- Dołączono
- 20 Kwi 2023
Why do you need so many bikes? Are you that
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What the fuck is a "family"?!
r/fuckcars / Not Just Bikes / Urbanists / New Urbanism / Car-Free / Anti-Car - People and grifters who hate personal transport, freedom, cars, roads, suburbs, and are obsessed with city planning and urban design
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What the fuck is a "family"?!
ZsaZsaBinks
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 15 Lip 2022
Necro:
Austin is now at 1 million people within the city limits and 2.5 million in the metropolitan area. The highways are:
-Interstate Highway 35
-US Highway 183
-US Highway 183A (Tollway)
-US Highway 290 (Partial Tollway)
-Texas State Highway 71 (Partial Tollway)
-Texas State Highway Loop 360 (Capital of Texas Highway)
-Texas State Highway Loop 1 (Mopac) (Partial Tollway)
-Texas State Highway 45 Southwest (Partial Tollway)
-Texas State Highway 45 Southeast (Tollway)
-Texas State Highway 45 North (Tollway)
-Texas State Highway 130 (Tollway)
Despite its rapid growth, there is still no highway that forms a complete circle around the city. Nor is there adjustments on existing highways to improve the flow of traffic. The only adjustment is the creation of tollways within existing highways.
One major problem the north intersection of Loop 1 and Loop 360 in the southwest corner of the city.
The right turn onto Mopac always gets stopped up. There should be a northbound ramp as a shortcut to Mopac to ease traffic, but there isn’t. But you know what there is crossing over Loop 360?
That green bridge is a pedestrian bridge. I don’t know how much it gets used. But the fact that a pedestrian bridge was built and not a highway exit ramp goes to show how little the city prioritizes drivers.
Ostatnio edytowane:
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SpiderBitch
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 6 Mar 2023
Sometimes i really wonder what goes on in the minds of american bikecucks.
The systems that exist in europe work pretty well here, but thats because europe is just a fundamentally different place.
Just because extremely safe, small, dense, flat, mild-weathered countries with different cultures are pretty suitable for bikes like Holland and Denmark (and even there the vast majority does not bike to work lol) doesnt mean just copying the infrastructure can make it work elsewhere. Even nearby Paris is not nearly as well-suited for casual biking compared to amsterdam/copenhagen because its a bit bigger and more hilly/steep and chaotic and stuff. I dont know why you would even WANT to bike on the daily in the US.
And most of the bikers here dont have any disdain for cars either, biking is just part cultural tradition and part it being considered more personally convenient in some situations. Car ownership in these countries is also still pretty high anyways, bit lower than the us but still on average over 1 car per household (that usually gets shared). Less dependent on cars, yes, but nothing like the sheer refusal of cars these redditors seem to have.
Also the international trains are often more expensive than a plane ticket unless its for a distance where the plane would be in the air for barely an hour anyways btw.
The systems that exist in europe work pretty well here, but thats because europe is just a fundamentally different place.
Just because extremely safe, small, dense, flat, mild-weathered countries with different cultures are pretty suitable for bikes like Holland and Denmark (and even there the vast majority does not bike to work lol) doesnt mean just copying the infrastructure can make it work elsewhere. Even nearby Paris is not nearly as well-suited for casual biking compared to amsterdam/copenhagen because its a bit bigger and more hilly/steep and chaotic and stuff. I dont know why you would even WANT to bike on the daily in the US.
And most of the bikers here dont have any disdain for cars either, biking is just part cultural tradition and part it being considered more personally convenient in some situations. Car ownership in these countries is also still pretty high anyways, bit lower than the us but still on average over 1 car per household (that usually gets shared). Less dependent on cars, yes, but nothing like the sheer refusal of cars these redditors seem to have.
Also the international trains are often more expensive than a plane ticket unless its for a distance where the plane would be in the air for barely an hour anyways btw.
- Dołączono
- 29 Wrz 2022
There's crying over I-35's expansion, and I'm sure that TxDOT has discussed how to rebuild the LOOP-1 and LOOP-360 (neither true loops btw) intersection as it is antiquated, dating back to the early 1980s when the nearby Barton Creek Square mall was built, but got stymied by activists. There's also the issue of 71, which is FINALLY getting a freeway but right of way clearances were done in the mid-2000s and already there were issues with that.I'm angered to see that they're adding an apartment complex right near 45 and 1626, which dashes (or at least dampens) hopes that they'll connect the two sections of 45 together. Connecting them would've done a huge service when I still lived in the Austin area (glad I don't). I now live in a different city in Texas which is smaller and votes reliably red, but suffers from similar "north-south" design problems, new road proposals that get squashed, and urbanist engineers screwing up the major roads that they can.
