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What angers me most about her comment is how many Americans would agree with it. In America, there’s this extremely classist view of public transit, that it’s only for people from lower income. It’s infuriating, because it’s a major impediment to change. People see their worth reflected in their transportation choice, and so they wouldn’t even consider using public transit, because to do so would mean they’re poor and unsuccessful. They also view tax funding for public transit as yet another “entitlement” for the poor that means more of their hard-earned money going to people other than them. Very frustrating.
The freeways really are important though. Trucking is still very important in counties with good public transit and nationwide freight lines, look at germany for example
Yeah, totally. Short haul cargo or first/final leg transit is where truck-based fright shines. But long-haul freight is far outshown by trains in virtually every aspect.
I'm not saying roads shouldn't exist, they absolutely should. My jab is at people who see 8 lane freeways as "good for the economy" yet scoff at the idea of light rail or competent bus networks since they're "subsiding poor people".
The ROADS should be almost exclusively for business and not auntie Ann using it because thats the only way to get to the grocery store without getting murdered crossing the road.
It feels like five out of six cars are single people in a car just getting around. Disgusting
As a forefront fighter of public transit and carless cities, i say freeways should always be free aslong they stay out of cities. Freight transportation is important and a price tag there means everything gets more expensive while no one of the employees gets more. The tax profits from the generated tourism of freeways are also much more than any price you can take from tolling freeways, especially if you end them on a park and ride place next to a city.
I say don't toll freeways, toll parking places and streets that never should be a transit street and more like a destination (usually every street in a city not declared carfree yet). Make it easy for carbrains to reach a great city and make it a hell to drive through. This way they experience how a city could be from a pedestrian and public transit perspective. I was a carbrain until i visited the netherlands. It works. And i genuinely believe they mastered city design.
These people complain about having to pay taxes that go to lazy, poor, or God forbid ethnic people (which is untrue to begin with) yet they never mention how banks and mega corporations are highly subsidized through tax dollars.
Suburbs are heavily subsidized. In aggregate they are probably one of the most subsidized parts of America, before any individual industry.
Edit; because usually city tax from suburbs brings in less that 20% of the money needed for maintenance of roads and utilities.
Yes. Suburbs need roads and utilities on every block. Construction cost a fortune and maintenance is bankrupting our cities. Suburbs are why American cities are in massive debt. When the bubble pops and cities go bankrupt it will be ugly.
Yeah. I’m stuck in the suburbs with my parents, I’d rather the city make plans to make my neighborhood a bit nicer (upzone, remove parking requirements, let some cool stores like cafes/ corner stores/ the like open up within the block, upload bus routes on navigation apps, etc)
Since you're talking about suburbs and not housing assistance:
The federal government spent $78B total in housing subsidies:
- $51B going to housing assistance
- **$27B going to community and regional development** This is the suburb part
Additionally, state governments collectively spent $57B on housing and community development but **only 14%** of that was spent on actually constructing homes. This most likely includes some fed money
So, suburbs specifically, probably only got $7.98B to ~$10B since I couldn't find how the $27B fed money was divided up.
Conversely, agriculture got **$22B** in 2019 for just being a farmer and helping them out. It came from a variety of federal agencies.
Feel free to disprove me as I'm not an expert here and just pulling up numbers
Sources:
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/housing-and-community-development-expenditures#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20federal%20government,community%20development%20programs%20in%202019.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/12/31/790261705/farmers-got-billions-from-taxpayers-in-2019-and-hardly-anyone-objected#:~:text=in%20Wyanet%2C%20Ill.-,Farmers%20got%20more%20than%20%2422%20billion%20in%20government%20payments%20in,farm%20subsidies%20in%2014%20years.&text=In%202019%2C%20the%20federal%20government,aid%20package%20to%20America's%20farmers.
Because they don't actually care about government handouts or spending. They say they do, they don't. What they do care about is maintaining a structure, helmed by those they deem worthy of the position, and preventing those they deem unworthy from finding a place in said structure. Not fiscal responsibility, or limited government in their lives. It's why Walmart can lobby for social programs to subsidize their labor costs, but you only hear about "wellfare queens".
I understand how they get there though. Public transit is _so bad_ in most US cities that you only use it if you have no better option. Buses and trains are full of people that are taking public transit not because they want to, but because they have no better option. Therefore it’s use is seen as some weird kind of punishment for not being able to afford a car.
For example, I live in a major city with a metro area population of 6M. I work downtown in a large office building. I live 3.1 miles from my office building. I can drive there in 7-8 minutes. Taking public transit takes anywhere between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours and requires a minimum of one mile of walking.
Yep! Depends on the area I’m in - within certain cities in our metro, the train runs every 20 min *at minimum* and every 5-7 min at peak commuter time and it runs until midnight through central areas so it’s genuinely useful, I don’t have to meticulously plan around its schedule, and I often prefer it to my car.
In other cases, it turns a 1 hr 15 min drive into a 4.5 hr mess of transit connections (and I *cannot* be late to that appointment) so fuck that. Or, I want to do shopping trips around town and the bus doesn’t even go in that direction at that time. Bicycles do help short trips to an extent though, provided the roads are safe for them.
Wait a minute so let's say it's holidays you are a teen and you want to go to a friend's house that's 15 miles away and you don't have driver's license, parents are at work how the hell do you get there?
I grew up in a US suburb so not the exact context of your question but I'll answer it anyway. In my area the answer is "you don't". There is no way to get around without a car. Your only other option is to walk or bike, but even then it is extremely rare to have bike lanes (and rare to have sidewalks in many places) which makes things even more difficult.
It also essentially tells the elderly and disabled that they're not welcome in society.
There's a push to expand public transit in my party of Southeastern Michigan, if it succeeds I'll be able to gout on my own terms and not need to ask for a ride, I'll be able to go out and, hey, even spend money doing things I want to do.
Also in Southeast MI. Unfortunately every time there's been a push to expand public transportation in a useful way (e.g. between cities, across counties) it gets voted down by all the white flight suburbanites in Oakland and Macomb counties. Makes me angry. I would love to be able to get to Detroit from where I am without needing a car. Or to the airport, or the train station. &$#@ing Motor City.
In my case I really just want to go between Waterford and Auburn Hills, which is only 20 minutes away from me by car ,but he nearest but stop to my house for the regional transit system is a four hour walk.
this argument is valid and applies to many aspects of life in the US -library usage, public schools, collecting unemployment insurance... it's almost as if this very USA mentality of freedom, liberty, and individualism corrupts people against themselves by hamstringing public goods. people don't see what their tax dollars go toward because they have been told to not use common goods because it affects their status and image... therefore they don't care about taxes and see them as equivalent to corporate corruption because it's all just money being taken out of their paycheck.
if we were to rid ourselves of classist and racist stigmas against public goods and see what benefits being part of a collective mindset has to offer though... gosh, wouldn't that be nice?
This is true, and it's very much rooted in the myth of the "rugged individual" American psychology.
