Comment by netule
1 day ago
For sure. I currently live in the US (fairly rural) and I would kill to have my transportation-related costs reduced to about $150/mo. But where I live, I simply need to have a car to do any basic thing since the moment I step off my driveway, there aren’t even footpaths.
I live in the Netherlands and have absolutely no need for this ticket. When I need to go somewhere, I just walk or bike there, never takes more than 20 minutes. I cannot even imagine living in American suburbia
I moved here from The Netherlands in 2004, and have now lived in Florida, California, and Mississippi and stayed for prolonged periods in many US cities for my job. I wouldn’t feel safe riding a bicycle anywhere here considering the speed of traffic, the size of the vehicles, and lack of dedicated biking infrastructure. It’s a completely different world when you share the road with angry F150 drivers blasting past you at 80 MPH. No, thank you.
And drivers who themselves would never ride a bike. They see you as a nuisance.
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I live in American suburbia and that's how I live. I can walk or bike whenever I feel like it, drive if it suits me. I sometimes wonder what the average European assumes American suburbia to be. Endless tract homes? Such places do exist, true. But that is far from universal.
I'd be curious what metropolitan area you live in for this to be true! If you're not comfortable sharing for privacy reasons, that's all right. But it seems like this is the case in inner-ring suburbs in the Northeast megalopolis.
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Of course you can walk. But can you walk to your workplace, your kid’s nursery, your local bakery/supermarket, your doctor, your dentist, the pharmacy?
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It is though, like, 90-95% of suburbia, and why the US has close to 100% of car commuters ( https://vis.csh.ac.at/citiesmoving/ ). Even small cities like Rennes (or even Clermont-Ferrand, which has objectively mediocre transit) have less car commuters than NYC, which is insane.
> But that is far from universal
I mean even just perusing around a lot of metro areas on Google Maps its by far the norm. I know its by far the norm for just about every metro I've spent more than a week or two in.
Definitely not universal, no. And in some place the "norm" can be pretty different, even in somewhat surprising locales. But generally speaking? Yeah, pretty terrible experience for a lot of pedestrians and cyclists in US suburbia.
I mean, most places I've visited traveling around the US suburbia, bike lanes were practically non-existent, there was zero notable public transit at all, and sidewalks were usually an afterthought if they existed at all.
I already have the NS Flex free weekend subscription (with 1st class addition) and it's the only way for me to travel longer distances. It's also just about the only available public transport in the neighbourhood because I live in a polder.
Nearest train station is a 35 minute walk, nearest supermarkets are almost an hour walk. One advantage, before Covid and I had groceries delivered, mandatory walking back and forth three times a week to the village did wonders for losing weight.
That means you never leave your town of residence. I am Dutch too, and I walk and cycle (of course), but I have friend and family elsewhere too, want to visit other nature, cities and countries as well.
I mostly use a car since it's so much cheaper and faster than public transport, but I bought this ticket in order to do some longer distance journeys as well. I don't really like driving.
I work with a guy from holland. There, he lived in a condo. Here, he owns 40-acers, a couple horses and is trying to grow his own corn. He can play out his rural lifestyle dreams and still work a desk in a city, something that isnt an option without personal transportation. (I would say "car", but he rides an R1 to work most days.)
> I would kill to have my transportation-related costs reduced to about $150/mo
Lots of people have had their transportation-related costs reduced to $0 by killing! Just be sure to get caught or it won’t work.
Oh man that’s dark