6 ms·

Individually though we have little choice, fact of the matter is I live 30 miles from where I work. I can't afford to live close enough to walk, they demand I b

by surge 11y ago

Individually though we have little choice, fact of the matter is I live 30 miles from where I work. I can't afford to live close enough to walk, they demand I be in the office almost every day. I would love to reduce my dependence on a vehicle, if nothing else to get rid of the risk to my own life I take every morning getting behind the wheel while half awake. The article fails to point out the US is spread out, people live far apart, and there are few if any viable alternatives for transportation, even in areas with high population density.

zzalpha 11y ago
Agreed, it's a hard problem to solve. Question though: did you consider alternate forms of transportation when you decided where to live and work? Or did you just (even subconsciously) presume a car was necessarily part of the picture? That's one of the cultural issues at play, here. For many, not only is single car commuting just assumed, anything else is virtually unthinkable, affecting any number of decisions people make.
- thedaemon 11y ago
  Unlike many European countries we do not have bus routes to the rural towns. It forces us to rely on our own cars, or a family member's good will. Until we can build the bus infrastructure, cars are here to stay.
  - rebelde 11y ago
    A bus infrastructure? You must mean a self-driving taxi- or uber-like smart car infrastructure. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the "problem" completely, but it is a step in that direction. The next step would be sharing rides.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    This varies. There isn't much commuter service, but many counties have a subsidized on demand service to provide minimal transport and there are bus lines that have once per day service over wide geographic areas.
  - zzalpha 11y ago
    But why are you in a rural town? That, itself, is a choice based on the assumption you'll be driving. Edit: not sure why the downvote. That's a genuine question. Living in a rural area is a lifestyle choice that typically necessitates a car. If not owning a car is a priority, you'd make a different lifestyle choice. Which is really my point. For most people, owning a car isn't seen as a lifestyle choice. It's seen as a default. Automatic. Not even part of the equation. And that's cultural.
    - vollmond 11y ago
      Living in a rural area isn't a lifestyle choice when the cities are so far apart. If the cities were every 40-60 miles, it might be. I live 2 hours from the nearest city that has any significant public transport (central Pennsylvania). Getting rid of a car isn't worth introducing a 2 hour drive to visit family that lives here -- they're why we live here in the first place. We used to live in southwest Missouri. Losing the car would probably have put us anywhere from 3 to 8 (driving) hours away from anyone we knew, depending on how the public transit is in Kansas City or Tulsa or St. Louis. I wouldn't be surprised if Chicago was the closest city where you could really be fine without a car.
      - zzalpha 11y ago
        Living in a rural area isn't a lifestyle choice when the cities are so far apart. I live in Canada... I live three hours from my own mom. And we live in the two largest cities in my province, separated by vast swathes of cattle pasture and wheat fields. I live 2 hours from the nearest city that has any significant public transport (central Pennsylvania). Getting rid of a car isn't worth introducing a 2 hour drive to visit family that lives here -- they're why we live here in the first place. Right. That's a lifestyle choice. The choice you're making is choosing to optimize access to family at the expense of requiring a car. You could choose to live in or nearer to a city, making public transit an option, and renting for those times when you want to visit family. But that would, of course, introduce a barrier to visiting family, and you've decided that's not acceptable. That's fine! You're obviously free to make that choice! But don't claim you had no choice, and that it isn't because you've chosen to optimize for a certain lifestyle.
- msabalau 11y ago
  I grew up in a rural area which became the suburbs. I know that I didn't consider not having a car when I moved to the city. Fortunately someone stole my car, and I learned how much better my life was without it. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me!
- surge 11y ago
  I did, a bus in my city takes an 2-3 hours just to travel 30 miles, I would need to catch a bus at the exact right time, travel to the center of downtown, about an hour because multiple stops on the way, wait 30 minutes to an hour for the inter-city bus, then about 30-45 minutes from there, then walk/bike to work an additional 10-30 minutes in my nice office clothes (because dress codes) and work up a nice stanky sweat since it gets up to 90-100 degrees in the summer. And that's just to get to work and back to say nothing of getting around town. You can look at the bus schedules and see they don't pass close enough to the areas I need to go, its not practical, I don't know how people dependent on it function without losing 4-6 hours a day. What I considered was where I could afford a house, where my wife worked (the city we live in), school districts, etc. The fact that everything is country roads or major highways between cities. Fact of the matter is, unless you make a high income to live in a major city like NYC, Boston, San Fran, etc. You can't be a functional adult in the U.S., you're just extremely limited on where you can seek employment, accomplishing basic tasks like buying food (grocery stores are often a few miles away, and small shops/convenience stores are overpriced have few if any options, especially healthy ones), you'd have to take days off just to go see a dentist/doctor or a government office. We're spread out, and the fact is we like that way, most of us feel claustrophobic in a major city where total strangers are a thin wall away and your apartment costs half your monthly income and is the size of your college dorm.
tobltobs 11y ago
You cherry pick one use case for cars. Point is, that in those car crazy nations you can't even visit friends in walkable distance without a car.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  For those cases, there are numerous alternatives: taxis/uber for one off transport. For weekend getaways where alternate transportation isn't an option, you can rent. The aggregate cost is likely to be far less than that of owning your own vehicle.

