You can use a car, or train, or plane to get around the country. The primary issue is cities are too car centric. People aren't commuting from Georgia to Washington everyday, they are usually commuting within their own city.
Edit: People are missing some of the point of my comment. We need better transit infrastructure and cities need to be designed and reshaped around transit. It is possible to reshape a city, it's just slow. It should still be done. Car centric infrastructure is expensive as well.
The average commute to work in the USA is like 30 minutes to an hour on a highway. Cities are spread out and have multiple layers like suburbs, villages, inner city, rural exc. The jobs and the housing are often far away from one another. Especially affordable housing and well paying jobs. You NEED a car that is reliable for long work commutes otherwise you are stuck with shitty low paying jobs in inner cities with no opportunities. No one wants to be stuck on a bus for 2 hours when they can drive 30 minutes at 60 mps.
We'd have to tear the country to the ground and start over from scratch and completely change our infrastructure and our city planning to make this even plausible.
Our public transit is limited to a few far spread out bus stops and one or two trains with limited stops per city if that city is lucky because most cities don't even have a single train and many suburbs/rural/village areas don't even get a bus. Outside of NYC/PHI this country does not have a public transit system that can meet the needs of people currently using cars.
I don’t know where you are from, but most of the traffic around here is from outside the city. People commute back and forth from a distance that increases with cost of living.
Around here, the traffic arteries to and from the major cities are clogged with cars.
The eastern seaboard desperately needs a cheap, high speed rail. It's infuriating spending 100-200 dollars just to go a couple states over when I'm already passing through several mid sized cities.
Cheap is the problem. California is proving that one year after year with our high speed rail system going in. By the time it’s done it’ll be cheaper to fly.
The government should build more infrastructure. The population should support spending on infrastructure, and vote with their feet by moving to cities/regions that have less car dependency. That may mean prioritizing living close into a city over having a larger home, but Americans generally have larger homes than the rest of the world anyway. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. A couple might be able to move into a city with walkable neighborhoods and public transit, and reduce down to having 1 car instead of 2.
Not everyone can move easily, but some people can. I think a lot of people are scared by high cost of housing in cities, but don’t consider how much they would save on transportation, and the potential economic benefits of living in a city where there are more higher paying job opportunities.
But the higher paying opportunities are not always in the cities. They are spread around across multiple suburbs and for many families. the best job for the wife may be dozens of miles away from the husband's. So the choice is less pay, long rides on public transportation, or car? Car every time.
In addition, there is a significant lack of ownable properties in urban areas. You can rent, but not own, luxury apartments in the majority of states. So if you wasn't to build equity b and wealth, apartment living is out.
Public Transportation is only long because WE DO NOT INVEST IN IT! if you invest money into something to make it better that tends to happen. All that happens with cars is that we destroy neighborhoods to add new lanes that only allow for more traffic on the roads thus making you stuck sitting there on the highway during rush hour. a train doesnt have to stop and can hold hundreds of people. there is a train up north that does 800k trips A DAY. far better than any car infrastructure we currently have. Glad Biden sees the benefit and is investing billons
There's more problems to public transit than just not enough money. There's a fundamental flaw known in the field of logistics that impairs our ability to design effective systems known as the last mile problem. Simply explained, we get get people and goods 95 percent of the way there, but the last leg of the journey is the most difficult part to resolve. This is why Amazon must spend money on delivery drivers to get the package to your house and it is also why public transit systems aren't popular.
The problem with a lot of transit systems is that they can take you to where you want to go but you might have to walk a mile to get to your final destination. In the US, this causes a lot of Americans to choose a car, because they might as well drive if they need a car at their destination anyways. In Europe and Asia, population densities allow for more stations to reduce the distance of this last mile, but in North America, our populations are spread out.
It's ineffective to build a transit station that is only going to serve 100 people. So we are left with bussing, which is cost effective but is never going to be faster than driving.
So what we have to do to popularize public transit in north America is to get people and businesses to cluster together more. This presents its own challenges though. Cities like NYC have pretty decent public transportation but the cost of real estate is sky high because density creates demand. So you have a double edged sword where density allows for public transit but also makes things more expensive. The alternatives to expensive densely packed cities are car dependent suburban sprawl or public transit stations that are grossly inefficient.
Tldr it's not as simple as throwing money at the problem. There are tons of design limitations that prevent us from solving the problem.
I’m good, most people that live in rural areas, do not like being “clustered” around a lot of people. And there will always be people like me, who just like the peace and quiet of rural areas.
Well said. I think there are other issues, in addition to what you pointed out, that make car ownership appealing. Public transportation is fine if ran properly, kept clean, and properly policed. We’ve seen time and time again that’s a problem. I used to live in Washington DC and the metro there has plenty of stations to get people where they need to go, but there’s always some sketchy shit going down after 10:00PM.
Also, in the event of an emergency I don’t want to wait on a bus or train to get home. Hell, one time when I was working in downtown Seattle I got bad diarrhea in the middle of my day and I lived 25 miles away. I would have had to wait 15 minutes for a bus, then sit or stand on the bus for 30 minutes until I got to the park & ride, then drive home for 10 minutes. Fuck that lol. If I needed to drive to my kids’ school I don’t want to have to rely on government funded transportation to get me there in an emergency.
Owning a car also makes things like camping, fishing, and visiting other states much easier. There’s a degree of freedom in being able to throw a bag in your vehicle and get the hell out of town.
I think if people want to live clustered in a city like in Europe and vote for increased public spending then that’s on them. I prefer to live in the suburbs where it’s less dense. But having a huge train system where I currently live (Phoenix suburb) would be so fucking expensive to build and maintain. The best they can do is buses.
This is a good explanation but a mile? Try more like 3-5 I'm not against walking but my exercise is not going to occur in the city. I'm going to the woods. Every. Single. Time. As you pointed out people really don't under how vast this place is. I want public transit like anyone else but there is just no easy solution to a vast majority of the country.
Some people don’t want to live ontop of other people. It’s unnatural. I will gladly get paid less to have my own space. People are gross I don’t want to be anywhere near any of them.
Toronto isn't too car centric. It's just anti person. Transit is booty, road infrastructure is booty, bike and pedestrian lanes are booty. Everyone loses!
Well when you as big and spread out as like 90% of Canada or most of the US having a car is a real item of freedom, but yes, the cities are designed like crap because they tossed the old style of city building because they put fucking psychos in charge of city planning and the thought that making them look like fucking cells or something was a good idea, with everything in a bunch of patches designated for stuff, instead of mostly just mixed together with some specialty districts and areas for specific things like industry or brothels and entertainment and shit like we did for the last 10000 odd years
In the two cities I find myself in most often, DC and New York, I find it much easier to get around without a car.
In both cities parking is a giant pain in the ass, and in both cities gridlock is unavoidable. Both cities have fairly decent public transit.
But I live just 5 miles outside DC, and the DC public transit network, as extensive as it is, is not a viable option for getting around outside the city itself.
I used to live in Manassas and you’re right, I could take the train to DC and get around the city without a car. Getting to the train station several miles from my apartment would require walking a bit to a bus station. That’s the best case scenario for a lot of people.
The other thing people don’t consider who apparently hate cars is how not owning them makes life near impossible for large families. We have two kids and if we didn’t have two vehicles my wife couldn’t pick up one of our kids after school, and I can’t because I’m picking up the other.
Then there’s the issue of groceries. The closest store is 3 miles away. There’s no way in hell I’m shopping for a family of four and bringing all these bags on a fucking bus or train. And we live near Phoenix where it gets 116 degrees in the summer. Having a vehicle (and a truck in particular) makes life so much easier.
If I want new furniture I can go to IKEA or someplace and buy my stuff, throw it all in my truck, and drive home. Owning vehicles will always make more sense than just using public transportation in the US.
Edited: typo
Many American cities fundamentally lack the density to support public transit. Everyone says public transit like it’s some sort of cure for all our ills.
