WE ONCE HAD STREETCARS LOOK WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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These “take a train” crowd think that everyone in every city and every town has a subway system or even a functional bus system. It’s like the bicycle people who insist that I don’t need a car, I can just strap my kids to my back in winter and drop them off at school before cycling to work and stopping for errands and groceries on the way home! So easy! /s
If I didn’t NEED a car I wouldn’t drive one, and that applies to most people. But for some reason everyone on here is a 20something city kid with easy access to public transit
“These ‘take a train’ crowd” tend to be also the ones saying “build more trains, light rail, and tram lines, also bike lanes” but who are prevented from making progress at every turn by oil and motor lobbyists. They are very aware of the limitations but generally encourage it because it’s a good thing to do.
This is the most offensive and derogatory form of ableism. I'm reporting this and I'm tagging you as "Person who hates the disabled" and I am not going to spend even a moment thinking about how mass transit or pedestrian pathways might benefit an individual with mobility issues.
Please, add /s. I almost believed you.
See your comment brings up the big issue I have with the bicycle crowd. I literally cannot ride a bike due to disability , so ride transit right? If my city had a good and reliable transit system i fucking would! But it doesn’t, and it never fucking will. So yes I will give up the car and take transit every day, when pigs fly and my city has a good transit system.
Your way of thinking relies on the belief that transit is adequate in most places, and it sure as hell is not
Lemme strap my wife and kids to my back while I cycle them all to their destinations then head off to work 50km away in the dead of winter!
Bicycle people have no brain, they think everyone lives in California or some shit
I do this with light rail. Takes 6 minutes with slow walking included. It's pleasant.
Especially in the winter. I live in Norway, so if I use a car I wait for the engine to warm up before driving. (It's better for the engine.) This and removal of ice and snow easily takes more than 6 minutes. I'm really glad I don't have a car.
Most of the world is not like Norway and having a car is a necessity not a desire
The fact people want to get in a car in order to get groceries is beyond me. I'm in Australia, where car brain is also very prevalent, but with many urban places good for walking and PT.
I live close to the shops, and go there multiple times a week because it's literally right there. Driving and parking? Nah, I'm good.
Friends I have talk about ordering groceries so casually. I go onto these apps and see a 20% markup with delivery fees and I'm like what the fuck.
I live in Houston. We have a grocery store in town that has a big apartment block over the top of it. A friend lives there and he jokes that he's taking the elevator to the grocery store any time I complain about traffic or parking.
Unfortunately, living in a posh apartment that's conveniently placed over a nice grocery store means the price of rent is astronomical. So he needs to work as a highly paid attorney in the oil industry to afford to live in a place where he doesn't need to use a car to get groceries.
American problems
Ideally we could just fucking walk to a small grocery store instead of having to drive to one. Also would increase jobs with more foot traffic.
Most Americans lost one or both of their feet to the diabeetus
Don't forget polio, due to anti-vaxxers, it's making a comeback!
If you are not disabled in anyway and still need to take a transport bigger than a bicycle to buy basic groceries, the design of the city you live in is fundamentally broken.
As a disabled person, thanks for remembering us. I'll see these "just hop on your bike and pedal over!" comments and it's kinda saddening.
There are disabled people in the Netherlands too. And they can move around the city in micro cars, mobility scooters, electric wheelchairs, etc... with confidence, because bike lanes network allows them to go anywhere, with way more autonomy and safety than in any other country.
That sounds great, but I suspect The Netherlands wouldn't welcome me with open arms. Until then, I'm stuck in 'Murica.
I suspect The Netherlands wouldn’t welcome me with open arms
Because you're disabled? Or because you've got an unseasonal tan or low-income?
From my experience, the EU is enormously accepting and encouraging of rich white migrants, regardless of their mobility status.
honestly, that's worth the try :D But of course, it's easy to always show the exception and ask "why aren't you all doing the same?". Decades of car centric politics will not be fixed easily, not with techbros reinventing trains, not in today's 'Murica. It's a shame, though, because there was a great streetcars infrastructure a century ago... maybe that's the one thing America should bring back to be great again
Taking a train to the grocery store only seems absurd to people who have never experienced a really efficient rail system.
You get what you pay for.
I used to take the train to the grocery store. It was called the red line in Chicago
In Tokyo I'd hop on the subway regularly to shop. Not a big deal at all.
The only thing that was different was that you don't buy two weeks of groceries at once.
This was something that used to put me on the pro-car side; if it takes me multiple trips just to get all my groceries from my car into the house, lugging all of that on a bus or a bike would be a nightmare!
But then I saw content from people like Not Just Bikes, and saw how people in places with good public transit actually live, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that if shopping was more convenient, I wouldn’t need to buy a week’s worth of groceries in one trip. I could just swing by a corner store for what I need that night or the next morning, and one or two bags are easy to handle on a train or even a bicycle.
as a Dutchy, this confuses me greatly
Trains solve traffic issues
Elon brings shame to autists everywhere by not knowing about trains
Gregory does not have enough trains in his neighbourhood
Elon brings shame to autists everywhere by not knowing about trains
Elon's not actually autistic. He's just terminally online and regularly high off his gord. Once he sobers up, he does a masterful job of rooking WASPs out of their retirement accounts and state treasuries out of their tax monies by doing his best Music Man impression.
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why would I take a train when the store is 3 minutes walking diatance
That's literally communism and also the cause of everything wrong with the economy, that's why!
My township is going through this
Vandalism, threats, people screaming in public, and so on; all afraid that the new area being built having stores within walking distance is a government conspiracy to restrict people’s ability to leave
…all the existing parts of town have grocers and shops within walking distance
Driving is for free people, walking is for slaves! /s
Light rail. All the time. Train isn't only Amtrak.
This dude jokes but when I lived in Harlem I’d take the subway to Columbus circle Whole Foods as it was significantly easier than commuting to the east side on 125 to pathmark.
It's actually called zoning reform. Bring back neighborhood grocery stores you can walk to. Before I experienced it, I never thought about how convenient it is to walk less than 5 minutes to a grocery store almost every day and do little grocery trips instead of bit multi-bag struggles.
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I beg these people to imagine a world where you don't need to get in a vehicle to buy essentials.
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