zlacker

>>amathe+(OP)
It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit, while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale. Instead they just make it into a simplistic, moralistic crusade about how the suburban car owners are evil people, told from the perspective of a righteous city-dweller.

Here’s a better theory: because American public transit is, when compared with the alternatives, not safe, not clean, and not convenient. Take LA, probably the most car-dependent big city in America. Riding the bus or subway in LA is not an enjoyable experience. Nor is it enjoyable to walk around the areas where the stops are. If I were trying to get more people to use public transit, I’d start by making the stations and buses/subways beautiful, clean, safe places that are just nice urban places to hang out in. There’s no need to make it a moral crusade; just offer a better product and more people will use it.

>>keifer+Vc
Absolutely agree, as someone who has taken public transit in Southern California, it's the absolute worst. It's disgusting, terrifying, and also inconvenient.

Seeing tons of videos online of interactions on the New York subway system, I can say that I have no interest in that form of transportation. The recent drama about Penny/Neely is just one of many such interactions you can find on the subway. I can link dozens of videos of insane, disturbing interactions that take place on the NY subway to which I would never subject my family.

If we somehow create subways that are as clean, safe, and convenient as those in Japan I would probably consider using it, but until then I will definitely be pro-car.

>>Dig1t+8g
Yes I rode the NYC subway for 20 years. When you are young and edgy, you can deal with it, even though I found it regularly traumatizing at that time as well (delays, trains stuck in tunnels, 100 degree subway platforms, crushing crowds, intense inconvenience if you have to carry anything beyond a single bag).

The ultimate misery, when trains fell behind and youd spend an hour or more on a completely packed, sweltering platform watching train after train fully stuffed shoulder to shoulder pass through not stopping since each train is full, until one comes where you yourself have to shove yourself and your bags into the doorway and hope the doors can close so you can just get home. Never again. I suspect anti car people just don't see these things as that big of a deal. They're young. It's all exciting to them, I guess. I didn't have a car at all back then either, the city / commuter life seemed perfect to me for many years until I began to realize I hated these things.

Forget about the crime, mental illness, and homeless issues, just being shoved among "regular" people every day, all averting gazes and attempting to cope with dense crowding among people you don't know, by the time I was older I had become a strict remote worker, and when I had a kid we were out of there at last.

I have an EV now and getting to drive is like the best part of my day. I live very far from dense cities. A lot of people genuinely like to live this way and the posts here talking about the "car industrial complex" somehow coercing us all into some way we wouldn't otherwise prefer should consider that a lot of people really don't like crowds.

>>zzzeek+ug2
It's exactly this. When I was young I had a Linux machine as my daily driver, and I would putter and futz with it and make it do what I wanted.

At some point I realized that I was spending my time at home doing what I was paid to do at work and I bought a Mac and moved on with my life.

The car as personal private time is also huge, it's one of the last private defended areas we have.