A bus line was added semi-recently near me that would go from a town of 100k to a town of 650k. I thought that would be useful for getting me to go to the larger city a little more often for events. However, that doesn’t do anything to get rid of my car. From what I remember, it didn’t even drop off somewhere good, so you’re stuck taking an Uber after that.
If I want to go see a concert right now I can drive 18 minutes, or I can take a bus for over an hour and walk a mile.
To eliminate my car I need reliable and frequent mass transit that goes everywhere I need to go 99% of the time. For the 1% I could rent a car or try to bum a ride with someone else going. I think I’d only be willing to rent a car in this fashion twice per year… and it has to be easy to get to the car rental place via mass transit. Last time I rented a car locally I had to take an Uber.
Without that, I still have my car, and that car is easier, faster, and often cheaper than the alternative… especially if I place a modest value on my time.
There is also the question of what to do on the other side when you get to the other city. If a train or car both take 6 hours (which is a situation I’m in if I want to get to a city of 2.5m), then it’s a question of what I’m doing when I get there. Can I get off the train, hop on the rail line and get to where I need to go, or do I need to go somewhere which isn’t serviced? In which case do I rent a car, or just drive my own car 6 hours instead of paying for a car rental and a train ticket?
There are also people who live in those rural towns that don’t want to leave, or just need to get around to go to the store, take their kids to soccer practice, etc. My sister would have to walk over a mile down the side of a highway (with semi-trucks flying by at 60mph) to get to a town of fewer than 600 people, where the bus would likely be. Then that bus would take her to a city with a population of 20k where she does her shopping. No bus currently exists, but it’s a 20 minute drive, if we use my bus as an estimate we can say it might take an hour… but probably more, but because of the lower population and more out of the way stops. So from having the idea to go shopping it might take her what 2 hours to get to the store, maybe more if she has to wait for the bus… and on the way home she has to walk down that highway with all her grocery bags for a mile? With a car it takes her 20 minutes.
Don’t get me wrong. I love visiting other countries with good transit systems. When I was in London there was a grocery store between the Underground and my AirBnb, it was super nice. In Japan I went all over the place in Tokyo without ever thinking about a car. That just isn’t a reality in the US and it would take decades and trillions of dollars, along with migrations of a lot of people, to make that happen. Even if cities like Chicago it still kind of sucks. I’ve used the rails in Chicago a fair bit, and I prefer them to Chicago traffic, but the hub and spoke can only take you so far.
![[image] Cars are an incredibly inefficient way to move people](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a55ce0e0-9740-4207-9d5f-64bc68231a3d.jpeg){kind=link}
A bus line was added semi-recently near me that would go from a town of 100k to a town of 650k. I thought that would be useful for getting me to go to the larger city a little more often for events. However, that doesn’t do anything to get rid of my car. From what I remember, it didn’t even drop off somewhere good, so you’re stuck taking an Uber after that.
If I want to go see a concert right now I can drive 18 minutes, or I can take a bus for over an hour and walk a mile.
To eliminate my car I need reliable and frequent mass transit that goes everywhere I need to go 99% of the time. For the 1% I could rent a car or try to bum a ride with someone else going. I think I’d only be willing to rent a car in this fashion twice per year… and it has to be easy to get to the car rental place via mass transit. Last time I rented a car locally I had to take an Uber.
Without that, I still have my car, and that car is easier, faster, and often cheaper than the alternative… especially if I place a modest value on my time.
There is also the question of what to do on the other side when you get to the other city. If a train or car both take 6 hours (which is a situation I’m in if I want to get to a city of 2.5m), then it’s a question of what I’m doing when I get there. Can I get off the train, hop on the rail line and get to where I need to go, or do I need to go somewhere which isn’t serviced? In which case do I rent a car, or just drive my own car 6 hours instead of paying for a car rental and a train ticket?
There are also people who live in those rural towns that don’t want to leave, or just need to get around to go to the store, take their kids to soccer practice, etc. My sister would have to walk over a mile down the side of a highway (with semi-trucks flying by at 60mph) to get to a town of fewer than 600 people, where the bus would likely be. Then that bus would take her to a city with a population of 20k where she does her shopping. No bus currently exists, but it’s a 20 minute drive, if we use my bus as an estimate we can say it might take an hour… but probably more, but because of the lower population and more out of the way stops. So from having the idea to go shopping it might take her what 2 hours to get to the store, maybe more if she has to wait for the bus… and on the way home she has to walk down that highway with all her grocery bags for a mile? With a car it takes her 20 minutes.
Don’t get me wrong. I love visiting other countries with good transit systems. When I was in London there was a grocery store between the Underground and my AirBnb, it was super nice. In Japan I went all over the place in Tokyo without ever thinking about a car. That just isn’t a reality in the US and it would take decades and trillions of dollars, along with migrations of a lot of people, to make that happen. Even if cities like Chicago it still kind of sucks. I’ve used the rails in Chicago a fair bit, and I prefer them to Chicago traffic, but the hub and spoke can only take you so far.