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>Though I and my wife do not presently live in Massena, we live nearby, and we’re doing exactly this — we do not have an automobile, nor do we want one. We use

>Though I and my wife do not presently live in Massena, we live nearby, and we’re doing exactly this — we do not have an automobile, nor do we want one. We use the rural county transit bus, which we have found to be extremely cheap and quite reliable; and it has certainly saved us thousands and thousands of dollars by liberating us from the onerous expense of keeping a car. This part has me screaming shenanigans. Unless you basically don't leave the house, you need a car outside of like 8 American cities. More believable would be a pair of used bikes.

fzeroracer 1y ago
Agreed, looking at the map of Massena this seems like bullshit. I've lived without a car for my entire life across multiple states and it is incredibly onerous in even mildly dense areas.
- monroeclinton 1y ago
  https://www.slcnypublictransit.com/transit-schedules https://www.slcnypublictransit.com/transit-schedules It seems like they have a good number of routes and do route deviation within 3/4 of a mile of the bus stop.
  - fzeroracer 1y ago
    Frequency is often as important as the route from experience; because a route that's reasonably distant from your location can be walked to/biked to etc but a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around. And if you miss any bus then you're stranded (which, given that they don't have internet I'm curious how they manage...) Most of the bus routes here seem to run maybe twice a day, once early in the morning and then once late in the afternoon. There's a few more frequent ones that run on the hour but it looks to be closer to the denser cores.
    - bombcar 1y ago
      Rural bus routes used to be very common - they commute in in the morning and out in the afternoon. You change your schedule to handle that, and they usually will drive the van (barely a bus) up to your door.
    - fullStackOasis 1y ago
      > a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around. Okay but the dude is making $5K/y which means he basically has no job and he sits around in his house all week or goes hiking etc. His most exciting day of adventure will literally consist of taking the bus to the library to check out a book, and bringing it back home (while reading it on the bus, perhaps). He can totally afford to plan his entire day around the event.
bombcar 1y ago
That’s obviously not true, if you change what you “have” to go to. There are thousands of American towns that are about 10k population - large enough to have a Walmart and other stores, small enough to walk across in an hour or so.
- cozzyd 1y ago
  While such towns may have walkable cores, often places like Walmart are a huge pain to walk to.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    If you need only $400 a month, you have a looot of time to spend walking to Walmart.
    - cozzyd 1y ago
      It's not the distance, but hostile roads with no safe crossings.
      - bombcar 1y ago
        My admittedly unscientific survey of small Midwestern towns with Walmarts (that are NOT suburbs!) is that you can walk to the Walmart on sidewalks. At most, you have half a block to the nearest sidewalk, or have to cross the street. Some of the middling-old sections only have one sidewalk. The oldest have them on both sides of the street, and the newest developments have them also, usually.
        cozzyd 1y ago
        The two smallish towns I've spent significant time in (Tomah WI and Palestine TX) both have difficult to walk to Walmarts. But glad to hear it's not universal! I see from Google maps that here in Illinois the situation seems to be a bit better... (E.g. Morris, Rantoul and even Du Quoin). Du Quoin seems very inexpensive and seems like it would make a better argument than somewhere truly rural (it even has Amtrak service)
potato3732842 1y ago
Might be a slight of hand? Maybe he has a moped like the DUI people do.
xp84 1y ago
I agree that his deliberate deletion of a car and Internet access from the example budget undermines his point, but adding $200 to support the cost of owning a cheap car and $45 for a prepaid cellphone plan with ample tethering doesn't change the overall equation significantly.
- 999900000999 1y ago
  It's less click bait-ish. The max SSI payment is 967$. https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/amount https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/amount So you have a ton of people trying to make it off that. The cold weather is really the red flag for me. >Considering that the property has a well on-site, water is free, and as far as heat goes, well, one could either pay a little extra in electric for that — or they could have the Amish deliver their scrap wood from their sawmills to burn in a wood stove, very cheaply. He glosses over heating, but for a full house that can easily be 200 or 300$ dollars. Snow tends to cause problems. Now if he wrote this living in Florida or something it would be more practical. No risk of freezing. Walking or biking is possible year round. I'd actually love to see a bike first city, but outside of a few college towns I don't think it exists in the states
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    You can bike year round in Florida and bike or walk to work if you are in vicinity. Even go to grocery store or in some cases use a golf cart. At least one car is still preferable.
  - testing22321 1y ago
    I biked year round in the Yukon. -40 and beyond is a fun challenge.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    > He glosses over heating, but for a full house that can easily be 200 or 300$ dollars. Not at $0.04/kwh for a 600 square foot house it won’t.
bitcurious 1y ago
It's just a tradeoff. ~20 hours of low wage employment is more than enough to cover a car. Instead they choose to spend those ~20 hours walking/waiting for the bus. Certainly not a trade I would make.