by surge 11y ago

zzalpha 11y ago

Agreed, it's a hard problem to solve. Question though: did you consider alternate forms of transportation when you decided where to live and work? Or did you just (even subconsciously) presume a car was necessarily part of the picture? That's one of the cultural issues at play, here. For many, not only is single car commuting just assumed, anything else is virtually unthinkable, affecting any number of decisions people make.

thedaemon 11y ago
Unlike many European countries we do not have bus routes to the rural towns. It forces us to rely on our own cars, or a family member's good will. Until we can build the bus infrastructure, cars are here to stay.
- rebelde 11y ago
  A bus infrastructure? You must mean a self-driving taxi- or uber-like smart car infrastructure. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the "problem" completely, but it is a step in that direction. The next step would be sharing rides.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  This varies. There isn't much commuter service, but many counties have a subsidized on demand service to provide minimal transport and there are bus lines that have once per day service over wide geographic areas.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  But why are you in a rural town? That, itself, is a choice based on the assumption you'll be driving. Edit: not sure why the downvote. That's a genuine question. Living in a rural area is a lifestyle choice that typically necessitates a car. If not owning a car is a priority, you'd make a different lifestyle choice. Which is really my point. For most people, owning a car isn't seen as a lifestyle choice. It's seen as a default. Automatic. Not even part of the equation. And that's cultural.
  - vollmond 11y ago
    Living in a rural area isn't a lifestyle choice when the cities are so far apart. If the cities were every 40-60 miles, it might be. I live 2 hours from the nearest city that has any significant public transport (central Pennsylvania). Getting rid of a car isn't worth introducing a 2 hour drive to visit family that lives here -- they're why we live here in the first place. We used to live in southwest Missouri. Losing the car would probably have put us anywhere from 3 to 8 (driving) hours away from anyone we knew, depending on how the public transit is in Kansas City or Tulsa or St. Louis. I wouldn't be surprised if Chicago was the closest city where you could really be fine without a car.
    - zzalpha 11y ago
      Living in a rural area isn't a lifestyle choice when the cities are so far apart. I live in Canada... I live three hours from my own mom. And we live in the two largest cities in my province, separated by vast swathes of cattle pasture and wheat fields. I live 2 hours from the nearest city that has any significant public transport (central Pennsylvania). Getting rid of a car isn't worth introducing a 2 hour drive to visit family that lives here -- they're why we live here in the first place. Right. That's a lifestyle choice. The choice you're making is choosing to optimize access to family at the expense of requiring a car. You could choose to live in or nearer to a city, making public transit an option, and renting for those times when you want to visit family. But that would, of course, introduce a barrier to visiting family, and you've decided that's not acceptable. That's fine! You're obviously free to make that choice! But don't claim you had no choice, and that it isn't because you've chosen to optimize for a certain lifestyle.
msabalau 11y ago
I grew up in a rural area which became the suburbs. I know that I didn't consider not having a car when I moved to the city. Fortunately someone stole my car, and I learned how much better my life was without it. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me!
surge 11y ago
I did, a bus in my city takes an 2-3 hours just to travel 30 miles, I would need to catch a bus at the exact right time, travel to the center of downtown, about an hour because multiple stops on the way, wait 30 minutes to an hour for the inter-city bus, then about 30-45 minutes from there, then walk/bike to work an additional 10-30 minutes in my nice office clothes (because dress codes) and work up a nice stanky sweat since it gets up to 90-100 degrees in the summer. And that's just to get to work and back to say nothing of getting around town. You can look at the bus schedules and see they don't pass close enough to the areas I need to go, its not practical, I don't know how people dependent on it function without losing 4-6 hours a day. What I considered was where I could afford a house, where my wife worked (the city we live in), school districts, etc. The fact that everything is country roads or major highways between cities. Fact of the matter is, unless you make a high income to live in a major city like NYC, Boston, San Fran, etc. You can't be a functional adult in the U.S., you're just extremely limited on where you can seek employment, accomplishing basic tasks like buying food (grocery stores are often a few miles away, and small shops/convenience stores are overpriced have few if any options, especially healthy ones), you'd have to take days off just to go see a dentist/doctor or a government office. We're spread out, and the fact is we like that way, most of us feel claustrophobic in a major city where total strangers are a thin wall away and your apartment costs half your monthly income and is the size of your college dorm.

tobltobs 11y ago

You cherry pick one use case for cars. Point is, that in those car crazy nations you can't even visit friends in walkable distance without a car.

zzalpha 11y ago
For those cases, there are numerous alternatives: taxis/uber for one off transport. For weekend getaways where alternate transportation isn't an option, you can rent. The aggregate cost is likely to be far less than that of owning your own vehicle.