4 ms·

Nobody in human rights would allow that. Take away the car and people cannot live. The above is sadly serious. It is almost impossible to find a job and a hou

• philipwhiuk 8mo ago
  > It is almost impossible to find a job and a house you can afford in walking distance of each other, demanding there be things like grocery shopping as well make it not feasible for most people This is exactly what the parent meant by designing the country in a 'car-brained' fashion. It's not true in many/most other countries.
  • rootusrootus 8mo ago
    > It's not true in many/most other countries. Europe may not drive as much as America, but it's still about half. Cars are popular worldwide for a reason, and it is not American corporations magically convincing everyone how useful they are. It's also entirely moot, as we're not redesigning the country in the short term to cut down on DUIs.
    • sobjornstad 8mo ago
      Yeah, but there's a big difference between having a car because you can afford it and it's often more convenient, and it being completely impractical to not have one. Or even to go have a beer without having to drive home.
• cesarb 8mo ago
  > Take away the car and people cannot live. [...] It is almost impossible to find a job and a house you can afford in walking distance of each other, As a Brazilian, that statement feels bizarre. Yeah, my job and my home are not in walking distance of each other. I simply take the bus. Sure, some jobs are not within reach of the bus (or the ferry, or the metro, or the light tram, etc), and some jobs need a car (for instance, it would be hard for a HVAC technician to take all their equipment on a bus), but saying it's "almost impossible" to find a job? > demanding there be things like grocery shopping as well make it not feasible for most people. That also sounds bizarre to my ears. Most places I've known have small grocery shopping places on nearly every corner. You just have to walk.
  • showerst 8mo ago
    Unfortunately that just isn't true in large parts of the US. Many cities have no public transit, and no accessible grocery stores. Being able to live car free is pretty much limited to (expensive) major cities and some (expensive) mid-sized college towns. The city of about 50,000 I'm from not only has no public transit and limited sidewalks, it doesn't even have crosswalks across the two main 6-lane roads that divide the city, so you can't safely walk more than about a mile even if you wanted to.
    • bluGill 8mo ago
      Even in cities with public transit often it is so bad that isn't reasonable to expect someone to use it. Reasonable transit must run 24x7/365, at least every half an hour. Miss a day and someone can't get someplace they might want to. More than half an hour between bus/trains and it isn't reasonable. Miss the over night - maybe you can do this if you have taxi service for the same price (which might be cheaper overall for the few people who want to ride at 3am). Half hour is the minimum, it is possible to plan your life around that level of service and not be impacted too badly, but you will hate it (particularly when the line is a little longer than you expected: you miss your bus and so your ice cream melts by the time the next comes)
    • linhns 8mo ago
      Not just the US, it's like that everywhere. Private transport will always be necessary as people need to go on routes with low demand. Only counterexample I can think of is Singapore, which has a vast network of buses and trains that go to everywhere.
      • iso1631 8mo ago
        I'm trying to think of a city of 50,000 people in western europe with no public transport, do you have one in mind?
        • bluGill 8mo ago
          Even in cities with public transit cars have a very high mode share in rich countries. Some of it is 'trades' that need to carry tools and parts with them, but a lot could take transit but don't for unknown reasons