Its not meant to be enjoyable, or fast, or efficient, or anything but profitable for auto manufacturers. Thats it. That's what the pillar of transport in our society was designed for.
Not just that. Developers too getting rich off subrubia. And oil and gas although thats starting to split from car dependancy.
No shit. My car is involved in nearly aspect of my life. Which is terror inducing, expensive, and time consuming. I saved thousands of dollars over the pandemic because I didn't have to drive. No gas, canceled car insurance, and didn't renew my plates. Easily saved me 10k. (and my car is a rust bucket. People with a car note must have to drive just to get their money's worth.)
A significant portion of the population could work from home, but no. Not painful enough.
Even working local, rather than global would be less painful.
I don’t mean “local” as in “a few suburbs over”, I mean “local” as in walking distance from home.
I actually think working locally is better than working from home.
I think it can be important for some people to have a physical seperation for their work place and their living space. For some people a closed office door in the home is enough separation, for others it isn't.
During lockdowns, I would get up at my usual time, shower, dress in work uniform and walk around the block and then go straight to my desk. At the end of the workday, I would shutdown my computer and go for another walk around the block.
not ~~painful~~ controllable enough
Yeah, I find driving and owning a vehicle to be a burden. I think it also encourages bad perceptions of others because we are all in each others way on the roads and because everyone is in separate bubbles. You experience other drivers as both threats/problems and as not real people, unless you stop next to each other and chat through the windows.
Compare the way you encounter fellow drivers on the road with fellow cyclists or passengers on a train or bus. It's less real - everyone just stewing in their own jar.
Nobody in america can compare it because for the vast majority of us, transit just isn't a viable option. Most people won't wait 1 hour on an inconsistent bus when we can get there in 20 minutes driving. We can't chat on the trains that don't exist between our cities. We can't chat in the cycle lane because there is no cycle lane, it is a gutter where any attempt at conversation is drowned out by road noise and exhausts with no enforced noise limit.
We've let car dependancy go so far because there are so few people still alive who actually remember what things were like before we all saw the world through these steel bubbles.
I've made an effort since I've lived on my own to live somewhere with good walkablity / public transit availability for my personal time, often at the expense of my commute to work. I'm now at a happy balance having settled in a medium-sized town with great walk- and bikeability, and I have my shortest commute ever of 9 miles. Unfortunately there isn't a public transit option that I can take to get to work, but it is bikeable.
9 miles is a really nice distance to cycle regularly.
Agreed. Only thing keeping me from doing it daily (in good weather at least) is that I don't have a garage, so my bike is always difficult to get out of the shed and around the back of the house.
Good news! Currently building a garage. Just need to get a seat to take the kid to daycare, and it will become the preferred daily driver.
I guess the only stock traffic photo they could find is from the 1950s.
I used to live in a medium sized metro area and the transit system was way up there. I did not own a car. I was able to travel to most places I wanted to without too much time spent away in transit. Any long journeys were a great way to catch up on my reading and music listening. It was very nice to spend less than $60/month on transportation and have unlimited options 18+ hours a day. There are downsides to not having personal transport, but they are very few.
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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