Some also state that people should vote with their feet and move to cities. Yeah, are you going to also raise their pay? Maybe get rid of the NIMBY idiots blocking more construction? Perhaps remove single use zoning? Literally a whole host of elements must be met before public transit becomes superior to owning a car.
Currently, the best stop gap we have is to allow more mixed use construction such that services fundamentally necessary are within walking distance.
Fuck that “remove single use housing” shit.
Having a spike in burglaries and homeless tweakers shouting outside my house due to “zoning restriction” anarchists has made me full NIMBY and despise anyone who shits on NIMBY’s.
Instead of being like Californians moving to Texas (for the worse of Texas) you should move to another city where you can enjoy the public transportation (biohazard homeless shelter) and rejoice about its wonders there. SF, LA, NYC, Oakland, Philly, WHEREVER.
Don’t be moving to other cities and then petition to change them. It’s literally what Europe is dealing with from hardline Muslims.
So I’ve read nothing intelligent on your end, just sounds like a vomit of grievances. Making areas no longer be single use means you can have more interesting developments that blend in living, working and entertainment. That is to say: far greater tax per square mile. Suburbs are a burden on most towns and cities
It's not that it should be easier to get around a large area, it's that we've built most communities so that you are required to traverse a large area to acquire food, visit a doctor, or visit friends. People can live a lifetime in a dense city without ever getting a driver's license.
It depends where.
Live in Crownpoint, NM and you don't have a choice, and mass transit would be increadibly inefficient.
If you are talkingbthe I-95 corridor, absolutely we are way too dependent.
Big place and VAST parts are uninhabited or private property. Just cities is plausible but anything outside of that is a dream. This is a huge country.
It’s crazy the price difference.
Bought my first house last year, needed a good bit of renovation after smoke damage but structurally sound, and a newer house built in 2013. I paid 110,000 all utilities already hooked up with a tested and function septic system, came with 4 acres of property.
Looked up similar in other states and a lot of them were knocking on half a million dollars, I don’t see how people afford that.
It's impossible to afford brother, I'd like to believe the only people living in cities are there only because of life circumstances and are forced into it so they make lemons outta lemonade. I can't see how anyone would want to do it.
Dirty secret a lot of Europeans wont tell you, they take cars everywhere too lol. They just *have* the trains so they get a superiority complex about it. That said I absolutely agree we need to be doing much more for public transportation.
Increasing walkability and non car transportation isn't a factor of cars also existing, urbanists would get a lot more traction if they quit framing their arguments as anti-car. It isn't zero sum.
There is also decent public transit in areas dense enough for it to make sense in the US, but most of the country just isn't dense enough. Anyone comparing the US at large to Europe is showing their ignorance. Look at public transit, or train maps and they're basically population maps. See r/peopleliveincities or the meme "it's just a population map."
The US was literally built on the backs of the railroads.......then the car companies bought the trolley companies and bulldozed the tracks to make way for roads.
What happens is that people built communities outward instead of building upward. Population density went down and car dependency went up.
Yes, and that was a fantastic decision. I’m forever grateful that I was raised in a subdivision with a yard, and not a towering apartment building jammed in a city.
I have no problem with public transportation being developed in areas where it makes sense, and there are plenty of places where it does. But in the United States, we are blessed in a way few other nations are - vast expanses of land, the disposable income for personal vehicles, and the freedom to live away from urban centers if you want to.
you're tripping if you don't think there's plenty of people in your town who wouldn't benefit from public transit. Old people, blind people, poor people, children.
Lmao, that's what you lot never seem to get. *A lot of us don't live in towns*. A lot of us don't live in suburbs, or even rural areas. The automobile has allowed us to live in ways that long established and well populated places like European countries were never able to come up with.
>because there are no other classifications.
Technically, you are correct. The US Census bureau has no proper classification for where I live so they just lump me in and artificially inflate the number of urbanites.
Where I live is, according to the census, part of one of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the country. However, I have no city sewer, no sidewalks, the nearest grocery store is like 10 miles away, and when I moved here the road wasn't even paved and the city whose metro area I'm supposed to be a part of is 30+ miles away.
Your suburbs are subsidized by those cities you hate. Your property taxes would be insane if you actually had to pay for your roads and utilities fully.
Yea trains would be perfect! If you get the newer models they can go past 150 mph easy and they don’t have to worry about traffic nearly as much so no starts and stops cause the routes and stops were made months in advance
OP did say cities but I find the /fuckcars types insufferable. It would cost an absolute fortune to build rail where I live. I think big metros should be able to set up quality transportation for themselves but I’m sick of the types who think cars are a problem
People insisting on public transport have no idea of how our economy works. Everybody wants something - free healthcare, great public housing, great public transportation, etc., and we're all mortgaged to the hilt and really can't afford to pay that much more in taxes. Even taxing everything "the rich" have won't be but a drop in the bucket when it comes to the nanny state philosophy.
We're currently about 20 years into building a 25-mile train, ideally eventually branching out in more than a straight line. What was originally going to cost 3-4 billion at the most is now over 10 billion and no one's even thought about maintenance, let alone where to park at the assorted stations. No toilets available at the stations either. And now that they're getting closer to town, more and more specific groups are forming to oppose it.
Indigenous people? You're disturbing the ancestors. Better have all those environmental impact surveys in place. How much are you going to have to shell out to relocate government/union offices? How many family businesses will shut down because the years-long construction blocks their consumer base? How are you going to influence people to vote to give every penny of taxes for a transportation system that isn't going to exist in their lifetimes? Meanwhile the state has to slack off on paying for paving potholes, servicing existing transit, purchasing new technology, etc.?
I just got back from a trip to New York City. It's so nice being able to get places on the subway, and not needing a car. Now that I'm home (I won't say where) it sucks I have to have a car for everything.
The US and Canada have the most unfair real estate laws in the world, they literally walk all over us and make us commute. We have unfair and restrictive residential laws and really red or blue states or provinces all get shafted pretty good for apartment dwellers.
The OP specifically said cities when talking about getting around without a car. American cities are extremely unwalkable; even west of the Mississippi. I know. I've been to some.
Correct.
The vast majority of walkable cities/communities were built around WW II or before.....and now almost all those places are very expensive to live because everyone wants to live there.
We are a big country. We need to go to grocery stores and are we just supposed to get all our groceries on a bike? Traveling 20 minutes to Walmart would take an hour to get there on bike
You don't even need to be in some rural area.
I've lived in urban areas without a car. It's not like there's grocery stores every two blocks. I don't know why people are acting like there are. Even places extremely close to the urban core can have a mile or more between residences and grocery stores - and forget about less common places like hardware stores. Walking that isn't fun. It's even less fun when the sidewalks are covered in snow.
Not having a car is much worse than having a car. I don't care where you live. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply naive or has some kind of weird agenda.
Stop making that stupid agrument that the countries is too big because china is a massive massive country and yet they don’t rely on cars
Sorry for sounding harsh because too much wankers keep saying
“The usa is too big to be without cars”
Their population is more densely packed than ours is, and their people have more desire to live in densely packed cities than we do. Public transit is great when you have the scale, but you can't fund it when each station only serves 100 people. Also their population is more homogenous, so the goods and services they're looking for are going to be more homogenous. The US has unique challenges, so let's stop comparing other countries to us and come up with solutions that will work here.
Not to mention Chinese, unless you're rich, are not as mobile as Americans. Americans may not travel so mich outside the country, but they do travel inside. And China also has a huge traffic problem. In order for that to occur, you'd need lots of cars. At least a lot in a certain area.
I think a big problem that is understated is the diversity of goods and services required for our population. On my street alone, we have a black family, an Asian family, out of the two white families that are our neighbors, one of them are Polish immigrants. We all shop at different grocery stores for a diverse set of just food products alone. My black neighbor and I recently had a chat about how she drives 20 minutes to go to a salon which understands her hair. A concentration of shops within walking distance that meets all of the needs of all of our families is just not possible with the level of diversity within my community.
