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Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes) sitting at a lemonade stand, smiling, with a sign that reads, “Trains and micromobility are inevitably the future of urban transportation, whether society wants it or not. CHANGE MY MIND.”

    • Scrof@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Yeah that’s a bold assumption. My bet is on “it’s going to get progressively worse and never better”. I have yet to be proven wrong. Since the day I was born everything’s been enshittening with only inconsequential cosmetic improvements (lol technology, what a joke).

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        My plan is to work from home, be completely self sufficient with minimal transport and do all I can do online.

          • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Eh, I guess? Partially. I have stores nearby that I can go walking, and WFH so yeah internet reliant, but I’m a programmer so that’s already a given anyway.

            I did say self sufficient with minimal transport though.

            • Blooper@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I live mostly this way. I have an electric car but I live in a very dense urban area and don’t drive much. Looking to get myself an ebike or scooter to use as my main mode of transportation.

            • Agent_of_Kayos@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Yeah…being a programmer, it doesn’t matter if WFH structure falls because around the same time most technology might fall. We just gotta hope that it’s multi-decades away at this point

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Internet infrastructure is best infrastructure humanity made. To be fair, this is only infrastructure entire humanity made.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Depends on society. Here in Europe we build more and more railways even though we already have shitloads (compared to US).

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        But build very slowly. Compare to USSR where shitloads of railways were made in 70 years.

        Although “better less, but better”

        • Aux@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Well, USSR was a different beast. You can’t build that fast in a democratic society.

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            After around 1919 and before Stalin USSR was democratic. And from 80-ies to the end. And democracy ended about 1996. Then shooting parlament from tanks, then Eltsin names his successor, then his successor wins, then removal of gubernator elections in 2002-2003, and everything else.

            And in comparasion USSR was more democratic than empire except Stalin time. Stalin time managed to be even worse.

              • uis@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You want to say that Russian Empire that was monarchy had more democracy? THAT is delusion.

                Or you want to say Stalin was good? That is delusion too.

                • Aux@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Where did you get the Empire from, mmm? The fuck are you talking about at all?

    • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 year ago

      If nothing else, car dependency is fiscally unsustainable. We might go kicking and screaming towards the solution, but eventually people will have no choice but to abandon the financial suicide that is making your city car dependent.

      • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        True, and I wish my city would realize it harder, sooner. On the other hand, I just read an article the other day that claims that the collapse of civilization has begun. A lot of societies throughout history perseverated with maladaptive habits after the local environment changed, and thus collapsed. A lot of them didn’t, though, and I hope that we’ll wise up in time.

        • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldOPM
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          1 year ago

          !collapse@lemmy.ml

          But yeah, honestly, I’m worried myself that our society is starting to unravel if we don’t get our act together. Unmitigated climate catastrophe may well prove to be the greatest disaster in human history, if you count all the wars, famines, genocide it may cause. I sincerely hope it doesn’t turn out so dire, but so far humanity is stubbornly refusing to do anywhere near enough to stop it. Whether that’s civilization-ending or merely really frickin bad remains to be seen, but it’s also worthwhile noting that collapse doesn’t always mean post-apocalyptic; for farmers in ancient Rome around its collapse, life probably didn’t seem all that different day-to-day.

  • Hikiru@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The more people try to “innovate” transportation the closer it gets to going back to trains. Driverless cars, for efficiency have them communicate with eachother, to accelerate and brake at the same time, for example. That’s just less efficient and more expensive trains.

    • Tangent5280@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s a massive failure condition for your example - sure, autonomous cars behave like trains when they communicate with each other to sync acceleration and deceleration, but they can also separate themselves from the collective to drive you to the door of your home. In the train metaphor this would be like you sitting in your own train car, and the train car separating from the rest of it and driving you to your doorstep.

      • Hikiru@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Or you could have a train that drops you off either close to your home or close to a bus station that drops off near your home. This would require a walkable city, so it’s definitely not as simple as just building tracks and bus stations. The issue is that Americans are so used to car dependent infrastructure, that when they try to imagine what public transport would be like, they think of it in the context of where they live. That’s why I think so many are opposed to the idea. It’s not an impossible task, it’s just that it’d require money and effort, so it probably won’t happen.

        • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It also won’t happen because not all of us live in cities. The “fuck cars” crowd never has any solutions for rural locations other than “don’t live there” as if rural areas serve no purpose. As long as farms are a thing there will be people out here, either farming themselves or supporting farmers,and things like scooters and trains either won’t work or only partially solve the problem.

          Anyone who thinks getting rid of cars is a viable strategy in the US of all places is delusional.

          • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            You are talking about a minority of vehicles though. 77% of US personal vehicles are non-rural, hence, fuck them.*

            I also don’t think many people want to get rid of every single car everywhere for every purpose. Most cars are personal vehicles in built up areas and that’s where they cause the most problems and make the least sense.

            *From 2017 NHTS https://nhts.ornl.gov/

      • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        oh no, if only someone hadn’t centralized like, a point, say, a station, where people could conveniently access the train of cars…

        they could call it a… hmm… TRAIN STATION?

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You reinvented switches.

        I think you miss part of transportation system that says system. It’s more than one element.

    • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s an argument to be made that driverless cars make more efficient use of our existing infrastructure, namely, roads, and are more adapted to the hellscape of sprawl that we created. Traffic jams could effectively be eliminated if you get rid of people that treat the left lane like a regular traffic lane, people going too slow, people going too fast, etc. It’s not like building more trains is going to suddenly mean that trains are convenient - there is a VAST amount of sprawl, and it’s not going anywhere. It took the steel industry shutting down in Pittsburgh, and 60% of the population relocating, before people got the bright idea that actually living closer in to the population center makes sense and turn small outliers into ghost towns. I’m not against trains, I just think the scale of the problem is larger than most people understand when they say “build more trains.”

