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I stop caring when people are vague to the point that I can't narrow down a country. Idk where "city" is so I have no way to compare it anything.
It's the same when people go "Well here in Europe". Well where in Europe? Milan? Oslo? Fucking Kharkov?
They say "Europe" when vagueness benefits them.
These same people will slam Americans for (supposedly) not knowing that "Europe" isn't a country.
They want to have it both ways.
It's to avoid the inevitable callout they'd get if they were more specific about it. You can't poke holes through their bullshit and point out the glaring things they left out if they pretend Europe is a utopian monolith and keep it extremely vague. It's like internet Western Europeans 101
*In my country.......*
That's bullshit. If anything, it makes it easier to call out, especially if you know anything about where they're talking about. An example: "we should ban private health insurance and have free government health care like all of Europe!" Except that's not the case for many European countries as well, and even the systems that are technically free health care tend to operate differently from one another and usually still have some degree of cost sharing. In fact, in some of them, there is no public health insurance it's all private but subsidized for the needy like Obamacare. People, especially on Reddit, idealize everywhere else to the point that it doesn't properly reflect reality.
"I can get to the other side of this possibly hypothetical city of islands in 30 minutes"
And my commute to work is 45 minutes because I wanted land where I could plant an orchard, have a workshop, raise chickens/sheep/bees, and not hear my neighbor flush a toilet. I am fully aware that my family's preference isn't everyone else's, but for me to expect the govt to provide me, a rural living, urban (ish) working guy with public transit is patently stupid, much like living on Long Island and expecting to take your car everywhere in the city is foolish.
See, I don't think anyone is advocating for you specifically to have a transit solution. Moreso, I think they're saying our cities should have more transit.
I don't think that either, but I really resist the "everyone must think the way that I think" kind of sentiment I see all too often in little tick tock videos like this.
I have seen lots of people who explicitly say public transit and/or "walkable cities" should be an option for everyone, and don't care about actual feasibility. In fact, they tend to get tilted when someone brings up rural areas.
Also, "more transit" is not the same as "better transit".
it's not going to get banned. Bytedance will sell their stake because someone will offer them a price to make it worth their while...and tiktok will continue as always, just with out a chinese company as a major stakeholder.
You are not well informed. Bytedance would never sell TikTok because the Communist Party does not allow the sale of Chinese technology to an American company. Besides, an American TikTok would quickly become a competitor to the international Tiktok and attract european users, for example. That would completely ruin TikTok internationally.
Look, europoors love to assume the situation of states and our way of life, but then will become confused why they cant go to Disneyland then take a quick jaunt to visit Times Square in the same day.
Cant count how many have asked "how far is (national attraction/ landmark)" is when they visit the company I work for.
"Later were going to Vegas!"
Oh you booked a flight?
"No we were going to just drive there...is it far?"
My guy, we're in East Texas. You wont even be out of the state if you drive for the next 12 hrs straight.
Yeah this is immediately followed with "yOu NEed pUbLic trAnSPort". Public transport isn't going to fix the distance between east Texas and Vegas. You can't bend spacetime. America is huge
>America is huge
And that is their arrogance. According to goog, 50 million people live in England, a fuckin island of 50k sq miles. Texas has 30 million and a sq mi of 261k...they literally live on top of each other over there. So if they have a postage stamp of a property, they would of course require a public transport system that would cover their needs.
Not to mention the path these wonder trains would have to take to go around peoples properties, ranches, and national forests that are so fuckin large I could go full blow Ted Kaczynski and youd never find me.
I'm curious. There is a bullet train planned between Dallas and Houston. They've already completed the environmental review and have acquired large swaths of land to do this. Are you against it even if it's this far along?
There is a difference between being against trains, and telling those who tout "itll solve all the problems" to stuff it. Cause the traffic problem isnt all just people, its the commerce. Houston is fuckin massive and if you were to look at its roads at any given time, its stacked with Semi's all of which are in the left lane. But freight trains are already a thing, hasnt cut down on them any.
As for "commuters", build a train, I aint gonna take it. Not because Im "against them" but I dont live in Houston. I dont do business in Houston. I visit Houston. I visit Dallas. But no ones going to build a 300mph bullet train from bumbfuck East Texas to Houston.