The crazy thing is that if you looked at where money is going, you could rustle up transit money. Imagine if we took 90% of the budget going to Ukraine and redirected it to transit projects. (Yeah, the money is still wasted. But it at least it still stays in the country). The Reddit complaining does have, however, the "you can't have anything until WE get what we want" attitude. They'd balk at $6B to do major improvements to freeway but then happily use for a toy train that goes nowhere.
I've said it before, demanding European-style bicycle infrastructure is a waste of time and money if you think you're entitled to the main roads anyway, which American cyclists do believe.
Sleazy Car Salesman
Believe me when I say that I will take your money
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 27 Maj 2021
MIU
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 17 Kwi 2025
I will say, this post is retarded because it pretends like flying is a uniquely american thing (Which it is not, Europeans fly all the time) and fundamentally misunderstands the reason people want more passenger rail. People generally want trains for travel inside of a state/country where flying would be a waste of money, nobody wants to be going from California to New York by train. That was literally the point of the comparison, it's the fact that European train networks are far more intricate and allows you to go to your specific location better. Then the xitter retard goes "DURR BUT YOU GO FAR QUICKLY ON PLANEZ". The post is just smug urbanist retardation but on the opposite end of the (autism) spectrum
As I have said before in this thread, trains are a good idea executed horribly due to things which have nothing to do with the trains themselves but entirely with how they're utilized. It's not like the rail system is at fault for the lack of janitorial effort put into the bathrooms, neither is it at fault for the overly expensive tickets or the retarded timetables.
Also pretending that flying is at all comfortable is just a straight up lie. It's not even relatively comfortable, it's just a miserable experience for 90% of the time.
Sleazy Car Salesman
Believe me when I say that I will take your money
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 27 Maj 2021
Which is why it needs to be made more expensive.
lol the Eurotrash is stuck in his tiny country and can't comprehend distances larger than 160km.
ZsaZsaBinks
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 15 Lip 2022
@Xarpho's Return
Reasons why they’re against this:
Here’s a website called ReThink35.
Reasons why they’re against this:
They’re also against expanding U.S. Highway 183:
A bunch of local businesses are against the highway expansion projects:
So are a bunch of local organizations:
Council members against the expansion speak out:
Commissioners speak out as well:
Representatives also speak out:
OP-ED
Most of the elected officials were against the expansion in 2024:
- Dołączono
- 12 Kwi 2021
The only reason why Austin isn’t as bad as San Francisco or Seattle is because the Republican state government keeps them in check.
ZsaZsaBinks
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 15 Lip 2022
I understand why people would want bike lanes, but Central Texas is too hot half the year to want to commute via biking or walking, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to make it easier for cars and buses to get around.
- Dołączono
- 12 Kwi 2021
The average leftist in those cities wants transit/bikes because they think that other people using them will make it easier for them to drive. They have no intention of using them themselves.
Urbanist projects like road diets and other policies that make it more difficult to get around instead if making transit better are almost never put up to a vote because they usually lose at the ballot box if not bundled into a “fix the potholes” omnibus bill.
True-believer urbanists are a tiny minority even in the bluest of areas, which is why their projects constantly face strong resistance once local people become aware of them. They know their policies are unpopular (hence all the hate directed at “NIMBYs”) which is why they’re in favor of state preemption of zoning and using state/federal funds for local transit projects.
Vision Zero (policy framework to have no road deaths by slowing cars to a crawl or outright banning them) also reuses a lot of safetyism arguments pioneered by gun control activists that leftists are extremely susceptible to. “If it saves just one life”, for example.
ZsaZsaBinks
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 15 Lip 2022
They don’t prioritize roads as much as they do sidewalks. I was on a road which got a sidewalk put in, but the road was still bumpy AF.
- Dołączono
- 29 Wrz 2022
I wouldn't say that "can't comprehend distances larger than 160km" as another poster put it but you're missing the point. The plane thing was not some American superiority thing, it's that the lack of a comprehensive passenger rail network isn't the gotcha they think Euroboos (term instead of Europeans as I don't think these are real Europeans arguing this) think it is.
