- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
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Mine is only 15-20 minutes. But recently leadership gave an employee at a different office an award for something else. The guy had to give an impromptu speech about it. He mentioned the usual stuff but then commented on how his commute was an extra hour compared to his previous job, but “so worth it”. I wanted to reach through the screen.
Unless you’re being transported somewhere as cattle, traveling for work is a choice.
Yeah but some trains come every two hours like the commuter rail. So like wait two hours for a train or be in traffic for three hours and then and then that’s not even taking into account the travel time which could be up to another two hours. … There’s no fuckin’ winning
What could take an hour on a good traffic day can be a four hour total trip by public transportation.
If your commuter rail in a major city comes only every two hours your system is simply bad. I commute a good distance and there is a fast train every 30 min, from early morning to late night, every day. Frequency gets only worse to places that are already outside of reasonable commuting distance and even then there is usually a train every 60 min.
Why wouldn’t you just leave 2 hours later and not wait at all in that situation?
Not the person you’re replying to, but if you happen to miss a train or it gets cancelled you generally are already at the train station. Depending on travel time and conditions it might be safer or more convenient to wait at the station, even if it’s for two hours.
I’ve never had to wait for a next train for longer than 30 minutes (maybe once it was an hour because it was a very small train station and during the weekend), but I live in a place with a pretty dense railway network and have mostly lived near one of the biggest routes.
the local trains are the most convenient the Orange, Blue, Red and Green with delays up to about 20 minutes but a lot of people tend to wait for an Uber (again someone with a car) if it’s over 20 minutes of a wait.
Commuter Rail depending on your arrival station and your destination station, your wait time can be 2 hours okay yeah if you miss a train you’re waiting the 2 hours but I gave an example below of a short shopping trip where you’re fucking yourself taking the commuter rail out to a dispensary that can be an hour and a half round trip by car vs 4 a 4 hour round trip by public transportation/the equivalent to a flight to Denver.
LIke doing groceries by public transportation sucks too, I usually call an uber, again the person with a car and a personal storage area where you can load up your own shit.
You can’t attach a camper to a bus and go to Maine, right? You can actually have like freedom to do shit and experience life when you have a car. You can take public transportation for fun and make it something to do for fun when you have a car. You still appreciate it, it just doesn’t suck to be an individual. Again, this is coming from the 16 years of doing it and i’m just good on it.
I don’t even drive, I don’t even own a car yet, I’m still biking and using the T, my back fucking hurts at 33 and I’m really sick of it. After a while you start questioning a lot of things but I won’t lie I love biking and I end up always being thrown that bone by nature and life and having those moments where my music syncs to my surroundings and/or everything feels perfect like I’m the only one on the planet or just everything has that, “it’s for me,” feeling and for that i truly don’t hate being a cyclist. and there are times on public transportation where i get to see crazy shit happen, like the last time on the orange line there were two boneheads jumping back and fourth between moving carts after they opened the door between the two, I don’t 100% hate public transportation it’s just over time you start to need to get around a little easier is all
It’s not that i absolutely fucking hate it it’s unreliable for absolute needs. Like doctors appointments, getting to work, getting groceries, getting cannabis from the dispensary that has the strain that actually helps. If my mom was taken to the hospital that’s an all day affair for me to get there by public transportation, she could die by the time I get there, if I drove it’s less than 45 mins away.
Commuter rail usually comes more frequently than that, no? And if you know when it comes and it’s not two hours late then you’re waiting around for it unless you’re way too fuckin’ early.
it’s quicker for the city but if you’re going into Woburn for a dispensary run, that takes less than 10 mins to perform the transaction (saying for the sake of actual example that I’ve been in, the dispo workers are the best and I didn’t mean they’re slow) and takes 10 mins to walk there from the CR stop, that’s less than 40 mins away by driving so lets say about an 80 minute round trip, that’s an hour and twenty minutes round trip. If I take the commuter rail that’s 20 minutes to the city using the local train , the 15 minute wait at North Station (because YOU DO want to be early for the commuter rail and that’s if you know your schedule and you know you’re gonna make it, sometimes there’s games and you lose out waiting at the fare gate lines), and about an hour and a half there and then a two hour wait after the short shopping trip.