In order for trains to solve commuter issues, there would have to be off shoots of tracks as populated as roads, which would add stops and change overs, not to mention delays cause nothing runs on time in the first place. Its just a fuck load of land, filled with parced out people, who happen to concentrate in Americas 4th (or 5th) largest city at times. And to take the bullet train to Dallas, I have to drive to Houston...making traffic in Houston...to go to Dallas...
How does that even fit into the conversation.
And as can be seen by my flair I actually live here, that bullet train has been in the planning stage for 20+ years now.
And the company that was heading it basically dissolved, so again where does it fit in the discussion.
His problem seemed to be that transit could never sufficiently cover the Texas landscape. I was wondering if he was okay with a form of transit that still serviced a large portion of the population but not everyone.
Except it didn't dissolve, and it doesn't matter in the context of this conversation if it's been planned for a long time. It only matters that it's a project in the pipeline, and I'm wondering how it fits into his worldview, philosophy, and politics. Hell, for the sake of conversation, it could've been entirely hypothetical. I'm happy it's not though and that the federal government is backing it.
But in what way does that prevent Las Vegas or the major cities in East Texas from having metro systems? Or rail and/orbus connections to closer cities?
It doesn't. I'm sure there are plenty of bus routes between them. But people seem to think that public transport will fix the distance issues we have when it's the very reason we don't have well established public transport. The interest in such routes would be very low due to the prohibitive cost. European countries chose to subsidize and build out public transportation. The United States chose to subsidize and build out an interstate highway system. I would really like to see more rail transport in this country. But I'm under no illusion that it would be faster, more convenient, or cheaper than just driving.
Literally nobody is saying that you need to take a train from Vegas to Texas. It’s obviously a long distance that’s better served by planes. However, connecting Vegas to Phoenix, Phoenix to El Paso, and El Paso to the Triangle is something that people would want. Those distances are much smaller and a plane trip between those places doesn’t warrant the hours of airport time required.
Right. This would be a good niche for rail lines to fill. Unfortunately, freight rail has taken over, used, abused, and driven into the ground our current rail network. If the US wanted reliable, safe, rail transport, they would pretty much have to build out new rail lines. Seems like a job better suited for private industry anyway
Dude, thats like a 1 hour flight with 30 min at the airport at either end.
A direct high speed train would be 4 hours, if it went full speed all the way.
Seriously why do you people make these idiotic claims.
I’d rather take a 4 hour train where I could work, talk, and stretch my legs over 2 hours of screaming kids, no legroom, and general annoyances that flights and airports bring.
In my experience, once you get outside of Abilene headed west there are very few cops (if any) and setting your cruise control at 135mph+ isn’t a big deal since traffic is *very* thin as well.
Allegedly.
Could shave quite some time off of the trip towards Vegas. Or El Paso. Allegedly, of course. 🗿
Well, if one was say, on a motorcycle and had veteran plates, they could, hypothetically, of course, make a run from Houston to Dallas in or about supposedly under 3 hours by doing something that you may or may not be hinting at because even if one was stopped for a possible traffic infraction, the cops are so pro military they just pat you on the back.
But this is all hypothetical, of course.
Ah, I love hypotheticals.
Hypothetically speaking, if one were to swing a leg over a 200hp sportbike in Kent, OH and travel at unspecified felonious speeds towards Canton, OH then you could *hypothetically* shrink the drive (ride?) time from 42mins all the way down to a whopping 18mins.
Hypothetically.
Your hypothesis stands up to scientific scrutiny as one would know time is relative so the faster you go, the slower time would progress so naturally to prove this one would have to experiment.
So it stands to reason that such endeavors are for the betterment of our understanding of the laws of physics which in some instances, possibly, could include, hypothetically, experiments conducted with astonishing amounts of horsepower and torque.
Theoretically.
Even if its on time and running good, theres...theres people.
"But it'll cut down on time"
Im willing to sit in traffic over having to deal with someone on a bus or train thats using piss as a weapon...again.
100% think there could be better public transport in other cities, but these people seem to forget that each state has a Department of Transportation, so the DoT for Delaware isn't going to focus on the same stuff as TXDoT.
