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Yes, Helsinki. A capital city. Which is where most of these comparisons end. In most European countries, people have trouble even affording a place close to a l

Yes, Helsinki. A capital city. Which is where most of these comparisons end. In most European countries, people have trouble even affording a place close to a larger or capital city unless they inherited money or already live there, at which point the quality of transport rapidly diminishes (same goes for a place in that city with good connections). That includes young professionals working in tech. When you have to go home by midnight as a student / young professional living outside the city because public transport service ends (or even before that because you don't want to get stranded), or you live somewhere off the beaten path, or even the other party lives off the beaten path a little, getting a car to drive at least a part of that becomes more and more enticing. I say this knowing that improving public transport to reduce the number of roads and cars on the road has been a topic for a few decades now, and even the most obvious national lines aren't being funded in my country, whereas there is money to create more roads and maintain older roads. I don't doubt The Netherlands is far better than the US, but while possible, there are still tons of hurdles to overcome in going car-less. Japan is another example, where the cities do it much better than we do, but the outskirts arguably do it worse.

uberswe 5y ago
I live in a smaller city called Västerås in Sweden and although you will always find problems if you look hard enough. Don’t compare Europe vs US. Compare cities instead and see what they do differently. In Västerås i lived in the rural outskirts when I was younger and missing the 2am bus meant I had to wait until 6am but I think it only happened once to me. I also lived in Houston, Texas. I never took the bus because it would take 45 min to walk to the nearest stop. Biking was fun though because I lived near a large reserve but there was always the fear of getting hit by a boar or bit by something poisonous. In Västerås walking or biking was always easy and felt integrated to the planning of the city. In Houston you had to seek out special areas where it would be nice to walk or ride your bike.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  How far could you have walked in the four hours instead of waiting? In case of good weather, no rain, or snowstorm, or such?
  - uberswe 5y ago
    It would have taken a little over an hour to walk home and I would have had walking/biking paths and sidewalks most of the way. Close to where I live I would have had to walk on the side of the road but it was very low traffic
yencabulator 5y ago
The smaller cities in Finland tend to have dedicated bike/pedestrian paths separated from roads, with almost every school age child bicycling or walking to school. The only way I can understand someone complaining about the lack of such options in Northern Europe is that they haven't lived elsewhere, and seen how bad it could be. My favorite personal US-is-for-cars anecdote: We once got into cars just to drive across the road, as there was no pedestrian crossing and six lanes of traffic.

uberswe 5y ago

I live in a smaller city called Västerås in Sweden and although you will always find problems if you look hard enough. Don’t compare Europe vs US. Compare cities instead and see what they do differently. In Västerås i lived in the rural outskirts when I was younger and missing the 2am bus meant I had to wait until 6am but I think it only happened once to me. I also lived in Houston, Texas. I never took the bus because it would take 45 min to walk to the nearest stop. Biking was fun though because I lived near a large reserve but there was always the fear of getting hit by a boar or bit by something poisonous. In Västerås walking or biking was always easy and felt integrated to the planning of the city. In Houston you had to seek out special areas where it would be nice to walk or ride your bike.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
How far could you have walked in the four hours instead of waiting? In case of good weather, no rain, or snowstorm, or such?
- uberswe 5y ago
  It would have taken a little over an hour to walk home and I would have had walking/biking paths and sidewalks most of the way. Close to where I live I would have had to walk on the side of the road but it was very low traffic

yencabulator 5y ago

The smaller cities in Finland tend to have dedicated bike/pedestrian paths separated from roads, with almost every school age child bicycling or walking to school. The only way I can understand someone complaining about the lack of such options in Northern Europe is that they haven't lived elsewhere, and seen how bad it could be. My favorite personal US-is-for-cars anecdote: We once got into cars just to drive across the road, as there was no pedestrian crossing and six lanes of traffic.