So to put it into perspective: That’s half your day wasted for what could be an hour and a half there and back. Traffic with driving could maybe add about 25 minutes but the amount of time I use on a single dispensary run to Woburn and back using the local train and the cr, I could take a plane to Denver, not even kidding about that, I just used Google Maps and double checked that flight time.
Ok? Really just sounds like the commuter rail could come more often which is a very easy fix. Public transit is pretty much only ever bad because governments won’t fund it, car-centric infrastructure is highly propritized and its peak is still trash.
Traffic is bad enough here, adding the million people who use just the metro per day to that would be the end of it all, and that’s not to mention our bike network and ability to walk to so many things. We upgrading our commuter rail to a proper high-frequency, dual-direction light rail system that will connect much of the island that has never been properly served. It’s gunna pop the hell off.
Yeah cause everywhere they go is in the Swiss Alps with wine. Not a single European has a shitty commute. This is grass is greener at its finest.
This is obviously an exaggerated example for dramatic effect.
It’s not that far off though. I travel a lot across Switzerland by train and either I’m working in the train if it’s a commute to work or I’ll drink wine, beer or eat in the train restaurant. Worst travel experience is when I watch a series on my phone or computer since it is kind of “lost time”.
Traveling in a train is not just waiting, you can almost always do something. Either productive, fun or that you would need to do anyway
Yeah but can they do it while knowing that one tenth of a percent of their population has increased their wealth at a rate ten times more than the top 90% of earners in their society? Didn’t think so. Take that, losers!
I drive my car to work so I can afford a car so I can drive to work so I can afford a car
I got a shiny car. I like shiny things lol. That’s all it’s got going for it. I would rather be drunk on a train haha
I believe 20% of household spending in the US was for cars. So people could seriously work a day less every week, if they got rid of their car.
Really I wish I could live without one. Ive decided on harm reduction instead.
I learned something weird about cars and money and such just this last week. I got tired of working on a truck just to spend more money dumping fuel in it, and I took what I considered the nuclear option. I traded the truck in. On a used 2nd generation Nissan Leaf.
The car wasn’t expensive. I could easily afford it. But as I was working on the required financial gymnastics to fit a car payment in my budget, I saw that the truck has been using $200 of gas every month. And the auto insurance dropped by about $100 each month. The car payment is $200. It costs something like 70 cents to charge it after my commute.
The silly car isn’t cheap. It’s free. And its so quiet and smooth, no wonder people get evangelical about their EV’s.
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The silly car isn’t cheap. It’s free
If you don’t count maintenance and insurance, parking, etc. Add those and it’s once again expensive.
I don’t understand your argument.
The truck I traded in had those same costs
And it got 15 mpg.
And the tires cost more.
And the insurance was twice as expensive.
And it needed oil changes
And it needed transmission fluid changes.
Sure its more expensive than owning no car at all. Owning no car at all just isn’t an option for a lot of people in the US. So instead of spending money on tires/brakes/insurance/fuel/oil/fluids/tires for an F150, I’m paying for tires/insurance for a dorky little EV. And I have an extra ~$400 in my budget.
Have you looked at a depreciation curve? For newish vehicles, the biggest “expense” is depreciation. Its higher for luxury cars and EVs than trucks.
The silly car isn’t cheap. It’s free
I don’t understand your argument.
The car is not free. The car is still expensive. Even if it is a necessary expense. Even if it’s cheaper than the truck.
So its hair splitting then.
No, it’s talking about how cars are expensive, not free.
This reminds me of when my parents made me get a job to pay for auto insurance at 16, though I didn’t have a car or plan to get one right away. Their rates would go way up unless I had a separate plan, so I had to get one. And then I needed to get a car to get to a job, so I had to spend everything I had saved up as a kid to get a barely functioning car and insure it. I will say that it was sadly a good intro into life as soon to be adult in America.
That’s nearly a line in Metric - Handshake
Buy this car to drive to work, drive to work to pay for this car.