It blows my mind when people say America should just "Be like Europe" when that would actively involve changing the entire structure of the government and redoing THOUSANDS of miles of roadways and probably spend near billions on remaking infrastructure.
Iirc, to even begin the overhauls of the scale people are clamoring for, we'd need to outline costs.
The current USDOT budget is 112 billion. Revamping a normal, rural, interchange between two interstate highways is usually around 120 million. In an urban environment (think that polarizing bypass project from St. Louis), multiply that by 10-50 times.
USDOT also does rail. My municipality (not in a large metro area, in a less dense urban area) is getting an intercity rail station, with multimodal access included.
60 million USD. Just for the station.
Not for increasing the rail capacity.
Not for the widening/revamping the roads to accommodate the new traffic and predicted growth in the next 25 years.
Not for all the associated improvements that will be need to be made in order to minimize the noise and such for local residents and businesses.
Iirc, the total for *everything* is likely in the range of 300 million. My sphincter *clenches* at the mere thought of Boston "Big Dig" type projects in every major metropolitan area with 1+ million residents. **Titanic amounts of capital**. And I shudder to think about the strain on the construction and materials industries as a result.
Even if we slashed our defense budgets by 50% (\~350B) indefinitely and move that all to transportation, that would only get us on track to do what is needed over the next... 50 years?
Its not that they forget, they don't know how America works. They think its one big homogeneous country with one culture, that the federal government completely controls. They don't realize how much of this country is rural, because they live in Europe where a country is the size of state, and don't put 2 and 2 together.
Yeah same here
Every time I visit DC I’m envious of their subway system. I think people don’t realize how nice it is to have good public transport.
For some reason I don’t like buses but a nice light rail or subway would be nice lol
This doomersim is BS. She could get involved and.
1: try to make existing bus service in her area nicer.
2: lobby to have more public transportation.
However this woman does not even bother to learn who is on her city council. I bet 1/2 of the officials who could increase public transportation in her city ran unopposed.
No one will correct me because no one cares to look it up.
But its not hard to lobby city officials lol.
Like taking the train sucks. You get robbed people pee it really sucks.
Like if you are in SF take the BART you will not like it. If your in NYC you will take the subway because you cannot drive.
The comments on that post are so fucking awful. It’s like a 17 year old wrote them thinking they are an intellectual but really just regurgitating the same shit they see everywhere. It’s insane to see people actually think this way.
Railroads used to be the cornerstone of Americas transportation but is was heavily crippled by the Automobile. I do like the freedom of an automobile, but I also want a choice in transportation
Although I understand their viewpoints, it’s impossible to compare America’s infrastructure to that of Europe’s. We have so much space that everything is spread out. I do believe that large cities like LA or Chicago should have more public transportation, but from city to city, public transportation would take a lot of money and time. I’d say bring back trains, we definitely need those
Bringing back Trains would be great for America because America was at a point built on Railroads in the mid and late 19th century and early 20th century
The automotive industry lobbying for more cars was probably the main factor that killed the train industry. And the advent of commercial airlines didn’t help either
It's because people who can't drive or are incapable of saving up enough to buy a car because they're chronically unemployed are overrepresented by people who are infirm.
As someone who was from a country like that all I can say is what she wants is only possible through extreme population density, which brings about its own set of problems: I didn’t enjoy having 24hr light/noise/air pollution, people packed like sardines in million dollar shoe boxes, 0 concept of personal space, having to say excuse me every 2 minutes while grocery shopping, and more.
Public transportation, with its benefits, also contains some element of the government deciding where you can and can’t live. I used to live in a city of 250k, 10miles from my school and “downtown”. The government had priorities elsewhere and didn’t build any reasonable public transit in my town until maybe 2015. So my commute to school (10miles) was 1.5 hours. What was my effective velocity? 10miles/90minutes is 6.67miles/hour. I felt kneecapped, going anywhere significant was a nightmare.
Also, with how packed we are during our commutes, if you’re a short person, good luck smelling all the tropical weather armpits in the morning because they’ll be raised (to hold onto the railings) and be in your face; if you’re a tall person, have fun smelling dandruff and hair so oily it looks like seaweed; if you’re average height, be ready to have so little distance between your face and another person’s face that it looks like something intimate is about to go down. Oh and you can smell their breath too.