      • Hikiru@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The best long term solution for both nicer cities, happier people, and less environmental damage is to overhaul our infrastructure. Don’t build trains in car dependant cities, make the car dependant cities walkable with public transportation that will leave you within a few minutes of your destination. The real reason self driving cars are the “future” is because selling cars has a higher profit margin than train/bus tickets.

      • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        Not a foregone conclusion, at all. The average car occupancy now is something like 1.2 people, and self-driving cars might drop that below 1. Time behind the wheel is a cost that people pay for mobility, among other costs, and the Jevons Paradox says that if you make a commodity cost less per unit (i.e. more efficient) we end up using more of it in total, e.g. coal, or lighting. We could have more traffic as people send their empty cars on errands, for example. To get the benefits, you’d have to ban private car ownership. That seems like a heavy political lift, considering that they don’t even expect half of the U.S. private auto fleet to be electric before 2050, and those are available for sale right now.

        • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The bit of the puzzle you are forgetting is the taxpayer-subsidized roads lose half their lobbying funds when electric cars are a thing. Wihtout trillions being spent sabotaging transit and micromobility it starts looking a lot better for cities to buipd a bike path for $1 million thna a highway upgrade for $1 billion

    • kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      That not true!

      For some places rail is too expensive or inflexible. So you need driverless cars, but you can make them cheaper by not having so many of them, instead having really big ones, and since driverless is not ready we hire a human to drive for now.

      So sometimes you get buses!

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How to not make a train out of cars:

      1. Remove driver
      2. Make them follow predefined path
      3. Make them accelerate and decellerate together
      4. Link them together for better space-efficiency

      Now you got Certanly Not A Train™.

      Why it’s certanly not a train? Because it still has terrible rollong resistance and low material efficiency.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Good job with meme template, everyone needs to start adopting this format and not the one with the conservative fascist chud that abuses his wife.

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    We shouldn’t take anything for granted. The US has happily killed it’s cities for decades instead of investing in public transit. If we don’t push for it, car companies and rich people will keep public transportation from ever taking off.

    If remote work takes off, and ordering most everything online, I wonder if urban sprawl will get even worse.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m going to make the argument against trains for everything, despite being a huge fanatic for trains.

    Trains are the most efficient transport method per tonne-km over land, yes. However from certain operational standpoints trains can make less sense than existing solutions.

    When distance between stops for heavy rail becomes too short, you lose quite a bit of efficiency. Trains themselves aren’t a one-size fits all solution as there are various types that each need their own form of investment (which is a lot $), when roads are compatible with both personal transport and large trucks with little investment by the transporter (govt pays for road maintenance).

    Rail companies right now are chasing profits and neglecting operational improvements. In the US, hauling a long, LONG, old and slow train loaded with bulk aggregate, oil, grain, chemicals is more profitable than aiming for JIT capability that is more feasible with trucks. A complete change in societal incentives is necessary to bring back the usefulness of railway in all types of transport. Second, the North American way of railroad companies owning the tracks dissuades a lot of innovation and new firms from entering the market, unlike the “open road” where there are many competing OTR freight companies. None of the Big Six would like my idea of a nationally controlled rail/track system.

    • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Electric motors are now capable of >90% regen, so the braking energy argument against short stops doesn’t work anymore (and the energy during motion strictly less than a rubber tired vehicle with a worse aspect ratio so long as the trip is no longer).

      The amount of rail needed for short distance distribution networks could still be prohibitive in regions designed for road though. Even then one could still argue that the total infrastructure costs are lower by moving the destinations slightly given how much roads cost to maintain.

    • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Just to pick on one point, as a tangent, the government paying for roads with little cost to the freight carriers is a major, major problem. If the cost of transport is not factored into the cost of goods, it breaks the feedback mechanism of prices in the market affecting the supply of road transport, both per se, and in relation to other, possibly more efficient, means of transport. I came up with a reductio ad absurdum scenario to illustrate better: Imagine the government provided free air freight across oceans, without limit.

      It’s pretty obvious what would happen: The logistics companies would abandon cargo ships, which cost them money, for the free air service. It would be horribly inefficient and wasteful, but that would not be their concern. We’d end up in the same situation that we are today with roads; our governments are going broke trying to pay for it. (In that world, I also imagine that people consider the service the normal baseline that they’ve structured their lives and businesses around, and can’t fathom ending it, just like roads in our world.

      Anyway, passenger rail service has never been profitable. Railroads just operated passenger trains as a condition of being allowed to operate freight routes, which the government had subsidized with land giveaways. The question is whether passenger is more sustainable fiscally than roads for personal vehicles, and the survival of rail freight against massively subsidized road freight suggests that it would be. At least for longer, intercity routes.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes you’ve got a point. Part of this was an exercise to argue against something I really love and passionate about for the sake of “Change my Mind”.

        But that’s part of the thing. If an organization paid for unlimited free air passenger and freight transport system, converting to better alternatives (on monetary cost, the environment and other bases) would be difficult to convince from people and logistics companies alike. If left alone, this sort of system would be unlikely to change until some devastating consequence made it unfeasible to switch at that point anyway. And in such a universe maybe we’d see more blimps in the sky.

        So either road has to be regulated fairly and costs that were externalized get properly accounted for and renumerated, or railroad track has to be managed nationally, and provide fair access to communities large and small, in order for rail and wheeled vehicles to be on equal footing. Neither of these things I would expect to happen naturally, it must come from an organized effort somewhere.

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Trains themselves aren’t a one-size fits all solution as there are various types that each need their own form of investment (which is a lot $)

      Trains(international and intercity), metro(across the city) and trams(across the city) - all of them use same wheels. They are not that different.

      when roads are compatible with both personal transport

      *(here personal transport excludes everything that is not a car)

      and large trucks with little investment by the transporter (govt pays for road maintenance).

      Maintanance is most expensive part of car infrastructure. At least between those that directly paid.

      • dorkage@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Wheels are 100% different on Heavy Rail, Metros and Light Rails.

        In addition to that all 3 have different requirements for curves, runout and grades.

        Source: my employer makes all 3.

