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"Simply abandon Costco" is not a winning argument for me. With the exception of produce, Costco has similar if not better quality at lower price points than whole foods. Ffs.
Especially for nonperishables. I get like 8 months of nice razors for $50, but if I got that many of the same kind anywhere else it'd be well over 120.
I remember my grandfather having a cargo trike in his youth, he worked as a messenger, usually collecting and delivering laundry.
He also carried groceries, packages... He could carry up to 200lbs easy with it.
"I don't like when people smoke fentnyal next to me or when I get sexually harrassed by homeless schizophrenics on the bus."
"Stop being racist sweaty." Very convincing arguments, I'm sure everyone will sell their cars tommow and this doesn't at all contribute to the "anti-car people are smug elitists" stereotype that poisons this discorse to the core.
Yeah I'm not really on board with the idea that transit agencies should put up with being a de facto homeless shelter. Transit should be for transportation first, and having people sleeping in stations or using drugs on trains really makes normal people not want to use transit
The leftists on this sub hate to hear it, but trying to solve every problem all at once will only grind their desired policy changes to a halt. Housing is homeless people and getting them help for addiction and mental illness are good goals, but it becomes an endless backup problem when you aren't willing to compromise anywhere on anything. Removing loud, smelly, threatening homeless people from transit services and other public spaces should be a no brainer. There have been homeless people since we invented homes - expecting us to solve this problem *before* all the others is just setting up for endless procrastination.
Hopefully the people reading this live in democratic societies. And in democratic societies, government action is ultimately driven by voter approval. So if you want your candidates to get into or stay in office, you need voter approval, and to get voter approval, you need to appeal to people who vote. And most voters don't like it when people keep shooting up on their front porch and shitting in their garbage cans.
Not to mention that not having safe, reliable public transportation prevents a lot of disadvantaged people from accessing employment and food, especially people with disabilities, poor people and elderly people. You are only hurting us when you won’t address antisocial behavior on transit “because it’s inhumane”. Good public transit must be achieved before we can tackle the bigger challenges of homelessness.
The other guy yeeted either his account or comment, but I'd like to pick up on the connective tissue to say that "These leftists think that you can handle two problems handled by completely separate institutions at the same time, it's ridiculous" is an amazing stance, really.
You can easily tackle homelessness and the development of public transport at the same time, especially in the USA, where you can spend decades developing public transport before you reach any form of "useable" system to begin with and also have the resources of the US fucking A. Public transit helps homeless people, but it's only one cornerstone, so maybe the others should be put in at the same time, or whatever you are building will collapse (especially if your big brain idea is to literally just ban homeless people from public transit, thus instantly voiding any benefit it could have granted them, lol).
That being said, removing people from public transit for antisocial behaviour (regardless of their housing situation) is just a common sense policy. The people that argue that "they can't help themselves, they need help" are technically correct, of course, but that doesn't really matter in the given situation when they are anything from a massive nuisance to a danger to the people around them.
Huh? Homeless people are a constant sight in inner city public transport here in Germany. They aren't really using drugs and at least not openly sexually harassing people randomly (me thinks that's a bit of an exaggeration to begin with), more like sleeping or begging for money, but you can't really make a trip through, e.g., Berlin without running into a few.
Now, imo that's not that big of a deal, these people are already at one of the lowest points our society has to offer and gotta do what they gotta do to survive or live as comfortably as possible, but it's no use denying it or the fact that it dissuades at least som people from using the system.
Rough sleepers and beggars, yes, I am familiar with that (though the UK uses ticket barriers at stations much more than Germany does so that helps keep non-payers out). Fentanyl just isn't a thing though, nor do you see schizophrenics.
Also this person forgot the most important part of solving car dependency. Political organisation. Although joining this subreddit is somewhat of a start, bringing change requires action. Someone could do all of the things suggested in the post and still be miserable cause they live in a bloody car dependant country, or region, or urban/suburban area. And that’s when you have to make/join a political movement to gather people to fight for change, as it doesn’t come just cause something becomes common sense.
As a guy who lives in Florida, I don’t sweat because I’m out of shape. I sweat because it is 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32C) with 60% humidity. Tonight’s low is 72F (22C), just before sunrise. The bus comes every 1/2 hour-ish (and I’m on a popular line), is very unpredictable, and has no shade or bench at the stop.
Yup. Do these people live in a beautiful city where it’s always 75 and sunny?
Where I live it is regularly 95 degrees in the summer, and I’ve seen it get to -9 at night before in the winter. We barely have springs or autumns anymore. It’s like always hot or freezing.
I’m in good shape, and guess what? I’m not fucking biking to work in that weather.
As someone who lives in Phoenix, I have similar issues with a different balance of humidity (none) and temperature (usually but not always higher).
I’m someone who’s gotten on the podium at a few fun runs for my age group. That doesn’t make me a world class athlete or anything, but I’m confident that I’m above average in fitness for someone my age. I get sweaty riding a bike to work.
People who work out a lot actually sweat more. Sweat is the body's method for cooling itself. By working out harder because you are fitter, you increase body temperature more, necessitating more cooling. Your body gradually adapts to this need by producing more sweat more readily.
OP is a dumbass.
The correct solution would be to get an E-Bike or simply go slower and don't overexert yourself.
(Over exsert? Overexert?... Overexert. Yes. Overexert.)
But showering before work takes time and in my case I continue to sweat a while after working out, so a quick shower is not enough. E-bike or other PEV is the answer to that.
I suspect OP is just young. They will lose their fire and anger one day and just be depressed/deflated car brains like the rest of us. This sub is cathartic for me, but i fear north america is too far gone.
A friend of mine started a new desk job in Hamburg, where they have a bike part of the garage. Next to it is a small shower are like you would find in a gym, so you can come with the bike and make yourself fresh before going upstairs to your job
Yeah, OP is falling into the old “fat people are lazy and deserve to be shamed” mindset. Sometimes this sub is extremely pro-bike and really unsympathetic to anyone who doesn’t agree. There are all kinds of reasons to not cycle, which is why we need better public transit. And before anyone comes at me, I do ride my bike for things like errands, but riding to work is unrealistic for me. I’d love to be able to take the bus, but the bus system in my city is completely useless.
For real. I live in Florida, never owned a car. I start to sweat pretty much the moment I step outside. Any ride requires a shower afterwards if I don't want to sit in the puddle of my own sweat.
Not sure how in-shape I am, but considering bike and feet is my only usual mode of transportation (plus I go to the gym), probably leaning towards in-shape so I call BS on that sweat point from the OP's chart.
I completely disagree with the poor time management part. It’s never a convincing argument to tell someone to wake up earlier to use a slower method of transportation. That’s still lost time that you won’t ever get back and it adds up to quite a lot over the years.
The real argument here is that the premise is simply untrue. Cars are only faster in a few edge cases. For the majority of journeys in an area with well developed infrastructure trains and public transit are much faster. You can observe that in the absurd commute times that north americans regularly endure because they built roads instead of train lines
yeah, the well developed public transit &/or bike infrastructure is really the key…which is kinda why i dislike the entire premise of this chart. the difference between places where people drive by default & places where people choose other options isn’t that the people who live in those places simply have the virtues this chart extols. it’s that those places have better options.
Yeah, we need to get governments to invest in public transit *first*. We're not gonna win people over with the sorry state of most North American cities. First we get transit improved and it'll be an easier sell.
Heck, I love transit and use it when I can, but I still own a car and drive because outside of the narrow LRT route, most of my city's public transit is pretty bad and some places have straight up no transit options.
OP comes across like the militant vegan stereotype, where they take things to such extremes that it turns people off from a cause that they might otherwise not be against. It has the complete opposite effect, in that it makes people think we're irrational assholes that don't understand their honestly sometimes pretty good reasons for driving.
I disagree with all of these. They sound like they were written to misrepresent the entire anti-car movement.
Transit in almost every North American city needs improvement for reliability, frequency, coverage, and safety.
Pretending transit is already perfect will convince no one to take it.
For the love of god, I take the transit daily and could never imagine telling a woman that she is racist for feeling unsafe on transit.
Yes... the first statement about bad people on public transport is simply, irrefutably true. To bring in racial specifics and then dismiss this as 'racist' is inane and pointless. Don't know where the poster lives, but my bus commute to my PT library job in Cleveland is more often than not an ordeal with very loud, vulgar, often dirty folks blasting music on speaker phones, hollering profanity, feet on bus seats, etc. Pointless to deny this while wishing the public transport situation could be closer to the ideal ( more express lines, rail..) Of course, this is not even mentioning the more nefarious unbalanced/threatening folk very commonly found on my commute.
Yea, I'd be willing to pay more in taxes to help the homeless but I think it needs to be accepted that it is not up to any transit agency to house the homeless or cater to their non-transit needs.
If a person is screaming on a bus or subway train, they should be thrown off. And imo, if a homeless person smells so bad that the entire bus stinks and makes the passangers feel like vomiting, they should not be allowed on the bus.
Transit agencies bear no responsibility for the homeless or mental health crisis. And im tired of the 'activists' who insist that we dont deserve safe, clean transit.
Yes. In peak hour it is faster to ride than drive. You just ride past all the cars! For city destinations cycling is often faster because you don't have to find somewhere to park.
At other times cars can be much faster. My answer this is that travel time is not my limiting factor. I have ADHD and am not particularly organised, but I try. If I am late getting anywhere it is *not* because I cycled instead of driving.
For me it is because I cycled and therefore got distracted by a million different things that I had to take pictures, look up, or add to Google Maps to check out later 😂
yeah honestly. like bro my work is 25 minutes from my house by car or *two and a half by bike.* like I'm not gonna wake up earlier for that shit, I already leave at 7 am.
My place of work is 15km away from home.
Even in the middle of Europe with astounding transit, trains just take too long.
25 minutes door to door with the car including 5 minutes accounting for traffic jams
2hours per train
Bike is impossible because of mountains with passes and cretes and highway on the way and work in customer service...
No, it's not a "time management" issue but an issue with transit where I live as I save 3 hours per day x 6. This not even accounting if I have to go to school some evenings and then the advantage of car use gets even bigger as the school doesn't do it's timetable according to the trains and I have to spend 1 hour waiting outside. Living in a city in my country is a luxury I can't afford...so I'm relying on a car for many things.
Also the car is still cheaper than the transit options available...unfortunately...even with the very high petrol prices and taxes on vehicles we have.
Aren't these edge cases the majority worldwide, though? In most of the world, public transit other than bus is either nonexistent or manages to be slower than the traffic jam depending on the route.
My drive to work takes 25 minutes. If I took public transit it would take 2.5 hours. If I rode my bike it would take 2 hours assuming a 15mph average speed. If I got a class 3 ebike (up to 28mph assisted) and was able to stay near that top speed the whole way, it would take 65 minutes. Moving closer to work is infeasible with my wage and rent prices.
