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As an immigrant to the US it strikes me as a very (definitionally?) American mindset. Lone wolf is always best, depending on someone else is a weakness. Troubl

As an immigrant to the US it strikes me as a very (definitionally?) American mindset. Lone wolf is always best, depending on someone else is a weakness. Trouble is, it becomes self-fulfilling. Once people with that mindset are in charge they underfund transportation so it becomes the crappy unreliable nightmare people are afraid of.

xg15 3y ago
Sadly, that's not just an American problem. I live in Germany, which is traditionally car-centric, and the ministry of transport - which is officially responsible for all forms of transport - has seen itself mostly as the ministry of cars and automakers for the last decades. The result is a massive underfunding of railway lines, which only the current (semi-green) government is trying to address.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  It perhaps not much of a consolation, but it is just as well that railway infrastructure itself ages slowly. Public transport is considerably less expensive in Germany compared to my country (Britain, specifically England): a German Deutschlandticket costs €49 per month and provides unlimited rail travel on non-express lines, and unlimited local bus travel. A typical 5 hour rail journey - one off, one way - booked months in advance currently costs about €200 in Britain. It's a high-quality service, but not in any way affordable for the majority of workers to commute with. The reason I bring this up is to say that Germany is still doing a great job at making rail public transport available, despite the crumbling infrastructure. As long as it can still get you from A to B reliably and safely, it is making a positive contribution to reducing the carbon footprint of travel. Hopefully, by the time that the infrastructure has degraded to the point where the service is dangerous or out of capacity, various components will have become slightly cheaper as well (rail crimping, for instance).

xg15 3y ago

Sadly, that's not just an American problem. I live in Germany, which is traditionally car-centric, and the ministry of transport - which is officially responsible for all forms of transport - has seen itself mostly as the ministry of cars and automakers for the last decades. The result is a massive underfunding of railway lines, which only the current (semi-green) government is trying to address.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
It perhaps not much of a consolation, but it is just as well that railway infrastructure itself ages slowly. Public transport is considerably less expensive in Germany compared to my country (Britain, specifically England): a German Deutschlandticket costs €49 per month and provides unlimited rail travel on non-express lines, and unlimited local bus travel. A typical 5 hour rail journey - one off, one way - booked months in advance currently costs about €200 in Britain. It's a high-quality service, but not in any way affordable for the majority of workers to commute with. The reason I bring this up is to say that Germany is still doing a great job at making rail public transport available, despite the crumbling infrastructure. As long as it can still get you from A to B reliably and safely, it is making a positive contribution to reducing the carbon footprint of travel. Hopefully, by the time that the infrastructure has degraded to the point where the service is dangerous or out of capacity, various components will have become slightly cheaper as well (rail crimping, for instance).