fzeroracer 1y ago

Agreed, looking at the map of Massena this seems like bullshit. I've lived without a car for my entire life across multiple states and it is incredibly onerous in even mildly dense areas.

monroeclinton 1y ago
https://www.slcnypublictransit.com/transit-schedules https://www.slcnypublictransit.com/transit-schedules It seems like they have a good number of routes and do route deviation within 3/4 of a mile of the bus stop.
- fzeroracer 1y ago
  Frequency is often as important as the route from experience; because a route that's reasonably distant from your location can be walked to/biked to etc but a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around. And if you miss any bus then you're stranded (which, given that they don't have internet I'm curious how they manage...) Most of the bus routes here seem to run maybe twice a day, once early in the morning and then once late in the afternoon. There's a few more frequent ones that run on the hour but it looks to be closer to the denser cores.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    Rural bus routes used to be very common - they commute in in the morning and out in the afternoon. You change your schedule to handle that, and they usually will drive the van (barely a bus) up to your door.
  - fullStackOasis 1y ago
    > a low-frequency route means it's something you need to plan your entire day around. Okay but the dude is making $5K/y which means he basically has no job and he sits around in his house all week or goes hiking etc. His most exciting day of adventure will literally consist of taking the bus to the library to check out a book, and bringing it back home (while reading it on the bus, perhaps). He can totally afford to plan his entire day around the event.

bombcar 1y ago

That’s obviously not true, if you change what you “have” to go to. There are thousands of American towns that are about 10k population - large enough to have a Walmart and other stores, small enough to walk across in an hour or so.

cozzyd 1y ago
While such towns may have walkable cores, often places like Walmart are a huge pain to walk to.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  If you need only $400 a month, you have a looot of time to spend walking to Walmart.
  - cozzyd 1y ago
    It's not the distance, but hostile roads with no safe crossings.
    - bombcar 1y ago
      My admittedly unscientific survey of small Midwestern towns with Walmarts (that are NOT suburbs!) is that you can walk to the Walmart on sidewalks. At most, you have half a block to the nearest sidewalk, or have to cross the street. Some of the middling-old sections only have one sidewalk. The oldest have them on both sides of the street, and the newest developments have them also, usually.
      - cozzyd 1y ago
        The two smallish towns I've spent significant time in (Tomah WI and Palestine TX) both have difficult to walk to Walmarts. But glad to hear it's not universal! I see from Google maps that here in Illinois the situation seems to be a bit better... (E.g. Morris, Rantoul and even Du Quoin). Du Quoin seems very inexpensive and seems like it would make a better argument than somewhere truly rural (it even has Amtrak service)

potato3732842 1y ago

Might be a slight of hand? Maybe he has a moped like the DUI people do.

xp84 1y ago

I agree that his deliberate deletion of a car and Internet access from the example budget undermines his point, but adding $200 to support the cost of owning a cheap car and $45 for a prepaid cellphone plan with ample tethering doesn't change the overall equation significantly.

999900000999 1y ago
It's less click bait-ish. The max SSI payment is 967$. https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/amount https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/amount So you have a ton of people trying to make it off that. The cold weather is really the red flag for me. >Considering that the property has a well on-site, water is free, and as far as heat goes, well, one could either pay a little extra in electric for that — or they could have the Amish deliver their scrap wood from their sawmills to burn in a wood stove, very cheaply. He glosses over heating, but for a full house that can easily be 200 or 300$ dollars. Snow tends to cause problems. Now if he wrote this living in Florida or something it would be more practical. No risk of freezing. Walking or biking is possible year round. I'd actually love to see a bike first city, but outside of a few college towns I don't think it exists in the states
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  You can bike year round in Florida and bike or walk to work if you are in vicinity. Even go to grocery store or in some cases use a golf cart. At least one car is still preferable.
- testing22321 1y ago
  I biked year round in the Yukon. -40 and beyond is a fun challenge.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  > He glosses over heating, but for a full house that can easily be 200 or 300$ dollars. Not at $0.04/kwh for a 600 square foot house it won’t.

bitcurious 1y ago

It's just a tradeoff. ~20 hours of low wage employment is more than enough to cover a car. Instead they choose to spend those ~20 hours walking/waiting for the bus. Certainly not a trade I would make.