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Wheels mostly not. Though bogies for LR and everything else are very different.

          And by wheel I mean steel disc, not breaking system, not suspension, not everything else.

          • dorkage@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            A lot of light rail uses resilient wheels and heavy rail does not.

            Wheel profiles (the shape of the part that actually touches the rail) are also very different between different categories.

      • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Metrolink in California does really well though, even with everything you described above.

        Metrolink, and the subway system in Los Angeles, shows that it is doable and within cost.

    • Syldon@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Corporate has corrupted the train system in the US. People have become secondary to company profits. I watched this a while back and couldn’t believe the US has allowed this.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The railroads in a region have actually been removing rail so that many of the main lines are now single track instead of double or triple.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    The future of transportation is no transportation.

    How many car miles could be saved each year if people didn’t have to go to the office to do their jobs? We were already most of the way there.

    • austin@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      That… is silly. Things need to move.

      So you expect us to live in a virtual pod with a treadmill and grow all of our own food? And collect rainwater?

      Edit: I’m not saying we shouldn’t reduce our need for freight. Growing food in your backyard (half of my yard is good production) reduces the need for freight emissions. And I cycle to work. But drive or fly on holidays, I wish we had a more reliable train network.

      • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        They said transporation, not freight. I think they mean you can access everything on foot. But just for your heresay against the pod, your pod was made 10% smaller and your treadmill was made 10% faster.

        • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Freight is just thing transportation, It’s a subcategory so it’s not like it’s not included. It’s silly to act like it’s stupid to think it is.

      • sarmale@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        That point maybe wasn’t very good, probably saying that offices should be closer (also work from home)

      • calzone_gigante@lemmy.eco.br
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        1 year ago

        How far and how often is the key, on a well planned city people should live close to their jobs and recreational areas, taking away people commuting to work and grouping people with similar destinations together you can solve traffic and give people more mobility.

    • SMITHandWESSON@lemmy.world
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      Not everyone works in an office. Construction, trades, and utility works still need vehicles to work on and create infrastructure out and indoors.

      You’ll also have tons of people in rural area like farmers and ranchers that still need vehicles.

      That being said most of those vehicles will be electric soon. My company will be moving to electric starting in 3 years.

      PS: I’m a utility worker, and we take our work vehicles home foe weather emergencies, so the transportation line is a little blurred for me

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, you still need to transport items, and people that do things with their hands, but surely in most first world countries, these things are a minority of road traffic.

        If you can get those chokepoints out the way, from dystopian 10 lane traffic jams to an overcrowded tube train, everything else would run so much smoother.

        • SMITHandWESSON@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I would totally love not to be in a traffic jam, especially while on the clock as I don’t get paid for the drive time to and from work.

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, you still need to transport items,

          Well, cargo bikes are a thing. You can transport whole fridge there.

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Construction, trades, and utility works still need vehicles to work on and create infrastructure out and indoors.

        That didn’t stop people before cars. Back then people built small railways if we are talking about construction.

        farmers and ranchers that still need vehicles.

        They need specialized equipment. They need heavy equipment.

        That being said most of those vehicles will be electric soon.

        A car is a car. Another motor doesn’t turn car into magic.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That didn’t stop people before cars.

          Standard of living was much much worse back then.

          They need specialized equipment.

          They also need to get to stores and see friends and family. Asking people to go back to insular homebound living for farm living seems unreasonable.

          Another motor doesn’t turn car into magic.

          However, if electric, it’s no exhaust, options for flexible energy sources, and hopefully long lived and recyclable batteries. If you are more upset about cars getting in the way of walking, then enjoy the walkable communities that exist today. Unfortunately they tend to be pricey.

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They also need to get to stores

            Well, ok. On farms cars at least make some sense.

            However, if electric, it’s no exhaust, options for flexible energy sources, and hopefully long lived and recyclable batteries.

            Yes, but they still take space, instane car infrastructure is still there and crashes still happen.

        • SMITHandWESSON@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That didn’t stop people before cars. Back then people built small railways if we are talking about construction.

          We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it weren’t for vehicles like mine keeping up the internet infrastructure up.

          There’s also no fucking way you going to put train tracks everywhere to keep up infrastructure. That sounds really fucking stupid

          They need specialized equipment. They need heavy equipment.

          This statement makes me feel like I’m responding to a 14 yr old with no life experience. Not even going to bother answering it.

          A car is a car. Another motor doesn’t turn car into magic.

          Electric vehicles have no emissions so there’s no reason people can’t use them specifically for work.

          PS: You can respond but I’m not going to bother with you. There’s no point in having a discussion with someone with illrational and militant about their ideals

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s also no fucking way you going to put train tracks everywhere to keep up infrastructure.

            There’s also no fucking way you going to put ashphalt everywhere to keep up infrastructure.

            That sounds really fucking stupid

            Yep. Didn’t stop from building roads.

            Electric vehicles have no emissions so there’s no reason people can’t use them specifically for work.

            You are correct, vehicles. Car is not the only type of vehicle, it’s one of many. And what I was saying emissions is not the only problem of car.

            You can respond but I’m not going to bother with you

            Ok.

            There’s no point in having a discussion with someone with illrational and militant about their ideals

            Indeed. See, there are topics we agree upon.

    • supercriticalcheese@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      What about groceries, various errands? it’s definitely not just going to the office is the only reason people get around with cars.

      • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Basically in countries with more micromobility, they have smaller grocery stores. There will be one on every corner and you can just walk to it.

        I see you mentioned suburbs. Yeah. The thing keeping shops and homes far apart in that case is zoning laws. And also building code dictating single family housing. In a more dense suburb in amsterdam or chicago you might have some rowhouse apartments but the first floor will be for shops, and one of those shops willcbe your nearest grocery store.

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Trains(or cargo trams if you want fancy) for delivery to store and your eleven for delivery from store to home. Or ebike. Or bus.

      • roo@lemmy.one
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        It’s a discussion about the bulk of transport and commutes. Distributors don’t need to follow a centralised system.