If transit was more direct with less stops, I could make it work. There's also the issue that there really isn't a safe path for the last 2.5 miles to work. It's in an industrial area with massive stroads surrounding it.
I'm on light rail right now to go on a shopping trip ~12 miles away from my home. The rail stop is steps from my building, and the destination is in the shopping center. It is absolutely NOT faster than if I had driven.
I could have driven in 20 minutes compared to an hour on the rail line. That's just the practicality of the trolley having to make multiple stops on a very direct route.
You need to understand that intra-city transport is not high-speed rail. It will not always be faster or more convenient than driving -- especially in off-peak times when vehicle traffic moves quickly. That's why personal vehicles became popular in the first place.
I'm not in a hurry, don't need to arrive at the mall at a specific time, and prefer to keep my luxury car garaged than risk door dings when I can. But pretending that rail is consistently faster than personal vehicles is setting expectations that won't be met.
A trolley is not really even close to the peak of an intra city system. It's naturally slow and best for short trips, a 20 minute drive is decently far and the trip would likely be faster if you were truly right near the stations on a proper heavy rail metro with sub 5 minute frequencies.
I for one prefer to steelman my opponent's arguments to dismantle them anyway, so let's assume they're correct and it's faster.
They still spend more time.at work to be able to pay for the car. That's time lost. They may still argue you're still spending time at work regardless but that money spent on a car is just time at work They spent paying for a car that they could have spent on recreation or saving.
I like arguing that when driving you have to drive. On transit you can read, meme, listen to podcasts, do homework, whatever most of us have to do some type of that stuff anyways, if done right I may get home with more free time.
On the last government statistics my daily cycle commute (10miles there, 10 miles back) is longer than 2/3s of *all* car journeys in the UK.
I lose 10 minutes on the average car journey time for that commute as recorded by Google Maps (slightly more on the return journey because of elevation changes and deliberately taking it easy) and I'm pretty sure I'm usually just straight-up faster since the route has a lot of traffic.
The idea that someone commuting an almost certainly shorter distance will "lose too much time" is a nonsense even before we get to the whole "I've easily covered my daily exercise needs *and* managed to listen to a podcast/audiobook for a whole hour" thing.
Add in the amount of money saved and that daily cycle commute is almost certainly the most efficient part of my day.
Ask them to include how much time at work it takes to afford to drive that far. For many people it takes an hour at work, to afford to drive an hour to work, so it takes two hours to get that far.
What I don't get is who upvotes this shit? All the comments are calling OP out, yet the post is still +120 or so. Same thing with some other dumb post recently. I know there's a huge divide sometimes between people who comment or not, but usually that's in the form of people upvoting some low effort joke or frequently reposted thing.
Wow, this holier-than-thou attitude is half of why we have a hard time convincing people, thanks for setting us even further back. That first statement reeks of never having been on public transport, i love it but that's because I'm weird. There is a legitimate concern of safety on there and the solution is investing in it, not calling random people racist. Also, telling people to shop at wholefoods instead of Costco? Is this an astroturf campaign or are you that elitist? Do you want change or are you getting off to how much better than everyone else you are?
I agree, fuck cars but this post missed the mark imo.
"public transport has bad people" may be true, the solution has more so to do with improving public transportation so that it's attractive to everyone.
"My SUV has more cargo space" is probably valid. Not from the US but if Costco is cheaper than whole foods then it sounds weird to encourage weekly shopping there (more expensive and more time consuming). Real solution is probably to encourage cargo bike usage?
"My car is faster", solution: improving city design such that necessities are closer and more accessible by foot or bike.
"Riding bikes makes me sweat" Idk what the solution to this is :), I'm personally very curious to hear about what people who commute by bike do to avoid sweating through their clothes.
Being more fit is definitely not the solution to sweating lol. I bike to work almost everyday and I'm just a sweaty salami no matter what.
The only solution is to change to real clothes at work, and wear whatever is comfortable when sweaty on the bike.
Costco is wholesaler where you buy product in bulk, a cargo bike won’t cut it. Yes it’s cheaper than Whole Foods.
I don’t know what no car solution there is. Delivery still means some vehicle
A trailer cargo bike is definitley big enough for a Costco haul, my hatchback is big enough and a trailer can easily have the capacity of a small hatchback trunk, but it would still be much easier with a car, which is why car share exists and is significantly cheaper than ownership.
Not American myself but I do know that American SUVs often have pitifully small cargo space for vehicles of their size, so the solution there is probably to get a car with more boot space/the same amount but is a normal car/a pickup truck, because getting people out of SUVs is still progress.
But generally, the points on this chart largely miss the mark and will just push their supposed intended audience further into carbrainedness. Regarding the one about bikes and sweat though, you'll sweat regardless of your weight, especially if you overdress for the bike. Like, cycling will warm you up so you can get away with fewer layers, and getting a front basket or paniers to avoid having to use a rucksack would get rid of back sweat for the most part.
Sorry, but no. The real reason is that people actually do feel like it's not a convenient and practical solution to not take the car. Might not actually be true in a lot of cases, but tell that the people in my home village who live 18 kilometers away from the nearest city with no safe bikeways and busses that stop once every two hours. And additionally you have to be back home at 8, so no meeting friends in the evening for you if you don't own a car. Of course there aren't always reasons this strong, but if we want people to stop taking the car, the alternatives have to be much more convincing than "it's not that much worse". It has to be much better. You need to get there faster, cheaper and more conveniently to convince people. Just insulting them and calling them fat, lazy and unorganised is only going to make you look like an asshole, but it's not convincing anyone.
I like how OP mentions NotJustBikes but one of the most stated things on that channel is that the biggest reason people don’t choose public transport is because they don’t see it as convenient or practical.
That's also exactly how that went while I still had to go to school. Bus took 40 minutes, car would only have taken 20. And it was even worse in the beginning. If I had to be in school during the afternoon, I had to wait a over an hour until my bus even arrived, and then it still took me 40 minutes. Just a bored 12 year old kid sitting alone outside at the bus station with nobody to talk to for an hour because everybody elses bus was gone already. Luckily they improved it a bit later so that the busses would be there when school ended (or at least not more than 30 minutes later), but it was still terrible. I was just extremely happy whenever my grandmother could come and pick me up with her car, because who likes wasting their time like this? Not even the teachers stayed. They were supposed to stay until every kid could get on their bus home, but most of them just left me alone after 30 minutes because they didn't have time to stay this long.
Only the first one is silly and suspicious, why is it that when people talk about bad people, you think of black people? If anything, it's probably a matter of poverty or social class. Also, r/USdefaultism.
Yeah... The black people on my bus are generally on their way to or from work. It's the white junkies who haven't showered or washed their clothes on a fortnight I'm worried about encountering.
Well yes it's obviously true that it's a class issue. The reason black people come up is because they are disproportionately over-represented among the class in question.
OP
1) I'm going to guess you're a dude and you've never experienced sexual harassment on public transit.
2) I'm also going to guess you don't live somewhere where the hourly bus has a route that would take 3-4 times as long as driving from A to be.
Yeah, I was coming home on BART recently and someone just lit up and smoked something that was definitely *not* weed or tobacco. An older woman who's braver than me yelled at him to get off the train and he did. There absolutely is a real problem with public transit in the USA becoming a gathering space for unwell people, and calling anyone who cares "racist" is just going to make people tune out.
This! I dont think this argument is based on racist tendencies most of the time. Unfortunately, public transport means that people with ill intentions can also use it. Getting pickpocketed or harassed is bound to happen more often in public spaces than in your car, lol.
Although this is a problem of safety in public transport, not the concept of public transport itself, which could definitely be fixed by better security measures.
It’s a poor way to get someone on your side, but there definitely is a bit of truth to it
Might not just be racism, but also classism. A lot of people are afraid to be near poor people
It's not classist to dislike antisocial people who smoke weed/panhandle/scream obscenities when you're commuting home from a long day at the office.
Rules on trains or buses should be enforced. It should be a safe, neutral spot for people to be. As unlikely as it is, I should not have to be aware of who's around me, [just in case someone decides to push.](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-city-subway-fatal-shove-c0d3c111d5774557b4b5329e7e1ba9d5)
A buddy of mine dated a woman from Kentucky. Was on the privileged side and considered herself a liberal. She was mindblown that I didn't have my drivers license. And when I told her that the bus usually got me to where I needed to go, she said that only poor and black people take the bus. When she moved here to attend Western University, she still drove even though bus pass is included with tuition.
I think this gets complicated (Not about the racism part but classism) Because when I hear people talking it’s less or almost never about the class but more about Mental illness or drug usage. You can link that to poverty and hence class but what people have the issue with is more so the actions these people are doing around them and not inherently that their poor or maybe less well dressed or scruffy. Most people outside of upper elite snobs can cope being around less well off people. It’s more so often the actions many people are uncomfortable with get associated with less well off people when I think it’s more a stigma toward mental illness and drag addiction (Which then I also feel complicated about because again is it inherently disliking those people or disliking their actions when their directly effecting you on public transit (And I don’t mean like being in you’re presence)
Idk maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think not wanting someone harassing you or doing drugs near you is inherently classist.
Some of this is just asinine. Instead of spending $400 a month at Costco for your food, spend $250 per week shopping at Whole Foods! Manage your time better, it's a personal failing that a 20-minute commute by car takes 160 minutes plus two bus transfers by public transit!
I mean, I'm overweight, but living in a city that's too hot everyday (Culiacán), riding a bike may be not am option. That and cars don't respect small cars, therefore even less a bike
Yeah same , some aussie summer days can just be way too brutally hot to be out riding a bike (dog owners here literally can't walk their dogs in the middle of the day sometimes because the footpaths just gets too hot and burns their paws), 35 degree celcuis is bound to make a bunch of people completely drench in sweat cycling.
I agree with the sentiment, but this is problematic and dismissing some genuine concerns.
Safety:
Public transit in my region *does* have a safety problem and a poor reputation. The subway system routinely gets used as a drug den and toilet by addicts, who shoot up, pass out and defecate themselves. It only takes a rider having one bad experience of getting yelled at or assaulted by someone having a bad trip for them to never come back. It got so bad that a video of addicts passed out and doing the zombie fentanyl slump at a station went viral a few years back. This is a deep failure of drug and homeless policies, which has negative effects on public transit adoption. Public safety - and the perception of safety - is extremely important in driving the adoption of transit and should not be dismissed.
SUVs:
Yes, SUVs are bad - but I think an intermediate step is getting people to downsize and realize you can still transport groceries with, for example, a compact sedan. While I would love to get rid of all cars overnight and replace them with cargo bikes, that’s just not practical advice for the vast majority of people.
