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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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
You WILL be shot eventually
Yet the dude probably still drives a car, where the same thing is true. Especially if you drive like a jackass through Oakland and piss enough people off or go to school. Getting shot isn't a problem with public transport. It's just a problem with America.
I swear they test for assholes in the driver's exam, and then give them licenses
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having a car and having the option to go anywhere I want whenever I want. At the same time I wish it wasn't my only option. I live in a semi rural area and I literally can't get anything I need as a person without driving. And even if I decided to walk I have to walk alongside a fucking highway with no sidewalk just to get there.
If you've ever had the fortune to travel the US coast to coast, by land or by air, you will see the entire fragile existence is held together with thin asphalt or concrete strips with absolutely nothing in between.
Manifest Destiny really should ask for its money back. We just spread out thin and failed. Now, with resources becoming ever more scarce as the billionaires hoover everything up, we will just get thinned out more.
I live in a rural area too and I would love to ride my bike to get groceries but the way these fucker drive around here it would just me a matter of time before I get hit.
As someone who moved somewhere with public transit, it's the best. I can walk to most stuff I need within my neighborhood within 20 minutes to an hour (ironically the hour is to the auto repair shop), or I can bike places, or take a bus or train to places that are outside that area. It means that I stop drinking on nights out because I don't want to feel like shit in the morning instead of because I need to sober up to get home (and it means I can go home when I feel like it)
If it cant work why does it work and did even better in the past before for example germany destroyed a lot of its rail-network
Yeah, but the Autolobby is in the government...
It really is not though. Compared to 1994 there are 50% more passengers and 90% more freight being transported. The main issue is that the network is massivly over capacity and needs to be upgraded. However it is hardly destroyed.
Yeah, neglected would be the better word. I think the software in some trains is actually from 93-94. During this time period of increased demand they just let it run with bare minimum maintenance.
Software? You mean the 100 years old manual switches? That's the actual reality of the rail network. The trains aren't the problem.
Train software doesn't mean anything though? It doesn't matter if it uses Windows 95 or even older. It needs to work reliably, all required software needs to run on it and that's it. It's like complaining your plane doesn't run on Windows 11
I would not want my plane to run on Windows 11, that would be terrifying.
Edit: he -> be
What do you mean? It comes with Copilot. Is there anything better than a plane with Copilot?
/s
A lot of lines have been permanently decommissioned, especially in the area of local transport. They are now unusuable. To call that "destruction" is fitting.
Replacing a train stop in one city with a bus to another city in the opposite direction an hour away to get on a train to go back in the first direction is destroying the rail network.
Probably witches!
He's right but there's a point where I can't entirely agree. The one about not looking up schedules. It varies a lot and sometimes it's worth checking the time table for planing purposes. It's correct that people shouldn't really have to worry or check a time table before taking public transit, but because the world isn't perfect, it really helps to know how to do that anyway. Because it's not just the US that is stuck with this type of "oh public transit is impossible here", and other countries also have those issues. He recommends travelling but if you do that, you'll also sometimes encounter even worse than in the US.
Before going to some Caribbean islands I like to at least research if it's possible to get around there without a car, using public transit. Sometimes every comment I see on the place says that it's impossible, that I'll need to rent a car or use taxis, but it turns out to be entirely false. And sometimes it really is impossible unless you're feeling really adventurous.
I went to Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten and checked the bus routes online, but there were none. This tiny island does have buses, but apparently locals are used to take them and know where they go and when they pass. There's no published schedules. So as a tourist, you're highly encouraged to rent a car or use taxis. And it was true. I saw bus stops and bus "terminals", but no information posted anywhere. I ended up using a taxi most of the time. I also wanted to cycle parts of the island but just getting to a shop that rented bikes was complicated and I gave up.
However I also went to Guadeloupe and also looked up the routes and schedules before going. Most comments I saw online told me I would need a car, that public transit was unreliable, that it would be absolutely impossible to use it. My host strongly insisted that there was "no public transit to the hotels". Yet, there was. The only thing unclear before going was how to pay and the exact location of the stops. But I knew there was public transit, and I used it. It was like being back in the early 2000s where I live in Canada, with online PDFs of the schedules and the routes, but it was fine, aside from the obviously underfunded system. I gleefully cycled on the wonderful island of Marie-Galante and got there with public transit despite being told multiple times that it would be impossible.
So it's a useful skill to have. I live in a city with decent public transit. I don't check the schedules for the metro because they come every few minutes. I also don't check the schedules for a few frequent bus routes that I know. But, it becomes useful and/or necessary if I'm not familiar with the area or the system. Trip planning shouldn't be dismissed on the count of a bad system. Sometimes you want to know where the bus/tram/train is going, and when it will reach its destination.