Trains only travel along previously laid rails, at specific times. Plus, you’ll need to rent a car at the other end to get anywhere. Better to take your own car and have personalized comfort the whole way. Also, yes, it does sound miserable. But if you’re in a car, turn up the heater, turn on the radio or your favorite music, and just vibe while driving safely.
But if the cities were built for people rather than cars, you wouldn’t need to rent a car at your destination. And trains run often if they haven’t been critically underfunded for decades. And you can’t really drive safely, even if you’re a perfect driver, someone can run you off the road. Trains are orders of magnitude safer.
Not everyone lives in cities in the US and even then they are really spread out. It’s the one thing I think the world doesn’t comprehend about the US; we’re spread way out.
But 80% do, so what’s your excuse for refusing to solve the problem for the vast majority? The “and even then they are really spread out” is not it, BTW.
Owning a single-family house in the suburbs only seems cheaper than owning a condo because single-family houses are massively subsidized. You’re a welfare queen and you don’t even realize it.
Cars are the things that make cities loud in the first place.
It isnt like the rest of the world doesnt have rural areas, unless one lives in like singapore or something. Something like 80% of the US population lives in urban areas, and most trips arent trips between cities except perhaps for those that are close to one another anyways. So even if one accepts that rural areas are car centric by nature, that still leaves the vast majority of the population that isnt affected by that. The buildings within cities being spread out over a wide space making transit less efficient is a failure of city design rather than something fundamental and unchangeable about the US, we have a fairly serious housing shortage anyways, if we really wanted to decrease car dependence we could absolutely build up denser housing in urban cores to shift the population over time into areas that allow for more efficient transportation.
No, it really doesn’t, unless one simply does not know what “prison” means. Improving access to transportation is entirely counter to the point of a prison, given that the primary characteristic of a prison is being hard to leave.
Having someone live below, above, and on either side within a couple of feet absolutely sounds like prison conditions. As far as hard to leave, unless you’re walking or biking, you don’t have that much freedom of movement, at least in comparison to a car or a motorcycle which becomes much more of a hassle of owning in cities. I’m also not saying cities should cater more to cars either.
I’m in an apartment in a city right now, I really do not notice the neighbors. Apartments are absolutely not as small as cells, unless you’re living somewhere with an extreme land shortage like Hong Kong or something (and even then, the conditions will be more comfortable than a literal prison), or somewhere with some extremely progressive prisons.
For that matter, saying you don’t have much freedom of movement unless you’re walking or biking is a bit like saying you can’t communicate with people unless you talk to them; being able to just leave your front door and walk to places you want to go, to include to stuff like train or bus stations for longer trips (which in turn can reach stuff like airports or car rentals for even longer ones), is freedom of movement.
If anything, having a car as the only good option is much less free, since one is required to acquire a license from the government to use it at all, which they can at any moment revoke and leave you with the choice of resorting to crime, relying on others to move you, or being stuck in one’s own home.
So, someone’s sister who works in a 100% remote IT job and who moved to a quiet rural town to raise her family is supposed to pick up and fit 5 people (including luggage) in her early 90’s Civic hatchback from the closest airport/train station that’s 100-200mi (160-320km) away?
I’d suggest that you work on your prejudice and critical thinking skills, as how that comment was worded was uncalled for and easy to poke holes in the logic of. You have to keep in mind that not everyone who lives in a quiet and isolated (even possibly self-sufficient) town is the stereotypical blue-collar farmhand that is commonly displayed by the media.
I just love how these threads always lead to anti-bike reactionaries coming up with increasingly contrived hypothetical situations to “justify” continuing to cling to their cars like a security blanket.
And then have the audacity to accuse the other side of “prejudice” and lack of “critical thinking skills.”
You have to keep in mind that not everyone who lives in a quiet and isolated (even possibly self-sufficient) town is the stereotypical blue-collar farmhand that is commonly displayed by the media.
You have to keep in mind that only a tiny minority of Americans live in tiny and isolated towns at all, and pretending the solution for the vast majority of people doesn’t work by pointing to those outliers is bad-faith idiotic bullshit.
Cars also travel along previously laid paths. I mean, technically there are off road ones that dont have to, but unless youre on your own land trying to get from one place to another without following the roads wont go so well.
Trains only travel along previously laid rails, at specific times. Plus, you’ll need to rent a car at the other end to get anywhere. Better to take your own car and have personalized comfort the whole way. Also, yes, it does sound miserable. But if you’re in a car, turn up the heater, turn on the radio or your favorite music, and just vibe while driving safely.