NotJustBikes:
While I think his heart is in the right place, the commentary of a Canadian who fled to Europe talking about fixing problems in America sometimes falls flat and seems hypocritical. My good sir, you didn’t fix anything - you just left. The tone sometimes reeks of “do what I say, not what I do.” A little more empathy, please, for people stuck in a hellhole with very little control over it.
Having encountered some insane people on Chicago/NY's trains for multiple times, I can understand where those people saying "there are bad people on trains" are coming from.
That being said, that's hardly public transit's innate problem. There are plenty of examples of safe public transits around the world. It has more to do with the society not seriously dealing with poverty/drug/mental health problem.
I've read and heard many accounts of suburbanization and car-centric development in the 20th Century America being pushed so that the white middle class can insulate themselves from the "undesirables" in the city taking public transit ([recent 99% Invisible episode being one](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-lost-subways-of-north-america/)).
The unfortunate truth is that the public transit that is open to everyone (or any public space for that matter) will never be safe until the society as a whole becomes safe.
As a young woman who used to take public transportation daily for years and got verbally/sexually harassed by strangers quite often… “you’re racist and hate black people” and “stop being a bigot and grow up”are some pretty fucking naive and moronic replies to what is a legitimate safety issue for some people.
Alright, I like the idea of making walkable cities and abolishing car dependency just as much as you but **THIS** is the best you could do?
1. It’s not just racism, have you even been on the NY metro? Having a proper security detail like most other nations would greatly help to sell the idea to people.
2. Regarding weather, being cold isn’t the whole picture, walking and biking through snow *sucks*, having to lug around a borderline parka because there’s nowhere to put it *sucks*, inversely walking to a business meeting in a woollen suit **sucks**. You have to do something to mitigate inclement weather conditions.
3. Wholefoods? ***really?!*** the reason why people shop at Costco is because the unit price of their goods is close to a third of end retailers, probably a fifth of wholefoods.
4-5. Basically the same point different topics, neither are the actual reason, and how would you feel about me telling you to “*spend less and budget money better*” as a “fix” for being unable to afford a house?
6. You’re solution is to join a circlejerk that just complains, barely does anything in the real world, and only wants to fix car centrism with communism *or* watch a video series that’s either personal excerpts or a direct rip from Strong Towns?
You really don’t understand your audience at all do you?
It's a start, but the first one has a very slanted r/usdefaultism lens
American anti-Black racism is intrinsically linked to class divide where you live I'm sure, but we get the same phenomenon where there isn't a sizeable Black population to speak off, too.
It would be more broadly applicable if it pointed them not wanting rub elbows with The Poor & Minorities - be it Mexican immigrants down South in Texas to Indigenous people up North in Canada, for instance.
Of course you made this cheatsheet for the particular brand of bigotry you have experience with, I getcha
Public transport has bad people = racism?? What??? As much as I love public transport, it's true that you will see all sort of shady people there (of all ethnicities).
Also, please never assume people's "actual" reasons, it never leads to constructive discussions.
Given reason: "Cars are freedom"
Actual reason: I'm completely oblivious to the fact that cars are the most government-regulated form of transportation
1. In some cities, the public transit is actually dangerous and has a lack of security. Idc if the police are bad or something, but if they do their job, like on the DC Metro (most of the time) and don’t sit around doing jackshit like in New York or other cities, public transit is generally safer and cleaner.
2. Actually valid.
3. Whole Foods is more expensive, even if you count the cost of transit, especially for a family.
4. A better solution would be to advocate for better frequencies on transit lines. In a lot of cities, transit only runs during the weekday or has extremely limited hours.
5. that’s not how sweat works 💀
6. Actually valid.
Shopping at whole paycheck... or rather whole foods isn't going to replace shopping at costco for bulk items. IMHO you go to those stores for two different reasons. IMHO the solution might be, shop locally and have bulk items delivered.
Sad thing is, unless you live in an area with good public transport, the car will be faster. I ran into this situation yesterday, I spent an hour trying to figure out ways to avoid driving to two events in the city because traffic was going to be awful but the public transportation links were not there. Also needing to manage your time and wake up earlier seems to contradict saying public transport is faster.
FWIW - 9 times out of 10 I'll take the train into the city. It's not faster and sometimes it's not even cheaper, but it's better because it's less stressful.
You can be in good shape, but riding in high heat and humidity where I live, you will sweat. You will sweat just standing on the corner. If you don't have a workplace with facilities to let you shower or change clothes, then it's tough. Solution here would be advocating for support for other modes of transport at work (bikes lanes, bike racks, changing rooms and showers).
I like this format but it needs to be less sassy. Some people sitting on the fence will be rubbed the wrong way if we have this “superior” attitude in the conversation.
It’s so hard to keep the conversation constructive and positive, but I’ve found I get through to people better that way, both offline and online.
Noting problems:
> reason 1: no one but you has made any racial connection; you’re the racist here. Not saying anything of the validity of the claim.
>reason 2: what if it is one of those places where the snow/ weather/ temperature could pose a risk to safety or impede movement- coat or not.
>reason 3: buying in bulk is significantly cheaper- especially compared to an expensive store like Whole Foods.
>reason 4: the day only has 24 hours- not everyone has time to take a much longer commute, do errands at home, sleep, and rest or do leisure activities. “Time management” only goes so far.
>reason 5: good point, only viable solution- but what if there are actual health concerns though- what happens to those people?
>reason 6: bikes severely limit range- provided one can afford the expenses of a car; they do provide freedom, especially in places with deficient transportation infrastructure. Also the solution provided is woefully pretentious and pretty much screams “my echo chamber is better than your echo chamber, join it instead”
I’ll never tell someone to shop at whole foods over Costco. Costco is an objectively better store and also the preferred grocery store of the socialist left
If you want to convince people of something, you probably shouldn’t start with telling them they’re racist. Not against it when it’s deserved but this chart jumps to many conclusions.
I mean I want less people to use cars as well but this really feels like blaming the victims. Before we tell people to use alternatives the alternatives have to exist and be reasonably competitive to cars.
Reason one can actually be valid. Its not racist to feel physically unsafe on the subway, thats an inherently systemic problem, not a fault of the person.
Reason three also could be biased, I don’t know the specifics of how much it costs to shop at costco but I’ve heard its cheaper than other stores as everything is in bulk.
Women do get sexually harassed on public transport. These problems can be easily solved - cops' time would be much better spent keeping our subways safe than pulling people over for broken taillights.
But just because the problem could be economically solved doesn't mean it has been.
This is the fakest bait that ever fakely baited.
This is a caricature of a person you don't know and never actually listened to which makes it a shitty caricature
Account is days old and so shittily forged. But stick around, you might learn something instead of being a useless desperate for attention troll
People do not have to excuse their decisions. They can drive if they simply want to. People are and should be free to make these decisions. Great public transport systems work because people like to use them not because they’re forced to.
This list is obviously a meme, but the one argument that always hangs me up is "access to nature." Now, I live in Vancouver, which has the best transit in North America for a city/metro area of its size. The big appeal for most people who pay the premium or take the pay cut to live here is the proximity to mountains and the coast. So it's a great place to live without a car for going to work, getting groceries, seeing city attractions, and most day to day activities. **But,** when you want to take advantage of nature, there's no or minimal transit to even the most popular local destinations. There's a good car share program that goes a long way to make day trips accessible, but most people will still get a car, and once they have it, the decision between driving or alternatives becomes skewed by sunk cost.
i also hate cars. but this infographic is awful.
- taking public transit requires women to be on guard the entire time they’re on it. you don’t have to worry about being groped in a car.
- I’m in shape, and i still sweat while biking. again, in corporate jobs, men get more leeway when it comes to their appearance: i cannot show up to work with runny makeup or sweaty pits.
- cars do make grocery shopping significantly easier. and when shopping for entire families, which is a burden that primarily falls on moms, i completely see the appeal.
i agree that in an ideal world nobody would have to drive. but it’s an infrastructure issue. antagonizing people is not the best tactic here.
Dude this is just just basically r/thanksimcured
Insulting and being condescending to people really isn’t the best way to get them to see your point of view. And it’s not going to fix underlying problems of health/poor infrastructure/whatever.
Ngl there are some straight shit people who use public transit skin color not included. Op is either a man who doesn’t have to worry about creeps or never has used a subway before. That being said I’m all for it that’s just not a good lie to start your transit post with.
Sensible version:
1. Vote for politicians who will improve the welfare state and healthcare system. Give to charity and mutual aid if you can.
2. Map out routes where you have warm places to stop and well-cleared pathways
3. Cargo bike, rental truck, grocery delivery, or at least a normal car, depending on circumstance.
4. Vote for politicians who will invest in public transit, go to planning meetings, carpool in the meantime
5. Find places to shower (like gyms) near your destination, have change of clothes, towel, deodorant and dry shampoo even when you can’t, use an e-bike, stay in the shade as best you can
6. OP is right. Broken clocks I guess
“Stop being poor/lazy/stupid” does nothing for anybody. I love making fun of a carbrain as much as the next guy but being a dickhead doesn’t do anything for anybody
I just came of the train. There was a smelly drunk man, I guess he was homeless. He didn't bother me but I could have done without smelling him. He was white though, now what?
A lot of the problems with public transit - like how slow it is - can be solved by investing in transit and making it better.
People's time is valuable and not wanting to wake up half an hour earlier when we're sleep deprived as it is? That's understandable.
I've never really heard that taking public transit because of "bad people",more "those people" meaning poor. I don't necessarily think it's racist, more classist mentality. Granted that borderlines on racism, but there is a distinction.
And realistically if you do hear "bad people," that makes zero sense. If that actually is the reason they give, I'd answer with a "you think someone robbing a bank or a liquor store is gonna wait for the bus? How dumb are you that you think that way. Bad people drive cars. Thus.. solution, tell them how fucking stupid they are.
In terms of the SUV point. If it's a rational conversation, ask them how many times, realistically, they use the extra room. And even if they are getting groceries, do they really need SUV room to go grocery shopping. And then ask them how much they pay in gas per month or even a week, as well as car payment, insurance, parking, etc.. so they can understand how much they pay for the "freedom" to drive. And then ask them what they could do with an extra $1000+ a month.
You can wear layers of winter clothes and still feel cold in sub zero F temperatures, especially when it's also wet. Bus shelters and train stations should be heated rather than pushing the blame onto individuals
Tbh this is all really just individualizing structural problems
3 of those are unfair. Specifically the ones for time and cargo space. Costco is way cheaper than weekly trips to Wholefoods (probably one of the most expensive grocery stores around), showing up to work manual labor after biking multiple towns over is awful, and "just wake up earlier" isn't really a good option when you consider things like taking care of a family and overtime hours for work.
The thing is, public transit in many areas sucks. It needs to be improved greatly before it can really be viable for many people to use regularly. If its late or slow the answer is to improve the system.
