227
submitted 10 months ago by DontMindMe@zirk.us to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

Driving 8 hours round trip today to pick up one person, and I'll never understand why Americans think this is more convenient than my colleague taking a train.

#FuckCars #WarOnCars #TheWarOnCars #Urbanism #CarBrain #PublicTransportation #lightrail @fuck_cars #PublicTransit

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 8 points 10 months ago

In America the train costs as much as a plane ticket. Driving is cheaper.

Damn, is it that bad in the states? I just did a quick lookup for Toronto to Montreal by train, and it's about the same price as driving (maybe less, depending on the cost of gas that day).

But the convenience, and not wasting two people's lives, makes it totally worth taking a train.

[-] ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social 7 points 10 months ago

Bruh it's that bad here. Eastern Canadians are lucky, in Western Canada within cities it's barely acceptable in some cases and as bad as the average US city in many others. You will not find an inter city train in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba that actually connects you to where you want to go. Via Rail is an absolute JOKE and I'm literally hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest station.

[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

Man, that sucks :(

[-] dankm@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

It's worse than that. The SK government used to run a bus service all over the province. They shut it down, expecting a private company to take over. To the surprise of absolutely nobody now we have no transportation at all between cities and towns that isn't the occasional plane or cars.

[-] Delusional@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'm glad to be living on the west coast where we have Amtrak. Amtrak round trip from sac to SF and back is only like $20. Busses pretty much run everywhere in the city too so you don't absolutely need a car/uber to get around.

[-] bluGill@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

@Showroom7561

@fuck_cars @DontMindMe @Caradoc879 Pretty much or worse. If you have a family it gets even worse - I'm trying to take my family - 3 kids and driving is the only reasonable option - gas is cheap, 3 nights in hotels on the way, and a few restaurants along the way. We save at least $3000 vs flying - I gave up on Amtrak when I realized it was going to take even longer than driving and was at least $1000 more (I'm not sure if I gave up at one-way price or the round trip price) At that price I can afford to spend a few days in a car. We will just make sure to see something on the way - though having done the trip before I'm not sure what is left.

[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

No doubt!! You have to consider several factors, and sometimes, taking a car is the best option. But as you say, it works out better when you have an entire family.

The OP only described one colleague who could have used the train on their own, rather than a single car for two passengers (one of which wasn't part of the travel). I guess in the OPs case, you'd have to also consider whether they were being paid work hours for that drive.

So in this case, I think a train (assuming it was accessible and economical) would have been the better option for the OPs colleague. LOL

[-] CommunityLinkFixer@lemmings.world 1 points 10 months ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

[-] overzeetop@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Mostly. If your locality is served by Amtrak - and only a few dozen cities are out of the 3 million square miles of ConUS - then it can be somewhat convenient and cost effective if you plan your travel more than 2-3 months in advance. It’s about 2/3 the speed of car travel, but more comfortable, generally. If you buy tickets less than 3 weeks ahead the prices are about 4x what they are for booking at 3-6 months out. Also, unless you live in one of the 2-3 hub areas, trains run only once or twice a day. For comparison, Last time I checked it’s like £70 to go from London to Aberdeen and takes 7 hours and trains leave every hour or two. From Roanoke to New York - 80 miles closer than the UK route I know of - it’s $200, 9 hours, and only two trains run per day - the first departs at 6:20am, the second at 4:15p (and gets in around 2am). It’s only a 7.5 hour drive and $40-50 in gas to go from Roanoke to NYC, and it’s pretty easy to park outside the city and take a commuter train in.

Oh, and there’s no workable hub and spoke system due to the few trains and long travel times. My daughter is just 300 miles away at school and the city has a train stop. It’s a 5 hour drive one way. It takes two days and 3 train changes to get from her city to the closest station to me, about a 45 minute drive away. It’s ridiculous.

this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
227 points (93.5% liked)

Fuck Cars

9745 readers
63 users here now

This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.

This community exists for the following reasons:

You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.

Rules

  1. Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.

  2. No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.

  3. Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.

  4. No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.

  5. No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.

  6. No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.

  7. No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.

Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS