the money and spend it on a car?
My experience is different. If I go for grocery once a week I buy a lot of stuff which rots or expires. If I buy it daily I just buy what I need, and what I want that day.
Yes that’s how it works. You save some money and spend it in other shit.
Also I don’t have a car just so I can go get groceries. I have a car for a multitude of other reasons and I can get groceries. Driving 5 mins to a supermarket has an insignificant cost, and if that supermarket is cheaper then you can save multiples of that.
Regarding the stuff expiring, that’s just your experience. I have the opposite. There’s plenty of non perishable shit that I can get when it’s on sale because I can carry a ton of it if I came by car. Meanwhile if I go shopping by foot and I need laundry detergent I’ll just have to get whatever they have at that time. You can save a ton of money like that.
For easily perishable food yes buying regularly is better but that also means a ton of wasted time going to the supermarket very frequently even if to get only a few items.
There are ways to do this in a walkable city.
If a grocery store is within walking distance why not make a trip of it with the whole family? Many hands make light work. Or, just because a city is human focused instead of car focused doesn’t mean no cars at all (at least in the way I would implement it) you could rent a car for a few hours every couple of weeks.
Obviously these ideas won’t work for everyone but they’re just off the top of my head, and unfortunately there is no system that will work for everyone. We just have to try for works better.
I’ve done that. You just bring something appropriate to carry it in.
Although now that I live closer to a smaller grocer, I just walk twice.
I will say that I’ve been able to bring 3-4 grocery bags onto a bus, which is enough to last me around 2 weeks. I’ve done this fairly consistently (basically whenever it’s too cold/snowy to bike) for the last couple years. It might not be possible for a family without more than one person making the trip, but for an individual it can definitely work.
I don’t mean this the way it’s going to sound, but…
I’m happy it works for you, and you’re happy with it. It doesn’t work for everyone.
I completely understand that, and I know that’s why a lot of people need cars. I was primarily responding to the parent comment claiming that it wouldn’t work for anyone because it’d be impossible to bring enough groceries with you on the bus/train.
Oh, I see now. Sorry about that. Yes it’s possible to use public transport in cases where you don’t need much and the time necessary isn’t outlandish. I think I was conflating several messages in my head when I responded to yours. Glad to see some people are able to be civil here.
Three or four bags of groceries is totally doable on a bus or train.
Two weeks worth of shopping for a family would be a lot more than three or four bags.
A week’s worth for my family of four is generally two bags. Shopping for more than that just leaves a bunch of rotten produce.
In civilized countries, it’s common. Even on bicycles, by the way.
Buses where I live have a cargo rack at the front. If you had four bags of shopping (though that’s really quite a lot - the bags are big) you would tie the tops closed and leave them in one of the racks until you reached your destination
If you had four bags of shopping (though that’s really quite a lot - the bags are big) you would tie the tops closed and leave them in one of the racks until you reached your destination
Along with the 75 other passengers doing the same thing?
And what if it’s paper goods and raining like fuck?
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It’s rare that more than three people on a bus are doing shopping
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Carry an umbrella, and isn’t everything wrapped in plastic now?
It’s rare because everyone else is shopping by car
If we got rid of cars then it woudln’t be rare anymore. Think!Nope. Lots of people can walk to the shops. We have suburban centres typically 15 minutes walk away
Can doesnt mean do. Most people drive distances that are longer than 8 minutes.
If the argument to give up the car for shopping and to replace it with a bus is countered with the amount of bags on the bus, then your counter to that cannot be to just walk.- Did you forget what you were arguing?
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Why would anyone do that?
This is ok though, going once per 14days for that 90% of stuff and having your car for that is ok. Otherwise if you run out of something, hop to your nearest store. Also here some of my friends and family are not reachable via public transport so I use car for that. But dont use it for commute every day, going to the beach/mountains every weekend, going to the store every other day, taking kids to school and back etc. For many this is completely doable but people are lazy
Grocery delivery is quick and cheap to 99% of UK. Also I’ve been on a bus plenty of times with enough shopping to last two humans a week.
Problem is the people who have 5 mouths to feed and want enough food for 3 weeks. In that case, get a delivery
A delivery huh? I wonder by what mode if transport that would be delivered…
Take a few seconds to think before replying.
What’s better, 30 deliveries in 1 van or 30 deliveries in 30 cars?
Okay but this isn’t what happens. When using services like instacart they will batch only maybe two or three orders in a car. Unless there are other services that I’m not aware of that will batch more?
I don’t think grocery translates well to mass delivery because it increases rates of spoilage and damaged produce.