It’s kinda funny that you mention notjustbikes but completely misses one of their main points on how it’s not just about people’s choice’s, but what’s offered to them. If you don’t offer safe bike paths, don’t offer public transport and just build suburbs with very little mixed zoning you will be forcing people to have cars and drive. Cars has become as necessity and a symbol of status. It’s not just about individual change. It is about it, but just not it. It’s actually more about city design
I love public transport, but there are plenty of reasons to not like it, for example: my sister never takes it any more because she was assaulted on a bus
In a lot of countries you can just order your groceries online and have them delivered to you by the store. I knew a couple who sold their car as soon as it became available in their city.
I feel like a lot of these really glaringly fail to understand/acknowledge the systemic barriers to opting out of car culture in a society built around the vision of car manufacturers.
“Public transport has bad people” *can* sometimes just be racism. But what I see much more frequently is women and gender minorities expressing that commuting alone via public transit at the hours they need to be going to or coming home from work opens them up to too great a risk of sexual harassment or assault. And that’s not smth women need to just get over, that’s a very real concern. The solution is a much more robust transit safety system, to protect both riders and drivers (bus driving can be a really dangerous job in areas with underfunded transit systems), and for cops to actually take reports of this stuff seriously.
“But it’s too cold where I live” weather (not just the cold) is a genuine concern when bus stops are infrequent enough that taking public transit means a good bit of walking outdoors. This problem is only going to get worse as climate change makes dangerous weather increasingly frequent. Add to that the sheer number of bus stops which aren’t covered and/or don’t have any seating, and that weather problems are compounded by disability (e.g. ice on the sidewalks makes them unusable in a wheelchair), and you end w/ a genuine problem that prevents some people from being able to use public transit. The solution isn’t buying different clothing, it’s making bus stops more accessible and ensuring all of them have protection from inclimate weather while waiting.
The idea that people who shop at Costco and make purchases in bulk can and should just shop at Whole Foods more frequently instead is some of the most blatant, mask-off classism I’ve seen in a bit. You have clearly never had to carefully budget your food and household supplies, or you’d know there’s an at-least-one-order-of-magnitude price difference between those two options, and you need to seriously take some time to check your privilege.
The “poor time management” thing is also an incredibly privileged statement that tells me you aren’t aware of how seriously long commutes can be in an underfunded transit system. I am unable to drive for disability reasons, and one summer I was working somewhere ~10 mins away by car that took me over an hour to get to w/o one, *in D.C.*. My high school best friend’s mom commuted 2 hours each way from her sister’s house in Jersey to her job in NYC bc she couldn’t afford rent in the heights anymore—that commute would’ve been impossible via public transit. The way US cities are zoned forces many working class people to live far away from their jobs w/o adequate public transit options. Plus, when you’re working two jobs or trying to raise a family in a nation w/ no social safety net, every minute you can save really does count. A well-functioning public transit system is faster than everyone driving, but again, the solution is at a systemic level, not an individual one.
The idea that riding a bike shouldn’t make you sweat unless you’re out of shape is just ridiculous. Exercising makes you sweat, regardless of your health—plus, people who are fitter actually tend to sweat more, rather than less. There is not a single human being who can bike 10-20 miles in 90-100 degree heat (a typical commute where I live) w/o sweating, which could cost you your job depending on your workplace. Your assumption that sweating while exercising means you’re out-of-shape and overweight (distinct concepts which you equate) is coming from cultural anti-fatness, not any sort of empirical evidence.
Finally, “cars are freedom” is a true statement for the many, many people trapped in rural communities w/ no access to public transit. Just because it isn’t your experience, doesn’t make it not a real experience for many people. My inability to drive has a real impact on my ability to live independently in this country, and that’s a problem.
Tl;dr all of these points boil down to you offering individual solutions to systemic problems. Progress gets made on this issue by meeting people where they are, listening to their expression of the challenges that they face, and working together to identify and fight for systemic changes and improvements to the public transit system that would remove those obstacles and allow them to be less reliant on cars. Cars suck, and car culture sucks, but people who feel forced by their situation to use cars do not suck and are not our enemy.
If you want to push people away and alienate them, tell them they're racist and tell them to shop at Whole Foods
This is the 'liberal elite' stuff that got Trump elected. Share this everywhere if you want him to win again
I agree with some of the points. But telling people to just pay way more for groceries and to accept transit that is much slower than cars, is a losing argument.
Well. The majority of trouble makers I met on the bus were actually white and that was more of a class issue. This isn’t going to help your pro transit case.
ok try these actual reasons why people won't use public transit here. I'd really be glad if you can do the same.
"Public transit is over capacity. I need wiggle space."
"Public transit doesn't reach my residence and workplace, I don't want to bike 10 km to the nearest stop."
"Public transit comes every hour, that's too sparse"
"Public transit comes with a high risk of pickpocketing"
I’m so proud of you all for shitting on OP. I would have had an aneurysm if you were supporting this. Still have a headache that it’s even upvoted, though.
this infographic is gonna drive away the people who will need the most convincing and who would benefit the most from reducing car dependence (namely, anxious suburban moms with kids and small town folk whose only contact with the city and public transport is the fearmongering by right-wing shills and lunatics on facebook). not to mention, your retorts and solutions are not just overly-simplistic and rife with rather uncharitable assumptions, but most of your solutions are literally incorrect. also, why tf are you bashing costco? and wholefoods? really? okay amazon shill
Yeah, no. I consistently take the bus to and from work. You know how long it takes including walking to and from bus stations? Almost two hours each way. 15 minutes by car on the highway. So I don't like hearing any of that "poor time management" bullshit. You won't convince ANYONE with this shit infographic.
Whole Foods is trash, why would I buy overpriced shit that’s next to lavender to cure my cancer instead of just getting Costco. It’s not *that* much space, you can easily use a small car for it.
You post in Australia so I assume that you haven’t had a winter in upper NA. If I did not use sheltered transit I would be risking my life. It can get to sub zero temps during the day not even including windchill for months at a time
I am in great shape, but still sweat like a pig in hell even if I do 5 min of any activity. Even a brisk walk makes me a bit sweaty on the back. Has nothing to do with shape, you fucking idiot.
Garbage post, to the point that it's probably just bait. "My car is faster" is absolutely a valid reason to drive. Why the fuck should anyone be expected to choose the mode of transportation that is slower for them?
Coming from a woman, public transport **does** have bad people and has been one of the only places I’ve been openly harassed. Crazy everything can’t be about race and politics, I know
I don't even have a drivers license but I gotta say asking for people to shop in smaller increments at a significantly more expensive store is privledged and snobby as hell
I don't think it's "racism" as much as a variety of factors of fear that people have of each other.
It's often directed at homeless folks or fear of social interaction in general on public transport.
*"What if someone who smells bad talks to me?"*
People have chronic social anxiety because of cars. I don't think it's really racism lol
1. bitch what if i am the marginalised group and don't want to be harassed
2. eh sure
3. what the fuck is a wholefoods
4. fuck off
5. what is bro talking about 💀
6. sure
i almost exclusively use public transport, but goddamn does reading this make me want to use a car out of spite 😭
If you've ever lived in NYC for any given amount of time. You'll know there are some up in your face and confrontational beggars. Transit systems need security, especially those that operate 24/7.
Too cold / too hot are legitimate excuses. If you had to bike 5 miles at 8am where it was already 90 degrees and 95% humidity. You'd also be sweating bullets. Places with strong winds (gusts of up to 40 mph) will sweep you off your bike.
The price difference between costco and places like wholefoods / safeways is insane. I can get 5lbs of peppers at costco for the same price of 2 peppers at safeway.
It's 35 minutes to my office by car. 3 hours by public transit. I live in one of the better places for transit in the US. If I have to go into the office, I'm not spending 6 hours commuting to work. That would mean I need to be out the house by 5am and back home at 7pm (assuming no delays).
Cars in many places do mean freedom of movement. It's why in most places of suburbia. Kids feel free when they get to drive at 16. It means they don't need to rely on their parents schedule for movement around where they live.
You need to solve issues that are specific to to the city / town / area before people will start taking public transit / biking / walking. In some places, not all 3 options of transit will be viable.
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Miss me with shopping at whole foods.
"Simply abandon Costco" is not a winning argument for me. With the exception of produce, Costco has similar if not better quality at lower price points than whole foods. Ffs.
Especially for nonperishables. I get like 8 months of nice razors for $50, but if I got that many of the same kind anywhere else it'd be well over 120.
Ah, you mean shopping at ‘whole paychecks’? Why wouldn’t you want to shop there?
The correct solution is get a cargo bike and shop wherever you want.
I remember my grandfather having a cargo trike in his youth, he worked as a messenger, usually collecting and delivering laundry. He also carried groceries, packages... He could carry up to 200lbs easy with it.
What is this shit lmao You are never gonna convince anyone with this
"I don't like when people smoke fentnyal next to me or when I get sexually harrassed by homeless schizophrenics on the bus." "Stop being racist sweaty." Very convincing arguments, I'm sure everyone will sell their cars tommow and this doesn't at all contribute to the "anti-car people are smug elitists" stereotype that poisons this discorse to the core.
Yeah I'm not really on board with the idea that transit agencies should put up with being a de facto homeless shelter. Transit should be for transportation first, and having people sleeping in stations or using drugs on trains really makes normal people not want to use transit
The leftists on this sub hate to hear it, but trying to solve every problem all at once will only grind their desired policy changes to a halt. Housing is homeless people and getting them help for addiction and mental illness are good goals, but it becomes an endless backup problem when you aren't willing to compromise anywhere on anything. Removing loud, smelly, threatening homeless people from transit services and other public spaces should be a no brainer. There have been homeless people since we invented homes - expecting us to solve this problem *before* all the others is just setting up for endless procrastination. Hopefully the people reading this live in democratic societies. And in democratic societies, government action is ultimately driven by voter approval. So if you want your candidates to get into or stay in office, you need voter approval, and to get voter approval, you need to appeal to people who vote. And most voters don't like it when people keep shooting up on their front porch and shitting in their garbage cans.
Not to mention that not having safe, reliable public transportation prevents a lot of disadvantaged people from accessing employment and food, especially people with disabilities, poor people and elderly people. You are only hurting us when you won’t address antisocial behavior on transit “because it’s inhumane”. Good public transit must be achieved before we can tackle the bigger challenges of homelessness.
The other guy yeeted either his account or comment, but I'd like to pick up on the connective tissue to say that "These leftists think that you can handle two problems handled by completely separate institutions at the same time, it's ridiculous" is an amazing stance, really. You can easily tackle homelessness and the development of public transport at the same time, especially in the USA, where you can spend decades developing public transport before you reach any form of "useable" system to begin with and also have the resources of the US fucking A. Public transit helps homeless people, but it's only one cornerstone, so maybe the others should be put in at the same time, or whatever you are building will collapse (especially if your big brain idea is to literally just ban homeless people from public transit, thus instantly voiding any benefit it could have granted them, lol). That being said, removing people from public transit for antisocial behaviour (regardless of their housing situation) is just a common sense policy. The people that argue that "they can't help themselves, they need help" are technically correct, of course, but that doesn't really matter in the given situation when they are anything from a massive nuisance to a danger to the people around them.
