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No. It's shit. It's always been shit. And it will always be shit. New York City has the longest commute times in the entire country. I've had friends who grew

No. It's shit. It's always been shit. And it will always be shit. New York City has the longest commute times in the entire country. I've had friends who grew up ther and upon leaving literally said, "oh so this is what it's like to be alive. I thought all people did was work, commute, and sleep." Walking to a bus stop sucks. Waiting for the next train sucks. Inevitably missing your transport or connection sucks. Listening to podcasts is cool so it's not the end of the world though. People who live off public transportation live in tiny bubbles. A square mile here and a square mile there. Like you said, moving from one all walkneighborhood to another. God help you if you want more than one of ~five neighborhoods. And if you want to go see nature? Hah. sure you could rent a car or use a zip car but that's a huge hassle and people rarely do. Assuming you even have a drivers license which, much to my surprise, many folks are starting to skip. You aren't wrong that it's a function of worldview. Perhaps one view is right or perhaps both are.

wibr 11y ago
Well sitting in a traffic jam also sucks? In my opinion even more because you are literally stuck, you can't just choose another connection, go somewhere else to have a coffee, you are trapped in your car on some road and there is nothing you can do except wait and try to ask the navigation system for better routes. I don't think driverless car will fix any congestion problems in the city. Instead there might be even more cars: Elderly, children, deliveries, pets, driving billboards and vending machines, everyone can go anywhere on their own!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ACow_Adonis 11y ago
I live in inner-city Melbourne, in what, I am under no delusion, is a relatively privileged position even in this city and where people (as people do everywhere) complain about transport. The outer suburbs are dominated by car use. Myself and my partner currently preference, by free choice (we could easily afford one) not to have a car. We own a carspace in our building in case we ever needed one one, but we rent it out to others. We're dreading the day when we have to waste our money or time buying a car, say if children came along, but we're seriously asking ourselves whether we could maybe go without one even in that case because its unhealthy, an inconvenience and a frustration. We're members of a car share, but honestly...we've used it once so far. I have 3 tram lines within about 5 minutes walk from me. I don't really look at timetables, I walk to the stops or use the phone tram-tracking and just go. Why do we preference to not owning a car? Because its a pain in the arse to drive + a time + money + health sink. But let me just tackle another of your points. Namely: people who live off public transportation live in tiny bubbles. Guilty. I even jokingly refer to this place as the inner-city bubble, because once you're in you really have no reason to leave. And yes, my neighbourhood is walk friendly for a couple of kilometers in all directions. My bubble is made up of about 5 walkable 'burbs within a few square kilometers of my house, and that's where I spend 90%+ of my time. But you know what. Previously I've lived in a couple of places, one of which was Sydney. Traffic is awful there. And Canberra, a little country car town if ever there was one. And what I observed was that car-cultures live in bubbles too. But you know what? Their bubbles are orders of magnitude smaller. Oh sure, they commute and move 30kms to get from one little bubble to park in another little bubble, but their lives become miniscule little bubbles connected by road journeys. Its the IDEA of freedom that most car owners enjoy, but if you tacked on a GPS, I bet you'd find most car owners moving between and handful of miniscule bubbles via a system of road based arteries for 99% of their lives. Indeed in Sydney, it was pretty much an attitude of "screw it, its such a god damn hassle to get anywhere because of the traffic/roads, i'm going to bunker down in my own little bubble as much as possible". Now is there variation? Sure, but the idea that public transport is the shit option, or that users on it are living in bubbles compared to the freedom of car owners is demonstrably not universally true.

wibr 11y ago

Well sitting in a traffic jam also sucks? In my opinion even more because you are literally stuck, you can't just choose another connection, go somewhere else to have a coffee, you are trapped in your car on some road and there is nothing you can do except wait and try to ask the navigation system for better routes. I don't think driverless car will fix any congestion problems in the city. Instead there might be even more cars: Elderly, children, deliveries, pets, driving billboards and vending machines, everyone can go anywhere on their own!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ACow_Adonis 11y ago

I live in inner-city Melbourne, in what, I am under no delusion, is a relatively privileged position even in this city and where people (as people do everywhere) complain about transport. The outer suburbs are dominated by car use. Myself and my partner currently preference, by free choice (we could easily afford one) not to have a car. We own a carspace in our building in case we ever needed one one, but we rent it out to others. We're dreading the day when we have to waste our money or time buying a car, say if children came along, but we're seriously asking ourselves whether we could maybe go without one even in that case because its unhealthy, an inconvenience and a frustration. We're members of a car share, but honestly...we've used it once so far. I have 3 tram lines within about 5 minutes walk from me. I don't really look at timetables, I walk to the stops or use the phone tram-tracking and just go. Why do we preference to not owning a car? Because its a pain in the arse to drive + a time + money + health sink. But let me just tackle another of your points. Namely: people who live off public transportation live in tiny bubbles. Guilty. I even jokingly refer to this place as the inner-city bubble, because once you're in you really have no reason to leave. And yes, my neighbourhood is walk friendly for a couple of kilometers in all directions. My bubble is made up of about 5 walkable 'burbs within a few square kilometers of my house, and that's where I spend 90%+ of my time. But you know what. Previously I've lived in a couple of places, one of which was Sydney. Traffic is awful there. And Canberra, a little country car town if ever there was one. And what I observed was that car-cultures live in bubbles too. But you know what? Their bubbles are orders of magnitude smaller. Oh sure, they commute and move 30kms to get from one little bubble to park in another little bubble, but their lives become miniscule little bubbles connected by road journeys. Its the IDEA of freedom that most car owners enjoy, but if you tacked on a GPS, I bet you'd find most car owners moving between and handful of miniscule bubbles via a system of road based arteries for 99% of their lives. Indeed in Sydney, it was pretty much an attitude of "screw it, its such a god damn hassle to get anywhere because of the traffic/roads, i'm going to bunker down in my own little bubble as much as possible". Now is there variation? Sure, but the idea that public transport is the shit option, or that users on it are living in bubbles compared to the freedom of car owners is demonstrably not universally true.