You walk to the fucking grocery store. I know it sounds wild but we have legs so we can use it.
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
WE ONCE HAD STREETCARS LOOK WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US
Still my favourite form of transport
the virgin bus route weeps and gnashes at the feet of CHAD STREETCAR
This is the most offensive and derogatory form of ableism. I'm reporting this and I'm tagging you as "Person who hates the disabled" and I am not going to spend even a moment thinking about how mass transit or pedestrian pathways might benefit an individual with mobility issues.
Please, add /s. I almost believed you.
See your comment brings up the big issue I have with the bicycle crowd. I literally cannot ride a bike due to disability , so ride transit right? If my city had a good and reliable transit system i fucking would! But it doesn’t, and it never fucking will. So yes I will give up the car and take transit every day, when pigs fly and my city has a good transit system.
Your way of thinking relies on the belief that transit is adequate in most places, and it sure as hell is not
If my city had a good and reliable transit system
That is what is being argued for.
it never fucking will
Urban landscapes change regularly. US metropolises used to be significantly more mass transit friendly, and it took billions of dollars and millions of man hours to ruin them over the course of decades. You aren't trapped in a historical moment forever, you're riding the tide of history just like the rest of us.
Your way of thinking relies on the belief that transit is adequate in most places
My way of thinking relies on the belief that people being reflexively hostile to bicycles degrades future bicycle infrastructure development.
I'm seeing this happen in my home city of Houston, as the current mayor rips out a bunch of newly built bike lanes and bike-share racks because he'd rather the money go towards roadway expansion and policing. $10M/year transferred from bike development to resurfacing roadways of his friends and political allies, so he can tell me that people with mobility issues are best served by River Oaks getting a new coat of varnish.
Wow, well put my dude.
My city installed bike lanes all over the place, the cyclists don’t use them. They just zip by you on the sidewalk as the bike lane sits empty
My neighborhood doesn't have that problem. You'll see regular big rides with dozens - even hundreds - of riders spilling down the protected lanes.
Nobody rides on the sidewalks if they can avoid it. Where do you live that the sidewalks are even maintained? Around here they're a jagged mess.
Lemme strap my wife and kids to my back while I cycle them all to their destinations then head off to work 50km away in the dead of winter!
Bicycle people have no brain, they think everyone lives in California or some shit
50 km commute is wild anywhere, sorry to hear that
These “take a train” crowd think that everyone in every city and every town has a subway system or even a functional bus system. It’s like the bicycle people who insist that I don’t need a car, I can just strap my kids to my back in winter and drop them off at school before cycling to work and stopping for errands and groceries on the way home! So easy! /s
If I didn’t NEED a car I wouldn’t drive one, and that applies to most people. But for some reason everyone on here is a 20something city kid with easy access to public transit
“These ‘take a train’ crowd” tend to be also the ones saying “build more trains, light rail, and tram lines, also bike lanes” but who are prevented from making progress at every turn by oil and motor lobbyists. They are very aware of the limitations but generally encourage it because it’s a good thing to do.
I do this with light rail. Takes 6 minutes with slow walking included. It's pleasant.
Especially in the winter. I live in Norway, so if I use a car I wait for the engine to warm up before driving. (It's better for the engine.) This and removal of ice and snow easily takes more than 6 minutes. I'm really glad I don't have a car.
Most of the world is not like Norway and having a car is a necessity not a desire
I completely understand that owning a car can be necessary for someone, but since I'm lucky enough to have access to good public transit a car just doesn't make any sense for me.
It's MANY times as expensive, the car requires maintenance/repair and driving requires me to be focused and well rested.
Even with zero sleep, a headache, icy roads, a beer in my stomach and lots of stress, I can safely get where I need to go and I don't even have to think about parking when I get there. I can even listen to music or a podcast on really low volume with closed eyes. I hope that more people get access to good public transit.
For a society in the long run public transit is also cheaper per passenger than cars. The difference in cost efficiency grows the more densely populated an area is. Statistically most people on Lemmy live in a more densely populated area than me, so you can probably demand this from your government. Y'all would end up saving money.
The fact people want to get in a car in order to get groceries is beyond me. I'm in Australia, where car brain is also very prevalent, but with many urban places good for walking and PT.
I live close to the shops, and go there multiple times a week because it's literally right there. Driving and parking? Nah, I'm good.
Friends I have talk about ordering groceries so casually. I go onto these apps and see a 20% markup with delivery fees and I'm like what the fuck.
I live in Houston. We have a grocery store in town that has a big apartment block over the top of it. A friend lives there and he jokes that he's taking the elevator to the grocery store any time I complain about traffic or parking.
Unfortunately, living in a posh apartment that's conveniently placed over a nice grocery store means the price of rent is astronomical. So he needs to work as a highly paid attorney in the oil industry to afford to live in a place where he doesn't need to use a car to get groceries.
Well good on him at least for copping the first adopters price haha, hopefully you can put some stuff back where the city bulldozed to put carparks one day 😅 one apartment at time
The ironic (Or perhaps just interesting) thing is that apartments are supposed to be cheaper living because you don't have a front or back yard.
It's vaguely that here, if location is the same apartment is usually cheaper than a free standing house, but apartments are usually better located near public transport and amenities (the whole point), so there's a slight premium for that.
The American description of apartments almost always coming along in the phrase "luxury condos" is perplexing (other than NYC, it seems)
In fairness, in Melbourne we also do not build many apartments. Far fewer than we should, mostly due to regulations and laws not being airtight around owners corporations, aka body corp, and conflicts of interest where the developer awards a building management contract before selling all the apartments... So people are a bit hesitant to sign up for that and apartment living is still a pretty foreign concept to most
American problems
In fairness, also Australian problems, just to a lesser degree overall (in urban areas)
Ideally we could just fucking walk to a small grocery store instead of having to drive to one. Also would increase jobs with more foot traffic.
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If you are not disabled in anyway and still need to take a transport bigger than a bicycle to buy basic groceries, the design of the city you live in is fundamentally broken.
As a disabled person, thanks for remembering us. I'll see these "just hop on your bike and pedal over!" comments and it's kinda saddening.
There are disabled people in the Netherlands too. And they can move around the city in micro cars, mobility scooters, electric wheelchairs, etc... with confidence, because bike lanes network allows them to go anywhere, with way more autonomy and safety than in any other country.
That sounds great, but I suspect The Netherlands wouldn't welcome me with open arms. Until then, I'm stuck in 'Murica.
I suspect The Netherlands wouldn’t welcome me with open arms
Because you're disabled? Or because you've got an unseasonal tan or low-income?
From my experience, the EU is enormously accepting and encouraging of rich white migrants, regardless of their mobility status.
honestly, that's worth the try :D But of course, it's easy to always show the exception and ask "why aren't you all doing the same?". Decades of car centric politics will not be fixed easily, not with techbros reinventing trains, not in today's 'Murica. It's a shame, though, because there was a great streetcars infrastructure a century ago... maybe that's the one thing America should bring back to be great again
Taking a train to the grocery store only seems absurd to people who have never experienced a really efficient rail system.
You get what you pay for.
I used to take the train to the grocery store. It was called the red line in Chicago
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why would I take a train when the store is 3 minutes walking diatance
That's literally communism and also the cause of everything wrong with the economy, that's why!
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Light rail. All the time. Train isn't only Amtrak.
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