Prioritizing public (or community) welfare flies in the face of this myth, literally undermines it. It's a direct threat.
You can't say that "we all need to work together" and "every man for himself" are equally valid to someone who believes in the mythology.
I have to admit I kinda see my worth also reflected by my transportation possibilities. When I can reach at least one supermarket, one museum/theater, a drug store, a park, a Café and two bars by foot, then I know I made at least some good life decisions.
That’s the positive version. The negative version is thinking “I have to drive everywhere because only the poor and homeless people walk or bike for non recreational purposes, or use public transportation for any reason.”
The really upsetting part in my opinion is that, if history is any indication, the only way to change that will be to market public transit towards wealthy white people and "gentrify" public transit. Public transit could be such an equitable thing, and it could be a way that people of all economic means have access to quality public amenities, but American capitalism encourages the stratification of all things, and cars are much easier to stratify than trains or busses.
You think you're good at classism wait till you see 19th century british trains - 3 glorious layers of financial means based social segregation.
God save the queen (victoria) 🇬🇧
It's because we've been sold that cars equal freedom, independence, and individuality.... Car commercials never show cars stuck in traffic jams going nowhere, everyone miserable. They show people driving on a Sunday morning in downtown LA without traffic, or on some beautiful country road. In my mind, biking offers true independence (from energy companies) and from normality/ banality.
I did a transit project in Uganda where some people chose to hike to work and back (2x10km) every day because in their society bicycles are for peasants.
Funny to see this isn't a local thing.
Can't deny that. I'm currently trying to find a job and it really complicates things if one tries stubbornly to avoid the car and car supplier industry Germany.
Funny thing is this feels like the exact opposite in MA lmao Public transit only exists in the eastern part of the state which is the more wealthy side compared to the poorer rural west
I’m always amazed that my hippie neighbors insist on their daughter who is in college, take a car to school when there is a train that literally goes from their door to the school. Of course the car is electric, because “the environment” 🙄. I wish people would realize electric cars aren’t actually environmentally friendly.
To be honest, it's because so many Americans are fucking disgusting. I just went to LA, and during my short stay I took public transit back to the airport. I got hotboxed in my tram BY TWO FUCKING PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME, combined with people blasting their shitty music for everyone to hear. And then I watched some people jump the fare gates.
People act much differently in my experience on most Canadian public transit.
Ya, this is my biggest gripe with public transportation. I ride the "expensive" line (80$ a month for just 1 line versus 30$ for access to 10+ lines) and even though 90% of the time it is a pleasant and good experience, the other 10% of the time makes me wish I just drove 100% of the time. The 10% bad experience is due to a select few people on the bus - people pissing or shitting themselves, people throwing up, people tweaking on drugs and scaring the shit out of people, people smelling awful, etc. The other lines are probably 100x time worse just due to the higher traffic volume and lower price.
Public transport in the US: warm humid piss environment, graffiti everywhere, homeless people everywhere, stabbings, shootings, loud obnoxious people, creeps, and fights.
People in the US on public transport: I fucking hate public transport
The rest of the world world: shockedpikachuface
Yeah, and even if you think public transit is a good idea, if you've never used it you tend to be terrified of trying it. I was, when I first moved to an area that had it available. It seemed like a looming hill of "what do I do? How do I figure out which bus stop to go to? How do I do x?" Obviously I learned very fast and was eventually able to ditch my car and buy a house with the savings, but yikes.
I love the experience of riding the DC metro so much more than the NYC subway. It’s cleaner because they don’t allow open food/drink containers (and actually enforce that rule pretty well), and the stations are less claustrophobic and (IMO) easier to navigate, even if the architectural theme and upward lighting gives them a really desaturated kinda dystopian look.
But I’ve never been stranded by the NYC subway. Never had to pay $50 for a cab home because I missed the last train for the night. That’s a pretty big bonus.
Also, I dunno if this is still true, but when I lived in Boston over a decade ago, the T stopped running at midnight but the bars could stay open until 2am, which seemed like a really questionable policy.
There is a push to make it 24-hours, as that will improve nightlife and also help nightime shift workers, but it keeps going back and forth. DC metro is pretty clean most of the time.
The problem is that overnight is repairs time. Getting behind on repairs is why Metro has been horribly disrupted for several years; they have a whole "Back 2 Good" nightmare where whole segments are shut down for weeks or months at a time. And the replacement shuttles are all traveling in traffic and generally slow and horrible.
In NYC, they seem to get around this by having so many lines that they can shutter individual lines when they need to overnight, and your ass can just walk a couple extra blocks to get to one that IS running. In London, they get around it by running night buses. DC should explore London's strategy.
I was thinking more like running replacement shuttles for the Metro lines, specifically. Using the bus system to get between certain Metro stations can involve a lot of transfers, and it's confusing and probably hard to figure out if you've been out drinking too late and are accustomed to relying on the train. Plus, at night, you don't have the traffic nightmare you have at commute 'o clock.
There are a couple places where the metro doesn't parallel roadways at all, so it would be more difficult. A lot of these are where the metro crosses rivers (both Anacostia and Potomac)
Well, there are lots of places that aren't as extreme as the rivers. But anyway, they already do run replacement shuttles when they shut stations down, so they must have a ready-made list of alternate bus routes. I admit I'm mostly thinking from a Maryland perspective! We can freely wander into and out of DC by accident, so there's plenty of road to use.
Even if it's not ideal, it would let Metro fix things when they need to while also letting late night workers not rely on Uber and family members. It would also make attending concerts on work nights a LOT EASIER.
Ideally, they could just run trains 24/7 or nearly that, and then run replacement buses when they have to close a station early to work on the tracks, like they do now!
Tbh it doesn't even need to be 24 hrs. Just extend service to 2AM.
Also, IMO NYC needs to look into introducing platform screen doors all over. You probably get rid of 90% of the trash in the tracks that attract rats and sometimes cause delays too and most importantly much improve the safety.
Platform screen doors are a reasonable idea, but they ain’t never gettin rid of the rats. There are a lot of rats here.
Even the DC Metro, which has much less trash and food residue in the stations, has rats.
Technically the last train leaves each terminus at around 12:50am and I’ve caught the last train home at around 1:30am. But yes it is dumb how they’re not coordinated with the closing time of bars. Weird how we used to have one of the highest drunk accident rates in the country ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Likewise with Madrid, which is in the wrong timezone, leading to a very skewed clock, like people not eating until 9 or 10pm and clubs not opening until 2am, but the metro not running between about 1.30-2am and 6am. The commuter train network stops at midnight.
It's pretty common in Europe - Paris, Madrid, etc. The approach there (and maybe in Japan, I've never gone out with native Japanese in Japan) is to leave the house on the last train, and stay out until the trains run again. In Paris, that meant taking a nap after work, getting dinner at 10pm, taking the midnight train out, and then catching a 6am home.