I live in UK and all the major supermarkets do 20-50 deliveries in one fully refrigerated van. You do have to book it a couple of days in advance but that’s the cost of the service, obviously you can get Uber and deliveroo instant deliveries but that’s dumb as fuck.
This is clearly a culture difference between where I live and wherever you live (please share that info)
But yes it’s EXACTLY how it works in most of Europe.
I have my own cart that I walk to the store with, I never have much trouble with it, and it’s super useful when I need to get heavy things like milk. I’ve never brought it on the metro as I’ve never had any reason to, but it would not be too difficult to do so. It’s no more difficult than carrying a suitcase or two to the airport.
Am from Germany and went to Nuremburg to visit a convention.
The public transit is night and day between those two places.
Only had to wait about <10min for the next bus.
I believe the accomodation is not very outside or inside of the transit serving area but it is surprising what a subway and a good schedule can do for one.I love cars and I love driving but commuting by car just sucks in every possible way.
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invest in good headphones then
Can’t sing along at the top of my lungs though, which is the only place I can because the walls of my apartment are too thin.
Driving to and from places is way more relaxing than being on transit imo. Transit has always been significantly more stressful for me and never lines up with when I need to use it.
For me it’s the other way around. Public transit is more relaxing since I can just sit down and relax and don’t have to deal with all these idiots that drive like they have to arrive at their destination half an hour ago.
People like you admitting driving is relaxing is why I find car-centric places stressful. You are driving a 2 ton heavy machinery. You should be stressed and alert.
Stressed means you make more mistakes. Calm and collected, as well as relaxed is the better way to drive. You’re less likely to make mistakes or poor decisions when relaxed.
Stressed drivers are dangerous and unpredictable.
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Sure, those are the only two options.
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If only there was something with two wheels
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Y’all need some better headphones
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Depends on your cars sound system
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I feel you. But I’d rather reserve this for when I want to drive and don’t have to.
“Stop driving cars because places were not supposed to be driven to.” Wow that’s a good point /s
Engineers designed these roads, not urbanist.
Traffic engineering isn’t a university program and we’re still using studies from the 50’s to dictate our traffic engineering. It’s civil engineers in NA who are forced to follow outdated policy which maximizes for car traffic flow, regardless of body count or overall flow of poeple across all transit options. Generally, city planners are all for public transit and walkable and bike able cities but have to battle with politicians appealing to suburbanites with cars.
I don’t understand why this is such a hard thing for people and government to understand. Your car isn’t going to a place, you and the stuff you need to carry are. The car is just the means and there are many other means to do so, they just get a lot less attention and funding. Cars and traffic infrastructure have been subsidised for over a century now. Of course cars more developed, and of course we build our cities for cars, we’re socializing cars.
Yes, there are many areas that have been developed so car focused that it’s a necessity to own a car. People living in rural areas will always need personal cars. People in urban and suburban areas probably don’t and should give up their personal vehicles so Farmer can keep theirs.
Traffic engineers are hilariously bad at their jobs in the U.S.
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It’s a reference to the original meme. The entire image is tongue-in-cheek.
My city was designed to be driven to. It was built after cars were common
But it’s still quicker to get from suburbia to city by bike than bus, but car is quicker still
Great meme and even better because its true.
Imagine getting driven everywhere and still choosing doing it on your own. These people need Steam Decks, I tell you.
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You are allowed hate something you own and depend on. What I find fuck cars people are about is how much cars are catered for and it’s still horrible to use in a lot of places.
absolutely.
Normally I live in a, relatively speaking, new city - and everything is so bloody far away, sure some things are more centralised but plenty of things are getting built in places with no public transport connections or an easy way to walk to.
For 3 years at uni I lived in a very old town, and everything, just everything, was in the town centre, you could walk everywhere with no issues.
The difference is one place was built for people, and the other was built for cars.
I live in a third world country and have to usually have to take taxis to get anywhere without being a sweaty mess and I’d love to the point where public transportation can get you anywhere in the metro, similar to how Hong Kong (where income taxes are pretty low as far as I know) does it.
A lot. Because our infrastructure and zoning basically demand you buy a car. That’s not the point. The point is to advocate change through local government.
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I’m sure you’ll get there. Just keep educating yourself.
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Cars are a form of personal transportation. Personal transportation is great, things like bikes and escooters can get people around very quickly. The problem with cars is that they go too fast, and they take up too much space.
