this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Traveling across the entirety of the US by car in the middle of winter sounds fucking miserable. That's what trains are for.
If you happen to enjoy that kind of thing and aren't on a tight timeline it is fun as hell. Like a mechanical version of hiking.
Like hiking, most people don't enjoy it or aren't really up to the challenge.
I think the guy above you was just talking about regular driving on the freeway, not overlanding in a 4x4.
Driving on the freeways, which are cleared quickly in the winter, isn't really any different than other seasons. There are plenty of cross country routes that use highways which aren't cleared as quickly, especially in hilly or mountainous areas, that can be fun to take for scenic routes.
Not everyone who travels across the country sticks to interstates.
I can't wait to describe driving this way to a friend so that we can both share in the laughter I'm enjoying right now.
Seriously though, with the right kind of terrain and conditions driving is a real challenge. If you have never driven off road through fields in wet, snowy conditions where stopping is likely to mean being unable to start going again and needing to guage how fast to approach a slope to maintain momentum it might sound silly.
Anyone who has never driven on an unpaved road might find it funny. Like how anyone who has only ridden a bike on paved roads might not understand the fun of going mountain biking off a defined path might find that funny.
Offroading on a motorcycle is more fun than a four wheel car most of the time, but all of things can be fun.
I own a lifted hatchback with gravel tires that I occasionally take down timber trails to camp or shoot. That's maybe why I understood what you meant. But the way it came across, it just sounded like you need to go hiking more :P
Yeah, I was going for the 'crossing difficult terrain challenge' part and probably should have said it was like hiking from your couch.
Trains only travel along previously laid rails, at specific times. Plus, you'll need to rent a car at the other end to get anywhere. Better to take your own car and have personalized comfort the whole way. Also, yes, it does sound miserable. But if you're in a car, turn up the heater, turn on the radio or your favorite music, and just vibe while driving safely.
But if the cities were built for people rather than cars, you wouldn't need to rent a car at your destination. And trains run often if they haven't been critically underfunded for decades. And you can't really drive safely, even if you're a perfect driver, someone can run you off the road. Trains are orders of magnitude safer.
Not everyone lives in cities in the US and even then they are really spread out. It's the one thing I think the world doesn't comprehend about the US; we're spread way out.
My brother in christ, the reason we got this spread out in the first place was a robust national network of passenger rail lines.
It isnt like the rest of the world doesnt have rural areas, unless one lives in like singapore or something. Something like 80% of the US population lives in urban areas, and most trips arent trips between cities except perhaps for those that are close to one another anyways. So even if one accepts that rural areas are car centric by nature, that still leaves the vast majority of the population that isnt affected by that. The buildings within cities being spread out over a wide space making transit less efficient is a failure of city design rather than something fundamental and unchangeable about the US, we have a fairly serious housing shortage anyways, if we really wanted to decrease car dependence we could absolutely build up denser housing in urban cores to shift the population over time into areas that allow for more efficient transportation.
Sounds like prison
No, it really doesn't, unless one simply does not know what "prison" means. Improving access to transportation is entirely counter to the point of a prison, given that the primary characteristic of a prison is being hard to leave.
Having someone live below, above, and on either side within a couple of feet absolutely sounds like prison conditions. As far as hard to leave, unless you're walking or biking, you don't have that much freedom of movement, at least in comparison to a car or a motorcycle which becomes much more of a hassle of owning in cities. I'm also not saying cities should cater more to cars either.
I'm in an apartment in a city right now, I really do not notice the neighbors. Apartments are absolutely not as small as cells, unless you're living somewhere with an extreme land shortage like Hong Kong or something (and even then, the conditions will be more comfortable than a literal prison), or somewhere with some extremely progressive prisons.
For that matter, saying you don't have much freedom of movement unless you're walking or biking is a bit like saying you can't communicate with people unless you talk to them; being able to just leave your front door and walk to places you want to go, to include to stuff like train or bus stations for longer trips (which in turn can reach stuff like airports or car rentals for even longer ones), is freedom of movement.
If anything, having a car as the only good option is much less free, since one is required to acquire a license from the government to use it at all, which they can at any moment revoke and leave you with the choice of resorting to crime, relying on others to move you, or being stuck in one's own home.
I've lived in the city, mind you not a large one, but I noticed most everyone around me in my home at the time. From the guy 2 doors down that yelled at his dog to get off the couch anytime I had my window open, to sirens going off a few times a night, it was enough to notice how quiet the country is when the loudest thing at nights is the interstate 10 air miles from my home or the occasional owl that roosts in a tree in my back yard.
Buying a fare on plane, train, or metro is just essentially a one time license if you think about it. My point is that the traveling on time frames for departures and limited destinations for planes, trains, and metros is more restrictive over leave at anytime and go anywhere most anywhere on your continent of a personal vehicle. Each mode has their place and advocating for the elimination of any seems shortsighted.
Very few advocate for the total elimination of cars, just that they are very, very overrepresented in terms of amount of infrastructure built and city design. The argument isn't to take cars off the table, but that they shouldn't be be the default option, and therefore that cities shouldn't be built assuming that most will have and use one. Because when you build assuming their use, you tend to create a place that requires them, and makes life very difficult for anyone that cannot or will not use one.
I'm also saying that cars are the only option in a vast majority of the land in the US. Park and ride spots (especially with EV charging) would be a great improvement for many of the cities for those of us coming from an area without a reasonable means to get there other than by car if buses and metros were available. The closest major city to me doesn't have a metro, nor a great bus schedule. I'm trying to no be a part of the problem, but cities have got to get it together.
Also you can't totally eliminate roads for cities mainly for deliveries via vans and trucks. The need for locksmiths, plumbers, electricians, and the like also need to be mobile to go to the problems as well.
Or you know, just how cities work...
🤡
Where are you going in rural america that you need to rent a car if you arent already living there?
Family, maybe.
Then... they can get their family to come pick'em up in their pickup truck.
So, someone's sister who works in a 100% remote IT job and who moved to a quiet rural town to raise her family is supposed to pick up and fit 5 people (including luggage) in her early 90's Civic hatchback from the closest airport/train station that's 100-200mi (160-320km) away?
I'd suggest that you work on your prejudice and critical thinking skills, as how that comment was worded was uncalled for and easy to poke holes in the logic of. You have to keep in mind that not everyone who lives in a quiet and isolated (even possibly self-sufficient) town is the stereotypical blue-collar farmhand that is commonly displayed by the media.
I just love how these threads always lead to anti-bike reactionaries coming up with increasingly contrived hypothetical situations to "justify" continuing to cling to their cars like a security blanket.
And then have the audacity to accuse the other side of "prejudice" and lack of "critical thinking skills."
You have to keep in mind that only a tiny minority of Americans live in tiny and isolated towns at all, and pretending the solution for the vast majority of people doesn't work by pointing to those outliers is bad-faith idiotic bullshit.
You dont need to be a redneck to understand the value of a pickup in rural america. Shes gonna haul sheet of plywood with that hachback? Lmao
I'd hope they'd pick you up
But 80% do, so what's your excuse for refusing to solve the problem for the vast majority? The "and even then they are really spread out" is not it, BTW.
Money for the most part. It's cheaper to own, no HoA or Condo association. Not to mention it's quieter.
https://youtu.be/3kf_im01RC0
Cars also travel along previously laid paths. I mean, technically there are off road ones that dont have to, but unless youre on your own land trying to get from one place to another without following the roads wont go so well.
Off-road travel, even in a car not explicitly made for it, is usually safer than traveling a derailed train. But I get your point.