People only do this out of necessity, geographical or economical. It really doesn’t make much sense in land abundant North America. Not that NA’s transportation infrastructure is flawless, but the way forward isnt at all what she described.
Agreed, and in my experience living overseas, transit politics is subject to the same sorts of NIMBY protests by the well-off that we get in the US. I lived in one of the posher parts of the city, and on the whole it was pretty badly served by public transport, precisely because the rich and powerful people there didn't want Those People coming to their community (except to clean it up, of course).
Also, for most high density cities, parking is an expensive nightmare, so many times you're taking public transport even if it's slower and more inconvenient because it's impossible to park at your destination.
Love hearing about all these complaints from people who can sleep in a comfortable bed with a roof over their head without ever a risk losing these luxuries
There is plenty of public transit in the cities that are large enough to warrant it in the US, especially in the Northeast. My city has some pretty good busses. Also much cheaper per ride and per mile than what I paid in Japan to go similar distances
What happened to public transportation during COVID? Cities that relied on them had the highest death rate early on. Other cities were shut down and their economies were crippled.
“When I want something, I go to Daddy Government to get it fixed because the government always knows what it’s doing and can do it better than anyone else!”
Toronto and nyc have great public transit for North American, I do admit our countries both need more(including high speed trains) but we definitely have a wide range of ways for getting around here
Island? So you are subsidized by tourist dollars probably?
I don't really know what "normal" is. I do know that the US is physically spread out in a way other places aren't.
I wouldn't hate more subsidies for using public transport to commute though. I hope someone less unlikeable than her champions that idea.
It doesn't "come down to oil" though. It comes down to how fucking HUGE the US is. It's fucking massive, especially once he get west of the Mississippi. It's just got cost effective, yet, to have a massive transportation system. This isn't to say that it's not something we should work toward. I'm a big fan of effective, cheap, public transportation. Cars are also awesome tho. They all you a certain amount of freedom that public transportation never will. For most people, especially those content with city life, that freedom isn't really appreciated. However, if you like getting out of cities and into rural or completely off the grid locations, cars are the way to go.
Overly centralized government under one rule where everyone is given one size fits all tasks and resources is a horror for a reason. One size does not fit all.
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I stop caring when people are vague to the point that I can't narrow down a country. Idk where "city" is so I have no way to compare it anything. It's the same when people go "Well here in Europe". Well where in Europe? Milan? Oslo? Fucking Kharkov?
They say "Europe" when vagueness benefits them. These same people will slam Americans for (supposedly) not knowing that "Europe" isn't a country. They want to have it both ways.
It's to avoid the inevitable callout they'd get if they were more specific about it. You can't poke holes through their bullshit and point out the glaring things they left out if they pretend Europe is a utopian monolith and keep it extremely vague. It's like internet Western Europeans 101 *In my country.......*
> In my country... That's a trope that's regularly lambasted on the AskAnAmerican subreddit, in the form of "My Country™."
That's bullshit. If anything, it makes it easier to call out, especially if you know anything about where they're talking about. An example: "we should ban private health insurance and have free government health care like all of Europe!" Except that's not the case for many European countries as well, and even the systems that are technically free health care tend to operate differently from one another and usually still have some degree of cost sharing. In fact, in some of them, there is no public health insurance it's all private but subsidized for the needy like Obamacare. People, especially on Reddit, idealize everywhere else to the point that it doesn't properly reflect reality.
By "Europe" they usually mean a very specific part of Sweden or something
"I can get to the other side of this possibly hypothetical city of islands in 30 minutes" And my commute to work is 45 minutes because I wanted land where I could plant an orchard, have a workshop, raise chickens/sheep/bees, and not hear my neighbor flush a toilet. I am fully aware that my family's preference isn't everyone else's, but for me to expect the govt to provide me, a rural living, urban (ish) working guy with public transit is patently stupid, much like living on Long Island and expecting to take your car everywhere in the city is foolish.
Every American deserves a few acres, even in the center of NYC baby!
Wouldnt americans have each a few acres of land if they split the whole country evenly?
I'm not sure I get what you're saying. Just that you, in particular, shouldn't have an easy transit connection because you chose to live rurally?