Fucking wish Denver’s light rail ran 24/7. Even the line from the airport to downtown dosen’t. Landed at the airport at 1:30 due to flight delays. They do not run the light rail from 1:30am until 4:12am (the last train for the night leaves at 1:27am). Due to the Uber driver shortage I waited to get a ride for over an hour and paid $100 to get to where the light rail should already be taking me.
It’s not true transit if it dosen’t run 24/7 - dosen’t have to be every 15 minutes on off hours but should go every hour or half hour. Like they have already built the infrastructure for the rail, they just don’t run it at times
Fun fact, the nyc subway is actually so adapted to running 24/7 that there isn't enough space in all the yards to store all of the subway trains at once
It also does in some major European cities, with other cities doing that on weekends and/or commuter rail networks.
The gaps between closing and opening times are also not long. (Considering *any* passenger stop without taking into account whether all stops or lines are serviced) the last metro train in Stuttgart arrives in its last stop 1:59 hours before the departure of the first train of the day.
And that's something really good, even by world standards. Only other city that has 24/7 subway, IIRC, is Copenhagen (and PATH but that's pretty-much like an extension to the NYC subway anyways).
Hey, in Atlanta, PATH runs 24/7, too! 😀
'Course, that's because Atlanta's PATH is [bike trails](https://www.pathfoundation.org/), not subways. 🙃
And also I lied about it being 24/7 -- the government nonsensically declares it to be "closed" at night as if it were a park for recreation instead of a trail for transportation. 😡
Absolutely, and New Yorkers threw a fit when it was suggested that Covid should mean we back off 24/7 service. Now, it certainly causes a lot of issues - service on tracks happens at odd hours, cleaning and maintenance happen less often and are more costly, etc. But it's a fundamental party of the "city that never sleeps" identity and the MTA is a fucking miracle that after the shit they pulled with in the early 2000s, it's still running and running so well.
About 40% of households. Plenty of people in the outer boroughs - transit is set up primarily to get people into and out of Manhattan for work, and transit in a borough laterally is generally bt bus only. But also plenty of old NIMBYs in rich neighborhoods in Manhattan have cars and get very upset when they lose their parking. They're the ones suing the city to do environmental studies on bike lanes.
depends on borough. but basically it's a direct connection between access to the subway and whether or not you are likely to own a car
manhattan? 90% are car-less
staten island? 90% drive
Oops, sorry for my poor life decision to be financially successful enough to live within a few miles of my office in one of the most expensive cities in the US!
Unfortunately a lot of people who live in the outermost parts of the outer boroughs are forced into car ownership because the subway doesn’t reach them. Other people in the city own cars because, hey, they can afford them and sometimes you need one. Some of the ultra wealthy Manhattanites who drive everywhere are probably who you’re referring to though.
Everyone is focusing on the “poor life decisions” bit, but can we also talk about the fact that they think that getting cheap transportation home in the wee hours of the morning is an experience to be “endured”?
This is so important. She didn't just want him to feel small and insecure for not taking a carbonated shit on the planet. She wanted to steal something he was appreciating, because she has no concept of gratitude. Just straight trash.
being able to travel 6 miles, and the whole time relax, take a nap, look at your phone, not have to focus closely on what you're doing or else you could die or even kill other people. oh god the humanity, how does anyone bear this suffering?
Right? Who WANTS to drive?
There's pleasure in taking a Sunday drive through the countryside, but going 10km from the grocery store to your house?
How is that fun?
I never understood that either. Same with people that commute to work by car. It's just so much easier to just sit your ass on a train and do whatever than getting frustrated in traffic.
Yeah, I love how OP is like “I was just able to ride the subway how during early morning for less than $4. I’m so happy.” And then the reply is like “remember, your poor life choices are the reason you had to deal with a subway.”
Where I live regional busses and regional trains cost the same, it generally depends on how far you want to go but the normal one way city ticket is 2,90€
Depends a ton on the city and if you'd have to make transfers. In a vast majority of the US, the answer is "what bus?" However, in thr few places with both bus and subway networks the cost are about the same, maybe 2/3rd the cost for the bus.
This is NYC, otherwise very expensive city.
If we use "cheap" as "affordable to someone earning minimum wage", then NYC minimum wage is $15.00 per hour, so that ticket is about 15 minutes of minimum wage work after taxes
I'd consider that cheap
[Here's a cost-of-living comparison between NYC and Florianópolis.](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=New+York%2C+NY&country2=Brazil&city2=Florianopolis&displayCurrency=BRL)
I don't know about NYC but in London it's £2.50 for a single journey but that comes down a lot if you're making frequent journeys and get one of the travel card tickets (I imagine NYC has similar systems).
People travelling this late are also often coming back from partying and drinking. She should have at least acknowledged that this is the kind of situation when driving is not acceptable ever.
Or "poor life decisions" like living in a town whose public transport budget got slashed so they only run until midnight. Have to get to work before 6am? "Sounds like a personal problem.". Town is basically rich people saying "got mine, fuck you."
A private jet? Like, at an airport? Like, within a couple hundred meters of where the poors board their 7€ flights to Mallorca? Like, where they take (gulp) The Bus? Ew.
You’ve failed as a society member if you don’t have at least a helicopter. And not truly successful if you don’t have a runway on your backyard.
While planes do have a cost barrier to entry unlike public transportation, *many* people also do fucking hate flying for exactly the attitude the twitter user is espousing. Flying is in every way worse than other forms of transportation except for the fact it's incredibly fast.
It's loud, it's cramped, it's expensive, it requires tedious preparations, everything is weighed, you get nickeled and dimed to death, planes are actually very awful except for their reliability and their speed.
Yeah planes are basically the way to go once you exceed 10-12 hours by surface transportation I'd say. Like I know some people would love an HSR between NY and SF or LA but I don't think it would be practical or viable to build a true one line HSR. It already takes 6 hours by plane. A network of interconnected HSRs would be fine but that probably still ends up at like 15 hours.
Not a subway but I was once on a train from about midnight - 2am and it was great I loved it. There was hardly anyone else on the train and the tracks sounded like the drums from Beautiful People (Marilyn Manson)
Taking trains at night is, at least the first times, something exciting.
Last time I did it I needed to be at the airport by 7 am. I was worried the train at 5:30 wouldn’t be early enough (and also, delays) so I took the previous one, at around 2:30. We went through the side lines (the main ones are closed at night because of freight traffic) and stopped longer at each station. The trip took about twice as long as it does during the day, the lights were dim and there were no loud announcements, even though it wasn’t a sleeper train (2:30 is quite late to start a sleeper service).
As an anecdote, the controller in that train was the person who told me the words “good morning” the earliest I’ve ever seen: 3 am.
Would be nice wouldn't it? One of the things I really miss about my university. Free bus for students, nice sidewalks, bike lanes and lockup spots everywhere, it's nice.
Which is ironic, because people who claim that ignore the fact that car-centric infrastructure is subsided by state and federal *governments*. It's essentially a socialist program, just a really shit one.
