c/fuckcars
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Fuck cars is nothing but city dwellers that think their lifestyle is scalable to suburbs or the sticks.
I definitely want a more expansive public transportation system out here in the foot hills. A high-speed rail network to connect us to other parts of the state would be awesome. But it isn't feasible to get rid of all cars completely. A single parent out here can't be expected to make multiple bike trips for the equivalent of one grocery store run, up and down hills to feed multiple children and work a full time job. Some people out here live on roads where cars can barely drive on let alone a bus. edit: typo
What a dumb community. I'd be fucked without my car, so you're going to disparage me for using one? Sorry I don't live in fantasy land where public transport is readily available.
I'd be fucked without my car
And that's exactly the point of this community. We don't want you to just stop using your car. We want you to have the choice to stop using the car. We hate the fact that car-centered infrastructure led to the point where you can't go anywhere without a car.
This is an issue because first of all, cars are the thing that makes traffic as dangerous as it is for pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers. Secondly they create traffic jams and everyone hates those. Thirdly, something something CO2 something something climate change, you know the jazz. Fourthly, not everyone can afford a car, driving lessons to get a licence, petrol and car insurance.
I could keep going but I hope you see why infrastructure more centered around pedestrians, cyclists and public transport could lead to safer and quicker traffic, cleaner air, lower emissions and more freedom for those who can't afford it.
Yes fantasy world of most of the other developed nations. Even some under developed ones
Fuck cars refers to what they caused with car centric infrastructure. The lobbying that reduced that "fantasy" of public transport to rubble. It's advocating for people centric cities.
At least check what is about before getting offended.
These days people get offended for even the tiniest thing lol
The man in the car has to be at work at 8AM. He has a 15-minute commute, so he can leave at 7:40 to give himself a bit of extra time to get there. At 12:30, he gets a call that his mother is in critical condition in the hospital. He leaves immediately, drives 30 minutes to the hospital the next town over, and is there to say his last goodbye before she passes away.
A man on the bus has to be at work at 8AM. The bus runs hourly with the scheduled pickup being x:20. Normally, it takes 30 minutes to reach his stop and another 10 minutes to walk, but sometimes the bus runs 10-15 minutes late, so he has to take the 6:20 bus to make sure he can get there on time. At 12:30, he gets a call that his mother is in critical condition in the hospital. The man pulls up Google Maps to find the quickest bus route to the hospital, runs to the bus stop in 5 minutes, and waits another 10 minutes for the bus to arrive. Unfortunately, this stop does not have a direct route to the hospital, so he must ride the bus for 10 minutes and make a connection to another bus at a different stop. On the way there, the first bus stops in front of a retirement community, and 10 elderly passengers spend a good 5 minutes fumbling through pocketbooks for bus fare because they don't understand how to use the newfangled reloadable transit cards. One elderly man gets violent because he has no change and the bus driver won't take a check, so he has to be removed from the bus. The man gets off at his first stop and sprints across the block to his next bus stop, but he realizes that he has unfortunately arrived late, and the second bus he had to catch just left. The bus runs hourly and this city is too small for there to be an abundance of taxis, so his options are either to wait an hour for the next bus or to call an Uber. The man opens his Uber app and, after 5 minutes, it matches him to a driver. The man waits around, watching the map as the Uber driver circles around the city for a bit, before eventually that driver drops and he is connected to a different driver. Another 5 minutes pass, the Uber driver arrives, and the man is now in a car on the way to the hospital. A 20-minute drive later, the man is now at the hospital, but his mother has just passed away before he had the chance to say goodbye.
This is why people drive.
The only perfect solution: cycling
I take the bus to work almost every day. I have a choice of three bus routes that work for me, one of which runs every 15 minutes. The one I take runs every 30. The only time they have been behind schedule was during a blizzard, but I got an alert on my phone about it.
No one has ever slowed down everyone else while fumbling for change because the busses are fare-free.
Public transportation can work, but we have spent the last 80 years developing a culture of individual car ownership so that we haven't prioritized making public transportation that works for the people.
So the model only works if you have a large number of free (at point of service) buses which go between everywhere anyone may want to start to anywhere they may want to go?
I lived in a larger city and for me it is normal to switch trains or busses a few times when i travel from a to b. But because they made a relatively smart system changing is in most cases fast.
Like trains meeting up at a station and people can simply walk to the other side to get the other train.
So it does not need all possible solutions, it needs a few that work well together.
What about the women and children? Did they have to walk?
Up to 1989 british women and children weren't issued a bus loicence
No They have to run
I transported them. I transported them all. Every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children, too. They’re like passengers, and I transported them like passengers! I LOVE THEM!
bus
That was unexpectedly wholesome.