        • supercriticalcheese@feddit.it
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          You still need to drive to do all these things, that’s often a considerable distance though if you live in suburban areas since everything is far away.

          • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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            One argument that keeps coming up in favor of cars that the United States is big. Well, if it’s big, we have plenty of room to build things close to where people live. It’s only zoning laws that force things to be unnecessarily far away.

            • supercriticalcheese@feddit.it
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              Yes that was my point, not that we need cargo trams.

              And it’s not just US that has this issue although there is taken to the extreme.

              Many suburban areas in Europe have the same issues but the advantage is that many of them were built around small villages that they have ballooned so there was something that could give local services for residents already.

              • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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                Good point! I usually hear sincere arguments that we have to drive because everything is so far apart, and so I took it the wrong way. My apologies.

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      You make a good point but it’s hard to agree. I don’t like home, and would prefer not to work in my own home. I want to see the world, I like to travel. Perhaps if my life had more social mobility I wouldn’t be so starved for literal mobility. I have a car, could go drive anywhere. But it’s not real freedom.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        LLMs are not AI.

        If you can train an AI to take the stream of nonsense I am given on a daily basis, and not only turn it into software but also the software they needed rather than what they actually described, then that AI is fucking welcome to my job…

  • MartinXYZ@sh.itjust.works
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    I agree. I just wanted to say that I really hope this meme completely replaces the original one, so we won’t have to look at Steven Crowder’s face as much going forward.

  • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.ml
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    inevitability the future of urban transportation

    I don’t know, I think you’re forgetting the possibility of us all just dying.

  • Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Nope.

    Those super long electric busses will become more popular than trains. They are muuch cheaper to get. You can just send in a new one in case the first one breaks down, etc.

    Though we also cant all live nrar these “train stops”?

    I dont live near any right now.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        100% depends on where you’re going and how far journeys are.

        For a small inner city area, a subway is great. For a larger urban area, a tram system. For intercity travel, trains. Out in a rural area, buses would be the way, although more remote locations would need government subsidies to be even remotely functional, and even then it may resemble on demand taxis rather than a scheduled bus service.

        No single solution will get you all the way there.

        • Chriskmee@lemm.ee
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          No single solution will get you all the way there.

          Except for the car, which is why it’s such a popular choice. Also no need to worry about catching the next thing, or buying the right tickets, you just get in and go.

          I haven’t heard of any solution or combination of solutions that would be convenient and work in most cities.

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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            Yep there’s nothing else as good as having your own vehicle to freely travel wherever you want to on your own schedule and in relative privacy. The rest of y’all can enjoy your trains as much as you want, but there’s no train or bus that comes out to my house in the woods so I’m going to keep driving my car for the foreseeable future. After that it will probably be an electric SUV that I keep driving. I’ll charge my car from my solar power at home and be energy independent.

            • uis@lemmy.world
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              Doesn’t it bother you that even in cars you don’t have privacy?

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          Subway is just giving space above ground for cars. Since there is no cars, you can just do trams.

          although more remote locations would need government subsidies to be even remotely functional

          Not that current roads to remote loctions are subsidised

      • Beliriel@lemmy.world
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        What needs to happen first is fuel price needs to be so high that people are incentivized to

        a) switch to public transit no matter how shitty it is because they just can’t afford a car anymore
        b) start public transit companies because there is money to be made and the oil lobbies don’t have enough money anymore to lobby effectively

        My guess is before 2050 nobody will really get anything done because the oil lobby is just too powerful. Would be great though.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
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          What needs to happen first is fuel price needs to be so high that people are incentivized to

          Absolutely. The fossil fuel industry recieves billions upon billions of dollars in subsidies every year. Why in the actual fuck are we still paying for something that is actively killing us? It makes no sense. All of the subsidies to fossil fuels needs to be re-routed towards public transportation and green energy.

        • triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml
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          making consumables more expensive just makes them cheaper for the rich. poor people in areas with inadequate public transit will largely just keep driving and become poorer (maybe some of them will switch to the inadequate public transit, then they’ll be even poorer, and it likely won’t improve the transit systems either).

          tax the rich in proportion to their wealth., spend it on better public interest transport infrastructure

          • Beliriel@lemmy.world
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            Those markets can’t run on the rich alone. And yeah it will make rural poor people poorer. That’s actually also the goal. Urban sprawl should be stopped. Why do people need to build houses and villages out in bumfuck nowhere and then complain when amenities and authorties are shitty out there? These people should imo be forced to make a hard decision because if they can’t afford gas anymore they will move closer to a city since the move is more affordable than paying for gas. Hence prevention of sprawl and reducing of gas use. The only people that can stay are the ones that a) are rich and b) require it for their work (e.g. farmers) or c) ones that can work locally without driving around.

            • triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml
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              I totally agree that urban sprawl sucks, and should be stopped. a much more direct and fair way to do this would be to remove zoning restrictions that only allow building single family homes (instead of any higher-density housing) in most urban parts of north america, and remove minimum parking requirements for businesses – and hope that the cultural shift propagates to other places where these car-dependent designs have taken hold.

              secondly, calling people needing transport a “market” seems like part of the same faulty thinking where public services need to turn a profit. taxing the rich could absolutely pay for a lot more public transport: before the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, the UK had around twice as many passenger railway lines – this was also at a time when the top rate of income tax there was 83%, as opposed to 45% now.

              lastly, maybe think about who rich people exploited in order to get their (your?) money before proposing policies that explicitly aim to make poor people poorer, while letting the rich continue to live where they (you?) please

    • bouh@lemmy.world
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      We can all live near a train stop. Roads were built everywhere. Train rails are actually not as expensive to build

      • brianorca@lemmy.world
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        But they don’t handle the 90° corners that are built into so much of the existing landscape.

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          You wanr to say cars can turn 90° on the spot? Unless you are an Ukrainian farmer, no - your car is not a tank.