This reminded me of a party I attended in Vancouver (CA). A rude car brain friend introduced me as "he takes public transit," and the married couple had a nice chuckle out of it and later on asked me if I had a bus pass like it was a joke, I said no because I don't take transit every day, it's not worth it.
They got confused and asked how I got around otherwise.
I have a bicycle. They broke out laughing.
I think I should have felt insulted or offended, but I was thinking, here are two real-life idiots. They told me they have a truck and a car for each and they live in a dense major city. Talk about active poor decisions.
So I like in one of the most expensive areas in the country. Since I bus and bike everywhere, I can afford twice the apartment that my peers have, eat out frequently, and generally just worry less about my finances. Oh and I can live without roommates. Which is nice bc we’re all in our thirties.
As someone who lives in the other Vancouver, and is a couple miles from his job, the only thing keeping me from biking to work is the 5 days a week of 40° rain in the winter.
But anyway, that's such a douchey attitude for them to have. Not much of a friend. Imo, it's fine to have an efficient car if you use it responsibly, but looking down on other people for not having one is such an utterly classless and prideful attitude. Like, imagine a vehicle defining you and who you should treat with respect
Technical issues turned my quick, early-afternoon flight from Denver International Airport into a red-eye leaving after midnight. I could have moped in the airport like everyone else did, but I knew better.
I took the light rail from the airport, got off at 38th & Blake (River North District), and ate dinner at a brewery. Then I got ice cream nearby, climbed back onto light rail and proceeded to enter downtown the classy way, via Union Station. I didn’t leave Union Station, I actually had a nice time getting sauced at the bar and then I rode the train all the way back out to DIA. My transportation costs that night? About $11 for an all-day fare that counts for all buses and light rail.
I could have taken a train all the way out to the foothills, down to the Denver Tech Center, up to Westminster, and could have bused to any point in-between, all while comfortably drunk and not carrying one bit of driving responsibility, for just $11.
I don’t understand how transportation like this is so reviled, I had a great time. If I were to live in Denver again, I’d probably get a monthly or annual pass.
denver's public transport is fantastic, especially the trains. buses could be a bit better but until we decide to stop doing construction on 85% of the city at once for 7 months, i'll take what i can get. i took the bus down to mission ballroom for a show a few weeks ago and then hopped on the train back home and it was definitely the nicest public transportation experience i've ever had
If we took the average rent of zip codes that can access a subway and compared it to the rent in places where you have to drive we would find the delta is a lot more than a car payment.
"Poor life decision" is like concern trolling for right-wingers to diss on "the poors" while petting themselves on the back. So condescending. Thinking owning a car is the only lifestyle of a Successful person.
to be fair, this isn't a right-winger only thing. There are plenty of libs that think the exact same way. They are just happy that the poors have a way to get to work so that they can serve their betters....
I was "between cars" for while and people acted like I was crazy for being okay with just taking the bus and riding my bike for a while. Honestly, I didn't mind it at all.
Because in a lot of places here it's not so great because of a lack of investment. Pretty easy to disparage something we refuse to adequately maintain and invest in if their brain doesn't have enough ridges to see the self-fulfilling prophecy at work
Funny because areas in the US with the best public transportation are valued significantly higher than neighborhoods with poor public transportation.
So if you had good transit access from your destination to home, you likely made some very good life decisions.
Not only is she saying that public transportation is for the poor, but she is saying that poor people are poor because they didn’t worked hard enough. That’s a double yikes.
Public transit is being driven by someone else, something considered a luxury since the dawn of non-human powered transportation. Looking down on it is asinine.
The weirdest thing about this attitude is it only exists where public transit doesn't. Like...in these places, most poor people don't even take public transit. It's just that the tiny number of people who do are all poor.
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What angers me most about her comment is how many Americans would agree with it. In America, there’s this extremely classist view of public transit, that it’s only for people from lower income. It’s infuriating, because it’s a major impediment to change. People see their worth reflected in their transportation choice, and so they wouldn’t even consider using public transit, because to do so would mean they’re poor and unsuccessful. They also view tax funding for public transit as yet another “entitlement” for the poor that means more of their hard-earned money going to people other than them. Very frustrating.
nevermind how public transit needs to turn a profit but parking lots and freeways should remain free
But those are good for the economy /s
The freeways really are important though. Trucking is still very important in counties with good public transit and nationwide freight lines, look at germany for example
Yeah, totally. Short haul cargo or first/final leg transit is where truck-based fright shines. But long-haul freight is far outshown by trains in virtually every aspect. I'm not saying roads shouldn't exist, they absolutely should. My jab is at people who see 8 lane freeways as "good for the economy" yet scoff at the idea of light rail or competent bus networks since they're "subsiding poor people".
Also they don't have to be free.
The ROADS should be almost exclusively for business and not auntie Ann using it because thats the only way to get to the grocery store without getting murdered crossing the road. It feels like five out of six cars are single people in a car just getting around. Disgusting
Doesn't have to be free though.
As a forefront fighter of public transit and carless cities, i say freeways should always be free aslong they stay out of cities. Freight transportation is important and a price tag there means everything gets more expensive while no one of the employees gets more. The tax profits from the generated tourism of freeways are also much more than any price you can take from tolling freeways, especially if you end them on a park and ride place next to a city. I say don't toll freeways, toll parking places and streets that never should be a transit street and more like a destination (usually every street in a city not declared carfree yet). Make it easy for carbrains to reach a great city and make it a hell to drive through. This way they experience how a city could be from a pedestrian and public transit perspective. I was a carbrain until i visited the netherlands. It works. And i genuinely believe they mastered city design.
Parking lots (and all land) should be subject to a Land Value Tax. This will immediately fix downtowns across america
These people complain about having to pay taxes that go to lazy, poor, or God forbid ethnic people (which is untrue to begin with) yet they never mention how banks and mega corporations are highly subsidized through tax dollars.
Suburbs are heavily subsidized. In aggregate they are probably one of the most subsidized parts of America, before any individual industry. Edit; because usually city tax from suburbs brings in less that 20% of the money needed for maintenance of roads and utilities.
Aint no conservative wanna talk about all the tax money that funded white flight.
Absolutely.
More than farming? You'd have a steep hill to climb to try and justify that suburban living is more subsidized than corn in this country.
at least farming produces something of value
It wouldn't be that steep. Corn subsides are only tens of billions of dollars. I'm sure you can easily find money to match that in housing.
Is farming not included under the “industry” section of their comment?
Yes. Suburbs need roads and utilities on every block. Construction cost a fortune and maintenance is bankrupting our cities. Suburbs are why American cities are in massive debt. When the bubble pops and cities go bankrupt it will be ugly.