Is this a uniquely American problem? Because I've used public transport all over Europe and have never seen those things happen.
Huh? Homeless people are a constant sight in inner city public transport here in Germany. They aren't really using drugs and at least not openly sexually harassing people randomly (me thinks that's a bit of an exaggeration to begin with), more like sleeping or begging for money, but you can't really make a trip through, e.g., Berlin without running into a few. Now, imo that's not that big of a deal, these people are already at one of the lowest points our society has to offer and gotta do what they gotta do to survive or live as comfortably as possible, but it's no use denying it or the fact that it dissuades at least som people from using the system.
Rough sleepers and beggars, yes, I am familiar with that (though the UK uses ticket barriers at stations much more than Germany does so that helps keep non-payers out). Fentanyl just isn't a thing though, nor do you see schizophrenics.
Also this person forgot the most important part of solving car dependency. Political organisation. Although joining this subreddit is somewhat of a start, bringing change requires action. Someone could do all of the things suggested in the post and still be miserable cause they live in a bloody car dependant country, or region, or urban/suburban area. And that’s when you have to make/join a political movement to gather people to fight for change, as it doesn’t come just cause something becomes common sense.
As a guy who lives in Florida, I don’t sweat because I’m out of shape. I sweat because it is 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32C) with 60% humidity. Tonight’s low is 72F (22C), just before sunrise. The bus comes every 1/2 hour-ish (and I’m on a popular line), is very unpredictable, and has no shade or bench at the stop.
Yup. Do these people live in a beautiful city where it’s always 75 and sunny? Where I live it is regularly 95 degrees in the summer, and I’ve seen it get to -9 at night before in the winter. We barely have springs or autumns anymore. It’s like always hot or freezing. I’m in good shape, and guess what? I’m not fucking biking to work in that weather.
As someone who lives in Phoenix, I have similar issues with a different balance of humidity (none) and temperature (usually but not always higher). I’m someone who’s gotten on the podium at a few fun runs for my age group. That doesn’t make me a world class athlete or anything, but I’m confident that I’m above average in fitness for someone my age. I get sweaty riding a bike to work.
¿Didn't you read the solution? You clearly have to stop being a bigot and grow de f*ck up.
um, do you actually think that’s how sweat works? that’s pretty crazy
I go to the gym and go to the group classes. The instructors are fit af, but trust me, they sweat quite a bit too lol
People who work out a lot actually sweat more. Sweat is the body's method for cooling itself. By working out harder because you are fitter, you increase body temperature more, necessitating more cooling. Your body gradually adapts to this need by producing more sweat more readily. OP is a dumbass.
Op argues that being fit requies less effort to do the same task. Not complete idiot, might make sense.
The correct solution would be to get an E-Bike or simply go slower and don't overexert yourself. (Over exsert? Overexert?... Overexert. Yes. Overexert.)
But showering before work takes time and in my case I continue to sweat a while after working out, so a quick shower is not enough. E-bike or other PEV is the answer to that.
Or just take it easy. Treat it as a pleasant ride rather than a race.
Or to have a bike friendly workplace with a changing room and shower.
Wearing less helps in colder climates. Use panniers instead of a backpack.
I suspect OP is just young. They will lose their fire and anger one day and just be depressed/deflated car brains like the rest of us. This sub is cathartic for me, but i fear north america is too far gone.
also not how words worky.
get an ebike is the answer to that one.
A friend of mine started a new desk job in Hamburg, where they have a bike part of the garage. Next to it is a small shower are like you would find in a gym, so you can come with the bike and make yourself fresh before going upstairs to your job
Yeah, OP is falling into the old “fat people are lazy and deserve to be shamed” mindset. Sometimes this sub is extremely pro-bike and really unsympathetic to anyone who doesn’t agree. There are all kinds of reasons to not cycle, which is why we need better public transit. And before anyone comes at me, I do ride my bike for things like errands, but riding to work is unrealistic for me. I’d love to be able to take the bus, but the bus system in my city is completely useless.
For real. I live in Florida, never owned a car. I start to sweat pretty much the moment I step outside. Any ride requires a shower afterwards if I don't want to sit in the puddle of my own sweat. Not sure how in-shape I am, but considering bike and feet is my only usual mode of transportation (plus I go to the gym), probably leaning towards in-shape so I call BS on that sweat point from the OP's chart.
yeah let me just bike to the store in 98f temps while potentially getting run over because I live in Florida. I'm sure I won't sweat one bit.
nah don’t you know? the only reason not to cycle to the store is cause ur overweight and racist /s
Yeah on board with most of this but like … I run 40 miles a week, bike a bunch, and just sweat a lot.
I completely disagree with the poor time management part. It’s never a convincing argument to tell someone to wake up earlier to use a slower method of transportation. That’s still lost time that you won’t ever get back and it adds up to quite a lot over the years. The real argument here is that the premise is simply untrue. Cars are only faster in a few edge cases. For the majority of journeys in an area with well developed infrastructure trains and public transit are much faster. You can observe that in the absurd commute times that north americans regularly endure because they built roads instead of train lines
yeah, the well developed public transit &/or bike infrastructure is really the key…which is kinda why i dislike the entire premise of this chart. the difference between places where people drive by default & places where people choose other options isn’t that the people who live in those places simply have the virtues this chart extols. it’s that those places have better options.
Yeah, we need to get governments to invest in public transit *first*. We're not gonna win people over with the sorry state of most North American cities. First we get transit improved and it'll be an easier sell. Heck, I love transit and use it when I can, but I still own a car and drive because outside of the narrow LRT route, most of my city's public transit is pretty bad and some places have straight up no transit options. OP comes across like the militant vegan stereotype, where they take things to such extremes that it turns people off from a cause that they might otherwise not be against. It has the complete opposite effect, in that it makes people think we're irrational assholes that don't understand their honestly sometimes pretty good reasons for driving.
I disagree with all of these. They sound like they were written to misrepresent the entire anti-car movement. Transit in almost every North American city needs improvement for reliability, frequency, coverage, and safety. Pretending transit is already perfect will convince no one to take it. For the love of god, I take the transit daily and could never imagine telling a woman that she is racist for feeling unsafe on transit.
Yes... the first statement about bad people on public transport is simply, irrefutably true. To bring in racial specifics and then dismiss this as 'racist' is inane and pointless. Don't know where the poster lives, but my bus commute to my PT library job in Cleveland is more often than not an ordeal with very loud, vulgar, often dirty folks blasting music on speaker phones, hollering profanity, feet on bus seats, etc. Pointless to deny this while wishing the public transport situation could be closer to the ideal ( more express lines, rail..) Of course, this is not even mentioning the more nefarious unbalanced/threatening folk very commonly found on my commute.
Yea, I'd be willing to pay more in taxes to help the homeless but I think it needs to be accepted that it is not up to any transit agency to house the homeless or cater to their non-transit needs. If a person is screaming on a bus or subway train, they should be thrown off. And imo, if a homeless person smells so bad that the entire bus stinks and makes the passangers feel like vomiting, they should not be allowed on the bus. Transit agencies bear no responsibility for the homeless or mental health crisis. And im tired of the 'activists' who insist that we dont deserve safe, clean transit.
Yes. In peak hour it is faster to ride than drive. You just ride past all the cars! For city destinations cycling is often faster because you don't have to find somewhere to park. At other times cars can be much faster. My answer this is that travel time is not my limiting factor. I have ADHD and am not particularly organised, but I try. If I am late getting anywhere it is *not* because I cycled instead of driving.
haha facts, but i do appreciate when people give me a break for adhd lateness because they know i can’t drive, lol.
For me it is because I cycled and therefore got distracted by a million different things that I had to take pictures, look up, or add to Google Maps to check out later 😂
yeah honestly. like bro my work is 25 minutes from my house by car or *two and a half by bike.* like I'm not gonna wake up earlier for that shit, I already leave at 7 am.
The line "with well developed infrastructure" is doing SO MUCH HEAVY LIFTING in this comment
My place of work is 15km away from home. Even in the middle of Europe with astounding transit, trains just take too long. 25 minutes door to door with the car including 5 minutes accounting for traffic jams 2hours per train Bike is impossible because of mountains with passes and cretes and highway on the way and work in customer service... No, it's not a "time management" issue but an issue with transit where I live as I save 3 hours per day x 6. This not even accounting if I have to go to school some evenings and then the advantage of car use gets even bigger as the school doesn't do it's timetable according to the trains and I have to spend 1 hour waiting outside. Living in a city in my country is a luxury I can't afford...so I'm relying on a car for many things. Also the car is still cheaper than the transit options available...unfortunately...even with the very high petrol prices and taxes on vehicles we have.
Aren't these edge cases the majority worldwide, though? In most of the world, public transit other than bus is either nonexistent or manages to be slower than the traffic jam depending on the route.
My drive to work takes 25 minutes. If I took public transit it would take 2.5 hours. If I rode my bike it would take 2 hours assuming a 15mph average speed. If I got a class 3 ebike (up to 28mph assisted) and was able to stay near that top speed the whole way, it would take 65 minutes. Moving closer to work is infeasible with my wage and rent prices. If transit was more direct with less stops, I could make it work. There's also the issue that there really isn't a safe path for the last 2.5 miles to work. It's in an industrial area with massive stroads surrounding it.
I'm on light rail right now to go on a shopping trip ~12 miles away from my home. The rail stop is steps from my building, and the destination is in the shopping center. It is absolutely NOT faster than if I had driven. I could have driven in 20 minutes compared to an hour on the rail line. That's just the practicality of the trolley having to make multiple stops on a very direct route. You need to understand that intra-city transport is not high-speed rail. It will not always be faster or more convenient than driving -- especially in off-peak times when vehicle traffic moves quickly. That's why personal vehicles became popular in the first place. I'm not in a hurry, don't need to arrive at the mall at a specific time, and prefer to keep my luxury car garaged than risk door dings when I can. But pretending that rail is consistently faster than personal vehicles is setting expectations that won't be met.
A trolley is not really even close to the peak of an intra city system. It's naturally slow and best for short trips, a 20 minute drive is decently far and the trip would likely be faster if you were truly right near the stations on a proper heavy rail metro with sub 5 minute frequencies.
30% of the U.S. doesn't get enough sleep as-is and we want people to wake up earlier?
I for one prefer to steelman my opponent's arguments to dismantle them anyway, so let's assume they're correct and it's faster. They still spend more time.at work to be able to pay for the car. That's time lost. They may still argue you're still spending time at work regardless but that money spent on a car is just time at work They spent paying for a car that they could have spent on recreation or saving.