It’s a tragedy of the commons. Cars would be great if they were only used by professional drivers, didn’t require parking, and were limited to how many could fit on the roads without causing traffic. (These are called busses and taxis)
All cities in the 60s and 70s were excited about cars. Even cities that would be considered “anti-car” nowadays, like NYC, Paris, and Amsterdam, were excited about cars and building massive highways. However, what most people realized, is that building enough parking, and building wide enough roads to handle all the cars is really hard (and in some cases, literally impossible). Residents realized that they didn’t want any more of their city to be bulldozed for yet another highway or parking lot, and went fuckcars.
On top of that, this all happened before we understood the impacts of cars on climate change and mental health.
So yes, we built car-dependent places because it was convenient, and now we’re de-carifying those places because it was a terrible decision.
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People outside of your bubble largely dislike cars.
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It is just as irrational for me to make the claim I made as you to make yours without evidence. Fortunately the arguments against car-dependent infrastructure planning go far beyond “we don’t like 'em”. The human and environmental benefits of walkable cities with robust public transit and the unsustainability of car-dependency speak for themselves. What other issue of political advocacy would “some people disagree” fly as a reasonable argument? The whole point of advocacy is to shift the tide of popular opinion enough to make material change
I have plenty of friends and family in the us and Sweden who own cars. I dont know a single person who enjoys driving to work.
My point still stands, cars are nice for the first 10k people to drive, but they fucking suck for the other 40k+ people in your city.
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and to laugh at all the people catching COVID on the bus with all the single mothers, old people and unemployed
well aren’t you a peach
Your brain must be a marble.
I’m not downvoting you btw, but it sounds like the problem here isn’t that you like cars, but rather that you’re a rural conservative who doesn’t like interacting with lower classes.
Yep most car owners whose cars are not unreliable pieces of shit do enjoy their cars. I’ve been careful over the years to only buy cars that I would enjoy driving and owning. Zero regrets about any of my 5 car purchases. I only sometimes regret selling a couple of them.
You can’t take the train before the tracks are laid down.
Go to Europe my friend. You can go from Madrid to Barcelona for $30 on a train that goes over 300 km/h.
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Where? Have you tried going outside?
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Ah, well thank neoliberal privatization for that. Thatcher and Reagan fucked their respective countries so damn hard to the benefit of their wealthy friends.
Oh we’re talking about developed countries but I understand the confusion.
Look up the Beecher report (hopefully I got the name right) to find out what happened to your trains. It was politicians getting bought by car manufacturers.
The infrastructure came first. It was specifically lobbied for to force people to buy cars.
The car industry lobbies to tear up public infrastructure, dingus.
Of course I own a car, you need to own one to get anywhere where I live. That doesn’t mean I have to support car infrastructure or be against public transit. I advocate for making public transit services more common and easier to use, and I would use public transit if my supported policies were implemented.
I honestly don’t get their argument. Yes, the current situation is bad and will necessitate using cars, but isn’t that the point of the post? That things could be better? That getting to the reality where cars are not as needed would be great? It’s such a strange attack against people who want better public transportation infrastructure.
Most of us aren’t arguing that a decrease in dependence on vehicles isn’t beneficial or worth the time. We’re tired of being implicitly blamed for just trying to exist in an established system. The very first words in this post are “STOP DRIVING CARS” like we have a choice or that would fix anything or that it’s our responsibility to upend how we live our life for “the cause”.
THAT is what pisses us off.
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I used to visit fuck cars, back when I was on Reddit. I own two cars, and I look forward to a time when I only need them to tow a trailer and/or go on holiday
I wonder how many fuck cars people will buy a car when they finally graduate and get a job and realise they want 1 hr 30 commuting every day instead of 3 hours?
My wife and I own two cars and live outside the most urban parts of our city. I actually love cars, especially when I get to drive a standard transmission. But we both are firmly in the FuckCars camp.
We walk, bike, and use public transit when we can, and we vote to improve the pedestrian infrastructure in our area whenever we can. We love vacationing in places with good public transit, and would live in such places if circumstances allowed.
Part of the frustration in the FuckCars community is the very thing you said in your post. Cities are built around cars, which means every other form of commuting is secondary and therefore worse than it could be. This is what we want to change. Build cities around people. Get rid of massive parking lots, dangerous stroads, etc. If people need cars to get from city to city, or outside of cities, totally fine. But they shouldn’t be necessary for day-to-day in populated areas.
Cities could be so much better, and we know this because there ARE cities that are better. It just takes effort and time.
Cities could be so much better, and we know this because there ARE cities that are better. It just takes effort and time.
And eminent domain, to take the land to build that infrastructure. And money. Lots and lots of money. And way more time than you think. Effectively having to level homes for miles, grade the surface and then, finally getting to build this utopian vision of public transportation, which will then need to be fed, sorry, maintained, by taxes that will shoot through the roof. Then, the displaced will need a place to stay, so enter yet more eminent domain to take more property to build vertical, because there is a finite amount of land. And this would be jn just one small to mid sized US city.