Neither system usually goes directly from point A to point B on a perfect timetable, my local airport has to go to Houston or Dallas for anything first, and many people will just take a private
The other thing to point out is that when Euroboos talk about trains, they always show off the first-class seats, they'll always compare trains to flying coach, and never bring up prices in a fair comparison. They'll think that planes are too high class yet trains aren't, even if they pay equivalent prices. That one where the guy got a picture of Biden? Both of them are paying hundreds of dollars a ticket, Biden probably less since he got a senior discount.
The miserable part of flying is usually the rigmarole of processing for flight, which can vary dramatically by airport, down to the quality of TSA employees. When flying out of Houston, it seems like they hired no one but the biggest assholes and retards they could find, but then when flying out of Knoxville or Tampa, they seem professional enough and will never antagonize you without provocation.
Once you're actually in the plane, unless you get a bad hand and are seated next to or near people who are just big enough problems to ruin the experience (babies are usually) it's not that bad, even on coach. Planes are going to be as fast as trains on short trips and scale up better than trains do on long distances.
- Dołączono
- 22 Sty 2024
Alright I know I'm really late but I'm MATI now. Little pl but when my great grand-parents died we had to empty their apartment: the elevator was too small for the furniture. I want them to carry a solid wood Norman wardrobe down the stairs for 6 floors or I won't listen to any of them fuckers. Even when you take some of it apart this shit is still big & heavy.
This is not my great old man, just a random bloke for scale
Sleazy Car Salesman
Believe me when I say that I will take your money
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 27 Maj 2021
Even disregarding that, imagine if one of your grandparents had suffered a heart attack and had to be stretchered out. Would the elevator have fit them?
- Dołączono
- 22 Sty 2024
No
luckily my grandpa had his when they were strolling. It was an old building, I think it has been brought up to standard since but it's still not the case for many buildings in big cities. (In France)
- Dołączono
- 22 Sie 2022
So much of it comes back to the fact that the vast majority of North America was largely undeveloped until the advent of the automobile and airplane. Yeah the US and Canada don't have very robust rail passenger rail networks, but we also don't really need them. Europe still has a huge rail network because so much of it is just what already existed from before commercial aviation or even private automobiles were viable.
Compare to North America, whose population has more than quadrupled in the last ~100 years or so. Demand for passenger rail in North America started petering out in the 50s and 60s simply because people just weren't taking the train. It didn't make sense for the network to continue expanding once everyone had a car and flying became more affordable. Even if you save a few bucks taking the train, planes are just faster and more price competitive than you may assume. It also helps that for planes you don't need any actual ground infrastructure. It's way easier to just pave a giant slabs of asphalt in each city and fly there instead of laying down thousands of miles of dedicated passenger tracks between every single major population centre that need to be consistently maintained.
Also, taking the train is a gigantic pain in the ass. Here's an example, trains vs flights from New York to Miami:
Ah, thank goodness. My carbon footprint.
Even assuming you aren't taking a cheap shitass airline, the prices are roughly equivalent to, if not cheaper, than taking an Amtrak train from New York to Miami. That's not even the worst part though: That threeish hour flight suddenly becomes 27 hours of travelling, which... FUCK that noise, dude. Paying the same amount for a method of travel that takes nine times longer? Hell nah. Another example, from Canada:
Even more egregious. A flight from Toronto to Halifax is just over two hours, and about $370ish Canadian, again assuming you aren't flying a shitty discount airline. A train is the same price, and takes twenty nine goddamn hours to reach Halifax, including a changeover between trains at some point. But the most insane part?
It's 13 hours slower than driving. You could take a flight from Toronto to Halifax, rent a car, and then drive all the way back to Toronto in the time it takes to get to Halifax on a train. And that INCLUDES stopping to take a piss or to eat something every few hours. The locations I picked for this little exercise are arbitrary, but these same patterns play out over the rest of the contiguous US and Canada. Passenger rail, while usually an option, invariably takes far longer than flying or often even driving, and really doesn't save you money at all.
Now, there's an argument to be made that this is partially because North America hasn't really appreciably invested in its passenger rail network over the last few decades outside of regional commuter lines. Here's some points addressing that:
1.) Why would we? The general public has already voted with their wallets and decided that aviation is far more practical for long-distance travel than passenger rail. Why would you rather take a train journey that takes far longer and doesn't even save you money?