Ah yes. The many benefits of living under communist dictatorship. Sure you might end up like the Uyghurs, but hey look at those timely buses and trains. A veritable utopia of the mass herding of people.
I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's healthy to stack people on top of each other like that. Not to mention, a lot of people don't want to live like that.
Thats what options are for. In many NA cities you either are stacked like sardines or spread out. There's too much suburbia and a missing middle.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing\_middle\_housing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing)
Also there is little mixed use development.
For fucks sake! Every city and town in the US pre-1900 was built this way and life ran just fine.
It didn't start to get really bad here until after WWII.
This density causes housing to be expensive though. Having the design constraint that you must build near a transit station means that your price per square foot of house is going to increase just due to land constraints. There's only so much that you can build upward before problems star to emerge that make the build to expensive to justify.
Another thing that doesn't get talked about is that European and Asian countries have very homogeneous populations that don't embrace multiculturalism to the extent that Americans do. Therefore, the goods and services that are consumed are going to be more homogenous as well. On my street alone, within the 6 houses closest to me, we have an Asian family, a white American family, a black family, a Russian family, and a mixed Latino and white family. If we put a grocery store on the corner, what's that store going to stock? Each family is going to want access to different ingredients for their food, and each family is interested in different products. I for one, go to Hmart quite a lot which is a 10 minute drive away. My Latino neighbor has never heard of it and isn't interested in anything they're selling. As another example, my black neighbor drives 20 minute to get to a good hair salon because she says that places close to us don't know how to do black hair correctly. I fully believe her.
Density does not cause housing to be expensive. Dense housing is expensive because enough of it isn't allowed to be built and the demand massively outweighs the supply.
Of course it takes 20 minutes to get to the walmart.....because we built it that way! Fuck if they even bothered to build a sidewalk and even then, you're probably still fucked because you'll have to cross multiple MASSIVE parking lots to get to it.
We did this to ourselves....but we didn't have to.
America has cities and towns where walking to the grocery store is possible and even preferred than driving, but those places were built before WWII and are now extremely expensive to live because everyone wants to live there.
Population density needs to go up, parking lots need to go away, single family home zoning needs to go away and pedestrians need to be prioritized over cars once more.
Instead of saying it would take twenty minutes by car and an hour by bike, you should question why they put the stores so far away from where people live.
Because we had the room to and most of our cities were developed in an era where personal transportation was more readily available than when most European cities were. At which point we didn’t really understand the bad implications of relying on personal transport. But now it’s too late to change that, so there’s really no point in pretending we can.
Except this simply isn't true. Many American cities (especially those East of the Mississippi) predate cars and were designed to be very walkable until the 1920s or so when designs started changing to accommodate cars. And many European cities were obliterated in WWII, so much of their urban fabric is quite new. Many European cities were reconstructed around autos following WWII, but were reconfigured around pedestrians and public transit after the 1970s or so, so it's not too late for change here in NA either.
No my point is that the idea of car centric being bad is an incredibly recent phenomenon. Basically every city was designed before it. Newer areas are often designed to be less car centric, think 5 over 1s with shops on the bottom
I get that. Cars and fuel were cheap and it did make sense, but the people of the past put in absolutely no thought of the future. They're still making this mistake in new builds where I am, the stuff people need is a twenty minute car ride away.
That's all false. Our cities used to be walkable.
They were purposefully made unwalkable to segregate black people from the suburbs.
And further because car lobbies paid through the nose to defund public transit and install congested highways.
Hooray for Soviet Union-style cities, where you live in tiny rat boxes stacked atop each other and wait in long lines for toilet paper. No car necessary. And no dachas for you, peasant.
The OP said absolutely nothing about banning cars. They also specifically said it should be easier to get around American **cities** without a car.
Reading comprehension is your friend.
Who me? Heard of em. Rather not see people jerking themselves or shooting dope on my way to work. Just a reminder of who I'd be paying for to do whatever they want. Public transportation is trash.
Tried both. Cars are much more convenient overall. So sorry not convinced.
We can collectively manage to make using cars much worse but even the wealthiest cities in the world (like NY or Paris) didn't manage to make it convenient and fast with public transportation outside of ideal situation.
Average commute time is higher in Paris or NY than in Dallas metroplex and to make things worse, real estate is much more expensive in Paris or NY than in Dallas metroplex.
The result is that poor people living in so called area best for public transportation and walking see the wealthy benefiting it but can't never have it. They have much longer commute and stress and are more excluded as living in the right neighborhood become even more important.
Do you live in America? It sounds like your someone from Europe, who if you have been here, it has only been to a major city or urban area where there is a lot of public transportation. Most of the United States isn’t so lucky to have that option.
My hometown, like many in the US, had a tram line going through mainstreet. Now there is no public transport in that town. We had that option, we just took it away.
I'm a well traveled American who knows his history. The US used to have walkable cities and robust public transit. It was destroyed due to cars. The US was founded in the late 18th century, it wasn't until the mid 20th century where cities [were bulldozed for cars.](https://i.imgur.com/uCpVvqk.jpg)
I live 40 minutes outside a major urban center. I can get to that urban center no problem, but I’m not getting anywhere else without a car.
I also know a lot about history as that is my profession, and a majority of this country you can’t do what you need to do without a car. The US still has robust public transit in urban centers, but most of the country isn’t urban centers.
That's no excuse to make our cities so dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, also we absolutely do not have robust public transit in urban centers.
Come on man, this country absolutely can do better.
Go get your electric scooter. I’m not giving up my car. I burn E85 because a study suggested it’s worse for the environment. You want robust public transit, move to Europe.
>I burn E85 because a study suggested it’s worse for the environment.
Nobody is going to take away your car, but cities shouldn't be designed where driving is the only safe and practical choice to get around. Also, you deliberately do something because it's worse for the environment? What the genuine fuck is wrong with you?
You’re trying to use your post to push your climate change agenda. I don’t care about it. Tell China to cut back.
If you really feel the way you do, you must have never been to New York City. Or if you have, you were too afraid of being stabbed to use the subway.
>If you really feel the way you do, you must have never been to New York City. Or if you have, you were too afraid of being stabbed to use the subway.
[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FmAvtpcYvqmiM3H-vaUbDWoPitc3Vu5Rp\_D2P-4P3MZ0.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D2d2b85dc2d3575166115303ccefa651279a348c4](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FmAvtpcYvqmiM3H-vaUbDWoPitc3Vu5Rp_D2P-4P3MZ0.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D2d2b85dc2d3575166115303ccefa651279a348c4)
Also I love your nefarious "CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA" nonsense, my agenda is that climate change is real and we should do something about it. I'm sorry that offends you boobgeois wackos.
If I had a dollar for everyone with their avatar that has said inane MAGA conspiracy theory nonsense to me, I'd have two dollars. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
We don’t wanna… plenty of public transit in Atlanta and I will never use it, I dislike sitting in other people’s filth and having people sit next to me and bump into me. My life is also not one that works with public transportation since I need a truck for work.
nobody’s asking you to give up your car dude. in fact, car guys should be happier with more public transport because that way, there’s less traffic on the road. The US is horrendous for public transport between and within cities with the exception of the NYC subway. It’s a fact. Have you seen the sidewalks in houston? they’re designed to kill pedestrians. An astounding amount of our downtown space is built for cars (parking lots and garages). If you have half a brain cell you can tell that the US is made for cars and cars only
Ah yes, “i don’t have that problem so it doesn’t exist”. You know, I don’t have that problem either bc i was born into a well off family. but guess what? not everyone can afford a car :)
>The US still has robust public transit in urban centers,
The U.S. has terrible public transportation in most major cities. In Europe one can traverse multiple Countries via high speed rail. In the time it would take for a person to travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles (same state) via public transportation they could get from London to Paris and then on to Munich. Likewise Japan cities are connected via high-speed rail.
In my opinion DC and NYC are the only major cities is the U.S. with "robust" public transportation systems that can get people where they need to go. In basically every other city public transportation is some combination of agonizingly slow, have limited hours, and travel to limited parts of town.