Look, I’m happy for anyone who’s happy in how they do their daily. You chose it, and it works for you. Some people don’t chose that life, and it doesn’t work for them. I respect your way of life, it should only be fair that you respect mine. I’m not driving a 3500 turbo diesel that gets 12 gallons to the mile, stomping on the gas “just because I like the sound” and throwing cheeseburger wrappers out the window.
Difference is, I’m not trying to force my way of life on others…
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Infinite money if we want to do it immediately. Don’t be so defeatist. Changing hearts, minds, and infrastructure is not immediate.
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There are plenty of good solutions. Just because you’re only hearing the very valid complaints doesn’t mean solutions don’t exist. They just aren’t going to be easy or immediate. Life doesn’t work that way.
Cars are indeed here to stay. But we can make cities much better over time.
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I believe I did mention cars as valuable for use outside of cities. I live in the US, cars are an absolute necessity outside of major population centers.
Even so, cities are better when cars are unnecessary within them. CAPABLE, but unnecessary.
You don’t have to give up personal transportation to build public transportation. Are you high? And no, it does not take infinite money. How the fuck do you think that they’re are cities who have already implemented decent public transportation got them? They certainly did not have infinite money.
Are you always this defeatist?
let me translate what you just asked
I wonder how many people will be forced to buy a car to be able to function in society even though they hate the idea owning a car and in any other developed nation they could go car free in an equivalent city because they have better public transport and/or bike infrastructure
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Nothing there said you’re American.
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Because China doesn’t exist or anything. Or Russia, or Australia.
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Is anyone seriously denying the U.S. is a repressive country or that it’s status as one is really relevant?
Is Australia a repressive country?
Isn’t most of the global south repressive despite the fact that they’re walkable by necessity?
Or are you just here to pick a fight because you want to live in Paris but can never afford to with your shitty McDonald’s wages?
Oh look, you are this guy
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Yeah, buddy, widely used meme can perfectly answer your “well-thought out” “criticism”. Maybe it’s a comment on your position, eh?
Ah, yes. Minimizing other people’s arguments by implying they don’t have jobs.
This is a bad comment that you should probably delete.
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Cool. I’ve been working for 8 years, commuting in the range of 10-15 km to my various places of work throughout that period, with the exception of the pandemic period during which I worked remotely.
Not once have I driven a car to any of my jobs. A mix of public transportation and cycling has covered all of my needs, and I wouldn’t have saved any time by opting to drive.
This invalidates this terrible comment, so let’s not keep repeating.
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The point is your generalization is disingenuously dismissive and insultingly reductive
I’m touching on the student
You’re disgusting.
See how taking things out of context works? That’s what you are doing.
I’m in Germany. That’s how long it takes with the trains to get to my Workplace. And I still rather work from Home because I don’t have to travel 3 to 4 hours a day.
Holy shit you guys have bad infrastructure. Even worse than ours.
I also generally rather use the train despite its problems. Especially when I’m not sure if I will be drinking or taking other drugs.
Not really, the images and travel descriptions you’re reading here are the exception, not the rule. The US has great infrastructure, just not for public transportation as there isn’t enough centralized usage and the locations are far apart. It would take me 4 hours to go to work by bus, but it takes me 25 min by car.
That’s simply poor route planning, which could be solved by better bus funding, leading to more buses with more stops and more frequent trips.
I’ll direct you to another of my posts rather than having two going.
That sounds like it’s a vicious cycle. There isn’t any public transport so there are no people using the public transport which causes public transports to be bad, so there isn’t anybody using it
It is to a point, but when you reach that point it’s just not feasible to have public transportation. The city I work in has a light rail train, it has a robust busing system, but people also travel from 20+ different small towns around this one and at a certain point that system breaks down. If I were to take the bus I would still need a car to get to the next small town where the bus stop into the large town is.
The fact is that the most of the US isn’t designed like old world cities which were built with public transportation and foot traffic in mind.
“great infrastructure, just not for public transportation” sounds to me like another way to say “shit infrastructure”
Infrastructure can apply to different things, you can have great infrastructure for cars, but not trains. You can have well maintained power lines, but poor internet connectivity. You can have a robust water utility, but a mixed storm and sewer system.
If you’re gonna point out one bad part of infrastructure and say all of it’s bad then idk what to say for you.
You can go from London to Edinburgh by car (412 miles) in 7.5 hrs or by train in 5.5 hrs.
You can go from Richmond to Charleston by car (432 miles) in 6 hours or by train in 13.25 hrs.