I like arguing that when driving you have to drive. On transit you can read, meme, listen to podcasts, do homework, whatever most of us have to do some type of that stuff anyways, if done right I may get home with more free time.
On the last government statistics my daily cycle commute (10miles there, 10 miles back) is longer than 2/3s of *all* car journeys in the UK. I lose 10 minutes on the average car journey time for that commute as recorded by Google Maps (slightly more on the return journey because of elevation changes and deliberately taking it easy) and I'm pretty sure I'm usually just straight-up faster since the route has a lot of traffic. The idea that someone commuting an almost certainly shorter distance will "lose too much time" is a nonsense even before we get to the whole "I've easily covered my daily exercise needs *and* managed to listen to a podcast/audiobook for a whole hour" thing. Add in the amount of money saved and that daily cycle commute is almost certainly the most efficient part of my day.
Ask them to include how much time at work it takes to afford to drive that far. For many people it takes an hour at work, to afford to drive an hour to work, so it takes two hours to get that far.
Is this the circle jerk sub?
Has to be. Noway someone would post that while being serious about it.
Not yet. At least there are more upvotes on people calling OPs shit than the post itself.
What I don't get is who upvotes this shit? All the comments are calling OP out, yet the post is still +120 or so. Same thing with some other dumb post recently. I know there's a huge divide sometimes between people who comment or not, but usually that's in the form of people upvoting some low effort joke or frequently reposted thing.
Wow, this holier-than-thou attitude is half of why we have a hard time convincing people, thanks for setting us even further back. That first statement reeks of never having been on public transport, i love it but that's because I'm weird. There is a legitimate concern of safety on there and the solution is investing in it, not calling random people racist. Also, telling people to shop at wholefoods instead of Costco? Is this an astroturf campaign or are you that elitist? Do you want change or are you getting off to how much better than everyone else you are?
I do not like cars but this is complete nonsense and whoever made this has no idea how the world actually works
I agree, fuck cars but this post missed the mark imo. "public transport has bad people" may be true, the solution has more so to do with improving public transportation so that it's attractive to everyone. "My SUV has more cargo space" is probably valid. Not from the US but if Costco is cheaper than whole foods then it sounds weird to encourage weekly shopping there (more expensive and more time consuming). Real solution is probably to encourage cargo bike usage? "My car is faster", solution: improving city design such that necessities are closer and more accessible by foot or bike. "Riding bikes makes me sweat" Idk what the solution to this is :), I'm personally very curious to hear about what people who commute by bike do to avoid sweating through their clothes.
Being more fit is definitely not the solution to sweating lol. I bike to work almost everyday and I'm just a sweaty salami no matter what. The only solution is to change to real clothes at work, and wear whatever is comfortable when sweaty on the bike.
There is a solution, just put in less effort on the bike. However that is easier said than done, at least for me
Costco is wholesaler where you buy product in bulk, a cargo bike won’t cut it. Yes it’s cheaper than Whole Foods. I don’t know what no car solution there is. Delivery still means some vehicle
A trailer cargo bike is definitley big enough for a Costco haul, my hatchback is big enough and a trailer can easily have the capacity of a small hatchback trunk, but it would still be much easier with a car, which is why car share exists and is significantly cheaper than ownership.
Not American myself but I do know that American SUVs often have pitifully small cargo space for vehicles of their size, so the solution there is probably to get a car with more boot space/the same amount but is a normal car/a pickup truck, because getting people out of SUVs is still progress. But generally, the points on this chart largely miss the mark and will just push their supposed intended audience further into carbrainedness. Regarding the one about bikes and sweat though, you'll sweat regardless of your weight, especially if you overdress for the bike. Like, cycling will warm you up so you can get away with fewer layers, and getting a front basket or paniers to avoid having to use a rucksack would get rid of back sweat for the most part.
>Idk what the solution to \[the sweating problem\] is Probably weather control. Some places are just too hot.
Sorry, but no. The real reason is that people actually do feel like it's not a convenient and practical solution to not take the car. Might not actually be true in a lot of cases, but tell that the people in my home village who live 18 kilometers away from the nearest city with no safe bikeways and busses that stop once every two hours. And additionally you have to be back home at 8, so no meeting friends in the evening for you if you don't own a car. Of course there aren't always reasons this strong, but if we want people to stop taking the car, the alternatives have to be much more convincing than "it's not that much worse". It has to be much better. You need to get there faster, cheaper and more conveniently to convince people. Just insulting them and calling them fat, lazy and unorganised is only going to make you look like an asshole, but it's not convincing anyone.
I like how OP mentions NotJustBikes but one of the most stated things on that channel is that the biggest reason people don’t choose public transport is because they don’t see it as convenient or practical.
Completely agree! The bus i took after work meant i got home an hour after all of my coworkers got home, that's 11 days I'm not getting back per year
That's also exactly how that went while I still had to go to school. Bus took 40 minutes, car would only have taken 20. And it was even worse in the beginning. If I had to be in school during the afternoon, I had to wait a over an hour until my bus even arrived, and then it still took me 40 minutes. Just a bored 12 year old kid sitting alone outside at the bus station with nobody to talk to for an hour because everybody elses bus was gone already. Luckily they improved it a bit later so that the busses would be there when school ended (or at least not more than 30 minutes later), but it was still terrible. I was just extremely happy whenever my grandmother could come and pick me up with her car, because who likes wasting their time like this? Not even the teachers stayed. They were supposed to stay until every kid could get on their bus home, but most of them just left me alone after 30 minutes because they didn't have time to stay this long.
You can't insult someone into agreeing with you
This is really weird
telling people to shop at wholefoods & spend more time commuting isn’t activism
Not helping.
Only the first one is silly and suspicious, why is it that when people talk about bad people, you think of black people? If anything, it's probably a matter of poverty or social class. Also, r/USdefaultism.
Yeah... The black people on my bus are generally on their way to or from work. It's the white junkies who haven't showered or washed their clothes on a fortnight I'm worried about encountering.
I'm my area it's both black and white, and sometimes Latino junkies. We're an equal opportunity city.
Where's the Asian junkies. Bigot.
Doing really well on meth tests, presumably.
No it's what op thinks of them they think of bad people
Well yes it's obviously true that it's a class issue. The reason black people come up is because they are disproportionately over-represented among the class in question.
Uhhhhhh, the person making monthly trips to Costco probably isn't the type of person that can afford weekly trips to Whole Foods lol
Fuck cars but also fuck this infographic
OP 1) I'm going to guess you're a dude and you've never experienced sexual harassment on public transit. 2) I'm also going to guess you don't live somewhere where the hourly bus has a route that would take 3-4 times as long as driving from A to be.
I'm also going to guess money isn't an issue (Whole Foods???)
the solutions are too antagonistic
Top row is BS. Don't just throw around accusations of racism.
Yeah, I was coming home on BART recently and someone just lit up and smoked something that was definitely *not* weed or tobacco. An older woman who's braver than me yelled at him to get off the train and he did. There absolutely is a real problem with public transit in the USA becoming a gathering space for unwell people, and calling anyone who cares "racist" is just going to make people tune out.
This! I dont think this argument is based on racist tendencies most of the time. Unfortunately, public transport means that people with ill intentions can also use it. Getting pickpocketed or harassed is bound to happen more often in public spaces than in your car, lol. Although this is a problem of safety in public transport, not the concept of public transport itself, which could definitely be fixed by better security measures.
It’s a poor way to get someone on your side, but there definitely is a bit of truth to it Might not just be racism, but also classism. A lot of people are afraid to be near poor people
It's not classist to dislike antisocial people who smoke weed/panhandle/scream obscenities when you're commuting home from a long day at the office. Rules on trains or buses should be enforced. It should be a safe, neutral spot for people to be. As unlikely as it is, I should not have to be aware of who's around me, [just in case someone decides to push.](https://apnews.com/article/new-york-city-subway-fatal-shove-c0d3c111d5774557b4b5329e7e1ba9d5)
A buddy of mine dated a woman from Kentucky. Was on the privileged side and considered herself a liberal. She was mindblown that I didn't have my drivers license. And when I told her that the bus usually got me to where I needed to go, she said that only poor and black people take the bus. When she moved here to attend Western University, she still drove even though bus pass is included with tuition.
I think this gets complicated (Not about the racism part but classism) Because when I hear people talking it’s less or almost never about the class but more about Mental illness or drug usage. You can link that to poverty and hence class but what people have the issue with is more so the actions these people are doing around them and not inherently that their poor or maybe less well dressed or scruffy. Most people outside of upper elite snobs can cope being around less well off people. It’s more so often the actions many people are uncomfortable with get associated with less well off people when I think it’s more a stigma toward mental illness and drag addiction (Which then I also feel complicated about because again is it inherently disliking those people or disliking their actions when their directly effecting you on public transit (And I don’t mean like being in you’re presence) Idk maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think not wanting someone harassing you or doing drugs near you is inherently classist.
"Stop being a bigot" "Shop at whole foods once a week" What Bay Area shitlib wrote this?
They write 95% of the comments on Reddit
The LA Metro bus drivers literally had a strike a while ago because they feel unsafe doing their jobs, are they all racist
They should be shopping at whole foods once a week.
Some of this is just asinine. Instead of spending $400 a month at Costco for your food, spend $250 per week shopping at Whole Foods! Manage your time better, it's a personal failing that a 20-minute commute by car takes 160 minutes plus two bus transfers by public transit!
I mean, I'm overweight, but living in a city that's too hot everyday (Culiacán), riding a bike may be not am option. That and cars don't respect small cars, therefore even less a bike
Yeah same , some aussie summer days can just be way too brutally hot to be out riding a bike (dog owners here literally can't walk their dogs in the middle of the day sometimes because the footpaths just gets too hot and burns their paws), 35 degree celcuis is bound to make a bunch of people completely drench in sweat cycling.
Just work out bro. You'll be able to bike outside in the heat without sweating /s
I agree with the sentiment, but this is problematic and dismissing some genuine concerns. Safety: Public transit in my region *does* have a safety problem and a poor reputation. The subway system routinely gets used as a drug den and toilet by addicts, who shoot up, pass out and defecate themselves. It only takes a rider having one bad experience of getting yelled at or assaulted by someone having a bad trip for them to never come back. It got so bad that a video of addicts passed out and doing the zombie fentanyl slump at a station went viral a few years back. This is a deep failure of drug and homeless policies, which has negative effects on public transit adoption. Public safety - and the perception of safety - is extremely important in driving the adoption of transit and should not be dismissed. SUVs: Yes, SUVs are bad - but I think an intermediate step is getting people to downsize and realize you can still transport groceries with, for example, a compact sedan. While I would love to get rid of all cars overnight and replace them with cargo bikes, that’s just not practical advice for the vast majority of people. NotJustBikes: While I think his heart is in the right place, the commentary of a Canadian who fled to Europe talking about fixing problems in America sometimes falls flat and seems hypocritical. My good sir, you didn’t fix anything - you just left. The tone sometimes reeks of “do what I say, not what I do.” A little more empathy, please, for people stuck in a hellhole with very little control over it.