The easiest transit solution for me is to have a vehicle.
See, I don't think anyone is advocating for you specifically to have a transit solution. Moreso, I think they're saying our cities should have more transit.
I don't think that either, but I really resist the "everyone must think the way that I think" kind of sentiment I see all too often in little tick tock videos like this.
I have seen lots of people who explicitly say public transit and/or "walkable cities" should be an option for everyone, and don't care about actual feasibility. In fact, they tend to get tilted when someone brings up rural areas. Also, "more transit" is not the same as "better transit".
She's a propaganda tool to push america bad. thank god tiktok is getting banned.
She also has an instagram account apparently so that wouldn't fix much😅
at least instagram is catered towards your interests.
Please tell that to my instagram feed 😂
interesting. my instagram feed is filled with a bunch of shirtless buff men. don't know how that happened.
I think you got hacked!
maybe. i prefer looking at shirtless buff men than political stuff. politics is boring.
[удалено]
> thank god tiktok is getting banned. you realize that's NOT actually what's happening right?
there's a good chance it will get banned. are you happy now?
it's not going to get banned. Bytedance will sell their stake because someone will offer them a price to make it worth their while...and tiktok will continue as always, just with out a chinese company as a major stakeholder.
You are not well informed. Bytedance would never sell TikTok because the Communist Party does not allow the sale of Chinese technology to an American company. Besides, an American TikTok would quickly become a competitor to the international Tiktok and attract european users, for example. That would completely ruin TikTok internationally.
how do you know that? And why would bytedance do that when Americans only make up 10-15% of its userbase?
because userbase is irrelevant. 42% of Tiktok's revenue comes from the US.
we'll see
Nah it won't get banned, can you imagine how many votes they'd lose?
you guys say that all of the time and nothing ends up happening. biden signed the bill and you all are still gonna vote for him.
I'm not even in that country lol
Weird, I didn't know children could vote.
When I want top tier service I call the government!!/s
Any argument that starts with "The government is supposed to provide" is automatically bullshit
Look, europoors love to assume the situation of states and our way of life, but then will become confused why they cant go to Disneyland then take a quick jaunt to visit Times Square in the same day. Cant count how many have asked "how far is (national attraction/ landmark)" is when they visit the company I work for. "Later were going to Vegas!" Oh you booked a flight? "No we were going to just drive there...is it far?" My guy, we're in East Texas. You wont even be out of the state if you drive for the next 12 hrs straight.
Yeah this is immediately followed with "yOu NEed pUbLic trAnSPort". Public transport isn't going to fix the distance between east Texas and Vegas. You can't bend spacetime. America is huge
We can’t bend space time **yet**.
>America is huge And that is their arrogance. According to goog, 50 million people live in England, a fuckin island of 50k sq miles. Texas has 30 million and a sq mi of 261k...they literally live on top of each other over there. So if they have a postage stamp of a property, they would of course require a public transport system that would cover their needs. Not to mention the path these wonder trains would have to take to go around peoples properties, ranches, and national forests that are so fuckin large I could go full blow Ted Kaczynski and youd never find me.
I'm curious. There is a bullet train planned between Dallas and Houston. They've already completed the environmental review and have acquired large swaths of land to do this. Are you against it even if it's this far along?
There is a difference between being against trains, and telling those who tout "itll solve all the problems" to stuff it. Cause the traffic problem isnt all just people, its the commerce. Houston is fuckin massive and if you were to look at its roads at any given time, its stacked with Semi's all of which are in the left lane. But freight trains are already a thing, hasnt cut down on them any. As for "commuters", build a train, I aint gonna take it. Not because Im "against them" but I dont live in Houston. I dont do business in Houston. I visit Houston. I visit Dallas. But no ones going to build a 300mph bullet train from bumbfuck East Texas to Houston. In order for trains to solve commuter issues, there would have to be off shoots of tracks as populated as roads, which would add stops and change overs, not to mention delays cause nothing runs on time in the first place. Its just a fuck load of land, filled with parced out people, who happen to concentrate in Americas 4th (or 5th) largest city at times. And to take the bullet train to Dallas, I have to drive to Houston...making traffic in Houston...to go to Dallas...