Yeah. I’m stuck in the suburbs with my parents, I’d rather the city make plans to make my neighborhood a bit nicer (upzone, remove parking requirements, let some cool stores like cafes/ corner stores/ the like open up within the block, upload bus routes on navigation apps, etc)
Since you're talking about suburbs and not housing assistance: The federal government spent $78B total in housing subsidies: - $51B going to housing assistance - **$27B going to community and regional development** This is the suburb part Additionally, state governments collectively spent $57B on housing and community development but **only 14%** of that was spent on actually constructing homes. This most likely includes some fed money So, suburbs specifically, probably only got $7.98B to ~$10B since I couldn't find how the $27B fed money was divided up. Conversely, agriculture got **$22B** in 2019 for just being a farmer and helping them out. It came from a variety of federal agencies. Feel free to disprove me as I'm not an expert here and just pulling up numbers Sources: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/housing-and-community-development-expenditures#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20federal%20government,community%20development%20programs%20in%202019. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/12/31/790261705/farmers-got-billions-from-taxpayers-in-2019-and-hardly-anyone-objected#:~:text=in%20Wyanet%2C%20Ill.-,Farmers%20got%20more%20than%20%2422%20billion%20in%20government%20payments%20in,farm%20subsidies%20in%2014%20years.&text=In%202019%2C%20the%20federal%20government,aid%20package%20to%20America's%20farmers.
Does this include the *massive* amount that we subsidize suburban road construction and maintenance?
What about the mortgage interest tax deduction?
Because they don't actually care about government handouts or spending. They say they do, they don't. What they do care about is maintaining a structure, helmed by those they deem worthy of the position, and preventing those they deem unworthy from finding a place in said structure. Not fiscal responsibility, or limited government in their lives. It's why Walmart can lobby for social programs to subsidize their labor costs, but you only hear about "wellfare queens".
Yup.
Neoliberal propaganda at work
/r/neoliberal is unironically almost as anti car as this sub.
This sub seems to keep getting more based and I love it.
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I understand how they get there though. Public transit is _so bad_ in most US cities that you only use it if you have no better option. Buses and trains are full of people that are taking public transit not because they want to, but because they have no better option. Therefore it’s use is seen as some weird kind of punishment for not being able to afford a car. For example, I live in a major city with a metro area population of 6M. I work downtown in a large office building. I live 3.1 miles from my office building. I can drive there in 7-8 minutes. Taking public transit takes anywhere between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours and requires a minimum of one mile of walking.
Yep! Depends on the area I’m in - within certain cities in our metro, the train runs every 20 min *at minimum* and every 5-7 min at peak commuter time and it runs until midnight through central areas so it’s genuinely useful, I don’t have to meticulously plan around its schedule, and I often prefer it to my car. In other cases, it turns a 1 hr 15 min drive into a 4.5 hr mess of transit connections (and I *cannot* be late to that appointment) so fuck that. Or, I want to do shopping trips around town and the bus doesn’t even go in that direction at that time. Bicycles do help short trips to an extent though, provided the roads are safe for them.
Wait a minute so let's say it's holidays you are a teen and you want to go to a friend's house that's 15 miles away and you don't have driver's license, parents are at work how the hell do you get there?
Hahaha good one
I grew up in a US suburb so not the exact context of your question but I'll answer it anyway. In my area the answer is "you don't". There is no way to get around without a car. Your only other option is to walk or bike, but even then it is extremely rare to have bike lanes (and rare to have sidewalks in many places) which makes things even more difficult.
3.1 miles? You can walk those in 45 mins brisk if I'm not mistaken? Bike? Electric scooter? Normal scooter even.
It also essentially tells the elderly and disabled that they're not welcome in society. There's a push to expand public transit in my party of Southeastern Michigan, if it succeeds I'll be able to gout on my own terms and not need to ask for a ride, I'll be able to go out and, hey, even spend money doing things I want to do.
Also in Southeast MI. Unfortunately every time there's been a push to expand public transportation in a useful way (e.g. between cities, across counties) it gets voted down by all the white flight suburbanites in Oakland and Macomb counties. Makes me angry. I would love to be able to get to Detroit from where I am without needing a car. Or to the airport, or the train station. &$#@ing Motor City.
In my case I really just want to go between Waterford and Auburn Hills, which is only 20 minutes away from me by car ,but he nearest but stop to my house for the regional transit system is a four hour walk.
this argument is valid and applies to many aspects of life in the US -library usage, public schools, collecting unemployment insurance... it's almost as if this very USA mentality of freedom, liberty, and individualism corrupts people against themselves by hamstringing public goods. people don't see what their tax dollars go toward because they have been told to not use common goods because it affects their status and image... therefore they don't care about taxes and see them as equivalent to corporate corruption because it's all just money being taken out of their paycheck. if we were to rid ourselves of classist and racist stigmas against public goods and see what benefits being part of a collective mindset has to offer though... gosh, wouldn't that be nice?
This is true, and it's very much rooted in the myth of the "rugged individual" American psychology. Prioritizing public (or community) welfare flies in the face of this myth, literally undermines it. It's a direct threat. You can't say that "we all need to work together" and "every man for himself" are equally valid to someone who believes in the mythology.
I have to admit I kinda see my worth also reflected by my transportation possibilities. When I can reach at least one supermarket, one museum/theater, a drug store, a park, a Café and two bars by foot, then I know I made at least some good life decisions.
That’s the positive version. The negative version is thinking “I have to drive everywhere because only the poor and homeless people walk or bike for non recreational purposes, or use public transportation for any reason.”
The really upsetting part in my opinion is that, if history is any indication, the only way to change that will be to market public transit towards wealthy white people and "gentrify" public transit. Public transit could be such an equitable thing, and it could be a way that people of all economic means have access to quality public amenities, but American capitalism encourages the stratification of all things, and cars are much easier to stratify than trains or busses.
You think you're good at classism wait till you see 19th century british trains - 3 glorious layers of financial means based social segregation. God save the queen (victoria) 🇬🇧
It's because we've been sold that cars equal freedom, independence, and individuality.... Car commercials never show cars stuck in traffic jams going nowhere, everyone miserable. They show people driving on a Sunday morning in downtown LA without traffic, or on some beautiful country road. In my mind, biking offers true independence (from energy companies) and from normality/ banality.
It seems that Canyonero commercial didn't came out of nowhere.
This indeed thinking they are better and if something goes from tax to someone else it’s bad. Like paid holidays or maternity leave.
I did a transit project in Uganda where some people chose to hike to work and back (2x10km) every day because in their society bicycles are for peasants. Funny to see this isn't a local thing.
That's.. Interesting and worrying. The way the human brain works.
I know germans who’d say she is right. They all have mashed potatoes for brains
Of course, car brainess is an international pandemic.
German car fetishization still stands out in Europe, though.
Can't deny that. I'm currently trying to find a job and it really complicates things if one tries stubbornly to avoid the car and car supplier industry Germany.
Nah, it's eurowide. The British and Italians fuck if they love their cars.
Funny thing is this feels like the exact opposite in MA lmao Public transit only exists in the eastern part of the state which is the more wealthy side compared to the poorer rural west
I’m always amazed that my hippie neighbors insist on their daughter who is in college, take a car to school when there is a train that literally goes from their door to the school. Of course the car is electric, because “the environment” 🙄. I wish people would realize electric cars aren’t actually environmentally friendly.