          • brianorca@lemmy.world
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            No, I’m saying there’s a huge difference between a 15 foot turning radius and a 400 foot turning radius. Trying to put trains in the existing 50 foot x 50 foot road intersections is not going to work without moving a lot of buildings.

            • uis@lemmy.world
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              15 foot turning radius

              Sounds like a forklift. Double for cars, or triple for speeders and idiots.

              400 foot turning radius

              20 meters at most. 71-931 has 20, and it’s HUGE. Or 65 units of imperialism.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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        You’d been trams,not trains. Trains are great at covering long distance quickly, but if they have to navigate tight turns and stop every few minutes then they’ll be pointless.

        Not sure why people aren’t talking more about busses here, it would make way more sense to utilize busses for local travel.

        • bouh@lemmy.world
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          The distinction between tram, train and subway is not relevant. There are full trains navigating Paris for example, but also tram and subways. They are all very good, and you can navigate the city without ever taking a bus.

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      Those super long electric busses will become more popular than trains.

      Though heavy batteries are bad for energy efficiency and big capacity batteries are long to charge. Well, it can be solved by constantly charging them. This also allows to reduce required capacity, thus reducing weight. Constant charging most efficiently can be done by using wires. Oh, wait. I just reinvented trolley.

      Though we also cant all live nrar these “train stops”?

      *European disagreeing noises*

  • Aggravationstation@lemmy.world
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    I don’t disagree but there are two points that spring to mind.

    1. This is an inevitable future, but I think it’s very far off. In order to make this viable towns and cities would need to be radically different.
    2. How would large item courier services operate after that modification?
    • bouh@lemmy.world
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      The cities were radically different before we decided that a car should be able to go anywhere.

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      1. People are calling for radical change to their cities as they realize the poor economics of urban sprawl and suburban development. You do have a good point though as transit, density, and mixed zoning all work best when used together.

      2. The shift to transit and walkability will actually make exisiting roadways and highways less congested and better serve any delivery vehicles using them. We won’t rip out all existing roads, but we will stop building a new lane every 5 years.

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      Like every other huge factory before cars: connect to railways. Or tram network if you are in city.

    • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
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      I think you’re making it out to be a bigger problem than it really would be. Nobody is going to push personal and commercial vehicles out, but there would be a lot less of them, they’d only be as big as necessary, and they’d be more environmentally friendly.

  • MrFagtron9000@lemmy.world
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    The suburbs are inherently compatible with trains and really any public transportation. They were quite literally designed around the car and the expectation that everyone would have a car.

    Unless you plan to bulldoze the suburbs and then force everyone to move into higher density areas your anti-car dreams are never going to happen.

    Although there are many American cities that could get much more anti-car and public transport would work. LA could theoretically not be such a car city with the appropriate infrastructure built in.

    Why are the anti-car people anti-self-driving car? With self-driving cars we could mostly eliminate private car ownership.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      Well Los Angeles used to have an extensive streetcar system like Toronto. It was bulldozed in the 1950s and that was that. So LA isn’t inherently anti-transit, but that was a result of deliberate planning. I could be converted back, however it’s density is quite low and it could stand to have some urban centers linked by high-capacity mass transit.

    • Wirrvogel@feddit.de
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      The suburbs are inherently compatible with trains and really any public transportation. They were quite literally designed around the car and the expectation that everyone would have a car.

      New suburbs get built and they can be built differently. Not to mention that the current suburbs in the US aren’t made to last the next hundred years, like stone houses in Europe are. They can, have to and will change.

      The Work from home trend for example is a huge change. If you work from home and do not have to drive to work and back, you do not want to drive the same amount anyway just for grocery shopping. You want to use the free time won, by stepping outside of your home and go on a walk, sit in a café and meet people in your suburb.

      Why are the anti-car people anti-self-driving car?

      If a human makes a mistake while driving, we call for self-driving cars.
      If a self-driving car causes an accident, we call for the road to be more catered to self-driving cars. Self-driving car is still too many cars rotting on the road, unused most of the day, heating up cities and taking up space and resources, when a bus can replace hundreds of them.

      A self-driving car is still a car, and it can’t do what humans can do: People make billions of good decisions every day that help avoid accidents. We just don’t recognise them because we focus on the bad decisions that cause accidents. Self-driving cars will never be able to make those good decisions, so having lots of them will only work if the roads are designed more for them. Then we will have roads that are like train tracks with all the negative characteristics of today’s cars on top, when we could just have trains and busses all the benefits that come with them.

      • MrFagtron9000@lemmy.world
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        10 or 20 years from now when you’re taking a nap or jerking off or eating fried chicken or playing Call of Duty while a self-driving car (you can call it an “automated transportation pod” if the word “car” triggers you) takes your extremely drunk self right to your front door you’ll think it’s fine.

        • Wirrvogel@feddit.de
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          I live in a 15-minute city. I take the bus home, now and in 20 years time when I am 77 years old, only with the help of a walking aid, but luckily our buses already have low entrances to allow disabled people to get on. I also stay with friends when I drink and come home the next day, and I do not need or want to eat or play games on the way home, and I especially do not want to masturbate in a car, automated or not, I want a nice and comfortable place for that. I prefer to look out of the window and experience the journey and stop and eat something. That you seem to basically live in your car, maybe except when you need to shit, is car brain thinking for me. A car is not a place to live, it’s a means of transport with a lot of flaws, I’d love to see your face when you’re jerking off in your automated car while it decides to drive you right into fresh concrete, onto train tracks or into the nearest river.

          I do not own a car and never have, and I have survived well. If the world doesn’t recover from car brain, we won’t survive as a species. Automated transport is the future for buses and trains, not individual transport, which will always be worse in every way, only topped by flying taxis, which are even dumber.

          Funny side note: Saudi Arabia has started building the most idiotic “city of the future” you can build: The Line, but they also killed the car, because even they realised that cars, automated or not, are not the future and you can only get around in this futuristic place by walking or by train.

