this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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No reasonable people are expecting someone that lives rural to bike into town. Going between rural homes and cities is one of the places where personal cars are unavoidable. Ideally, they drive to the edge of town and park next to a subway station that they take most of the rest of the way.
so few people live in rural areas (as opposed to suburban cowboys who wonder why their :rural area" has so much traffic) that it's a rounding error. like who cares about the middle of nowhere. it's a distraction to even bring it up. this conversation is explicitly about metropolitan areas
Actually, this conversation is implicitly exclusively about metropolitan areas.
I think some people don't get that, because it's never spelled out. (Some know it, but try to argue in bad faith or derail the conversation anyway)
I agree, but people still need to get to commuter stations. Plus take towns the size of 400 people who commute 40 miles to work, they aren't getting a train stop for decades, maybe longer. EVs are a good solution for them now.
That isn't really an argument for EVs but rather an argument to build a train stop near them ASAP.
EVs are an interim "solution" at best in the vast majority of cases and the majority of resources should flow to the actual solution instead which is not the case in the slightest.
Right, that was my point. A 300 person town isn't going to get a train station before Missouri's capital city, so we're talking decades before they have access.
So yes, EVs should be the choice for car purchasers, but people should always push for better transit.
Right and that was not my point. The 300 person town should get a train station nearby aswell as Missouri's capital city. I see no reason why one should wait on the other.
If you're telling me that's impossible because there aren't enough resources to do both simulatneously, I can show you an industry that is currently wasting a ton of resources to build poor interim solutions touted as saviours of the world.
I'm telling you that's impossible from an average person standpoint. You don't have a government that actively tries to stop building rail. Midwest states are literally trying to stop federal money from coming in to build rail. We protest, we argue, but people are literally voting against that.
In Iowa they're literally just trying to build passenger rail from the eastern side of the state to Chicago, a couple hour round trip - and their extremely conservative governor is trying to kill the project even though the rails are already there and a good chunk of the funding would come from the federal government. All of your points I agree with, but kindly what the hell else are we supposed to do? We vote, we fight, we protest, but still these idiots vote for more idiots and projects that would literally help us get killed.
So yes, I'm going to push for EVs in those areas for those who actually want to change their habits. I'm not going to actively encourage they keep buying massive trucks that spew pollution, since that's apparently the only alternative you can give us.
I agree with you, I don't know what else you want from me, I agree there should be more rail. But for those who actually want it when no one wants to build it, what are they supposed to do? Driving ice cars is knowingly killing the planet, and EVs is a solution for those people who live in places where their government literally tries to kill public transit.
If you know of a way that we haven't tried that we should be doing, I'm all ears. Short of suddenly receiving 6 billion dollars to go build it myself - I don't know what magical thing you want us to be doing that we're not trying already.
I don't care about this mythical "average person".
I wish man, I wish.
Just because you have it extremely bad in the U.S. doesn't mean the rest of the world is doing great, even if it's quite a lot better. "Quite a lot better" than "extremely bad" still turns out to be "pretty bad".
The reasons for that are a different discussion on an entirely different thing that is a general problem that affects all kinds of sectors and has nothing to do with transport specifically.
I only care about the factually-based way forward, not what a bunch of brainwashed monkeys licking aristocrat arses have to say about it.
Eliminating said monkeys is an entirely separate discussion to me.
That's the part I most disagree with. The people who haven't been brain washed quite as much yet should be desiring the proper solution, not the bad "solution" that will still get us killed.
Presenting BEVs as our lord and saviour will do the opposite of that.
Not once in my argument have I mentioned or implied trucks as a valid alternative to BEVs.
That's the thing, it's not a solution; it's a minor mitigation. It's still killing our living space but not quite as badly. That is obviously preferable but nowhere near a solution.
What I want is BEVs to be seen for what they are, not for what they aren't. As a means to an end, BEVs are okay. They're not an end however and that's what they're widely seen as. That's what I find incredibly dangerous.
So we agree?! That public transit is obviously better, we should push governments to build it, that EVs are not a solution but a temporary mitigation, and that ICE vehicles are bad for our planet.
Why do you continue arguing with me if you agree with me?! I told you I agree with all of your points, you just keep coming after me. I literally do not know what you want from me
Why are you putting so much effort into arguing with me who agrees with, I'll say, 95ish% of what you said, instead of going out and pushing this hard on people who are literally trying to kill public transit? Go argue with them.
My work is near by a train stop, but there's very little way for be to get there. There isn't a bus or walkway, so I'd need to Uber or bike. The other issue is that it would make my one hour commute about two hours, which is infeasible for me currently.
They aren't for anybody in rural areas. You can't have a train going to every single farm.
Nobody is talking about those people. Stay on topic.
I agree, but just to clarify a minor point: small rural towns are actually some of the most walkable and bikable because they were built before cars. If you’re staying within a rural town, you don’t need a car.