2.) High speed rail networks would still be slower. Even the absolute most cutting-edge high speed maglev trains only do roughly ~200mph in regular service, something that is easily BTFOd by the 500+ mph speeds reached by passenger airliners at cruising altitude. Not to mention by the time taken up by various stops made along the way. It's exceptionally rare to take a direct, no stops train voyage, and the amount of time taken up by constantly stopping at various stations along the way really adds up.
3.) Some people have the idea in their heads that an expanded rail network or high speed rail would make taking the train much cheaper than flying. This assertion is backed up with basically nothing and I have no idea why I keep hearing it or why anyone with a functioning brain thinks this. Passenger rail already struggles to be cost-competitive running 30 year old trains on a rail network built prior to World War 1. Why in God's name do you think it'll be cheaper after spending a shitzillion dollars on infrastructure that costs just as much to maintain and requires specially-engineered trains to run on it?
4.) North America is fucking huge with many large population centres that are far away from all the others. Urbanists make fun of people who make this point because they find it impossible to reconcile with. It's a relatively recent phenomenon for people to actually have the need and ability to travel across the country with any sort of regularity, and that was facilitated by the popularization of the automobile and air travel. A hundred years ago, you didn't just decide on a whim to take the train out to Florida for a week-long vacation. It was a multi-day journey that wasn't something reasonably accessible to the average person. Road trips and air travel created a world where travelling these distances for no real reason was suddenly feasible and achievable in a matter of hours or days.
Really the best way of putting it is that North America outgrew the need for passenger rail lines in ways that Europe probably never will. There's no need to build a high-speed rail line between New York and Los Angeles, or Chicago and Seattle, or Montreal and Houston, simply because we already have something that works perfectly fine. I have yet to hear an actual sound argument about trains being superior to planes over these long distances that doesn't immediately fall back on "but your heckin' carbon footprint!" Dude fuck my "carbon footprint" I'm not spending 27 hours of my life on a train.
And, full disclosure: I hate flying, man. I hate it at the best of times, but in the last year I've had to fly three separate times to various important family events so I'm especially bitter about it currently. I've flown more in the last year than I have in the preceding decade. Every single aspect of the airport process is a miserable affair. The desk, security, the overpriced food, the crowded atmosphere, sitting next to complete strangers (including one flight where I rolled a total Nat 1 and had to sit next to two Indian men for three hours), random delays, waiting for baggage. It sucks and I don't enjoy a minute of it.
But I'll tolerate all of this, ALL off this, if it means I can avoid spending twenty nine goddamn hours on a train.
MIU
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 17 Kwi 2025
To me it just kinda feels like
>Man this store sure is lacking in apples
>BUT THE ORANGES ARE RIGHT THERE DUDE
Well, in NS trains the second class seats are actually decently comfy, at least comfier than any airplane seat I've sat in
Though Arriva trains' seats fucking suck, and it's often a coin flip whether the train you're catching is Arriva or NS
I honestly just straight up disagree with this. Every time I've flown by plane you are stuck in a extremely tiny seat, cramped right next to a sweaty dude. You try to fall asleep to make the trip go faster but every single time turbulence wakes you up or some random yell by a passenger. Then a baby starts crying, then a kid starts going apeshit, then you hear a muslim family loudly arguing, the food comes in and it looks less appetizing than the slop fed to pigs at a farm. You eat the meat only to realize it is raw and icecold, you awkwardly let your plate sit. Then when it arrives you want to get out as soon as possible but you have to wait at a standstill for 50 minutes while the staff does God knows what, then you get on a cramped bus which is never properly airconditioned whenever you are going to a sunny country
MIU
kiwifarms.net
- Dołączono
- 17 Kwi 2025
Well, no. US actually used to have a pretty decent train network which was from what I recall mostly abandoned or turned into highways.
The issue is that, as previously mentioned, no european is going from Amsterdam to Moscow on train (Then again in the current political climate, not by plane either
), when people talk about taking the train, they mean Lelystad to Rotterdam, Dresden to Berlin, Milan to Venice. Distances which aren't necessarily short, but also not particularly long. You're really looking at this in the completely wrong way. I mean, the common favorite country of train autists is Japan where you have basically 0 long distance trips made. I kind of assumed that states in the US more or less resembled countries and you can generally live without leaving your state outside of vacations. Did I assume this wrong?