          • MrFagtron9000@lemmy.world
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            The problem is most people don’t live in 15 minute cities and it’s impossible to turn the suburbs into 15 minute cities as most things are just physically too far apart.

            If you live in a gigantic McMansion neighborhood that takes 5 minutes to get out of by car and then your job is an additional 20 miles away there is no bus or train solution - you’ll have to have a car.

            Funny you should mention living in your car. I used to have a 40 mi commute from my suburban town, each way, to work. I lived slightly north of Baltimore and commuted to just outside of DC. I would spend an hour minimum each way driving. When traffic was bad easy 2 hours. I did this for 4 years and it was soul destroying, but it was an extremely lucrative job.

            Then I found a job in my little suburb that pays about the same amount of money and it’s close enough I can ride my bike to, which I do sometimes when it’s not hot, by car it’s only about 5 minutes. The extra time I’ve gotten back has been amazing and looking back I would have taken 20% pay cut to not have to do that horrible commute.

            That is not a solution for everyone as there aren’t enough jobs in the suburbs to support the population. They’re called bedroom communities for a reason.

            I’m really not pro or anti car. I just think you have to be realistic. The realistic part is the suburbs are just too spaced out and too far from jobs to have a functioning mass transit system.

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      There are indeed suburbs that make use of transportation, but they… look a bit different than the sprawling, disconnected single family detached with a lawn and a backyard style suburbs. I peraonally believe with a few changes the suburbs could make use of public transport in busses. The suburbs are actually inconvenient for cars, they are poorly connected and have many stop signs and generally no lines or other features. The scale is best with a vehicle rather than on foot, but it’s not the end of the world either.

      Personally, my anti-car dream only applies to me. I wanna live in a city where I’m at zero inconvenience without one and the risk of being hit by one is significantly lower, too.

    • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
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      With Uber and other ride hailing services it became clear that cheap point to point transport replaces trips that are otherwise being made with public transportation like buses, and thereby increasing traffic. There were also more trips in total done because of the convenience than were done before, thus also increasing traffic. It’s the classic Jevons paradox.

      Self driving taxis could certainly have the same effect or more if they are cheaper than ride hailing. The increase in usage can easily be greater than the number of private cars it replaces.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        Self-driving cars also have an added benefit, if they are exclusively on the road, in that they could eliminate traffic. But they won’t have exclusive access to the road, because people like driving cars. Interconnected compiters planning everyone’s trips could eliminate the need for stop signs, stop lights, or the slinky effect on highways, because it turns out comouters can be better drivers than the typical human driver. They just need to stop hitting pedestrians…

        • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
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          in that they could eliminate traffic

          That’s the question. Let’s say the roads are now exclusively self driving cars and they are so efficient they double the throughput of roads. Meanwhile commuters bought houses that are twice as far away from the city because those houses are cheaper, and now they can sleep and work in the car anyway, so twice as much traffic. Or all schoolkids not taking the schoolbus anymore and all going by individual autonomous car and all pensioners getting their robo-taxi to squeeze through rush hour every morning so they’re first at the supermarket for the freshest produce. It remains to be seen how that works out.

        • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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          That’s complete bullshit. The reason why there is congestion is because there are too many vehicles on the roadway. Changing the timing of the vehicles doesn’t eliminate the vehicles or the congestion. It’s a geometry problem.

            • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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              Uh excuse me wtf does that have to do anything.

              And no, I don’t think that. Just the complete polar opposite in fact.

              • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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                Because rather than fixing the problem, you think we can avoid it entirely with a completely unreasonable elimination of cars.

                Traffic exists because people are inefficient drivers. Congestion happens everywhere people live in sufficient densities, and it’s not the density you’re imagining.

                Fully automated driving is also unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, because people like driving. But it could happen eventually, because the variety of benefits over other forms of transportation. One of those benefits is reducing traffic.

                • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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                  What? I don’t think we can eliminate cars. Must have me confused with someone else.

                  I totally agree with your points and I apology for the confusion or poor communication.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      The argument that we will get rid of all cars on the planet is just silly. Prior to the automobile, people had wagons and carriages for thousands of years. They had the same problem as cars due today - they cause pollution from horse poop, and they caused massive congestion.

      I don’t think there is a single major city on the planet today that doesn’t use cars in some level of the transportation system.

      What’s really funny I said a bus is just a really large car. And a taxi is just a car that somebody else drives for you. So saying that mass transit and taxis or a solution to cars is ignoring the fact that they’re basically the same thing.

    • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldOPM
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      American cities weren’t built for the car; they were bulldozed for the car. See Cincinnati, pictured below:

      Further, we only have suburban sprawl because of government mandates. For example, thanks to restrictive zoning, it is literally illegal to build anything but detached single-family houses on the vast majority of urban land in this country.

      Then there’s the matter of parking minimums, based in arbitrary pseudoscience, that have resulted in the demolition of our urban cores.

      And also the matter that most cities in America had incredibly extensive streetcar networks, before they were literally torn up. It’s no accident that the city in the world with the largest tram network – Melbourne, Australia – is also the only city that left its historic streetcar intact.

      The beautiful thing about fixing all this malarkey is we don’t have to demolish and displace millions of people from their homes like we already did once only ~60 years ago. We just have to abolish those restrictive, Euclidean zoning laws and parking minimums and setback requirements and so forth. Let the invisible hand of the free market provide us with the density and walkability and transit-oriented development it’s trying to provide us with!

      The primary thing that needs demolishing is parking lots, and absolutely no one will miss those, I guarantee it.

    • xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works
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      That’s whete micromobility comes in and abolish whatever prevents suburbs from having shops every other street.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        While zoning does interfere in many cases, even without zoning, the businesses aren’t interested. Our city has started mandating mixed use for every new residential, and the retail and office space end up mostly empty.

        Now that companies are used to consolidating people from miles around, it’s not appealing to go back to the old days of having a store per neighborhood.