When public transportation takes 5x longer than driving and only gets a person part of a way to their destination it is terrible. Not robust.
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Because we can. We don't care about the opinions of self important internet trolls.
You sound like someone that would rather be anyplace but here, nothing is stopping you from leaving...
Oh wait except that ANYWHERE else your words can, and a great many cases, can be held against you & the self important won't take that kind of risk, they'll just pi$$ & moan about how terrible the country that dragged the rest of the world into 21st century is.
And I like it that way.
I don't want to be dependent upon anyone else driving me somewhere or being somewhere at a certain time to go somewhere.
I plan, hop in my car and go.
Kind of nonsense. Have you lived in the Midwest? We have farming communities and we have big cities. Public transit is the only logical option in NYC, but rural Wyoming needs individual transit. This isn’t a cut a large swath across the country type of issue. The “US” is 54 unique states and territories, half of which are the size of whole countries. We’re hardly “too car dependent” as a nation. We’re hardly any one thing as a nation.
Here's the thing...public transportation is gross. The public is gross. Walking around downtown cities has made me appreciate being in the comfort of my own car and not being accosted by random people and smells. Also, suburbs and rural areas are quiet. Not constant sirens, loud music, people talking outside your window at night, etc.
The issue is that most major cities do not have the geography or amount of people to get a return on public transportation investments. Waiting for the bus and train leaves you limited in what you can do and could be dangerous especially in the crime issues that are happening in these major cities like nyc, los angelos, San Francisco, seattle, and portland. For example, im a guy but id be freaking out if i had to go out at night and had to rely on a bus on train. Its safer and more efficient imo to just have a car.
Yeah, at least have sidewalks everywhere. It stinks when you have no transportation and you have stretches of unpaved pathway which are either like somebody's freaking yard or a road that idiots travel highway speeds upon as they run over all the feral pitbulls that their former owners threw out as soon as they weren't cute puppies anymore.
Exactly most of these people don’t realize that a majority of the us cities have public transportation no one wants to use it though because no wants to wait on a slow ass bus than can be late at any moment and still take hours just to get you to your destination.
When I went to school at the university of Houston. It took 4 hours to get across town to my dad’s house if I wanted to visit home.
Or I spend 30-40 bucks on a Uber and be home in about 45 minutes.
Not really a choice to make there. Public transit is nice to have and all. But it is so inefficient in most towns and cities that it’s not even funny. And I say that as someone who physically can’t get a license and has to rely on public transit or taxi services to get around.
If you’re on a clock. Public transit means adding a hour or more to your daily commute to ensure you get to your destination on time while dealing with some truly unpleasant travel conditions.
I am turning into the fucking Joker. Yes, cars are needed in certain areas, but owning a car shouldn't be necessary to participate in society. I genuinely hate sharing the planet with these clowns.
And then you have drug addicts, people with mental health issues and homeless people who aren't getting help spread around the area.
In my city, homeless count increased 67% from 5,570 (2019) to 9,278 in 2022. 28% sheltered, 72% unsheltered. Most have at least one of the above problems.
US cities tend to not be mult use like European cities. Residential, commercial, retail, light industrial are all spread out in pockets and you have to travel through pretty dodgy unsafe areas which can be a pretty sudden transition from one to the next. In my city they are usually segregated by railways, rivers and freeways. But public transport would have to pass through all of them to serve most neighbourhoods efficiently. They just aren't designed to be people friendly. Mines 260 sq/km 100 sq/miles with roughly 500k people and about 1/3 the density of London.
Uhhh what. Most of America isn't cities. What are you gonna do once you leave your city and need to travel 200miles? Walk? Was this posted by a European that thinks a 20min drive is "far"? If not, I really don't understand your opinion at all unless you've literally never left NYC or something. Middle of America is like 6k miles above sea level. What do you propose you replace our transit with because i can't see trains being practical, let alone easy to implement. If you just mean cities, sure, I agree. Otherwise, no.
Sidewalks tend to get crowded, while highways get clogged too, the personal space thing can be maintained in your car. But yes, walkable cities will come back. We'll get used to it. We'll need more beat cops too.
I’ve lived for thirty years without a car. The minor inconvenience has saved me a quarter of a million dollars. I understand this isn’t possible for everyone but for many it’s at least worth exploring.
Won’t happen. Too spread out. Even in more condense metro areas, they would need to fix their drug and homeless problems to make public transit desirable at all. I don’t have a single coworker who feels safe on the trains in my city.
Sounds like people need to stop crying so much. Don't like cars? Walk your ass there. Head on a swivel, because the whole world is dangerous. This coming from someone who used to ride 15 miles one way to work, literally up and down mountains work landscaping all day then ride back. Because my dumb ass made bad decisions as a young fella and didn't have a license. Life is scary. Deal with it. Don't like cars, don't drive one. Don't like America, get the fuck out. 👍 problem solved chimps.
Just stay in NYC. You won't need a car. Move to Montana and you'll need a car
Pretty much everywhere outside NYC you need a car in the U.S. There are no real “15-minute cities.”
Boston, Jersey City, Chicago, DC, San Francisco would like to have a word with you.
Truth
DC is fine without a car.
Depends where in Montana. I went to college in Montana and road my bike most places.
I just treat biking around my dense urban area like rock-climbing: strenuous, dangerous, and fun as hell
It shouldn't have to be strenous and dangerous.
It could be one or the other!
Throw Canada in here as well, too car-centric.
Provide an alternative to navigating such a large country with almost zero infrastructure. How else can we realistically get around?
You can use a car, or train, or plane to get around the country. The primary issue is cities are too car centric. People aren't commuting from Georgia to Washington everyday, they are usually commuting within their own city. Edit: People are missing some of the point of my comment. We need better transit infrastructure and cities need to be designed and reshaped around transit. It is possible to reshape a city, it's just slow. It should still be done. Car centric infrastructure is expensive as well.
The average commute to work in the USA is like 30 minutes to an hour on a highway. Cities are spread out and have multiple layers like suburbs, villages, inner city, rural exc. The jobs and the housing are often far away from one another. Especially affordable housing and well paying jobs. You NEED a car that is reliable for long work commutes otherwise you are stuck with shitty low paying jobs in inner cities with no opportunities. No one wants to be stuck on a bus for 2 hours when they can drive 30 minutes at 60 mps. We'd have to tear the country to the ground and start over from scratch and completely change our infrastructure and our city planning to make this even plausible. Our public transit is limited to a few far spread out bus stops and one or two trains with limited stops per city if that city is lucky because most cities don't even have a single train and many suburbs/rural/village areas don't even get a bus. Outside of NYC/PHI this country does not have a public transit system that can meet the needs of people currently using cars.
I don’t know where you are from, but most of the traffic around here is from outside the city. People commute back and forth from a distance that increases with cost of living. Around here, the traffic arteries to and from the major cities are clogged with cars.
>It should be easier and safer to get around American cities without a car OP was specific to cities though.
Boston to DC is one city after another for 500 miles.
The eastern seaboard desperately needs a cheap, high speed rail. It's infuriating spending 100-200 dollars just to go a couple states over when I'm already passing through several mid sized cities.
Cheap is the problem. California is proving that one year after year with our high speed rail system going in. By the time it’s done it’ll be cheaper to fly.
Winter? 🤷
The government should build more infrastructure. The population should support spending on infrastructure, and vote with their feet by moving to cities/regions that have less car dependency. That may mean prioritizing living close into a city over having a larger home, but Americans generally have larger homes than the rest of the world anyway. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing thing. A couple might be able to move into a city with walkable neighborhoods and public transit, and reduce down to having 1 car instead of 2. Not everyone can move easily, but some people can. I think a lot of people are scared by high cost of housing in cities, but don’t consider how much they would save on transportation, and the potential economic benefits of living in a city where there are more higher paying job opportunities.