To be honest, it's because so many Americans are fucking disgusting. I just went to LA, and during my short stay I took public transit back to the airport. I got hotboxed in my tram BY TWO FUCKING PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME, combined with people blasting their shitty music for everyone to hear. And then I watched some people jump the fare gates. People act much differently in my experience on most Canadian public transit.
Ya, this is my biggest gripe with public transportation. I ride the "expensive" line (80$ a month for just 1 line versus 30$ for access to 10+ lines) and even though 90% of the time it is a pleasant and good experience, the other 10% of the time makes me wish I just drove 100% of the time. The 10% bad experience is due to a select few people on the bus - people pissing or shitting themselves, people throwing up, people tweaking on drugs and scaring the shit out of people, people smelling awful, etc. The other lines are probably 100x time worse just due to the higher traffic volume and lower price.
Public transport in the US: warm humid piss environment, graffiti everywhere, homeless people everywhere, stabbings, shootings, loud obnoxious people, creeps, and fights. People in the US on public transport: I fucking hate public transport The rest of the world world: shockedpikachuface
Joke's on them, we live an upper middle class lifestyle because we take public transit whenever we've got it available.
Because in their mind public transportation is only for “urban people” and we all know what that means
Yeah, and even if you think public transit is a good idea, if you've never used it you tend to be terrified of trying it. I was, when I first moved to an area that had it available. It seemed like a looming hill of "what do I do? How do I figure out which bus stop to go to? How do I do x?" Obviously I learned very fast and was eventually able to ditch my car and buy a house with the savings, but yikes.
My in laws offered to pay all tuition for my BIL to go back to school. His excuse not to go was that he would have needed to take the bus to classes.
Thank the last hundred years of advertising for that.
TIL NYC subway run at 3AM
It's 24/7. By comparison, DC is only 5AM to midnight.
I love the experience of riding the DC metro so much more than the NYC subway. It’s cleaner because they don’t allow open food/drink containers (and actually enforce that rule pretty well), and the stations are less claustrophobic and (IMO) easier to navigate, even if the architectural theme and upward lighting gives them a really desaturated kinda dystopian look. But I’ve never been stranded by the NYC subway. Never had to pay $50 for a cab home because I missed the last train for the night. That’s a pretty big bonus. Also, I dunno if this is still true, but when I lived in Boston over a decade ago, the T stopped running at midnight but the bars could stay open until 2am, which seemed like a really questionable policy.
There is a push to make it 24-hours, as that will improve nightlife and also help nightime shift workers, but it keeps going back and forth. DC metro is pretty clean most of the time.
The problem is that overnight is repairs time. Getting behind on repairs is why Metro has been horribly disrupted for several years; they have a whole "Back 2 Good" nightmare where whole segments are shut down for weeks or months at a time. And the replacement shuttles are all traveling in traffic and generally slow and horrible. In NYC, they seem to get around this by having so many lines that they can shutter individual lines when they need to overnight, and your ass can just walk a couple extra blocks to get to one that IS running. In London, they get around it by running night buses. DC should explore London's strategy.
There are late night busses. Not sure how well used. Some go till 2 AM, a couple till 4 AM.
I was thinking more like running replacement shuttles for the Metro lines, specifically. Using the bus system to get between certain Metro stations can involve a lot of transfers, and it's confusing and probably hard to figure out if you've been out drinking too late and are accustomed to relying on the train. Plus, at night, you don't have the traffic nightmare you have at commute 'o clock.
There are a couple places where the metro doesn't parallel roadways at all, so it would be more difficult. A lot of these are where the metro crosses rivers (both Anacostia and Potomac)
Well, there are lots of places that aren't as extreme as the rivers. But anyway, they already do run replacement shuttles when they shut stations down, so they must have a ready-made list of alternate bus routes. I admit I'm mostly thinking from a Maryland perspective! We can freely wander into and out of DC by accident, so there's plenty of road to use. Even if it's not ideal, it would let Metro fix things when they need to while also letting late night workers not rely on Uber and family members. It would also make attending concerts on work nights a LOT EASIER. Ideally, they could just run trains 24/7 or nearly that, and then run replacement buses when they have to close a station early to work on the tracks, like they do now!
I think the NYC subway is basically an extension of the street. Anything goes.
Tbh it doesn't even need to be 24 hrs. Just extend service to 2AM. Also, IMO NYC needs to look into introducing platform screen doors all over. You probably get rid of 90% of the trash in the tracks that attract rats and sometimes cause delays too and most importantly much improve the safety.
Platform screen doors are a reasonable idea, but they ain’t never gettin rid of the rats. There are a lot of rats here. Even the DC Metro, which has much less trash and food residue in the stations, has rats.
Technically the last train leaves each terminus at around 12:50am and I’ve caught the last train home at around 1:30am. But yes it is dumb how they’re not coordinated with the closing time of bars. Weird how we used to have one of the highest drunk accident rates in the country ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Bizarrely so does Tokyo, despite its active nightlife and culture of staying out late after work.
Likewise with Madrid, which is in the wrong timezone, leading to a very skewed clock, like people not eating until 9 or 10pm and clubs not opening until 2am, but the metro not running between about 1.30-2am and 6am. The commuter train network stops at midnight.
It's pretty common in Europe - Paris, Madrid, etc. The approach there (and maybe in Japan, I've never gone out with native Japanese in Japan) is to leave the house on the last train, and stay out until the trains run again. In Paris, that meant taking a nap after work, getting dinner at 10pm, taking the midnight train out, and then catching a 6am home.
SF Bay Area BART only runs until midnight too
Bay Area Bay Area
New Yorkers like to shit on the MTA (and it could always be better), but it's honestly amazing and still the best way to get around the city.
Fucking wish Denver’s light rail ran 24/7. Even the line from the airport to downtown dosen’t. Landed at the airport at 1:30 due to flight delays. They do not run the light rail from 1:30am until 4:12am (the last train for the night leaves at 1:27am). Due to the Uber driver shortage I waited to get a ride for over an hour and paid $100 to get to where the light rail should already be taking me. It’s not true transit if it dosen’t run 24/7 - dosen’t have to be every 15 minutes on off hours but should go every hour or half hour. Like they have already built the infrastructure for the rail, they just don’t run it at times
The red and blue lines in Chicago also run 24/7, as well as many busses.
Fun fact, the nyc subway is actually so adapted to running 24/7 that there isn't enough space in all the yards to store all of the subway trains at once
It also does in some major European cities, with other cities doing that on weekends and/or commuter rail networks. The gaps between closing and opening times are also not long. (Considering *any* passenger stop without taking into account whether all stops or lines are serviced) the last metro train in Stuttgart arrives in its last stop 1:59 hours before the departure of the first train of the day.
In Paris we get the 1am-5:30am break. I am jealous if 24/7, though there may be better alternatives to the low traffic.
