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quick, someone tell that small rural community of 600 people they need public transportation! When people express opinions like this you immediately know they
by PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
quick, someone tell that small rural community of 600 people they need public transportation!
When people express opinions like this you immediately know they live in the city and think everyone else does too.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoIn my experience in Canada, small rural communities typically do have public transportation. Small rural communities generally have a lot of elderly people, so most small towns provide a wheelchair accessible taxi-like service.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agowhile retirement communities exist, that certainly isn't what I was describing.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoI'm not talking about retirement communities. I'm talking about normal small towns where >50% of the kids move to the cities where the jobs are.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agoooooh, you're not talking about retirement communities. One wonders how the hay gets baled if most of the population is elderly people. you don't actually understand what a rural community is.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoIn my experience, farmers don't live in rural communities. They live on farms. And 90% of them are over the age of 50. Unless it's a Hutterite colony, in which case your point is entirely moot because they have 0 private transport.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agonow you're getting it. they drive into town because these areas don't have the density that cities do and the towns themselves aren't large enough to justify public transportation, especially considering that even the non-farmers typically will live many miles from where they purchase their groceries, etc.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoMy home town has public transport, called the Handi-Van. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redvers,_Saskatchewan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redvers,_Saskatchewan Population 1,000.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agohttps://sk.211.ca/services/town-office-43/handi-van-transit/ https://sk.211.ca/services/town-office-43/handi-van-transit/ > Eligibility > Elderly individuals and those with special needs. which is what I expected when I went looking, calling that public transportation is against the spirit of what we're discussing here. My further guess is that the majority of the people in this town are elderly (retirement community).
- earthling8118 3y agoSo the town can afford dedicated transport for people who don't produce anything and your assumption is that it isn't feasible for those who do produce economic value? And it is somehow more feasible for each of those individuals to privately pay the costs?
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agoold people pay taxes, try again.
- engineer_22 3y agoRural New Yorker here, we also have low intensity public transportation (contract taxis, bus lines). As a busy professional, it would be too inconvenient for me to use, but as a busy professional I can afford to drive. Walkable cities sounds nice, but I like having space. At this point of my life, living in a suburban community is desirable.
- smileysteve 3y agoUnless you look back 70 years and realize that many small towns only existed because they had rail (passenger and goods). (and/or private bus service). Turns out, getting your goods to market before every person had a car was a requirement.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agois this a serious response? before they had cars people used horses.
- engineer_22 3y agoI think that puts the cart before the horse. Why build a railroad to no-where? Surely the small towns pre-existed the railroad.
- Arnt 3y agoThe two end stations existed, and enough in between the make the railway feasible. Then the existence of paths to two big cities made some villages grow, and grow, and grow.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agothe two end stations exist because people were already there, they didn't build that railway across the US before these areas were settled. What you're arguing is that there are towns that would pop up around these railways after the fact, and while that's true, they would also pop up around water, gold, and other natural resources. It turns out there's lots of reasons why communities form, but one thing we know for sure is that railways require demand FIRST, not second.
- Arnt 3y agoSome demand has to be present first, sure. But "not second" doesn't follow. No law prevents the planners from expecting demand to grow, and basing their decision to build on that.
- eli 3y agoWhat percentage of Americans live in a community with 600 or fewer people? There are very few policy decisions that will be universally good for everyone. That doesn't automatically make them bad policies.
- Loggias 3y ago[dead]
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agoThe real question you're asking is what percentage of people live in areas where public transportation isn't reasonable. it's a lot larger than you think, especially if you're a city dweller.
- eli 3y agoMost Americans are city dwellers. It's not even close. And the trend has been consistently towards increased urbanization since the country's founding. I'm not arguing we should ignore rural communities, just that we shouldn't rule out ideas that work in cities because they don't work outside cities.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agomost people are not disabled, and yet somehow catering to the disabled is written into law. this is not an argument for why we should be ignoring EV's in lieu of transportation, which is what I originally responded to.
- pi-e-sigma 3y agoDoesn't exactly answer your question, but 20% of the US population is living in settlements with no more than 5000 inhabitants. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-ru...
- Tactician_mark 3y agoThis discussion is about public EV charging. If you live somewhere rural or suburban and can afford a car, you can probably afford a garage for it. The push for public EV charging is in more urban places, where public transit would be a better investment.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agothe thread is about EV charging, this particular branch of the discussion is about public transportation.