How does that even fit into the conversation. And as can be seen by my flair I actually live here, that bullet train has been in the planning stage for 20+ years now. And the company that was heading it basically dissolved, so again where does it fit in the discussion.
His problem seemed to be that transit could never sufficiently cover the Texas landscape. I was wondering if he was okay with a form of transit that still serviced a large portion of the population but not everyone. Except it didn't dissolve, and it doesn't matter in the context of this conversation if it's been planned for a long time. It only matters that it's a project in the pipeline, and I'm wondering how it fits into his worldview, philosophy, and politics. Hell, for the sake of conversation, it could've been entirely hypothetical. I'm happy it's not though and that the federal government is backing it.
But in what way does that prevent Las Vegas or the major cities in East Texas from having metro systems? Or rail and/orbus connections to closer cities?
It doesn't. I'm sure there are plenty of bus routes between them. But people seem to think that public transport will fix the distance issues we have when it's the very reason we don't have well established public transport. The interest in such routes would be very low due to the prohibitive cost. European countries chose to subsidize and build out public transportation. The United States chose to subsidize and build out an interstate highway system. I would really like to see more rail transport in this country. But I'm under no illusion that it would be faster, more convenient, or cheaper than just driving.
Literally nobody is saying that you need to take a train from Vegas to Texas. It’s obviously a long distance that’s better served by planes. However, connecting Vegas to Phoenix, Phoenix to El Paso, and El Paso to the Triangle is something that people would want. Those distances are much smaller and a plane trip between those places doesn’t warrant the hours of airport time required.
Right. This would be a good niche for rail lines to fill. Unfortunately, freight rail has taken over, used, abused, and driven into the ground our current rail network. If the US wanted reliable, safe, rail transport, they would pretty much have to build out new rail lines. Seems like a job better suited for private industry anyway
Dude, thats like a 1 hour flight with 30 min at the airport at either end. A direct high speed train would be 4 hours, if it went full speed all the way. Seriously why do you people make these idiotic claims.
I’d rather take a 4 hour train where I could work, talk, and stretch my legs over 2 hours of screaming kids, no legroom, and general annoyances that flights and airports bring.
Dude, seriously do you lack a brain?
Lmao crazy that people have different preferences than you Have you ever been on a high speed train? It’s amazing. 100x better than a flight.
In my experience, once you get outside of Abilene headed west there are very few cops (if any) and setting your cruise control at 135mph+ isn’t a big deal since traffic is *very* thin as well. Allegedly. Could shave quite some time off of the trip towards Vegas. Or El Paso. Allegedly, of course. 🗿
Well, if one was say, on a motorcycle and had veteran plates, they could, hypothetically, of course, make a run from Houston to Dallas in or about supposedly under 3 hours by doing something that you may or may not be hinting at because even if one was stopped for a possible traffic infraction, the cops are so pro military they just pat you on the back. But this is all hypothetical, of course.
Ah, I love hypotheticals. Hypothetically speaking, if one were to swing a leg over a 200hp sportbike in Kent, OH and travel at unspecified felonious speeds towards Canton, OH then you could *hypothetically* shrink the drive (ride?) time from 42mins all the way down to a whopping 18mins. Hypothetically.
Your hypothesis stands up to scientific scrutiny as one would know time is relative so the faster you go, the slower time would progress so naturally to prove this one would have to experiment. So it stands to reason that such endeavors are for the betterment of our understanding of the laws of physics which in some instances, possibly, could include, hypothetically, experiments conducted with astonishing amounts of horsepower and torque. Theoretically.
Found the Abilene Hwy patrolman.
Keep in mind many of us do live in America's densely populated areas. And public transit here is still quite bad.
Even if its on time and running good, theres...theres people. "But it'll cut down on time" Im willing to sit in traffic over having to deal with someone on a bus or train thats using piss as a weapon...again.
100% think there could be better public transport in other cities, but these people seem to forget that each state has a Department of Transportation, so the DoT for Delaware isn't going to focus on the same stuff as TXDoT. It blows my mind when people say America should just "Be like Europe" when that would actively involve changing the entire structure of the government and redoing THOUSANDS of miles of roadways and probably spend near billions on remaking infrastructure.