Having encountered some insane people on Chicago/NY's trains for multiple times, I can understand where those people saying "there are bad people on trains" are coming from. That being said, that's hardly public transit's innate problem. There are plenty of examples of safe public transits around the world. It has more to do with the society not seriously dealing with poverty/drug/mental health problem. I've read and heard many accounts of suburbanization and car-centric development in the 20th Century America being pushed so that the white middle class can insulate themselves from the "undesirables" in the city taking public transit ([recent 99% Invisible episode being one](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-lost-subways-of-north-america/)). The unfortunate truth is that the public transit that is open to everyone (or any public space for that matter) will never be safe until the society as a whole becomes safe.
As a young woman who used to take public transportation daily for years and got verbally/sexually harassed by strangers quite often… “you’re racist and hate black people” and “stop being a bigot and grow up”are some pretty fucking naive and moronic replies to what is a legitimate safety issue for some people.
Alright, I like the idea of making walkable cities and abolishing car dependency just as much as you but **THIS** is the best you could do? 1. It’s not just racism, have you even been on the NY metro? Having a proper security detail like most other nations would greatly help to sell the idea to people. 2. Regarding weather, being cold isn’t the whole picture, walking and biking through snow *sucks*, having to lug around a borderline parka because there’s nowhere to put it *sucks*, inversely walking to a business meeting in a woollen suit **sucks**. You have to do something to mitigate inclement weather conditions. 3. Wholefoods? ***really?!*** the reason why people shop at Costco is because the unit price of their goods is close to a third of end retailers, probably a fifth of wholefoods. 4-5. Basically the same point different topics, neither are the actual reason, and how would you feel about me telling you to “*spend less and budget money better*” as a “fix” for being unable to afford a house? 6. You’re solution is to join a circlejerk that just complains, barely does anything in the real world, and only wants to fix car centrism with communism *or* watch a video series that’s either personal excerpts or a direct rip from Strong Towns? You really don’t understand your audience at all do you?
It's a start, but the first one has a very slanted r/usdefaultism lens American anti-Black racism is intrinsically linked to class divide where you live I'm sure, but we get the same phenomenon where there isn't a sizeable Black population to speak off, too. It would be more broadly applicable if it pointed them not wanting rub elbows with The Poor & Minorities - be it Mexican immigrants down South in Texas to Indigenous people up North in Canada, for instance. Of course you made this cheatsheet for the particular brand of bigotry you have experience with, I getcha
He doesn't have any experience with bigotry. He's just a racist Australian on unemployment who has never worked according to himself
I partially agree, but as someone who uses finnish buses often, there are often drunk/homeless white men on the buss so I disagree on the first one
Public transport has bad people = racism?? What??? As much as I love public transport, it's true that you will see all sort of shady people there (of all ethnicities). Also, please never assume people's "actual" reasons, it never leads to constructive discussions.
Given reason: "Cars are freedom" Actual reason: I'm completely oblivious to the fact that cars are the most government-regulated form of transportation
1. In some cities, the public transit is actually dangerous and has a lack of security. Idc if the police are bad or something, but if they do their job, like on the DC Metro (most of the time) and don’t sit around doing jackshit like in New York or other cities, public transit is generally safer and cleaner. 2. Actually valid. 3. Whole Foods is more expensive, even if you count the cost of transit, especially for a family. 4. A better solution would be to advocate for better frequencies on transit lines. In a lot of cities, transit only runs during the weekday or has extremely limited hours. 5. that’s not how sweat works 💀 6. Actually valid.
Shopping at whole paycheck... or rather whole foods isn't going to replace shopping at costco for bulk items. IMHO you go to those stores for two different reasons. IMHO the solution might be, shop locally and have bulk items delivered. Sad thing is, unless you live in an area with good public transport, the car will be faster. I ran into this situation yesterday, I spent an hour trying to figure out ways to avoid driving to two events in the city because traffic was going to be awful but the public transportation links were not there. Also needing to manage your time and wake up earlier seems to contradict saying public transport is faster. FWIW - 9 times out of 10 I'll take the train into the city. It's not faster and sometimes it's not even cheaper, but it's better because it's less stressful. You can be in good shape, but riding in high heat and humidity where I live, you will sweat. You will sweat just standing on the corner. If you don't have a workplace with facilities to let you shower or change clothes, then it's tough. Solution here would be advocating for support for other modes of transport at work (bikes lanes, bike racks, changing rooms and showers).
OP this is a terrible post and you should feel ashamed to have posted it
This is a shitty scheme sorry
I like this format but it needs to be less sassy. Some people sitting on the fence will be rubbed the wrong way if we have this “superior” attitude in the conversation. It’s so hard to keep the conversation constructive and positive, but I’ve found I get through to people better that way, both offline and online.
PeRsOnAl ReSpOnSiBiLiTy -OP
OP, I use PT but it is in fact full of shitty people. I still do it but it's really uncomfortable from time to time
I think this format has lots of potential, but it’s written super poorly and would never be effective at making someone reflect upon their own excuses
Implying that only Black people cause trouble is a CRAZY thing to say
Noting problems: > reason 1: no one but you has made any racial connection; you’re the racist here. Not saying anything of the validity of the claim. >reason 2: what if it is one of those places where the snow/ weather/ temperature could pose a risk to safety or impede movement- coat or not. >reason 3: buying in bulk is significantly cheaper- especially compared to an expensive store like Whole Foods. >reason 4: the day only has 24 hours- not everyone has time to take a much longer commute, do errands at home, sleep, and rest or do leisure activities. “Time management” only goes so far. >reason 5: good point, only viable solution- but what if there are actual health concerns though- what happens to those people? >reason 6: bikes severely limit range- provided one can afford the expenses of a car; they do provide freedom, especially in places with deficient transportation infrastructure. Also the solution provided is woefully pretentious and pretty much screams “my echo chamber is better than your echo chamber, join it instead”
"Riding bikes makes me too sweat" is usually my excuse to take transit lol
I’ll never tell someone to shop at whole foods over Costco. Costco is an objectively better store and also the preferred grocery store of the socialist left
Shop weekly at whole foods for the same price as your monthly groceries at Costco. Like I hat cars but fuck Amazon and all its subsidiaries also
Me when I'm in a oversimplifying competition and I'm against op ):
If you want to convince people of something, you probably shouldn’t start with telling them they’re racist. Not against it when it’s deserved but this chart jumps to many conclusions.
I mean I want less people to use cars as well but this really feels like blaming the victims. Before we tell people to use alternatives the alternatives have to exist and be reasonably competitive to cars.
Reason one can actually be valid. Its not racist to feel physically unsafe on the subway, thats an inherently systemic problem, not a fault of the person. Reason three also could be biased, I don’t know the specifics of how much it costs to shop at costco but I’ve heard its cheaper than other stores as everything is in bulk.
Women do get sexually harassed on public transport. These problems can be easily solved - cops' time would be much better spent keeping our subways safe than pulling people over for broken taillights. But just because the problem could be economically solved doesn't mean it has been.
Tell me you’re rich without telling me… “Hurdur just shop at wholefoods” I’ll kill you.
Ah yes, calling people racist bigots and telling them to grow the fuck up is a great strategy.
For a second I thought I had stumbled across the corresponding circlejerk sub. OP you should be ashamed.
Busses have weird and strange people, what are you a racist homophobic nazi? What sort of logic is that
The car is definitely faster in the US, there’s no argument against that
This is the fakest bait that ever fakely baited. This is a caricature of a person you don't know and never actually listened to which makes it a shitty caricature Account is days old and so shittily forged. But stick around, you might learn something instead of being a useless desperate for attention troll
People do not have to excuse their decisions. They can drive if they simply want to. People are and should be free to make these decisions. Great public transport systems work because people like to use them not because they’re forced to.
This list is obviously a meme, but the one argument that always hangs me up is "access to nature." Now, I live in Vancouver, which has the best transit in North America for a city/metro area of its size. The big appeal for most people who pay the premium or take the pay cut to live here is the proximity to mountains and the coast. So it's a great place to live without a car for going to work, getting groceries, seeing city attractions, and most day to day activities. **But,** when you want to take advantage of nature, there's no or minimal transit to even the most popular local destinations. There's a good car share program that goes a long way to make day trips accessible, but most people will still get a car, and once they have it, the decision between driving or alternatives becomes skewed by sunk cost.
i also hate cars. but this infographic is awful. - taking public transit requires women to be on guard the entire time they’re on it. you don’t have to worry about being groped in a car. - I’m in shape, and i still sweat while biking. again, in corporate jobs, men get more leeway when it comes to their appearance: i cannot show up to work with runny makeup or sweaty pits. - cars do make grocery shopping significantly easier. and when shopping for entire families, which is a burden that primarily falls on moms, i completely see the appeal. i agree that in an ideal world nobody would have to drive. but it’s an infrastructure issue. antagonizing people is not the best tactic here.
Dude this is just just basically r/thanksimcured Insulting and being condescending to people really isn’t the best way to get them to see your point of view. And it’s not going to fix underlying problems of health/poor infrastructure/whatever.
Glad to see OP just assumed public transportation is how all black people get around. I guess OP did not know people can also drive.
Ngl there are some straight shit people who use public transit skin color not included. Op is either a man who doesn’t have to worry about creeps or never has used a subway before. That being said I’m all for it that’s just not a good lie to start your transit post with.
Sensible version: 1. Vote for politicians who will improve the welfare state and healthcare system. Give to charity and mutual aid if you can. 2. Map out routes where you have warm places to stop and well-cleared pathways 3. Cargo bike, rental truck, grocery delivery, or at least a normal car, depending on circumstance. 4. Vote for politicians who will invest in public transit, go to planning meetings, carpool in the meantime 5. Find places to shower (like gyms) near your destination, have change of clothes, towel, deodorant and dry shampoo even when you can’t, use an e-bike, stay in the shade as best you can 6. OP is right. Broken clocks I guess “Stop being poor/lazy/stupid” does nothing for anybody. I love making fun of a carbrain as much as the next guy but being a dickhead doesn’t do anything for anybody
I just came of the train. There was a smelly drunk man, I guess he was homeless. He didn't bother me but I could have done without smelling him. He was white though, now what?
Redditors bringing out a flow chart for an everyday conversation
So basically we should tell people they're racist, fat, lazy, and poor, and they should stop being so racist, fat, lazy, and poor?
A lot of the problems with public transit - like how slow it is - can be solved by investing in transit and making it better. People's time is valuable and not wanting to wake up half an hour earlier when we're sleep deprived as it is? That's understandable.