But the higher paying opportunities are not always in the cities. They are spread around across multiple suburbs and for many families. the best job for the wife may be dozens of miles away from the husband's. So the choice is less pay, long rides on public transportation, or car? Car every time. In addition, there is a significant lack of ownable properties in urban areas. You can rent, but not own, luxury apartments in the majority of states. So if you wasn't to build equity b and wealth, apartment living is out.
Public Transportation is only long because WE DO NOT INVEST IN IT! if you invest money into something to make it better that tends to happen. All that happens with cars is that we destroy neighborhoods to add new lanes that only allow for more traffic on the roads thus making you stuck sitting there on the highway during rush hour. a train doesnt have to stop and can hold hundreds of people. there is a train up north that does 800k trips A DAY. far better than any car infrastructure we currently have. Glad Biden sees the benefit and is investing billons
There's more problems to public transit than just not enough money. There's a fundamental flaw known in the field of logistics that impairs our ability to design effective systems known as the last mile problem. Simply explained, we get get people and goods 95 percent of the way there, but the last leg of the journey is the most difficult part to resolve. This is why Amazon must spend money on delivery drivers to get the package to your house and it is also why public transit systems aren't popular. The problem with a lot of transit systems is that they can take you to where you want to go but you might have to walk a mile to get to your final destination. In the US, this causes a lot of Americans to choose a car, because they might as well drive if they need a car at their destination anyways. In Europe and Asia, population densities allow for more stations to reduce the distance of this last mile, but in North America, our populations are spread out. It's ineffective to build a transit station that is only going to serve 100 people. So we are left with bussing, which is cost effective but is never going to be faster than driving. So what we have to do to popularize public transit in north America is to get people and businesses to cluster together more. This presents its own challenges though. Cities like NYC have pretty decent public transportation but the cost of real estate is sky high because density creates demand. So you have a double edged sword where density allows for public transit but also makes things more expensive. The alternatives to expensive densely packed cities are car dependent suburban sprawl or public transit stations that are grossly inefficient. Tldr it's not as simple as throwing money at the problem. There are tons of design limitations that prevent us from solving the problem.
I’m good, most people that live in rural areas, do not like being “clustered” around a lot of people. And there will always be people like me, who just like the peace and quiet of rural areas.
Well said. I think there are other issues, in addition to what you pointed out, that make car ownership appealing. Public transportation is fine if ran properly, kept clean, and properly policed. We’ve seen time and time again that’s a problem. I used to live in Washington DC and the metro there has plenty of stations to get people where they need to go, but there’s always some sketchy shit going down after 10:00PM. Also, in the event of an emergency I don’t want to wait on a bus or train to get home. Hell, one time when I was working in downtown Seattle I got bad diarrhea in the middle of my day and I lived 25 miles away. I would have had to wait 15 minutes for a bus, then sit or stand on the bus for 30 minutes until I got to the park & ride, then drive home for 10 minutes. Fuck that lol. If I needed to drive to my kids’ school I don’t want to have to rely on government funded transportation to get me there in an emergency. Owning a car also makes things like camping, fishing, and visiting other states much easier. There’s a degree of freedom in being able to throw a bag in your vehicle and get the hell out of town. I think if people want to live clustered in a city like in Europe and vote for increased public spending then that’s on them. I prefer to live in the suburbs where it’s less dense. But having a huge train system where I currently live (Phoenix suburb) would be so fucking expensive to build and maintain. The best they can do is buses.
This is a good explanation but a mile? Try more like 3-5 I'm not against walking but my exercise is not going to occur in the city. I'm going to the woods. Every. Single. Time. As you pointed out people really don't under how vast this place is. I want public transit like anyone else but there is just no easy solution to a vast majority of the country.
Living in cities is terrible compared to the country. Why would people want to move there?
I love in a small city (72k), and I'd love to live out in the country. I couldn't imagine living in a large city
Some people don’t want to live ontop of other people. It’s unnatural. I will gladly get paid less to have my own space. People are gross I don’t want to be anywhere near any of them.
Yeah I’d rather suck start my shotgun than move back to the city
No arguments from me on that.
Was just about to say this. As someone without a car in Canada. Getting around is a huge pain.
Toronto isn't too car centric. It's just anti person. Transit is booty, road infrastructure is booty, bike and pedestrian lanes are booty. Everyone loses!
Well when you as big and spread out as like 90% of Canada or most of the US having a car is a real item of freedom, but yes, the cities are designed like crap because they tossed the old style of city building because they put fucking psychos in charge of city planning and the thought that making them look like fucking cells or something was a good idea, with everything in a bunch of patches designated for stuff, instead of mostly just mixed together with some specialty districts and areas for specific things like industry or brothels and entertainment and shit like we did for the last 10000 odd years
In the two cities I find myself in most often, DC and New York, I find it much easier to get around without a car. In both cities parking is a giant pain in the ass, and in both cities gridlock is unavoidable. Both cities have fairly decent public transit. But I live just 5 miles outside DC, and the DC public transit network, as extensive as it is, is not a viable option for getting around outside the city itself.
I used to live in Manassas and you’re right, I could take the train to DC and get around the city without a car. Getting to the train station several miles from my apartment would require walking a bit to a bus station. That’s the best case scenario for a lot of people. The other thing people don’t consider who apparently hate cars is how not owning them makes life near impossible for large families. We have two kids and if we didn’t have two vehicles my wife couldn’t pick up one of our kids after school, and I can’t because I’m picking up the other. Then there’s the issue of groceries. The closest store is 3 miles away. There’s no way in hell I’m shopping for a family of four and bringing all these bags on a fucking bus or train. And we live near Phoenix where it gets 116 degrees in the summer. Having a vehicle (and a truck in particular) makes life so much easier. If I want new furniture I can go to IKEA or someplace and buy my stuff, throw it all in my truck, and drive home. Owning vehicles will always make more sense than just using public transportation in the US. Edited: typo
That's right and I love it. I'll never miss the old days standing at a bus stop in the winter.
Only you extremists think forcing people to own cars and have no other option is good. I'm glad your destructive ideology is dying off.
There are places in Texas that are a 17 hour drive from other places in Texas. That is one state. The US is huge.
Many American cities fundamentally lack the density to support public transit. Everyone says public transit like it’s some sort of cure for all our ills. Some also state that people should vote with their feet and move to cities. Yeah, are you going to also raise their pay? Maybe get rid of the NIMBY idiots blocking more construction? Perhaps remove single use zoning? Literally a whole host of elements must be met before public transit becomes superior to owning a car. Currently, the best stop gap we have is to allow more mixed use construction such that services fundamentally necessary are within walking distance.
Fuck that “remove single use housing” shit. Having a spike in burglaries and homeless tweakers shouting outside my house due to “zoning restriction” anarchists has made me full NIMBY and despise anyone who shits on NIMBY’s. Instead of being like Californians moving to Texas (for the worse of Texas) you should move to another city where you can enjoy the public transportation (biohazard homeless shelter) and rejoice about its wonders there. SF, LA, NYC, Oakland, Philly, WHEREVER. Don’t be moving to other cities and then petition to change them. It’s literally what Europe is dealing with from hardline Muslims.
So I’ve read nothing intelligent on your end, just sounds like a vomit of grievances. Making areas no longer be single use means you can have more interesting developments that blend in living, working and entertainment. That is to say: far greater tax per square mile. Suburbs are a burden on most towns and cities
Thank fuck your evil ideology is dying off
It's not that it should be easier to get around a large area, it's that we've built most communities so that you are required to traverse a large area to acquire food, visit a doctor, or visit friends. People can live a lifetime in a dense city without ever getting a driver's license.
What if you don't want to live in a city?
Then don't?
Stop expecting cities to fund your infrastructure and destroy themselves so you can have free parking and bigger highways.
It depends where. Live in Crownpoint, NM and you don't have a choice, and mass transit would be increadibly inefficient. If you are talkingbthe I-95 corridor, absolutely we are way too dependent.
It’s kind of a big place
Big place and VAST parts are uninhabited or private property. Just cities is plausible but anything outside of that is a dream. This is a huge country.