There’s also some great movies about American poverty, and it feels like there’s always a scene where car trouble of some kind tips their life into an immediate downward spiral. They need it to get to work to sustain everything else, making one traffic stop the moment of despair.
The one I really appreciated, as heart wrenching as it was, is called Straw.
The worst part is that scenario you mention is a real thing that can happen and does happen to a lot of people in the US. You should see some of the cars in my deep red no-vehicle-inspection state. I once witnessed a car running on four donut spares, one headlight, and one taillight. And probably no insurance. The alternative is possibly losing a job and becoming homeless.
This is why rednecks are always shadetree mechanics of some stripe or another. Me too. I grew up poor, so I got real good at working on cars.
While that’s an excellent life skill, in Straw, the “car trouble” amounted to being harassed by a racist cop and having her license suspended.
In many cases the penalty is genuinely the driver’s fault, but it’s easy to happen when they’re always driving and always stressed.
Too real. Barely avoided that trap once myself.
like an american would drive a vehicle as small as an accord
This made me laugh because I do indeed drive an Accord. I hate that sedan’s seem like they’re dying.
think about how I feel, with wagons pretty much already dead for the past decade
They’re still popular here in Europe. My last car was a wagon.
I’m still grieving horsedrawn carriages. 😔
Plenty of Accords in the US. It’s a pretty popular car over here.
for the poors, maybe /s
Having taken the bus to work for two years now, I have to say… The complete and utter lack of responsibility has been liberating. Like, sure… There’s still some stigma there where I feel kind of poor or something standing in my uniform at the bus stop while cars whiz past me, but I only spend $70 CAD /mo on my commute, and it I want, I can travel anywhere in the city using that same pass. That’s pretty reasonable.
Plus, as someone actively engaged in nature-based spirituality, it feels kind of nice knowing that I’m traveling a bit more responsibly than I would have with our vehicle.
I would love to have this opportunity because I fucking hate maintenance on my car. As soon as my car senses my bank account reaching a certain threshold it decides that the starter should die the next weekend.
I feel you friend, I’m the same way. I’ve told so many people that and they are so carbrained that they refuse to understand anything beyond time to get there. Yes my bus takes about 10-20% longer, and they immediately augh at me for being a fool, such a fooly fool.
But my ride is mine. I read a book, I think about other things, my time is mine. It’s not worried if the asshole will cut me off, the heightened blood pressure, the anger, the worried if I’m in an okay parking spot. None of that exists. I’ll gladly take 45 minutes on the bus over 30 minutes of stressful driving.
god, I wish. bus routes here are generally 3x longer at minimum
last route I checked against a 22min drive was 90min by bus
Yeah, I can tolerate up to 2x the length of the drive, above that is where I start to get annoyed. I know transfers happen, and they are unavoidable, but a well oiled system keeps them to a minimum and keeps bus routes direct.
Where I live, and for the places I want to go, typical travel times are:
- car: 15 minutes
- bike: 25 minutes
- walk: 1.5 hours
- transit: 45 minutes
Or:
- car: 20 minutes
- bike: 35 minutes
- walk: 2 hours
- transit: 1 hour
And, that’s if it’s a good time of day for transit. If I’m coming back home near 11pm the transit option can be essentially the same as walking. If I have the option to leave at 11:15 so I can arrive 5 minutes before the bus instead of leaving at 11:00 and waiting 20 minutes for the bus, and the bus is on time, and the bus I’m supposed to connect to is on time, then the bus option can be noticeably faster than walking. But, if the first bus is running late (which happens all the time) it can mean missing the next connection, and walking is actually faster than taking the bus, even if it’s a walk of more than an hour.
So, needless to say, I bike whenever the weather permits. But, unfortunately, winter is awful here, the bike lanes and trails aren’t plowed in the winter, so biking for roughly half the year isn’t a real option.
Not a Honda Accord, but a Honda Ridgeline.
However, it’s the only comfortable seat I own, so I don’t mind it.
Trains where I am suck because the seats are too small, and no matter how little space there is next to me in a train seat, some fat guy always sits there. Usually right after he’s eaten a meal of nothing but raw garlic.
