Man, if only.
There is no bus from anywhere near my home to where I work. There is no bus from where I live to where I buy groceries. Both of those trips are too far by bicycle and I’d have to be suicidal to even try. If I was desperate I’d have to resort to delivery services and what would even the point be?
Ebikes can be a partial bridge to some situations like this, but man I feel you. It’s rough outside urban cores.
There’s a bus from the end of my block to a grocery store!
Takes twice as long and will drop me across the center from the grocery store where I have to cross one of the busiest stroads around here. Then I’ll have to cross a busy parking lot, then cross it again with groceries.
It’s infuriating.
Where I live there’s a grocery store with a bus stop 20 feet from the entrance. Unfortunately that entrance is “permanently closed due to theft” and so everyone who takes the bus has to walk all the way around the store to the entrance by the parking lot (because, as we all know, thieves love to getaway on public transit, and never cars).
That’s the racism! Cause mostly poor people use public transport, and mostly poor people aren’t white! And we don’t want non white people shopping here, they’re all thieves!
That’s why my stores do certain things though. It’s so stupid.
I live damn near the closest I ever have to work and would love to participate but getting to work involves the interstate and bikes/pedestrians/etc can’t be on there. Essentially it’s a ‘you have to have a car’ situation, not even a bus route to where I need to be.
Get a motorcycle
I think that still counts as driving and its a bit out of my budget.
Okay now this is a political compass that I can fuck with.
Haven’t had a car for 6 years now… definitely would’ve been harder to do in a smaller city but it’s freeing to never worry about break-ins, parking, dui’s, etc.
It’s great, same amount of time for me. I work from home, walk my kid to school, and with no car costs to pay I make enough to actually support my small family. It’s bliss.
people sometimes post like where would you like to live or such and one of my first things is I need to be in or around a city that has a metro line close enough to one of the stations. I just can’t imagine being without it.
Yep. The first thing I do when looking for a new place to live is check the transit score
Ah I think there’s only US cities on there, which fair enough to grade them on a different scale than European cities
Awesome. My neighborhood scores a 95. I moved there for many reasons, but never owning a car again is on the goal list.
I’ve lived there for a year. Never missed my old USA style car serfdom for a single day.
Wow that’s insanely high! Is it NY? I don’t know of many car free places to live
I’m in Berlin, Germany.
Inside the Ringbahn (a circle route train around the city), most of the city is inanely walkable.
Within a few minutes walking if my apartment we have everything for daily needs. Within 15 minutes by public transit we have everything else.
It’s wonderful.
At the moment I’m having to wait outside a Starbucks in Northern Idaho (family obligations). The sheer pain of the traffic, pollution, noise, and knowing that I can’t walk to anything in a reasonable timeframe (car mandatory life) is awful. It’s my first time back to the US in a year and it’s convincing me minute by minute that I made the correct choice by leaving.
Ugh, I moved to Copenhagen 2 years ago and haven’t been to the US yet. I’ll be back in a month or so and am dreading it for the exact reasons you’re saying. I… Might have to rent a car for part of this? Ugh.
I’d love to participate, but there’s no way I’m risking my kids’ lives, or keeping them home. Even as a well experienced adult cyclist I feel threatened by cars on basically every road in my area, even the country dirt roads because the speed limit on them is 55mph.
In summer I can often get away with driving once a week. And that one time is not even driving for myself. Winter is a bit different. But on the whole, not driving for a single week one time is a lot like fasting. Good, but not the systematic change that is needed.
I love the idea of this, but I wish it was earlier in the year. I was biking to work all summer, but now the mornings are too cold where we are and I had to put the bike away.
If you have little ones you need to drop off and pick up everyday, it is hard to substitute a car with transit as well.
I’ve not found temperature to be as big an issue as snow and ice. You can always layer for the weather, but if the bike infrastructure isn’t clear that’s where things go south for me.
9 years without a car for me and I’m sadly over it. I’m hoping to move somewhere where I can still do most things on foot/transit, because I still really do love it, but it’s such a pain when I have heavy/bulky things to transport, and makes certain parts of town practically inaccessible. My current residence apparently has a 99 walk score and a 100 transit score, but there’s so many parts of town with terrible transit access that would be a 15-20 minute drive, but are an hour or more via transit.
Or my favorite: Scoot. (But wear a helmet)
Metro is truly bad and has only gotten worse over the years.
That’s not true.
Straight up lies