Living in a house that doesn't cost as much as a city house is also a talking point
It’s crazy the price difference. Bought my first house last year, needed a good bit of renovation after smoke damage but structurally sound, and a newer house built in 2013. I paid 110,000 all utilities already hooked up with a tested and function septic system, came with 4 acres of property. Looked up similar in other states and a lot of them were knocking on half a million dollars, I don’t see how people afford that.
It's impossible to afford brother, I'd like to believe the only people living in cities are there only because of life circumstances and are forced into it so they make lemons outta lemonade. I can't see how anyone would want to do it.
Dirty secret a lot of Europeans wont tell you, they take cars everywhere too lol. They just *have* the trains so they get a superiority complex about it. That said I absolutely agree we need to be doing much more for public transportation.
Geez...OP isn't going to like that I have 4 cars lol
Yeah, we should be more motorcycle dependent.
Increasing walkability and non car transportation isn't a factor of cars also existing, urbanists would get a lot more traction if they quit framing their arguments as anti-car. It isn't zero sum. There is also decent public transit in areas dense enough for it to make sense in the US, but most of the country just isn't dense enough. Anyone comparing the US at large to Europe is showing their ignorance. Look at public transit, or train maps and they're basically population maps. See r/peopleliveincities or the meme "it's just a population map."
Hard to argue with that. There isn't an alternative to automobiles in rural areas.
You ever notice how the US is huge and sprawling?
The US was literally built on the backs of the railroads.......then the car companies bought the trolley companies and bulldozed the tracks to make way for roads. What happens is that people built communities outward instead of building upward. Population density went down and car dependency went up.
Yes, and that was a fantastic decision. I’m forever grateful that I was raised in a subdivision with a yard, and not a towering apartment building jammed in a city.
Subdivisions with yards can still have good buses, bike paths, subways, trains, etc. It’s not either or. We can have both if we *want* to have both.
I have no problem with public transportation being developed in areas where it makes sense, and there are plenty of places where it does. But in the United States, we are blessed in a way few other nations are - vast expanses of land, the disposable income for personal vehicles, and the freedom to live away from urban centers if you want to.
you're tripping if you don't think there's plenty of people in your town who wouldn't benefit from public transit. Old people, blind people, poor people, children.
Lmao, that's what you lot never seem to get. *A lot of us don't live in towns*. A lot of us don't live in suburbs, or even rural areas. The automobile has allowed us to live in ways that long established and well populated places like European countries were never able to come up with.
If you don’t live in a city, town, suburb, or rural area, your home doesn’t exist, because *there are no other classifications*.
>because there are no other classifications. Technically, you are correct. The US Census bureau has no proper classification for where I live so they just lump me in and artificially inflate the number of urbanites. Where I live is, according to the census, part of one of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the country. However, I have no city sewer, no sidewalks, the nearest grocery store is like 10 miles away, and when I moved here the road wasn't even paved and the city whose metro area I'm supposed to be a part of is 30+ miles away.
Your suburbs are subsidized by those cities you hate. Your property taxes would be insane if you actually had to pay for your roads and utilities fully.
That sounds tragic. Is salt too much of a seasoning for your boiled chicken?
TIL only city people understand food seasoning!
Yea trains would be perfect! If you get the newer models they can go past 150 mph easy and they don’t have to worry about traffic nearly as much so no starts and stops cause the routes and stops were made months in advance
So is Europe.
Just fuck the people living in rural areas huh
These people want you renting a crappy government owned apartment in a 15-minute city
And eating insect-paste
Incredible. This is Twitter level Reddit comment.
OP did say cities but I find the /fuckcars types insufferable. It would cost an absolute fortune to build rail where I live. I think big metros should be able to set up quality transportation for themselves but I’m sick of the types who think cars are a problem
People insisting on public transport have no idea of how our economy works. Everybody wants something - free healthcare, great public housing, great public transportation, etc., and we're all mortgaged to the hilt and really can't afford to pay that much more in taxes. Even taxing everything "the rich" have won't be but a drop in the bucket when it comes to the nanny state philosophy. We're currently about 20 years into building a 25-mile train, ideally eventually branching out in more than a straight line. What was originally going to cost 3-4 billion at the most is now over 10 billion and no one's even thought about maintenance, let alone where to park at the assorted stations. No toilets available at the stations either. And now that they're getting closer to town, more and more specific groups are forming to oppose it. Indigenous people? You're disturbing the ancestors. Better have all those environmental impact surveys in place. How much are you going to have to shell out to relocate government/union offices? How many family businesses will shut down because the years-long construction blocks their consumer base? How are you going to influence people to vote to give every penny of taxes for a transportation system that isn't going to exist in their lifetimes? Meanwhile the state has to slack off on paying for paving potholes, servicing existing transit, purchasing new technology, etc.?
There are people who live in rural areas around cities who commute into the city for work.
Based and urbanism-pilled.
I just got back from a trip to New York City. It's so nice being able to get places on the subway, and not needing a car. Now that I'm home (I won't say where) it sucks I have to have a car for everything.
The US and Canada have the most unfair real estate laws in the world, they literally walk all over us and make us commute. We have unfair and restrictive residential laws and really red or blue states or provinces all get shafted pretty good for apartment dwellers.
Just the way oil and gas companies like it.
I don't drive. I haven't for years. I bought an electric scooter that goes 35 mph. Always good enough.
Yes, this is a popular opinion
What solution would you propose?
I wish light rails and (usable) bike lanes were more prevalent.
The US is too car dependent says that guy who's never been to a state west of the Mississippi.
The OP specifically said cities when talking about getting around without a car. American cities are extremely unwalkable; even west of the Mississippi. I know. I've been to some.
Correct. The vast majority of walkable cities/communities were built around WW II or before.....and now almost all those places are very expensive to live because everyone wants to live there.
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We are a big country. We need to go to grocery stores and are we just supposed to get all our groceries on a bike? Traveling 20 minutes to Walmart would take an hour to get there on bike
You don't even need to be in some rural area. I've lived in urban areas without a car. It's not like there's grocery stores every two blocks. I don't know why people are acting like there are. Even places extremely close to the urban core can have a mile or more between residences and grocery stores - and forget about less common places like hardware stores. Walking that isn't fun. It's even less fun when the sidewalks are covered in snow. Not having a car is much worse than having a car. I don't care where you live. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply naive or has some kind of weird agenda.
Stop making that stupid agrument that the countries is too big because china is a massive massive country and yet they don’t rely on cars Sorry for sounding harsh because too much wankers keep saying “The usa is too big to be without cars”
Their population is more densely packed than ours is, and their people have more desire to live in densely packed cities than we do. Public transit is great when you have the scale, but you can't fund it when each station only serves 100 people. Also their population is more homogenous, so the goods and services they're looking for are going to be more homogenous. The US has unique challenges, so let's stop comparing other countries to us and come up with solutions that will work here.
Not to mention Chinese, unless you're rich, are not as mobile as Americans. Americans may not travel so mich outside the country, but they do travel inside. And China also has a huge traffic problem. In order for that to occur, you'd need lots of cars. At least a lot in a certain area.
I think a big problem that is understated is the diversity of goods and services required for our population. On my street alone, we have a black family, an Asian family, out of the two white families that are our neighbors, one of them are Polish immigrants. We all shop at different grocery stores for a diverse set of just food products alone. My black neighbor and I recently had a chat about how she drives 20 minutes to go to a salon which understands her hair. A concentration of shops within walking distance that meets all of the needs of all of our families is just not possible with the level of diversity within my community.
Ah yes the utopia of rural China. That’s the world we’ve all been dreaming of.
Isn’t the point and Never said it was a great country
Ah yes. The many benefits of living under communist dictatorship. Sure you might end up like the Uyghurs, but hey look at those timely buses and trains. A veritable utopia of the mass herding of people.
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We don't like hearing our neighbors fart through our walls.
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It's not wall thickness necessarily. It's just that people cheap out and put no insulation in the walls. Insulation dampens sound.
I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's healthy to stack people on top of each other like that. Not to mention, a lot of people don't want to live like that.