But if the cities were built for people rather than cars, you wouldn’t need to rent a car at your destination. And trains run often if they haven’t been critically underfunded for decades. And you can’t really drive safely, even if you’re a perfect driver, someone can run you off the road. Trains are orders of magnitude safer.
Not everyone lives in cities in the US and even then they are really spread out. It’s the one thing I think the world doesn’t comprehend about the US; we’re spread way out.
My brother in christ, the reason we got this spread out in the first place was a robust national network of passenger rail lines.
But 80% do, so what’s your excuse for refusing to solve the problem for the vast majority? The “and even then they are really spread out” is not it, BTW.
Money for the most part. It’s cheaper to own, no HoA or Condo association. Not to mention it’s quieter.
https://youtu.be/3kf_im01RC0
It isnt like the rest of the world doesnt have rural areas, unless one lives in like singapore or something. Something like 80% of the US population lives in urban areas, and most trips arent trips between cities except perhaps for those that are close to one another anyways. So even if one accepts that rural areas are car centric by nature, that still leaves the vast majority of the population that isnt affected by that. The buildings within cities being spread out over a wide space making transit less efficient is a failure of city design rather than something fundamental and unchangeable about the US, we have a fairly serious housing shortage anyways, if we really wanted to decrease car dependence we could absolutely build up denser housing in urban cores to shift the population over time into areas that allow for more efficient transportation.
Sounds like prison
No, it really doesn’t, unless one simply does not know what “prison” means. Improving access to transportation is entirely counter to the point of a prison, given that the primary characteristic of a prison is being hard to leave.
Having someone live below, above, and on either side within a couple of feet absolutely sounds like prison conditions. As far as hard to leave, unless you’re walking or biking, you don’t have that much freedom of movement, at least in comparison to a car or a motorcycle which becomes much more of a hassle of owning in cities. I’m also not saying cities should cater more to cars either.
I’m in an apartment in a city right now, I really do not notice the neighbors. Apartments are absolutely not as small as cells, unless you’re living somewhere with an extreme land shortage like Hong Kong or something (and even then, the conditions will be more comfortable than a literal prison), or somewhere with some extremely progressive prisons.
For that matter, saying you don’t have much freedom of movement unless you’re walking or biking is a bit like saying you can’t communicate with people unless you talk to them; being able to just leave your front door and walk to places you want to go, to include to stuff like train or bus stations for longer trips (which in turn can reach stuff like airports or car rentals for even longer ones), is freedom of movement.
If anything, having a car as the only good option is much less free, since one is required to acquire a license from the government to use it at all, which they can at any moment revoke and leave you with the choice of resorting to crime, relying on others to move you, or being stuck in one’s own home.
🤡
Or you know, just how cities work…
Where are you going in rural america that you need to rent a car if you arent already living there?
Family, maybe.
Then… they can get their family to come pick’em up in their pickup truck.
So, someone’s sister who works in a 100% remote IT job and who moved to a quiet rural town to raise her family is supposed to pick up and fit 5 people (including luggage) in her early 90’s Civic hatchback from the closest airport/train station that’s 100-200mi (160-320km) away?
I’d suggest that you work on your prejudice and critical thinking skills, as how that comment was worded was uncalled for and easy to poke holes in the logic of. You have to keep in mind that not everyone who lives in a quiet and isolated (even possibly self-sufficient) town is the stereotypical blue-collar farmhand that is commonly displayed by the media.
I just love how these threads always lead to anti-bike reactionaries coming up with increasingly contrived hypothetical situations to “justify” continuing to cling to their cars like a security blanket.
And then have the audacity to accuse the other side of “prejudice” and lack of “critical thinking skills.”
You have to keep in mind that only a tiny minority of Americans live in tiny and isolated towns at all, and pretending the solution for the vast majority of people doesn’t work by pointing to those outliers is bad-faith idiotic bullshit.
You dont need to be a redneck to understand the value of a pickup in rural america. Shes gonna haul sheet of plywood with that hachback? Lmao
I’d hope they’d pick you up
Cars also travel along previously laid paths. I mean, technically there are off road ones that dont have to, but unless youre on your own land trying to get from one place to another without following the roads wont go so well.
Off-road travel, even in a car not explicitly made for it, is usually safer than traveling a derailed train. But I get your point.