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Because you behave like a brainless, witless worm, which is much rarer in Europe
Yeah, no. I have a car and I hate driving it. I hate others having cars and driving them. I hate public transport being ignored over car infrastructure leaving them completely impractical. I hate our cities being ruined in order to work around cars, when metros are underground, and trains are overground but take way less space since they can take in way more people and transfer them way faster. I hate car accidents being one of the leading causes of death in my country. Fuck cars
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I’m just responding to your initial stupid take, I don’t mean ‘hate’ as in going out and breaking car windows because they’re the bane of my existence
Hi, im 26 years old and i have the money to get a car and make enough money to Use the car. But i dont have one, i use every day the train to get to work. 5 min with bike to the trainstation 31 min with the train, 5 min on foot to my work place, 5 min back to the trainstation, 22 min back with train and 10-15 min with my bike home. With a car I would need 38 min (gmaps). I pay 49€ in month and can use bus or trai In whole Germany. With a car it would be 66km per day. The car of our family uses 6,5 L/ 100km 66km = 4,29L × 20 (workdays) =85,8L * 1,82 (price per liter fuel)= 155,61€ and that is only the fuel with out the tax for the car insurance and not the wear out and without the 2 year controll checkup. And with that I can say train is faster and cheaper for me so I don’t need a car.
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Well its only a problem if its night and im drunk. A car wouldnt help except there is a not drunken driver.
Renting is a concept that exists, just in case you were unaware.
Tried that. If you want to rent for the weekend you waste a bunch of time picking up and dropping off the vehicle. And say you are using it for camping, you have to pack all your stuff that same day then unload everything before drop off. There are also restrictions as to where you can take rentals, like gravel roads are off limits. Just some examples
Congrats for living somewhere where that’s viable
Where I live in in Canada you can’t even expect the bus to show up at all, nevermind on time
These people are ridiculous. They want to gaslight people who have to drive into thinking we’re bad people and when we call them out on the fact that there is no public transit infrastructure built they’re just like “well all people have to do is build the infrastructure!” Bitch where? And who? And how do we make them? And with what money? I’m so sick of hearing “you should drive a smart car because it makes sense for my DINK ass and I know what’s best”. My home is in an ocean of suburbia. They gonna just bulldoze a whole swath of homes to install a rail? They’ve been talking about installing a rail from DFW to Austin/Houston for the past 40 years and there was even room for it once upon a time. You can’t just say the magical solution is to just “build trains”. We don’t love our cars, these fuckcars people are just lunatics. As you point out the vast majority of them are almost certainly children. The rest are fortunate enough to have never experienced a place with poor public transit.
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I didn’t. Even when I lived an hour away from my job, it was about as fast by train as driving, and I could spend that time productively or relaxing instead of concentrating on.
If it takes twice as long without a car, that’s a problem that should be solved!
You’re a moron that never heard about other countries existing. It’s okay, you’ll probably learn about them when you enroll for 1st grade.
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I’m 46, the parts of my life where I haven’t needed to use a car every day have been great for my physical and mental health … now I live too far from work I use a little 125 motorbike to commute, and it’s still much nicer than having to take a car. When I am forced to take a car, the one I have is small and economical.
I didn’t start figuring this out until I was 30, maybe you need a few more years to mature enough to throw off the consumerist mindset?
I have never had a commute longer than 40 min each way. I had a 5 minute commute once, too.
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If your city and region got rid of cars, you could have that, too.
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Not if they’re living on the the village
Traditional pre-car villages were all walkable and all had their own train station. They sprawled out and lost their train stations when cars came around.
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Tradition: 5 min bike to village station, 15 min train to local city, 15 min train to neighboring city, 5 min bike to destination, cost 2€
Modernity: 1 hour of focused labor in traffic, 5 min walk through parking garage, cost 20€
Point being?
all the mad car lovers in the comments lmao
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Run_challenge
Are you sure about that second one?
“Successful record attempts have employed a variety of tactics for evading traffic law enforcement.”
😎
Speed limits are more like suggestions in the states anyway, this is just taking it to it’s logical extreme.
Vehicular manslaughter 😎
And here i thought it was just a funny movie all hese years!
From my understanding, the movie is pretty close to what actually happened.
I love how people just come up with this shit with their knowledge of their local area. Any train here requires driving to, and does not come and go frequently, and takes longer. Our infra is terrible.
On the flip side, some places have awesome infra and I wish I had that. I’d prefer to pedal bike if I could. But where I’m at you’re very likely to be killed without bike lanes or sidewalks, and it would take hours to get anywhere important - IE work.