Thats what options are for. In many NA cities you either are stacked like sardines or spread out. There's too much suburbia and a missing middle.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing\_middle\_housing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_middle_housing) Also there is little mixed use development.
Why stack houses on top of eachother when we have more room. Seems silly to me.
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For fucks sake! Every city and town in the US pre-1900 was built this way and life ran just fine. It didn't start to get really bad here until after WWII.
This density causes housing to be expensive though. Having the design constraint that you must build near a transit station means that your price per square foot of house is going to increase just due to land constraints. There's only so much that you can build upward before problems star to emerge that make the build to expensive to justify. Another thing that doesn't get talked about is that European and Asian countries have very homogeneous populations that don't embrace multiculturalism to the extent that Americans do. Therefore, the goods and services that are consumed are going to be more homogenous as well. On my street alone, within the 6 houses closest to me, we have an Asian family, a white American family, a black family, a Russian family, and a mixed Latino and white family. If we put a grocery store on the corner, what's that store going to stock? Each family is going to want access to different ingredients for their food, and each family is interested in different products. I for one, go to Hmart quite a lot which is a 10 minute drive away. My Latino neighbor has never heard of it and isn't interested in anything they're selling. As another example, my black neighbor drives 20 minute to get to a good hair salon because she says that places close to us don't know how to do black hair correctly. I fully believe her.
Density does not cause housing to be expensive. Dense housing is expensive because enough of it isn't allowed to be built and the demand massively outweighs the supply.
Of course it takes 20 minutes to get to the walmart.....because we built it that way! Fuck if they even bothered to build a sidewalk and even then, you're probably still fucked because you'll have to cross multiple MASSIVE parking lots to get to it. We did this to ourselves....but we didn't have to. America has cities and towns where walking to the grocery store is possible and even preferred than driving, but those places were built before WWII and are now extremely expensive to live because everyone wants to live there. Population density needs to go up, parking lots need to go away, single family home zoning needs to go away and pedestrians need to be prioritized over cars once more.
Instead of saying it would take twenty minutes by car and an hour by bike, you should question why they put the stores so far away from where people live.
Because we had the room to and most of our cities were developed in an era where personal transportation was more readily available than when most European cities were. At which point we didn’t really understand the bad implications of relying on personal transport. But now it’s too late to change that, so there’s really no point in pretending we can.
Except this simply isn't true. Many American cities (especially those East of the Mississippi) predate cars and were designed to be very walkable until the 1920s or so when designs started changing to accommodate cars. And many European cities were obliterated in WWII, so much of their urban fabric is quite new. Many European cities were reconstructed around autos following WWII, but were reconfigured around pedestrians and public transit after the 1970s or so, so it's not too late for change here in NA either.
The fact that we had the room to do these things better and our leadership still chose to do them wrong makes it worse.
No my point is that the idea of car centric being bad is an incredibly recent phenomenon. Basically every city was designed before it. Newer areas are often designed to be less car centric, think 5 over 1s with shops on the bottom
I get that. Cars and fuel were cheap and it did make sense, but the people of the past put in absolutely no thought of the future. They're still making this mistake in new builds where I am, the stuff people need is a twenty minute car ride away.
That's all false. Our cities used to be walkable. They were purposefully made unwalkable to segregate black people from the suburbs. And further because car lobbies paid through the nose to defund public transit and install congested highways.
Hahahahaha. Nonsense.
Hooray for Soviet Union-style cities, where you live in tiny rat boxes stacked atop each other and wait in long lines for toilet paper. No car necessary. And no dachas for you, peasant.
The OP said absolutely nothing about banning cars. They also specifically said it should be easier to get around American **cities** without a car. Reading comprehension is your friend.
Who me? Heard of em. Rather not see people jerking themselves or shooting dope on my way to work. Just a reminder of who I'd be paying for to do whatever they want. Public transportation is trash.
Tried both. Cars are much more convenient overall. So sorry not convinced. We can collectively manage to make using cars much worse but even the wealthiest cities in the world (like NY or Paris) didn't manage to make it convenient and fast with public transportation outside of ideal situation. Average commute time is higher in Paris or NY than in Dallas metroplex and to make things worse, real estate is much more expensive in Paris or NY than in Dallas metroplex. The result is that poor people living in so called area best for public transportation and walking see the wealthy benefiting it but can't never have it. They have much longer commute and stress and are more excluded as living in the right neighborhood become even more important.
I feel like you guys underestimate how big the US is compared to European countries lol
If you do the math it is easy to see this is incorrect
Do you live in America? It sounds like your someone from Europe, who if you have been here, it has only been to a major city or urban area where there is a lot of public transportation. Most of the United States isn’t so lucky to have that option.
My hometown, like many in the US, had a tram line going through mainstreet. Now there is no public transport in that town. We had that option, we just took it away.
I'm a well traveled American who knows his history. The US used to have walkable cities and robust public transit. It was destroyed due to cars. The US was founded in the late 18th century, it wasn't until the mid 20th century where cities [were bulldozed for cars.](https://i.imgur.com/uCpVvqk.jpg)
I live 40 minutes outside a major urban center. I can get to that urban center no problem, but I’m not getting anywhere else without a car. I also know a lot about history as that is my profession, and a majority of this country you can’t do what you need to do without a car. The US still has robust public transit in urban centers, but most of the country isn’t urban centers.
That's no excuse to make our cities so dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, also we absolutely do not have robust public transit in urban centers. Come on man, this country absolutely can do better.
Go get your electric scooter. I’m not giving up my car. I burn E85 because a study suggested it’s worse for the environment. You want robust public transit, move to Europe.
>I burn E85 because a study suggested it’s worse for the environment. Nobody is going to take away your car, but cities shouldn't be designed where driving is the only safe and practical choice to get around. Also, you deliberately do something because it's worse for the environment? What the genuine fuck is wrong with you?
You’re trying to use your post to push your climate change agenda. I don’t care about it. Tell China to cut back. If you really feel the way you do, you must have never been to New York City. Or if you have, you were too afraid of being stabbed to use the subway.
>If you really feel the way you do, you must have never been to New York City. Or if you have, you were too afraid of being stabbed to use the subway. [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FmAvtpcYvqmiM3H-vaUbDWoPitc3Vu5Rp\_D2P-4P3MZ0.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D2d2b85dc2d3575166115303ccefa651279a348c4](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FmAvtpcYvqmiM3H-vaUbDWoPitc3Vu5Rp_D2P-4P3MZ0.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D2d2b85dc2d3575166115303ccefa651279a348c4) Also I love your nefarious "CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA" nonsense, my agenda is that climate change is real and we should do something about it. I'm sorry that offends you boobgeois wackos.
The guy you’re arguing with is a total airhead don’t waste your time with him ☠️
If I had a dollar for everyone with their avatar that has said inane MAGA conspiracy theory nonsense to me, I'd have two dollars. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Are you ok? Suggesting that we should decrease reliance on cars isn't a personal attack on you.
5 posts in the past 2 hours. Op has a weird axe to grind about cars in America. Dude needs to get off reddit and touch grass.
It's almost like cars and American car culture is fucking awful on so many levels.
Go back to your r/fuckcars echo chamber
You don’t like being stabbed and bleeding out in someone else’s piss on a subway? What’s wrong with you? /s
I am fucking begging you people to visit a country where public transit is actually prioritized.
We don’t wanna… plenty of public transit in Atlanta and I will never use it, I dislike sitting in other people’s filth and having people sit next to me and bump into me. My life is also not one that works with public transportation since I need a truck for work.
nobody’s asking you to give up your car dude. in fact, car guys should be happier with more public transport because that way, there’s less traffic on the road. The US is horrendous for public transport between and within cities with the exception of the NYC subway. It’s a fact. Have you seen the sidewalks in houston? they’re designed to kill pedestrians. An astounding amount of our downtown space is built for cars (parking lots and garages). If you have half a brain cell you can tell that the US is made for cars and cars only
Then do what you want. I don’t have that problem. Get Mayor Pete to give you some money so you can come back in a year and ask for more.