On a related note, never trust your GPS on I-95 driving near Washington DC.
Some Americans’ commutes, possibly. I have known people to inflict this sort of thing on themselves and I don’t see the appeal.
I live in an area where the public transit is notoriously dysfunctional, but my commute is about five minutes by motorcycle. Maybe as much as seven on some days if the traffic lights aren’t cooperating with me. On the weekends I ride up to the mountains and enjoy plenty of freedom.
Hell, if you nerds would buy more knives from me I could quit my day job and not have to go anywhere. Think of the carbon savings!
Cutco?
Man, I tried to do public transport to work. I was in the best situation. I lived walking distance to the light rail, my office was on the other side of town, within walking disance to the light rail.
leave at 7:30, walk to the rail by 7:50, not bad buy a ticket on the automated machine and wait, assuming 1 of the 3 machines was working. 50:50 honestly. trains come every 15, except they don’t.
On a good day, the train would be there by 8, on a bad day, maybe 8:30 Ride it for 20 minutes, 4 stops, until I need to switch trains. Get off train 1, buy a ticket if the machines there work, god forbid there’s no ticket on the first run and a train already there, i’ll be waiting for another train. train 2 shows, on a good day, 30 more minutes to my work stop, on a bad day, 45. i hop off at my stop, walk 15m to the office. I’m at the office between 9:30 and 9:45. If it’s hot i’m covered in sweat. If it’s cold i’m freezing. Luckily my job DGAF what time we show up.2h there, 2h back.
except after 7:30pm, trains go to every 30 minutes, which means maybe every 45.
If there’s an accident, a bus bridge will easily make that one way trip 4 hours.
If I drive, I’m there in 27 minutes.
3.5 hours a day to take public transport here for a 30m drive.
We’re not clusters of towns with jobs where everything is near transport and even when things are close our trains are slow an full of homeless trying to stay warm in the winter. I would have loved to hell to get rid of one of the cars. but giving up 1/4 of my family time on a job that already wants 10 hours a day wasn’t negotiable.
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I really wish it was a reasonable option. The only wine on the train near me is in a paper bag and the guy drinking it smells like old cheese :)
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My metro bus isn’t as bad, but i’m 5 miles from the nearest station and there’s no place to lock up a bike. and I’m suburbs, still not rural.
Do you not have digital tickets of some form?
Also light rail is not that fast. So if you have to wait a long time, you are probably better off riding a bicycle. Obviously infrastructure permitting. Your description sounds like that should be possible in a bit more then an hour, but I have obviously no idea where you live and your work is, so can not honestly judge. Just wanted to throw that out there.
No digital tickets when I was doing it (5 years ago). It’s a major metro, but the government here doesn’t take it seriously; they treat it as poor transport.
Can’t bike through the center of the city safely, no bike lanes. Many streets north and south of the city don’t even have shoulders.
40km each way, average summer temps in the 30’s
To bike, I’d need to move closer to work, I’d still sweat my ass off and show up stinky. Also, I can’t be sure I’d get employment near there if anything happened. Needing to sell my house everytime I change jobs seems like a rough time.
We’re just not architected for it. Busses take even longer and are more unpredictable.
As a german: Are those 200mph trains in a room with me?
No they got delayed, then cancelled
They said Alps, they meant the Swiss, maybe the French.
Definitely French, the Swiss trains are very reliable but generally not fast.
Pendolino is an Italian family of high-speed tilting trains (and non-tilting) used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (Czech railways are operating), the UK, the US, Switzerland, China, and Greece.
they can go up to 250km/h
according to wikipedia even the americans have a few! thought with their infrastructure i doubt they get used much
“can”
In my experience in both Portugal and the UK is that they never do.
Only train I know of in the UK that actually goes that fast in practice is the Eurostar service (that goes through the Channel Tunnel) and that’s not a pendolino. A number of long distance trains services in the UK are done by pendolino trains, but the rail track is not good enough for them to go at 250km/h.