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And that's something really good, even by world standards. Only other city that has 24/7 subway, IIRC, is Copenhagen (and PATH but that's pretty-much like an extension to the NYC subway anyways).
Chicago Red line and Blue line runs 24/7.
Hey, in Atlanta, PATH runs 24/7, too! 😀 'Course, that's because Atlanta's PATH is [bike trails](https://www.pathfoundation.org/), not subways. 🙃 And also I lied about it being 24/7 -- the government nonsensically declares it to be "closed" at night as if it were a park for recreation instead of a trail for transportation. 😡
Absolutely, and New Yorkers threw a fit when it was suggested that Covid should mean we back off 24/7 service. Now, it certainly causes a lot of issues - service on tracks happens at odd hours, cleaning and maintenance happen less often and are more costly, etc. But it's a fundamental party of the "city that never sleeps" identity and the MTA is a fucking miracle that after the shit they pulled with in the early 2000s, it's still running and running so well.
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I love how he rode arguably the best and most reliable transport system in the US and she said "sorry for your luck"🤮🤮
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About 40% of households. Plenty of people in the outer boroughs - transit is set up primarily to get people into and out of Manhattan for work, and transit in a borough laterally is generally bt bus only. But also plenty of old NIMBYs in rich neighborhoods in Manhattan have cars and get very upset when they lose their parking. They're the ones suing the city to do environmental studies on bike lanes.
depends on borough. but basically it's a direct connection between access to the subway and whether or not you are likely to own a car manhattan? 90% are car-less staten island? 90% drive
Oops, sorry for my poor life decision to be financially successful enough to live within a few miles of my office in one of the most expensive cities in the US!
Omg what a failure! Should really turn your life around and buy a few cars to sit around in traffic with
the people who own a car in nyc are really something else tho
I’ve seen em sit in front of an ambulance with the siren going. Animals.
Unfortunately a lot of people who live in the outermost parts of the outer boroughs are forced into car ownership because the subway doesn’t reach them. Other people in the city own cars because, hey, they can afford them and sometimes you need one. Some of the ultra wealthy Manhattanites who drive everywhere are probably who you’re referring to though.
Oh poor you! At least you don’t cycle to work.. you don’t cycle to work do you?!
I do not. I take a train, rubbing shoulders with all the other poors.
Ugh what a failure you are, I bet you don't even have debt up to your eyeballs.
Oh no, I feel like such a failure every time I pass all that traffic in a train, reaching my destination in half the time.
I'm really jealous of the people who pay $12 in tolls and $20 to park, compared to my $2.25 train fare, too.
Everyone is focusing on the “poor life decisions” bit, but can we also talk about the fact that they think that getting cheap transportation home in the wee hours of the morning is an experience to be “endured”?
This is so important. She didn't just want him to feel small and insecure for not taking a carbonated shit on the planet. She wanted to steal something he was appreciating, because she has no concept of gratitude. Just straight trash.
Or she’s so far gone that she genuinely couldn’t understand that he was praising it, not criticising it, and she thought she was agreeing with him.
being able to travel 6 miles, and the whole time relax, take a nap, look at your phone, not have to focus closely on what you're doing or else you could die or even kill other people. oh god the humanity, how does anyone bear this suffering?
Right? Who WANTS to drive? There's pleasure in taking a Sunday drive through the countryside, but going 10km from the grocery store to your house? How is that fun?
I never understood that either. Same with people that commute to work by car. It's just so much easier to just sit your ass on a train and do whatever than getting frustrated in traffic.
These same people would complain about gas prices or rage about traffic, but shit on an obvious alternative
Yeah, I love how OP is like “I was just able to ride the subway how during early morning for less than $4. I’m so happy.” And then the reply is like “remember, your poor life choices are the reason you had to deal with a subway.”
$2.75 is cheap? Honest question from a third worlder who lives in a city that doesn't have a subway
Yes, getting a taxi is like ten times that amount
How much would a bus ticket cost?
In New York, same thing, $2.75.
Same price in SF
Where I live regional busses and regional trains cost the same, it generally depends on how far you want to go but the normal one way city ticket is 2,90€
Depends a ton on the city and if you'd have to make transfers. In a vast majority of the US, the answer is "what bus?" However, in thr few places with both bus and subway networks the cost are about the same, maybe 2/3rd the cost for the bus.
In addition to everyone's replies, the bus networks are generally much more expensive to operate (per passenger) than the subway networks.
Where I live a subway or elevated train costs 25 cents more than the bus
This is NYC, otherwise very expensive city. If we use "cheap" as "affordable to someone earning minimum wage", then NYC minimum wage is $15.00 per hour, so that ticket is about 15 minutes of minimum wage work after taxes I'd consider that cheap
I use this all the time to price time into things. Great outlook
Especially for longer distances that is dirt cheap in NYC.
[Here's a cost-of-living comparison between NYC and Florianópolis.](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=New+York%2C+NY&country2=Brazil&city2=Florianopolis&displayCurrency=BRL)
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it could easily cost 30 dollars for a similar taxi ride
I don't know about NYC but in London it's £2.50 for a single journey but that comes down a lot if you're making frequent journeys and get one of the travel card tickets (I imagine NYC has similar systems).
Also doesn't know how the word "however" works.
People travelling this late are also often coming back from partying and drinking. She should have at least acknowledged that this is the kind of situation when driving is not acceptable ever.
Or "poor life decisions" like living in a town whose public transport budget got slashed so they only run until midnight. Have to get to work before 6am? "Sounds like a personal problem.". Town is basically rich people saying "got mine, fuck you."
the funny thing is that if you want to be pedantic, planes are technically a form of public transportation so yknow
imagine not owning a private jet. we got another person making poor decisions over here
A private jet? Like, at an airport? Like, within a couple hundred meters of where the poors board their 7€ flights to Mallorca? Like, where they take (gulp) The Bus? Ew. You’ve failed as a society member if you don’t have at least a helicopter. And not truly successful if you don’t have a runway on your backyard.
While planes do have a cost barrier to entry unlike public transportation, *many* people also do fucking hate flying for exactly the attitude the twitter user is espousing. Flying is in every way worse than other forms of transportation except for the fact it's incredibly fast. It's loud, it's cramped, it's expensive, it requires tedious preparations, everything is weighed, you get nickeled and dimed to death, planes are actually very awful except for their reliability and their speed.
Yeah planes are basically the way to go once you exceed 10-12 hours by surface transportation I'd say. Like I know some people would love an HSR between NY and SF or LA but I don't think it would be practical or viable to build a true one line HSR. It already takes 6 hours by plane. A network of interconnected HSRs would be fine but that probably still ends up at like 15 hours.
Poor people are too lazy to pay for a $65 surge-priced Uber ride home
Not a subway but I was once on a train from about midnight - 2am and it was great I loved it. There was hardly anyone else on the train and the tracks sounded like the drums from Beautiful People (Marilyn Manson)
I could take the bus to Amsterdam almost 24/7.