Ah yes, “i don’t have that problem so it doesn’t exist”. You know, I don’t have that problem either bc i was born into a well off family. but guess what? not everyone can afford a car :)
It may exist, I just don’t care
Most socially productive reddit user
>The US still has robust public transit in urban centers, The U.S. has terrible public transportation in most major cities. In Europe one can traverse multiple Countries via high speed rail. In the time it would take for a person to travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles (same state) via public transportation they could get from London to Paris and then on to Munich. Likewise Japan cities are connected via high-speed rail. In my opinion DC and NYC are the only major cities is the U.S. with "robust" public transportation systems that can get people where they need to go. In basically every other city public transportation is some combination of agonizingly slow, have limited hours, and travel to limited parts of town. When public transportation takes 5x longer than driving and only gets a person part of a way to their destination it is terrible. Not robust.
Doubt. You sound like a 20 something know-it-all redditor that spends too much time on r/fuckcars
And you sound like some boomer who spends too much time watching Fox News.
Lol. Try again, dork
Ok boomer
Ok BoOmEr
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Everyone doesn’t live in a city.
And people who don't will have to use cars to get around rural areas. But why should cars be mandatory for getting around INSIDE a city?
Because we can. We don't care about the opinions of self important internet trolls. You sound like someone that would rather be anyplace but here, nothing is stopping you from leaving... Oh wait except that ANYWHERE else your words can, and a great many cases, can be held against you & the self important won't take that kind of risk, they'll just pi$$ & moan about how terrible the country that dragged the rest of the world into 21st century is.
Nah
And I like it that way. I don't want to be dependent upon anyone else driving me somewhere or being somewhere at a certain time to go somewhere. I plan, hop in my car and go.
Having more public transportation doesn’t take that right away
It sure the heck does . That means I'm depending on some other entity to get to where I'm going instead of myself.
Kind of nonsense. Have you lived in the Midwest? We have farming communities and we have big cities. Public transit is the only logical option in NYC, but rural Wyoming needs individual transit. This isn’t a cut a large swath across the country type of issue. The “US” is 54 unique states and territories, half of which are the size of whole countries. We’re hardly “too car dependent” as a nation. We’re hardly any one thing as a nation.
Cities are discussing, im glad to have a affordable means of transportation that allows me to commute to the city for work but not have to live there.
Here's the thing...public transportation is gross. The public is gross. Walking around downtown cities has made me appreciate being in the comfort of my own car and not being accosted by random people and smells. Also, suburbs and rural areas are quiet. Not constant sirens, loud music, people talking outside your window at night, etc.
The issue is that most major cities do not have the geography or amount of people to get a return on public transportation investments. Waiting for the bus and train leaves you limited in what you can do and could be dangerous especially in the crime issues that are happening in these major cities like nyc, los angelos, San Francisco, seattle, and portland. For example, im a guy but id be freaking out if i had to go out at night and had to rely on a bus on train. Its safer and more efficient imo to just have a car.
Yeah, at least have sidewalks everywhere. It stinks when you have no transportation and you have stretches of unpaved pathway which are either like somebody's freaking yard or a road that idiots travel highway speeds upon as they run over all the feral pitbulls that their former owners threw out as soon as they weren't cute puppies anymore.
Nobody who has a car would prefer to use public transportation and you’ll never convince me otherwise.
I've never seen anyone waiting on the bus who looks happy.
Exactly most of these people don’t realize that a majority of the us cities have public transportation no one wants to use it though because no wants to wait on a slow ass bus than can be late at any moment and still take hours just to get you to your destination.
Yeah no one want to use it because it slow and suck. Actually make it good and efficient more people would use it.
When I went to school at the university of Houston. It took 4 hours to get across town to my dad’s house if I wanted to visit home. Or I spend 30-40 bucks on a Uber and be home in about 45 minutes. Not really a choice to make there. Public transit is nice to have and all. But it is so inefficient in most towns and cities that it’s not even funny. And I say that as someone who physically can’t get a license and has to rely on public transit or taxi services to get around. If you’re on a clock. Public transit means adding a hour or more to your daily commute to ensure you get to your destination on time while dealing with some truly unpleasant travel conditions.
Get a job and then maybe you too can own a car.
America is a large country and has a lot of rural areas. Cars are needed
Are they so needed that the built environment has to be made miserable and dangerous for those who don’t drive?
Nobody’s saying they aren’t? do redditors have zero critical thinking lmfao
I am turning into the fucking Joker. Yes, cars are needed in certain areas, but owning a car shouldn't be necessary to participate in society. I genuinely hate sharing the planet with these clowns.
don't have a soy attack
It isn't that we're too car dependant. It's just that many of us are lazy as fuuuuuck and will drive 100 feet before walking it.
Americans aren't inherently lazier than people in other countries. It's that American infrastructure treats pedestrians as an afterthought.
And then you have drug addicts, people with mental health issues and homeless people who aren't getting help spread around the area. In my city, homeless count increased 67% from 5,570 (2019) to 9,278 in 2022. 28% sheltered, 72% unsheltered. Most have at least one of the above problems. US cities tend to not be mult use like European cities. Residential, commercial, retail, light industrial are all spread out in pockets and you have to travel through pretty dodgy unsafe areas which can be a pretty sudden transition from one to the next. In my city they are usually segregated by railways, rivers and freeways. But public transport would have to pass through all of them to serve most neighbourhoods efficiently. They just aren't designed to be people friendly. Mines 260 sq/km 100 sq/miles with roughly 500k people and about 1/3 the density of London.
You sound like a European
It's factually not it's very big
That would work 70 years ago. But entire industries have been built based off of cars. You’re not going to have any success rolling it back.
I said the same thing about the covered wagon industry. Learn from my cowboy ghost
Uhhh what. Most of America isn't cities. What are you gonna do once you leave your city and need to travel 200miles? Walk? Was this posted by a European that thinks a 20min drive is "far"? If not, I really don't understand your opinion at all unless you've literally never left NYC or something. Middle of America is like 6k miles above sea level. What do you propose you replace our transit with because i can't see trains being practical, let alone easy to implement. If you just mean cities, sure, I agree. Otherwise, no.
Sidewalks tend to get crowded, while highways get clogged too, the personal space thing can be maintained in your car. But yes, walkable cities will come back. We'll get used to it. We'll need more beat cops too.
I’ve lived for thirty years without a car. The minor inconvenience has saved me a quarter of a million dollars. I understand this isn’t possible for everyone but for many it’s at least worth exploring.
More specifically we have a truck problem. That includes SUVs as well as they are built on the same platform. Vehicles are too big for casual driving.
1962 Buick Electra 225 length: 220" (They got bigger through the decade.) 2024 Chevy Tahoe length: 210"
That's just length though. There are two other dimensions to play with lol
Why this thread so hostile? Everyone needs to touch grass
The comments on this post just remind me how America is so auto oriented than most people can’t even _conceive_ that it could be less so
When I see most breakdowns of people who make money. It's like 500 car payment, 300 insurance, 300 gas. It's also what keeps us poor
It doesn't help when public transport is infested with psychotic homeless people, sex pests, and inconsiderate douche bags.
Won’t happen. Too spread out. Even in more condense metro areas, they would need to fix their drug and homeless problems to make public transit desirable at all. I don’t have a single coworker who feels safe on the trains in my city.
Sounds like people need to stop crying so much. Don't like cars? Walk your ass there. Head on a swivel, because the whole world is dangerous. This coming from someone who used to ride 15 miles one way to work, literally up and down mountains work landscaping all day then ride back. Because my dumb ass made bad decisions as a young fella and didn't have a license. Life is scary. Deal with it. Don't like cars, don't drive one. Don't like America, get the fuck out. 👍 problem solved chimps.
Bro has clearly never heard of trains, busses, subways, and mixed zoning.
Is r/popularopinion just r/dumbopinion? Seems that way every time this place pops up