Cars fulfill a very self-indulgent narrative. ‘I get to decide where and when I travel’, makes people feel “free” snd “important” even when millions of them are silently coming to the same decisions-- like going downtown at 09:00 on weekdsys-- that allow huge efficiency plays.
Notice how many ads feature fantasies of open roads and trips to faraway attractions, not the real world of “I need to sit in rush hour traffic from 6:30 on to get to the Work Factory”
Maybe public transit needs to focus its message on the freedom from drudgery it offers-- you don’t have to be staring at the driver in front of you, scanning the traffic reports
Exactly! This is why I love micromobility and quality public transit so much. With micromobility like electric scooters or bikes, I can zip past traffic in the protected cycle lanes in my city. With the frequent metro service in my city, I know I can show up to the metro station at basically any time and know it’ll be a max 5-minute wait for the next train. And when I’m on the train, I can just chill and scroll on my phone or read a book instead of stressing about traffic. The freedom to think about something that isn’t traffic.
Because many of us live in places where you must use a car, there are no alternatives
In such places electric public transport is nothing but a pipe dream
I love trains
Oh great, you pipsqueaks moved to lemmy? Fuck, you guys are annoying
Not every journey is possible with public transport. People will still need to lug equipment about in the electric future.
I dunno what country you are from, but here in the US of A, the monopolies that own all the train infrastructure make sure to keep trains as public transportation as cost prohibitive as possible.
since wen this sub is full of carbrain? like bruh.
Yeah what is going on? Seems like every other comment is full on car-brain-cars-are-freedom insanity. No enough orange pilled people here. Is the opposite of the orange pill the sad grey pill?
Because trains aren’t economically viable for the vast majority of the US, and where they are economically they are the topic of conversation.
As far as why the conversation would center around the US, that’s just the regular American-centric tilt english conversations generally lean towards. Most of Europe has their shit together in some topics like this (public transportation, for instance) and the US is a huge consumer of automobiles and no one if building mass transit between the middle of nowhere to the other middle of nowhere where we could ‘efficiently’ move individually insignificant numbers of people at a time.
Batteries used gives you150 ebikes for every e-car
Public transportation in America is typically a magnet for crime.
I’ll take a hard pass on being trapped in a tube with my assailants.
Because cars aren’t stuck to tracks.
cars are stuck to roads and much less efficient everywhere many people need to go. cars are basically useful where only few people live or work.
And trains aren’t stuck to roads. And planes aren’t stuck to roads. And ships aren’t stuck to roads.
Removed by mod
and there isn’t one near me.
That’s exactly the problem that this community wants to fix.
Trains could have intercity connections. Walk/bus to the train, ride the train, walk/bus to your destination.
Sure buddy, spend a few hours hopping public transport each day is so much fun.
Cars are superior in every single way, it’s paupers that cry out of jealousy we’re seeing here.
They know cars aren’t the problem, there are industries out there that spew out the equivalent of millions of cars but they don’t bitch about that.
hmmm, do I want to sit in a train, flip my laptop open and do some work, then walk through a park to the office for today… Or do I want to sit in traffic and do nothing…
Tough choice there
no, I absolutely do not want to work on my way to work
Work time starts when I open the laptop. I’m not volunteering that time, since i’m not completely insane. It makes a huge difference whether my workday starts in the office, or in the train.
it’s paupers that cry out of jealousy we’re seeing here.
Found Andrew Tate’s account
Ugh, vegans.
You ever try taking your new mattress and bed frame on a train?
Always hated that argument for big cars. You buy a new bed/mattress/big furniture like once a year. Delivery is maybe 50 bucks. The extra cost of a car big enough to transport that stuff is in the thousands. Somehow everyone gets upset when confronted with delivery fees while being perfectly fine with dishing out cash for a car. Redo the fucking math.
I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification of the argument
I use my car to transport my bike, surfboard, skis, dog, lawnmower, buy furniture, buy lumber etc for projects, and more. It just can’t be beat in terms of convenience. For repairs around the house, gardening, etc, it’s a must-have.
A 1998 CR-V does all that and it cost me $2500. Bomb-proof b20b also, I love it. I don’t think you can beat that in terms of convenience.
I’m all for trains and buses (electric busses would be great!) but the utility wanes when lots of people bring stuff. I used to have a 45 minute bus commute, and the bus had racks for bikes. I’d bring my bike to do the 5 mile trip to and from bus stops at both ends. But lots of people wanted to do that, and you’d have to be early in line to get your bike on the bus, otherwise you had to wait for the next one. I can’t imagine people trying to bring 2x4s or potted plants on the bus! Or their pets, another issue altogether.
So you’ll buy an electric car for some 20k+ once that car breaks down to haul your frequent furniture and lumber purchases?
Because the discussion isn’t about ‘I have a car and won’t exchange it for a train’ but ‘moving transportation onto trains instead of electric cars would be a lot more beneficial as the future of transportation’
Funnily Ive got downvoted for bringing the same argument against replaceable phone batteries in another thread. Like, just pay a tech once every few years to do it for you.
That’s not a valid response to “spend more on trains (public trans, whatever)”. No one is suggesting that any one thing be all things – except car folk. Walk, bike, bus, subway, light rain, taxis, rentals cars, personal cars, personal trucks, commercial trucking, limousines, trains… all of it. Varied and specific to need. Diversity and choice.
I did, on a trolley bus. Blocked an entire exit, but we timed it just right as to get on a mostly empty one and not inconvinience lot of people
In cities, yeah. Outside cities, impossible
But I’d love to rent autonomous electric cars to move
What they did before cars were ubiquitous was “whistle stops” the train would whistle outside of town to indicate it was coming, and would stop for anybody at the platform otherwise it would continue on without stopping, much like how most buses operate today.
Smaller interurban lines also operated “flag stops” where it would stop when flagged down by a passenger otherwise it would keep going
With EMUs (electric multiple units) and modern signalling service could be brought to small towns fairly cheaply. Most small towns in the US are about 20 miles apart, so hourly service at ~50MPH could easily be provided with a single track mainline and passing sidings only at stations by having one train in each direction every 30 minutes.
The problem is so much money is invested in road infrastructure that investing a similar amount into an equally extensive rail network is simply unfathomable
I get this. I live in Italy and we have a very complicated web of roads here with many small villages very close to each other. I’d love this though and also I’d like not to own a car. We are much less car focused here compared to America so might be easier or more complicated, not sure
We 100% need more trains. But in rural America, we need cars to do anything.
The frontier was built with trains. They did this 180 years ago. Why do we pretend that’s incompatible with rural areas in 2023?
![[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/11c37658-7c32-4cc2-b12c-6ced348bd09d.png){kind=link}