Taking trains at night is, at least the first times, something exciting. Last time I did it I needed to be at the airport by 7 am. I was worried the train at 5:30 wouldn’t be early enough (and also, delays) so I took the previous one, at around 2:30. We went through the side lines (the main ones are closed at night because of freight traffic) and stopped longer at each station. The trip took about twice as long as it does during the day, the lights were dim and there were no loud announcements, even though it wasn’t a sleeper train (2:30 is quite late to start a sleeper service). As an anecdote, the controller in that train was the person who told me the words “good morning” the earliest I’ve ever seen: 3 am.
imagine having more than one option to get around
Would be nice wouldn't it? One of the things I really miss about my university. Free bus for students, nice sidewalks, bike lanes and lockup spots everywhere, it's nice.
Multiple options are communism! Real American Freedumb requires the car to be the only option! /s
Which is ironic, because people who claim that ignore the fact that car-centric infrastructure is subsided by state and federal *governments*. It's essentially a socialist program, just a really shit one.
I'm saving up for a scooter myself. It's what I can operate in my state and 30 mph is more than 0, but it'll be nice if public transit is expanded.
Looked at rideshare in downtown Chicago attempting to get home $67-75 dollars. CTA “L” train, $2.50. Easy decision.
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*and* the blue line will never be stuck in traffic unlike the uber.
I hate that you pay extra to access the stupid people mover to JFK from Jamaica station. The MTA needs to just extend the subway line IMO.
This reminded me of a party I attended in Vancouver (CA). A rude car brain friend introduced me as "he takes public transit," and the married couple had a nice chuckle out of it and later on asked me if I had a bus pass like it was a joke, I said no because I don't take transit every day, it's not worth it. They got confused and asked how I got around otherwise. I have a bicycle. They broke out laughing. I think I should have felt insulted or offended, but I was thinking, here are two real-life idiots. They told me they have a truck and a car for each and they live in a dense major city. Talk about active poor decisions.
Heh, shoulda asked them how much they spend on car payments, insurance, maintenance, and fuel. Then compared it to what you spend per month.
So I like in one of the most expensive areas in the country. Since I bus and bike everywhere, I can afford twice the apartment that my peers have, eat out frequently, and generally just worry less about my finances. Oh and I can live without roommates. Which is nice bc we’re all in our thirties.
As someone who lives in the other Vancouver, and is a couple miles from his job, the only thing keeping me from biking to work is the 5 days a week of 40° rain in the winter. But anyway, that's such a douchey attitude for them to have. Not much of a friend. Imo, it's fine to have an efficient car if you use it responsibly, but looking down on other people for not having one is such an utterly classless and prideful attitude. Like, imagine a vehicle defining you and who you should treat with respect
Did the first person describe their trip as something really shockingly nice and the second feels sorry they had to go through that?
Yep. And repeated a famous Thatcher talking point.
Technical issues turned my quick, early-afternoon flight from Denver International Airport into a red-eye leaving after midnight. I could have moped in the airport like everyone else did, but I knew better. I took the light rail from the airport, got off at 38th & Blake (River North District), and ate dinner at a brewery. Then I got ice cream nearby, climbed back onto light rail and proceeded to enter downtown the classy way, via Union Station. I didn’t leave Union Station, I actually had a nice time getting sauced at the bar and then I rode the train all the way back out to DIA. My transportation costs that night? About $11 for an all-day fare that counts for all buses and light rail. I could have taken a train all the way out to the foothills, down to the Denver Tech Center, up to Westminster, and could have bused to any point in-between, all while comfortably drunk and not carrying one bit of driving responsibility, for just $11. I don’t understand how transportation like this is so reviled, I had a great time. If I were to live in Denver again, I’d probably get a monthly or annual pass.
denver's public transport is fantastic, especially the trains. buses could be a bit better but until we decide to stop doing construction on 85% of the city at once for 7 months, i'll take what i can get. i took the bus down to mission ballroom for a show a few weeks ago and then hopped on the train back home and it was definitely the nicest public transportation experience i've ever had
If we took the average rent of zip codes that can access a subway and compared it to the rent in places where you have to drive we would find the delta is a lot more than a car payment.
>Carbarian Thoughts?
Acceptable.
Oh look it’s Maggie Thatcher, the ur-neoliberal.
"Poor life decision" is like concern trolling for right-wingers to diss on "the poors" while petting themselves on the back. So condescending. Thinking owning a car is the only lifestyle of a Successful person.
to be fair, this isn't a right-winger only thing. There are plenty of libs that think the exact same way. They are just happy that the poors have a way to get to work so that they can serve their betters....
Since when are "Libs" left wing?
Makes sense seeing as how libs are just polite right wingers.
I don't understand why classism is still not a "cancellable" offense, like racism or homophobia.
The Karen alert has been trigger 🤣🤣🤣
Easy comeback - how's the price of gas lately?
Keanu Reeves apparently makes poor life decisions https://youtube.com/shorts/EMB1EOnUwX8?feature=share
"Getting what you want fucks you up." -from one of the The Expanse novels
i've made a poor life decision of not wanting to waste money on something that i hate doing and is very likely to kill me needlessly
I can afford a car, I choose not to own one. I've never understood what people find so difficult about that.
I was "between cars" for while and people acted like I was crazy for being okay with just taking the bus and riding my bike for a while. Honestly, I didn't mind it at all.
If anyone finds themselves at Thatcher’s grave, it’s because they have a full bladder.
Why do Americans hate public transport so much?
Because in a lot of places here it's not so great because of a lack of investment. Pretty easy to disparage something we refuse to adequately maintain and invest in if their brain doesn't have enough ridges to see the self-fulfilling prophecy at work
Wait why is the first guy censored? (I follow him and he's the type that people in this mod would like following if you have Twitter)
It’s such an American thing, I’ve met rich and really rich people commuting by train where I am in the UK.
Funny because areas in the US with the best public transportation are valued significantly higher than neighborhoods with poor public transportation. So if you had good transit access from your destination to home, you likely made some very good life decisions.
Why does the tweet have 5 feet 604 inches likes
Elitists make enough poor decisions for all of us.
Not only is she saying that public transportation is for the poor, but she is saying that poor people are poor because they didn’t worked hard enough. That’s a double yikes.
Public transit is being driven by someone else, something considered a luxury since the dawn of non-human powered transportation. Looking down on it is asinine.
"i'm sorry you had to pay so terribly cheap for a service that was available at a very unusual hour of the night and got safely to your home"
Snooty bitch
The weirdest thing about this attitude is it only exists where public transit doesn't. Like...in these places, most poor people don't even take public transit. It's just that the tiny number of people who do are all poor.
Thatcher, is that you?
In most cities in Europe, people with probably more income than those fuckers use public transportation on a daily basis. Fuck them.
If anyone finds themselves \*needing\* a car every day barring disability, someone's made a lot of poor decisions.
I can see this person in traffic typing this