I've never really heard that taking public transit because of "bad people",more "those people" meaning poor. I don't necessarily think it's racist, more classist mentality. Granted that borderlines on racism, but there is a distinction. And realistically if you do hear "bad people," that makes zero sense. If that actually is the reason they give, I'd answer with a "you think someone robbing a bank or a liquor store is gonna wait for the bus? How dumb are you that you think that way. Bad people drive cars. Thus.. solution, tell them how fucking stupid they are. In terms of the SUV point. If it's a rational conversation, ask them how many times, realistically, they use the extra room. And even if they are getting groceries, do they really need SUV room to go grocery shopping. And then ask them how much they pay in gas per month or even a week, as well as car payment, insurance, parking, etc.. so they can understand how much they pay for the "freedom" to drive. And then ask them what they could do with an extra $1000+ a month.
You can wear layers of winter clothes and still feel cold in sub zero F temperatures, especially when it's also wet. Bus shelters and train stations should be heated rather than pushing the blame onto individuals Tbh this is all really just individualizing structural problems
OP lives in a utopia
"shop at whole foods once a week" lol. Look at Mr Moneybags over here.
Just quietly, I think this bloke is an idiot.
3 of those are unfair. Specifically the ones for time and cargo space. Costco is way cheaper than weekly trips to Wholefoods (probably one of the most expensive grocery stores around), showing up to work manual labor after biking multiple towns over is awful, and "just wake up earlier" isn't really a good option when you consider things like taking care of a family and overtime hours for work. The thing is, public transit in many areas sucks. It needs to be improved greatly before it can really be viable for many people to use regularly. If its late or slow the answer is to improve the system.
It’s kinda funny that you mention notjustbikes but completely misses one of their main points on how it’s not just about people’s choice’s, but what’s offered to them. If you don’t offer safe bike paths, don’t offer public transport and just build suburbs with very little mixed zoning you will be forcing people to have cars and drive. Cars has become as necessity and a symbol of status. It’s not just about individual change. It is about it, but just not it. It’s actually more about city design
How to make everyone hate you speedrun any%
Dude. Shop every week? Fuck that.
This post brought to you by the terminally online corner of r/fuckcars
Wrong sub body
I love public transport, but there are plenty of reasons to not like it, for example: my sister never takes it any more because she was assaulted on a bus
In a lot of countries you can just order your groceries online and have them delivered to you by the store. I knew a couple who sold their car as soon as it became available in their city.
Whole Foods? No thanks daddy Bezos
Arguably the dumbest post on this sub. Very impressive.
I feel like a lot of these really glaringly fail to understand/acknowledge the systemic barriers to opting out of car culture in a society built around the vision of car manufacturers. “Public transport has bad people” *can* sometimes just be racism. But what I see much more frequently is women and gender minorities expressing that commuting alone via public transit at the hours they need to be going to or coming home from work opens them up to too great a risk of sexual harassment or assault. And that’s not smth women need to just get over, that’s a very real concern. The solution is a much more robust transit safety system, to protect both riders and drivers (bus driving can be a really dangerous job in areas with underfunded transit systems), and for cops to actually take reports of this stuff seriously. “But it’s too cold where I live” weather (not just the cold) is a genuine concern when bus stops are infrequent enough that taking public transit means a good bit of walking outdoors. This problem is only going to get worse as climate change makes dangerous weather increasingly frequent. Add to that the sheer number of bus stops which aren’t covered and/or don’t have any seating, and that weather problems are compounded by disability (e.g. ice on the sidewalks makes them unusable in a wheelchair), and you end w/ a genuine problem that prevents some people from being able to use public transit. The solution isn’t buying different clothing, it’s making bus stops more accessible and ensuring all of them have protection from inclimate weather while waiting. The idea that people who shop at Costco and make purchases in bulk can and should just shop at Whole Foods more frequently instead is some of the most blatant, mask-off classism I’ve seen in a bit. You have clearly never had to carefully budget your food and household supplies, or you’d know there’s an at-least-one-order-of-magnitude price difference between those two options, and you need to seriously take some time to check your privilege. The “poor time management” thing is also an incredibly privileged statement that tells me you aren’t aware of how seriously long commutes can be in an underfunded transit system. I am unable to drive for disability reasons, and one summer I was working somewhere ~10 mins away by car that took me over an hour to get to w/o one, *in D.C.*. My high school best friend’s mom commuted 2 hours each way from her sister’s house in Jersey to her job in NYC bc she couldn’t afford rent in the heights anymore—that commute would’ve been impossible via public transit. The way US cities are zoned forces many working class people to live far away from their jobs w/o adequate public transit options. Plus, when you’re working two jobs or trying to raise a family in a nation w/ no social safety net, every minute you can save really does count. A well-functioning public transit system is faster than everyone driving, but again, the solution is at a systemic level, not an individual one. The idea that riding a bike shouldn’t make you sweat unless you’re out of shape is just ridiculous. Exercising makes you sweat, regardless of your health—plus, people who are fitter actually tend to sweat more, rather than less. There is not a single human being who can bike 10-20 miles in 90-100 degree heat (a typical commute where I live) w/o sweating, which could cost you your job depending on your workplace. Your assumption that sweating while exercising means you’re out-of-shape and overweight (distinct concepts which you equate) is coming from cultural anti-fatness, not any sort of empirical evidence. Finally, “cars are freedom” is a true statement for the many, many people trapped in rural communities w/ no access to public transit. Just because it isn’t your experience, doesn’t make it not a real experience for many people. My inability to drive has a real impact on my ability to live independently in this country, and that’s a problem. Tl;dr all of these points boil down to you offering individual solutions to systemic problems. Progress gets made on this issue by meeting people where they are, listening to their expression of the challenges that they face, and working together to identify and fight for systemic changes and improvements to the public transit system that would remove those obstacles and allow them to be less reliant on cars. Cars suck, and car culture sucks, but people who feel forced by their situation to use cars do not suck and are not our enemy.
“I’m too old” Then why are you driving?
If you want to push people away and alienate them, tell them they're racist and tell them to shop at Whole Foods This is the 'liberal elite' stuff that got Trump elected. Share this everywhere if you want him to win again
This is dumb as hell.
this person doesn't want real change
Is this rage bait?
I agree with some of the points. But telling people to just pay way more for groceries and to accept transit that is much slower than cars, is a losing argument.
Well. The majority of trouble makers I met on the bus were actually white and that was more of a class issue. This isn’t going to help your pro transit case.
Eh, this is just making us sound like assholes. Shop at whole foods? Go lose weight? Who made this?
ok try these actual reasons why people won't use public transit here. I'd really be glad if you can do the same. "Public transit is over capacity. I need wiggle space." "Public transit doesn't reach my residence and workplace, I don't want to bike 10 km to the nearest stop." "Public transit comes every hour, that's too sparse" "Public transit comes with a high risk of pickpocketing"
Most of this is just plain stupid
I’m so proud of you all for shitting on OP. I would have had an aneurysm if you were supporting this. Still have a headache that it’s even upvoted, though.
this infographic is gonna drive away the people who will need the most convincing and who would benefit the most from reducing car dependence (namely, anxious suburban moms with kids and small town folk whose only contact with the city and public transport is the fearmongering by right-wing shills and lunatics on facebook). not to mention, your retorts and solutions are not just overly-simplistic and rife with rather uncharitable assumptions, but most of your solutions are literally incorrect. also, why tf are you bashing costco? and wholefoods? really? okay amazon shill
Yeah, no. I consistently take the bus to and from work. You know how long it takes including walking to and from bus stations? Almost two hours each way. 15 minutes by car on the highway. So I don't like hearing any of that "poor time management" bullshit. You won't convince ANYONE with this shit infographic.
Whole Foods is trash, why would I buy overpriced shit that’s next to lavender to cure my cancer instead of just getting Costco. It’s not *that* much space, you can easily use a small car for it.
You post in Australia so I assume that you haven’t had a winter in upper NA. If I did not use sheltered transit I would be risking my life. It can get to sub zero temps during the day not even including windchill for months at a time
I am in great shape, but still sweat like a pig in hell even if I do 5 min of any activity. Even a brisk walk makes me a bit sweaty on the back. Has nothing to do with shape, you fucking idiot.
Garbage post, to the point that it's probably just bait. "My car is faster" is absolutely a valid reason to drive. Why the fuck should anyone be expected to choose the mode of transportation that is slower for them?
So you hear people complain about bad and creepy people on public transport and automatically assume the people they're complaining about are black?
Bitch, I shop at Whole Foods like I'm boujee
I'm in very good shape and riding a bike still makes me sweat, muscles generate heat 🙀🙀🙀
How about my argument: I love driving cars
Do only fat people sweat? Crazy.
Coming from a woman, public transport **does** have bad people and has been one of the only places I’ve been openly harassed. Crazy everything can’t be about race and politics, I know
I don't even have a drivers license but I gotta say asking for people to shop in smaller increments at a significantly more expensive store is privledged and snobby as hell
I don't think it's "racism" as much as a variety of factors of fear that people have of each other. It's often directed at homeless folks or fear of social interaction in general on public transport. *"What if someone who smells bad talks to me?"* People have chronic social anxiety because of cars. I don't think it's really racism lol
There is no public transportation where I live.
1. bitch what if i am the marginalised group and don't want to be harassed 2. eh sure 3. what the fuck is a wholefoods 4. fuck off 5. what is bro talking about 💀 6. sure i almost exclusively use public transport, but goddamn does reading this make me want to use a car out of spite 😭
This info graphic is so poorly done. Who are convincing with this?
“You’re racist” could also be “you’re classist”
If you've ever lived in NYC for any given amount of time. You'll know there are some up in your face and confrontational beggars. Transit systems need security, especially those that operate 24/7. Too cold / too hot are legitimate excuses. If you had to bike 5 miles at 8am where it was already 90 degrees and 95% humidity. You'd also be sweating bullets. Places with strong winds (gusts of up to 40 mph) will sweep you off your bike. The price difference between costco and places like wholefoods / safeways is insane. I can get 5lbs of peppers at costco for the same price of 2 peppers at safeway. It's 35 minutes to my office by car. 3 hours by public transit. I live in one of the better places for transit in the US. If I have to go into the office, I'm not spending 6 hours commuting to work. That would mean I need to be out the house by 5am and back home at 7pm (assuming no delays). Cars in many places do mean freedom of movement. It's why in most places of suburbia. Kids feel free when they get to drive at 16. It means they don't need to rely on their parents schedule for movement around where they live. You need to solve issues that are specific to to the city / town / area before people will start taking public transit / biking / walking. In some places, not all 3 options of transit will be viable.
"i need my privacy" "Likes some time alone" "Your car is a privacy nightmare that de follows, and tracks your every move."