It’s not even just about sustainability. It’s also largely about comfort (public transport is just 10x as comfortable as any car could be), price to the end consumer (public transport is typically much cheaper to the end consumer than cars, and that’s even by a lot), space management (compare how much space cars need vs. public transport) and all these things. it’s not just climate change.
public transport is just 10x as comfortable as any car could be
Yes, nothing beats walking to a bus stop and waiting there in the cold, rain or burning sun, hoping the bus shows up in time or at all. Then stressing, because it being 15 minutes late probably means your connecting train will be gone. Oh yes, there it goes. Half an hour wait with no place to sit. And then repeat this two more times for more connecting trains and buses.
And I haven’t even talked about not being able to sit during train rides, or having to sit on back wrecking seats. Unfortunately I have back issues and after having enjoyed the ‘comfort’ of our public transport I often end up just not being able to stand or sit anymore at the end of the day because my back hurts so bad.
That is my average commute, and as a bonus there ultimately isn’t a difference in price here between taking the car or public transport. To top it off my average travel time is 60 minutes by car, 1.5 - 2 hours by public transport, often depending whether or not the first bus shows up in time.
It would be able to overlook a lot of this if it was feasible to do some work in the train, but with all the fragmentation on my route I never really get anything done.
I really would like to use public transport, as it is more sustainable than my gas guzzler, but each time I try it the experience just sucks so bad.
… Have you ever used public transportation in any major city? It is about the only instance in modern age where you are in a vehicle that may be going 50 kph and you are standing. If you are going to be making claims, I would drop that “10x as comfortable” bit.
Comfortable is probably the biggest reason most people don’t use public transportation. With their own cars, they don’t need to wait, they don’t need to worry about whether they are going to be packed like sardines because of the work rush, or forced to even wait for another pass because it got full before they were able to get on, or have to worry about getting cramps from not being able to sit, or having the transit take significantly more because it’s not direct, or pickpockets…
About the only comfortable thing about public transport is if you can get on it during off-peak hours when seats are available, in a route that doesn’t require a lot transfers, that isn’t much longer due to the stops and side-routing, and that doesn’t have a high wait time. All the stars have to align.
In comparison, bikes are probably the better option overall, and it would be epic if public transport started incorporating e-bike/scooter transit along with it. Unfortunately it seems to be quite the opposite where I live due to concerns about Lithium battery fires, but hopefully someone somewhere realizes that that is just a standardization issue.
packed like sardines
Some users smell like them too.
I’m with you entirely except for comfort. I think the only comfort advantage is that trains can have comparable leg room and you can standup.
I have never been on any type of mass transit where the seats were as comfortable as even a crappy car.
That’s ignoring system dependent stuff like cleanliness or the discomforts of being close to strangers.You can certainly clean more, put in better seats, and suck it up when it comes to strangers, but as it is right now, I struggle to see how you could say it’s more comfortable based purely on the amenities.
I struggle to see how you could say it’s more comfortable
easy, i don’t have to focus on the street for 50 minutes. that’s a big win for me.
It’s amazing how much it takes for some to reach the conclusion that systemic change is both necessary and requires… systemic change. As in systems changing. As in greater change than your individual decision to ride an EV or ICEV or public transit. Change that would make it exponentially more intuitive for you to choose the most sustainable one of those options.
Especially if mass transit is not feasible for you, this post is not to shame you or call on you to try and do it anyways. It’s a recognition that riding mass transit is not feasible or intuitive for most people, and a call to make mass transit available to more people rather than investing all that time and energy into the wild goose chase of EV adoption.
The crying indian really did a number on us.
Horses are even more sustainable and renewable. And tasty if done right.
It’s great to see that Skeletor and all his “likes” will be switching from gas cars to public transit.
Yeah in a world where transit isnt a shit show. In my city transit will take you 2 hours to get home when a car will take 20 minutes
Then you better be advocating for better public transit
I live in a small town. The town has a couple vans that old people can call to be driven to the doctor. And like all government services and social safety nets, it’s gonna be gone by the time it’s my turn. If I’m going somewhere, it’s my car, my bike or my feet.
What public transport?
That’s the problem they’re pointing out.
Electric cars are a type of vehicle. Public transit is a type of transportation system that include many different types of vehicles and can include electric cars.
You’re comparing apples to orchards.
They aren’t doing that, you are. The apples to apples comparison that they are making is our current transit system; with the cars being fully electrified but otherwise as it exists today; versus a transit system that prioritizes mass transit (and walking and biking) over personal vehicles.
Electric cars are a solution to save the auto industry, not the climate.
Maybe in your bubble it’s common parlance that “electric cars” = “electrifying mass private vehicle infrastructure”, but from the outside, that’s not a straightforward interpretation.
