• GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I wish. The US is endlessly far behind on public transportation.

    Talking to my own family members around the US, they only have eyes for their enormous gas guzzler pickup trucks that they use to run to the grocery store down the street.

    • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      We don’t need public transportation, we have something better, personal transportation… We also have a robust network for air travel that will take you anywhere in the country in a few hours.

      • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        You can have both. Europe has a great mix. So awesome to have the option to take the train or bus. They also have awesome road infrastructure in most places. Try comparing an American freeway to a German freeway. You feel like you’re in a third world country when you come back to the roads in the States.

      • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Personal transportation is extremely inefficient. You need to pay a bunch of money for something, in order to get around, and it is always space inefficient, bad for the environment and encouraged parking lot creation over housing.

        • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          It literally takes me exactly where I am going using the shortest possible route, no detours, stops or transfers, in the shortest possible time (excluding jetpacks or helicopters), that is peak efficiency of a mode of transportation.

          • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            You’re missing price. Compare your trip to Public transit costs, and include infrastructure costs. You had to pay for your vehicle, your car insurance (which in the US there are irresponsibly low legal minimums), registration, gas, and also taxes for the infrastructure, to get yourself somewhere which takes up more room than needed (usually several times more room than a combination lf walking and public transit). Public transit only requires fare pricing, along with infrastructure, which is significantly cheaper per person due to more efficient use of space.

            Compare many European metro cities to the US, and you’ll notice their public transit is more convenient (in the characteristics you have pointed out) because we decided to shut ourselves in the foot as a country and forced everyone to have to get a car payment, while making public transit bad.

            Of course, public transit isn’t convenient for every area, such as rural towns in which personal vehicles are a better solution, but we have many cities where there should be significantly better public transit.

          • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            shortest possible route

            No. That would be a straight line like a train.

            no detours, stops

            Lmao. Whatever. Don’t stop, genius.

            the shortest possible time

            That would be high speed rail.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          And even better! All this got rid of those pesky winters

          And replaced it with an extended hurricane season.

      • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        People driving around in personal tanks is not “something better”.

        It’s dumb, privileged, unsustainable, unhealthy, violent, and literally destroying the planet.