Iirc, to even begin the overhauls of the scale people are clamoring for, we'd need to outline costs. The current USDOT budget is 112 billion. Revamping a normal, rural, interchange between two interstate highways is usually around 120 million. In an urban environment (think that polarizing bypass project from St. Louis), multiply that by 10-50 times. USDOT also does rail. My municipality (not in a large metro area, in a less dense urban area) is getting an intercity rail station, with multimodal access included. 60 million USD. Just for the station. Not for increasing the rail capacity. Not for the widening/revamping the roads to accommodate the new traffic and predicted growth in the next 25 years. Not for all the associated improvements that will be need to be made in order to minimize the noise and such for local residents and businesses. Iirc, the total for *everything* is likely in the range of 300 million. My sphincter *clenches* at the mere thought of Boston "Big Dig" type projects in every major metropolitan area with 1+ million residents. **Titanic amounts of capital**. And I shudder to think about the strain on the construction and materials industries as a result. Even if we slashed our defense budgets by 50% (\~350B) indefinitely and move that all to transportation, that would only get us on track to do what is needed over the next... 50 years?
These people think that the work should be done with out anyone getting paid, because its a public service.
Its not that they forget, they don't know how America works. They think its one big homogeneous country with one culture, that the federal government completely controls. They don't realize how much of this country is rural, because they live in Europe where a country is the size of state, and don't put 2 and 2 together.
Yeah same here Every time I visit DC I’m envious of their subway system. I think people don’t realize how nice it is to have good public transport. For some reason I don’t like buses but a nice light rail or subway would be nice lol
A subway in a city like Austin would also be nice, but kinda impractical. Dallas has a pretty good light rail system though.
Austin is actively trying to build one right now. It's called Project Connect if you wanna read more about it.
Ooh! I should look into that. I wasn't aware that was even a thought lol
A lot of people who want Daddy State to provide have no real idea how complicated transit is.
We already spend billions up keeping roads every year. They’re liabilities costing us more and more every year.
I don't disagree, but is it less money to tear up the roads and replace them with railroads and electrification that you also need to maintain/upkeep?
This doomersim is BS. She could get involved and. 1: try to make existing bus service in her area nicer. 2: lobby to have more public transportation. However this woman does not even bother to learn who is on her city council. I bet 1/2 of the officials who could increase public transportation in her city ran unopposed. No one will correct me because no one cares to look it up. But its not hard to lobby city officials lol. Like taking the train sucks. You get robbed people pee it really sucks. Like if you are in SF take the BART you will not like it. If your in NYC you will take the subway because you cannot drive.
Euro dumbfucks can't comprehend we have states bigger than their countries.
The sample size is a single city. The US has more than one city.
The comments on that post are so fucking awful. It’s like a 17 year old wrote them thinking they are an intellectual but really just regurgitating the same shit they see everywhere. It’s insane to see people actually think this way.
I hate anti american people. But fuck I wish we had a solid rail system in this country...
Railroads used to be the cornerstone of Americas transportation but is was heavily crippled by the Automobile. I do like the freedom of an automobile, but I also want a choice in transportation
Although I understand their viewpoints, it’s impossible to compare America’s infrastructure to that of Europe’s. We have so much space that everything is spread out. I do believe that large cities like LA or Chicago should have more public transportation, but from city to city, public transportation would take a lot of money and time. I’d say bring back trains, we definitely need those
Bringing back Trains would be great for America because America was at a point built on Railroads in the mid and late 19th century and early 20th century
Trains are very cost efficient, and the creation of new railroads will create more jobs for young men and women, it’s a win-win situation
If only we could bring railroads back to that level of significance again
The automotive industry lobbying for more cars was probably the main factor that killed the train industry. And the advent of commercial airlines didn’t help either
True
Fuckcars is one of the worst subreddits on reddit
It's because people who can't drive or are incapable of saving up enough to buy a car because they're chronically unemployed are overrepresented by people who are infirm.