I’m just letting you know the most good faith interpretation of this post, in case you missed it. I’m not interested in arguing about “common parlance”
Oh boy more of the same. Can I still have a side of billion dollar rail lines desired by those who don’t own property and a complaint about houses being to expenaive and wages too small?
Come up with some new shit. Like how many Republicans and democrats you got to have sex. And why doesnt language translate for man’s oldest friend…a dog.
That’s great if public transport goes from near where you are to near where you want to be, in a reasonable time.
For me that’s not the case. Anywhere I want to go takes 27 changes over at least 5 hours for a net distance of three miles; it’d be quicker to hop backwards blindfold on a bent pogo stick.
people who argue for public transport argue for better implementation of it (and also city planning that supports it). the idea isn’t for everyone to just stop using cars in favor of public transport even if the public transport system is absolute shit. it’s for systemic support of public transport in such a way that commuters would willingly choose it over being stuck in traffic in their little metal boxes for hours.
it’s a criticism of the system, not the people.
Biking three miles takes about 15 minutes, you should do that instead
That’s what decades of car centric urban design does to everyone; any transportation other than a car is treated as a second class
While there’s something to that, it’s also a difficult fact that rail is just harder than roads, and by extension more expensive. You have hills? You are going to need to do tunnels and bridges for the rail because you can’t turn that sharply and you mustn’t have more than 1.5% grade. For road, just snake it around and up and down the hills.
You have a source and destination that not many people will be using? It’s cost prohibitive to run a whole train or bus to cover that route.
Now it’s one thing when the population distribution was based around settling around the harsh realities of needing to be along viable transit paths, but when a great deal of the population settled with the assumption of roads, you are going to have a hard time sorting out transit routes without mass resettlement.
Of course, if you apply mass transit to cities and nearby areas you’ve gotten the worst of the troubles solved and it’s viable for mass transit. But cars are just part of the equation for longer hauls.
This is true for dense cities, but not in more rural and semi-suburban areas.
I lived in rural Japan for 3 years… Seemed to work just fine there.
Busses
Working from home is the best. Not everyone can do it, but those who can, should be allowed to. Return to office isn’t for us, it’s for them.
Working from home is the best.
Very difficult to build class solidarity when you’re atomized to the point of not even seeing one another’s real faces.
You don’t have to do that at work. You can do that at the library, bar, farmer’s market, etc. In fact, I’d rather do it with people near where I live, instead of people that share the other end of my commute.
You don’t have to do that at work.
:-/
The place you spend half your waking hours?
You can do that at the library, bar, farmer’s market, etc.
Do you have a job?
Do you have a job?
I don’t currently. Are you hiring computer programmers? I’ve got 20+ applications sent out via Indeed, but I haven’t found one yet.
Even when I was employed, I still visited the library, a few bars, and the saturday farmer’s market. While I don’t think visiting the bar is necessarily a must, you really should participate in your local library and farmer’s market. Connecting to your community is important.
Are you hiring computer programmers?
We are, in fact.
I’ll shoot you a DM.
Holy shit, if my comment turns into this dude scoring a position at your company, I’m sending you a Christmas card.
I get why you’re digging at them, but there was a period in my life I went to the bar after every workday. Now I have a child. But back then, that’s just how I met new people and socialized. Now I… just don’t really meet new people. Maybe I’ll start meeting other parents soon when it’s kindergarten time, but that’s about it.
I think this depends most on what kind of city you live in. I had an 8 minute walk from office to bar, and a 4 minute walk from bar to home. And the bar was on the way anyway.
US public transportation is pathetic, but prior to the 1960’s it was quite extensive only to be destroyed by the oil and automobile lobbyists.
And if they’re hadn’t thrashed the railcars, the cities might look wildly different.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Thing is, we are where we are now. We can’t just tear down all the cities and start over. We have to deal with what we’ve got.
I mean, Europe hasn’t torn it’s cities down (well not all of them and not for rebuilding purposes anyway) despite managing to utilise good public transport.
Then again guess your point is rather that American cities were built stupidly car centric and that somehow those can’t be replaced with any sort of public transport?
You also need to fix the karen problem that plagues society. I don’t like getting called a slur or “go back to where you came from”, and its very bad when you’re stuck inside the small space as them. (By “karen” I don’t mean just white women, but the attitude of some people, anyone can become a karen)
We really need to eliminate karen mentality.
I really fucking hate that a normal ass female name became a synonym for “entitled person”
I agree, but, this country, unfortunately, is built around cars now, and I certainly can’t walk to work as it would take hours, same with biking.
We need more public transportation, but we also need electric cars.
It’s also collectivizing the solution rather than expecting us each to address the problem on an individual level that doesn’t change the status quo one iota.
