Where I live it’s dozens of little villages scattered about here and there, with four sizable towns.
Weaving public transport through all of those places is impractical.
I can’t function using public transport that’ll take me an hour or two to get between appointments in different places when it’s a fifteen minute drive.
To get close to that you need so many buses running empty and so many routes it’s insane.
Maybe let local people decide what’s right for them instead of making blanket proclamations for everyone and every place?
Then get rid of everything with an internal combustion engine and live like your ancestors did on that land, don’t expect modernity to be delivered to you by truck while you live your stupid medieval peasant fantasy
If you didn’t pay for roads, but you wanted public transit, I don’t see how that works.
There’s plenty of room to improve cities without having to bemoan that rural people are living wrong. About the only place I could see is making rural people switch over to intra-city transit instead of trying to have the cars wiork to get within a block of any given destination. That’s probably about as far I think to inconvenience rural people to meaningfully improve things.
Mass transit is only efficient if you have a density of people going the same way at the same time. A bus is only better when you have significant occupancy, and that’s not going to happen in very low density living.
You’re getting downvoted because it’s a fuckcars com, but you’re not exactly wrong. Plus, I don’t see how we could effectively get rid of cars without making everyone move to the cities.
If they could run more busses with fewer stops, it wouldn’t be a choice between driving yourself and getting to work on time. The only way they would or could run more busses is if people demand more public transit and public transit received more funding.
It’s a god damn catch-22. Public transit kinda sucks because it doesn’t get enough funding, and it doesn’t get enough funding because people think it sucks.
I think it’s a failure of imagination that the people running things believe public transport should turn a profit.
If it’s run well, the economic benefits cover the costs indirectly.
And still, there will be places where it isn’t the right answer, that an optimised and popular public transport system can not cover enough for people to be done with cars.
Im not sure about this. I live near a city with incredible public transit. metro trains run often and its a grid system with plenty of buses and the artierials run often connecting lines. Its affordable and a monthly pass costs less than mandatory liability insurance for a car. Lots of people do take it but lots of people also still have cars. Even in poor neighborhoods. There is just a wierd car brain in the us. My wife feels a car is freedom but all I see is a ball and chain around the ankle with costs and possibility of breakdown at any time. If im on a bus and it breaks down you get out and catch the next bus. public transit to me is the ultimate feeling of freedom.
Question is to cover rural communities as-is, do you and up practically replacing every car on the road with a bus? Bus is generally only better if you have significantly fewer of them to scale.
Utter tripe.
Where I live it’s dozens of little villages scattered about here and there, with four sizable towns.
Weaving public transport through all of those places is impractical.
I can’t function using public transport that’ll take me an hour or two to get between appointments in different places when it’s a fifteen minute drive.
To get close to that you need so many buses running empty and so many routes it’s insane.
Maybe let local people decide what’s right for them instead of making blanket proclamations for everyone and every place?
You don’t need to bring car usage to zero. It’s a win to bring it down.
Local, non-expert, people are famously wrong. You’d have everything paved over for more parking if you listened to them.
So, basically, you’re living in a geographic area that’s incompatible with your lifestyle, and it only works with taxpayer subsidies for the roads.
Nah, lifestyle is well suited to the area.
We have roads here older than every American country and traditions even older.
The land and the people are one.
Then get rid of everything with an internal combustion engine and live like your ancestors did on that land, don’t expect modernity to be delivered to you by truck while you live your stupid medieval peasant fantasy
Yeah we don’t have trucks here. Except for a few industrial people so you’re not making sense.
Hands up anyone who thinks my ancestors had public transport?!
Ok, that was definitely the point of what I was saying and you aren’t being disingenuous at all.
How many of those ancestors wound up marrying their cousins, do you think?
Has that got anything to do with whether I need a car or a bus?
If you didn’t pay for roads, but you wanted public transit, I don’t see how that works.
There’s plenty of room to improve cities without having to bemoan that rural people are living wrong. About the only place I could see is making rural people switch over to intra-city transit instead of trying to have the cars wiork to get within a block of any given destination. That’s probably about as far I think to inconvenience rural people to meaningfully improve things.
Mass transit is only efficient if you have a density of people going the same way at the same time. A bus is only better when you have significant occupancy, and that’s not going to happen in very low density living.
You’re getting downvoted because it’s a fuckcars com, but you’re not exactly wrong. Plus, I don’t see how we could effectively get rid of cars without making everyone move to the cities.
80% already did, and the other 20% can be ignored.
If they could run more busses with fewer stops, it wouldn’t be a choice between driving yourself and getting to work on time. The only way they would or could run more busses is if people demand more public transit and public transit received more funding.
It’s a god damn catch-22. Public transit kinda sucks because it doesn’t get enough funding, and it doesn’t get enough funding because people think it sucks.
That’s very true.
I think it’s a failure of imagination that the people running things believe public transport should turn a profit.
If it’s run well, the economic benefits cover the costs indirectly.
And still, there will be places where it isn’t the right answer, that an optimised and popular public transport system can not cover enough for people to be done with cars.
If we taxed private car use enough to make that break even, we could easily afford to have great public transit.
It’s not a failure of imagination, it’s deliberate sabotage. They don’t want transit to work because they’re classist and transit is egalitarian.
Im not sure about this. I live near a city with incredible public transit. metro trains run often and its a grid system with plenty of buses and the artierials run often connecting lines. Its affordable and a monthly pass costs less than mandatory liability insurance for a car. Lots of people do take it but lots of people also still have cars. Even in poor neighborhoods. There is just a wierd car brain in the us. My wife feels a car is freedom but all I see is a ball and chain around the ankle with costs and possibility of breakdown at any time. If im on a bus and it breaks down you get out and catch the next bus. public transit to me is the ultimate feeling of freedom.
I agree.
Rural public transport could absolutely be way better, especially if it was viewed as a public service, not a business.
There’s plenty of places where even an optimised solution would mean cars aren’t needed.
Question is to cover rural communities as-is, do you and up practically replacing every car on the road with a bus? Bus is generally only better if you have significantly fewer of them to scale.