In Portugal the Alfa train that goes between Lisbon and Porto and which is a pendolino train does up to 220km/h, but the average speed between both cities is a lot less than that (around 180km/h, if I remember it correctly). No other train there goes even that fast.
Only time I ever went that fast (faster, even) in a train in Europe was with the Thalys (basically the Belgian TGV) from Brussels to Paris and back and that’s not a pendolino train.
You see, whilst that tech is indeed capable of a top speed of 250km/h, actual stretches of rail line capable of safely supporting it are pretty rare.
German made Siemens and French made Alstom can reach 400 and routinely go 300.
Sometimes they go that speed around Mannheim/Frankfurt/Köln… If they go at all… And they don’t get stuck behind another train… Or surprise bauarbeiten…
I like four-bangers, I like short shifters, I like si’s, subarus, lancers, pop pop pop on the downshift, stomp click click vrooom.
Do I get stuck in traffic sometimes? Ehh, once a week maybe.
Would I give it all up for the betterment of humanity as a whole, and hang my childhood on the memory rack forever?
…yeah. The irony of that, though is that being American and living in the rural south gotta throw the glowies a bone every now and then It’s barely even considerable, at all. There is no bus route. There is no train. There’s no carpool, I work third with one other person who lives on the other side of the city.
So, if I have to drive, and my preferance is 32mpg little cars, and for now… I have to, and I enjoy it,…
then I’m gonna.
I read this entire post as if it was country music and I regret nothing.
Would I give it all up for the betterment of humanity as a whole, and hang my childhood on the memory rack forever? …yeah.
Unsarcastically, the world needs more people like you.
There’s a few on this board who would disagree, lmao, but thanks. Man’s gotta live in the world he’s given, not stamp his foot and demand it bend for him. I wasn’t the first here, I won’t be the last.
Making superior options for long distance travel, commuting, and random short-distance trips doesn’t mean cars go away, it means the 98% of people who aren’t into cars get off the road for the rest of us.
Depends on who you talk to. Seems the more rabid members of fuckcars want to ban cars completely, and jail anyone who resists lol
I, unfortunately, have to commute 35 miles one way, usually on my Honda motorcycle. I wish we had any semblence of mass transit at all. But we do not.
I am not brave enough to ride
Riding is best learned with the appropriate amount of respect, a motorcycle safety foundation certified riding course, and lots and lots and lots of practice.
Or you can just hop on a bike for the first time in SEA, where even children and grandmas ride, and its treated with the same cultural reverence as a minivan.
Honestly, traffic in most India and SEA makes me really really not want to get anything that can fall over.
India is tough, but everyone goes slow in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia so most accidents are relatively minor. Lotta people texting with phone in hand while riding. They’re cracking down on drunk driving at least.
I see the fun in it but man do I not trust other vehicles on the road even in my own car half the time
I don’t blame you. I hope I didn’t sound like I was minimizing your concerns. Motorcycles are absolutely more inherently dangerous, especially for the rider, than cars. Not only are motorcycles harder to see, but sometimes just being around them seems to [occasionally] make other drivers act dumber for some reason. You have no cushion around you like you would with a car. You have to put a lot more effort into being visible, thinking ahead, and anticipating danger zones. If you’re in an accident, you don’t have the luxury of four walls, a seatbelt, and airbags.
Then there’s the “physics” which are very different from the physics of a four wheeled vehicle. You not only have to understand those, you also have to basically beat your own instincts out of yourself so you automatically respond correctly when you do inevitabely find yourself in an emergency situation.
Statistically, the majority of motorcycle wrecks occur at speeds under 30 mph (~48 kph). Usually because someone didn’t see the rider and/or the rider either wasn’t aware of or didn’t know how to apply the appropriate technique. As a rider, you will be much safer with proper training and safety gear. But you will never be as safe as in a passenger vehicle. I don’t blame people who look at motorcycles and go “Nope. Hard pass.” at all.
random gravel patch on an otherwise perfect road at 3AM
“oh fu-”
I’ve had my spills on mopeds as a teenager, having them at 55mph – ehhhh.
He’ll yeah. We need good mass trains it. Fuck my car and its mother.