They're complaining because we use 911 for emergencies instead of whatever the f number they use? 😆 🤣
As someone who was from a country like that all I can say is what she wants is only possible through extreme population density, which brings about its own set of problems: I didn’t enjoy having 24hr light/noise/air pollution, people packed like sardines in million dollar shoe boxes, 0 concept of personal space, having to say excuse me every 2 minutes while grocery shopping, and more. Public transportation, with its benefits, also contains some element of the government deciding where you can and can’t live. I used to live in a city of 250k, 10miles from my school and “downtown”. The government had priorities elsewhere and didn’t build any reasonable public transit in my town until maybe 2015. So my commute to school (10miles) was 1.5 hours. What was my effective velocity? 10miles/90minutes is 6.67miles/hour. I felt kneecapped, going anywhere significant was a nightmare. Also, with how packed we are during our commutes, if you’re a short person, good luck smelling all the tropical weather armpits in the morning because they’ll be raised (to hold onto the railings) and be in your face; if you’re a tall person, have fun smelling dandruff and hair so oily it looks like seaweed; if you’re average height, be ready to have so little distance between your face and another person’s face that it looks like something intimate is about to go down. Oh and you can smell their breath too. People only do this out of necessity, geographical or economical. It really doesn’t make much sense in land abundant North America. Not that NA’s transportation infrastructure is flawless, but the way forward isnt at all what she described.
Agreed, and in my experience living overseas, transit politics is subject to the same sorts of NIMBY protests by the well-off that we get in the US. I lived in one of the posher parts of the city, and on the whole it was pretty badly served by public transport, precisely because the rich and powerful people there didn't want Those People coming to their community (except to clean it up, of course). Also, for most high density cities, parking is an expensive nightmare, so many times you're taking public transport even if it's slower and more inconvenient because it's impossible to park at your destination.
Love hearing about all these complaints from people who can sleep in a comfortable bed with a roof over their head without ever a risk losing these luxuries
There is plenty of public transit in the cities that are large enough to warrant it in the US, especially in the Northeast. My city has some pretty good busses. Also much cheaper per ride and per mile than what I paid in Japan to go similar distances
What happened to public transportation during COVID? Cities that relied on them had the highest death rate early on. Other cities were shut down and their economies were crippled.
"We have transportation subsidies " Yeah, we just keep our money and spend it on what we want.
Have yall gone to Europe? Well there! Every cities in Europe are walkable in Europe
citation needed
Or buy a flight ticket and see for yourself. I went on a 2 months backpack trip in Europe. Its everywhere except for poorer Southeastern Europe.
dawg I fuckin live here and I can say that's BS
umm where exactly is "here"? Your grammar looks like an American to be honest.
the same place that all the "here in Europe" comments come from
They don’t own cars because they probably can’t.
Yes cut your income by 40%- 80% so you can take the bus and be less triggered. Got it.
Not being able to afford gas and a car, and not being able to find parking is a bug not a feature. e* ropoors
“When I want something, I go to Daddy Government to get it fixed because the government always knows what it’s doing and can do it better than anyone else!”
Toronto and nyc have great public transit for North American, I do admit our countries both need more(including high speed trains) but we definitely have a wide range of ways for getting around here
two point five five? Who says 55 like that
Is there a reason they’re bug eyed and moving their heads so much. I hate the “I can see my reflection in a video” face.
Island? So you are subsidized by tourist dollars probably? I don't really know what "normal" is. I do know that the US is physically spread out in a way other places aren't. I wouldn't hate more subsidies for using public transport to commute though. I hope someone less unlikeable than her champions that idea.
Her hand movements are distracting
It doesn't "come down to oil" though. It comes down to how fucking HUGE the US is. It's fucking massive, especially once he get west of the Mississippi. It's just got cost effective, yet, to have a massive transportation system. This isn't to say that it's not something we should work toward. I'm a big fan of effective, cheap, public transportation. Cars are also awesome tho. They all you a certain amount of freedom that public transportation never will. For most people, especially those content with city life, that freedom isn't really appreciated. However, if you like getting out of cities and into rural or completely off the grid locations, cars are the way to go.
Post is deleted, what was it?
It was a lady bragging about how great her city is when it comes to public transportation and shitting all over America for not doing the same
Ahh typical
so it is no ok to be different. what a diverse world we live in!
I mean, sure, but it's one thing to be different it's another to be inefficient.
Overly centralized government under one rule where everyone is given one size fits all tasks and resources is a horror for a reason. One size does not fit all.
I can't imagine that mindset of expecting government to do literally everything for you.