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    A huge problem with public transportation is safety and usability for small children, the elderly, and people with disabilities or who are sick. All these people often can’t use bikes or scooters. They have problems with having to wait standing and constantly out of order escalators and elevators.

    I don’t own a car and live in a place with relatively good public transportation. That’s the biggest problem I see, next to how badly organised it is (at least here in Germany).

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      One of the leading causes of death for children in North America is from cars. Well funded and built transit should be accessible to all in their urban areas. Stops should have sheltered waiting areas with adequate and maintained seating. Good maintanence and funding would reduce equipment failures in elevators and other equipment. Ideally we densify around this transit as well which would help to reduce travel distances for people with movement disabilties and promote walkability. 95% of the time well designed and funded transit paired with good urban density and zoning will be more accessible to those with disabilities than private vehicle ownership.

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        Federalism is the key impediment to a sensible transportation policy, though. Corpo stakeholders drive sprawl. Developers have legislatures captured to a degree that exceeds even the gun lobby. 50 different state governments, with thousands of local governments, with a federal government that is unable to plan beyond the next election - the US is fucked. There are way too many entry points for bad faith actors to wreck a good plan. More opportunities for direct democracy and recall could help, plus rank-choiced voting, plus dosing the water with Wellbutrin to turn off people’s worry about supernatural bullshit, and we might get somewhere.

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        Good maintanence and funding would reduce equipment failures in elevators and other equipment.

        Thnk you! You said line nobody says. You are hero of your city.

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      That is an organizational problem because my country next to it has all those things at just about every train stop (Switzerland).

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        Even in a country it depends on the state or city. In Munich and even around Tegernsee in Bavaria they have it better organised than in some places here in NRW. It’s because so many different private companies are responsible.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      A big problem with car-heavy streets is everyone’s safety when the elderly are driving on them.

      It’s also shown that if people live in walkable neighborhoods, they get more exercise and can get used to movement even in old age.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        I literally see the struggle of the people I talked about everyday. In a walkable city with public transportation.

        Criticising aspects of public transport also doesn’t mean I am against it or pro cars.

    • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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      Elderly people use electric mobility scooters at Disney literally all the time. They’re pretty great for the elderly so long as there’s accessability ramps everywhere.

      Escalators and elevators being out of service seems like an issue of lack of investment in public transit.

      And cities can be built around public transit and micromobility while still allowing cars. Generally, you’ll have better access for emergency vehicles, and you can do the same for people with disabilities.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        I feel like people misunderstand my post. That it is a lack of investment is 100 % true. I want more investment and better public transport. People here seem to think I want to have cars, but that’s not my point?!

    • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
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      That’s definitely not a problem everywhere. The buses we use in Canada are very disability friendly and we have programs to teach kids how to ride the bus alone. We have bike racks on the front of our buses too, so we can combine modes of transportation.

      The biggest problem with public transit over here is lack of funding and infrastructure. The bus system is intentionally kept shitty here so that people will opt to buy cars where possible.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        Here the public transit was sold to private companies by the government. It still costs a huge sum of money but they have less strict laws when it comes to accessibility. The government is very much a boot licker of the car industry here and Germany in general has a weird car culture.

        “Barely functioning” is good enough for public transport, that seems to be the overall attitude, even in the general population.

        People here have no trouble walking to stops and bikes / scooters are common, so the premises are there. But instead of taking the final leap and improving public transportation so that more people switch, they are currently moving backwards it seems.

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        programs to teach kids how to ride the bus alone

        Seems to be america-specific thing. Everyone I know just used buses since being kids just fine.

        • TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world
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          That’s nice, not everyone lived in the city as kids and not everyone is comfortable letting their young children roam the city alone. Everyone has different lives.

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      American here, I have a disabled family member. Cars are ultimately harder on them because they physically cannot lift themselves into a car while also stowing their 200lbs wheelchair.

      A bus or train doesn’t have that problem and are therefore better.

      And the more walk able the area the better because it makes it far easier. I’m sure there are disabled and elderly people who have an easier time using cars. But to say in a broad sweeping generalization that it’s better for all disabled and elderly people is a mistake. Cars should not be the first go to for a solution.

      And kids can’t even use cars. They are dependent on public transportation and the walkability in their area.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        ? I never said cars are better?

        It’s just a problem that needs to be fixed and is rarely mentioned (if at all). Especially the unreliable elevators + escalators.

        Additionally, many trams and busses here have narrow stairs to enter or a huge gap to the floor. Some bus drivers refuse to help people in wheelchairs, they will just claim the bus is too full so they don’t need to build the ramp. For the trams, there’s no way to get in with a wheelchair.

        Ironically, these were meant to have enough space for at least one wheelchair. But the entrance is not friendly, for various reasons.

        I have a mild disability and often can’t use the public transport because I struggle with stairs. Than I have to wait for a tram with a new model or walk around the city to a stop with no stairs.

        They still build crossings like these and call it “modernized” …

        For kids the biggest problem is that in a lot of vehicles the stop isn’t announced. And when the bus is (too) full they can’t see the monitors or out of the windows. (That’s a problem for all very short people I guess.)

        • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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          It seems so odd to me that the transit doesn’t have accessibility for those in scooters or wheelchairs. In nearly every city in Canada I’ve been to, their underfunded bus systems all have a wheelchair access door and systems to lower the bus for easier access.

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            A lot of the busses have it here, but not all. It also depends if you are lucky enough the bus driver is actually helping.

            For the trams it’s worse. To safe money they want to wait until the old trams get decommissioned, even when they are hard or impossible to use for disabled people. They also still build crossings made out of stairs, with no other way to reach the other side of the track unless you want to take a huge detour. Just because it’s cheap.

            Germany loves their cars more than people realise…

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              Maybe you could try to get people in your communities to take pictures of these difficulties and write to their politicians how it is inadequate service. Perhaps there could be retrofitting done to the existing services and new regulations made for new devlopments. It seems wrong for transit not to service people with mobility issues, they can often be the ones who can most benefit from it.

              • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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                This was and is done regularly. But the government sold the public transportation sector to private companies and nothing is done.

                • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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                  The skybridge would be required to be made accessible in the USA, regardless of whether its public or private. There are very limited exceptions to ADA requirements - the second the private company spent money “modernizing” a station without installing accessibility aids, they’d have opened themselves up to a lawsuit to compel them to make the station accessible.

                  I would imagine that Germany is no different that a lot of Western European countries in thinking it is better than the US (because it IS in a lot of ways). Would “we treat the disabled worse than Americans do” effectively trigger German national ego toward change? So long as you keep the convo focused on accessibility and not universal healthcare ;)

        • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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          You should make a complete new thread discussing these issues. Fuck Cars shouldn’t be only about moving towards public transportation, but also about making sure that public transportation is good. I have a lot of trouble using buses too, so it is only sensible to bring up the issue to make sure that solutions include everyone.

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          Additionally, many trams and busses here have narrow stairs to enter

          Didn’t expect to see that in the middle of Europe?

          They still build crossings like these and call it “modernized” …

          Dear Faust. This looks like Russia. People seem to not understand that off-street crossing is car infrastructure, not pedestrian one.

          For kids the biggest problem is that in a lot of vehicles the stop isn’t announced.

          I didn’t know in Europe public transit can be worse than in Russia.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
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          ? I never said cars are better?

          Sorry, it seemed like that’s what you were implying.

          Additionally, many trams and busses here have narrow stairs to enter or a huge gap to the floor.

          It seems like there is quite a bit of difference in the construction of busses/trains between our countries which was causing us to talk past each other. For reference, here is a standard bus entrance:

          And trains:

          I know there are some train/tram systems that aren’t as good as this, and it isn’t the standard, but it should be.

          They still build crossings like these and call it “modernized”

          Yeah that’s some bullshit.

          For kids the biggest problem is that in a lot of vehicles the stop isn’t announced.

          Here that’s not so much of a problem. All busses have voice announcements and an LED display for the next stop. I’m not quite sure about the trains though because there are basically none in my city.

          And when the bus is (too) full they can’t see the monitors or out of the windows. (That’s a problem for all very short people I guess.)

          That’s not too hard of a problem at least, as you can run more busses on a line to deal with overcrowding.

        • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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          You are destroying my fantasy that everything in Western Europe is better. But this would be extremely unlikely to have happened in the US in this day and age - the Americans With Disabilities Act (“ADA”) would have required the station (be it public or private) to have reasonable accomodations for the disabled. In Florida, for example, PalmTran stations would have an elevator on either side of the tracks to get you onto the skybridge.

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            I think people have a somewhat narrow view on countries in Western Europe. Every country is very diverse. It makes a huge difference whether you are in Bavaria, Brandenburg or Hamburg, etc. These are all in Germany but parts of the law can be different.

            I live in Nordrhein Westfalen where it is okay if there is any alternative for disabled people. For example, you could drive to another station which has an elevator and than use the bus to come back. ( ་ ⍸ ་ )

            • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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              I guarantee you, you have universal healthcare, and every one of those provinces. And very little issue with mass shooting. Or a legal system that keeps a significant portion of your minority population from being able to vote

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            I have more trouble with cars in my day to day life than with the issues of public transit. I just wanted to add that public transit has to be done better. But if you dare to criticise it people lose their minds here. And pretend you are against public transit and a car fetishist. -.-

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      A huge problem with public transportation is safety and usability for small children, the elderly, and people with disabilities

      Probably because all of them can drive. Sarcasm. You just named all groups that will not get driver license. Expecially children and disabled.

      They have problems with having to wait standing and constantly out of order escalators and elevators.

      Everyone have to wait. Everyone hates standing. Maybe just do proper benches, maintanance of escalators or remove steps? Well, probably Germany don’t have problems with last one.

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    Society wants it, companies don’t

    That is why we won’t adopt trains and why we haven’t yet

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    Tbh, as someone living in rural community all i want is decent public transportation of any sort. Like, it would be nice to have trains or escooters but, we don’t even have busses ( though that having been said i don’t how busses would get out here without it making tarc fare more expensive) or making bikes or scooter ( e or otherwise) a viable option in my area or making walking a more viable option. Admittedly i don’t know how they would do the last one but, the others they’ve been trying to do for awhile. I’m hoping that this not only made sense but, actually was on point.

    • FleetingTit@feddit.de
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      The US (and much of europe) needs to realize that car centric planning is not the solution to mobility problems, it’s the cause! Suburbia could be more walkable if a few steps were taken during planning:

      • narrower roads (less wasted space, slower driving speeds, shorter distances)

      • Pedestrian paths that connect cul-de-sacs and streets (quicker access to higher order roads for pedestrians)

      • mixed use zoning/town houses (bring destinations to the people)

      • no mandatory minimum parking requirements for businesses (same advantages as my first point)

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        Note that the commenter said rural rather than suburban, and that’s a really whole other can of worms, but on the other hand they aren’t as frustrating to have cars. The population density is so low and the distances so large, it’s hard to figure any thing other than cars to meet those needs.

        But I’m in suburbia, in fact right next to one of my cities mixed use mandate (all new housing must be dense housing and must construct retail space and office space with any housing construction). They also have very little parking for the retail space. So what has happened with those projects? The housing has filled up, but no company wants the retail space. A company could choose to open up a store there to serve that community and not much else owing to tiny parking, or they can set up 5 miles away for not much more and serve dozens of communities.

        There was one successful mixed use development, but they were massive and dedicated a huge amount to multiple parking decks. People pay a lot of money to live there and it is walkable distance wise, but it’s car centric and unfortunately would have failed without accommodating cars.

        Best walkable experience I’ve had was a place with trams and pedestrian bridges, as well as roads and parking decks. Businesses could count on the reach afforded by accommodating cars, and pedestrians never had to step on a car road or suffer a bus stuck in traffic. However, it was a massively expensive place to be.