https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unsustainable
not capable of being prolonged or continued : not sustainable
America is just too car centric
Yeah, I think we are certainly learning it, albeit slowly. When we set up our suburbia world, it was fine, because there were just fewer people, and we had the room to do it. It’s now chaos, you take your life in your hands driving to work, it costs an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, we designed ourselves into a corner, and (at least where I live) trying to fix it feels insurmountable. And I live in a place with some of the best trains outside of Manhattan. And they’re terrible.
No solutions here. Just observations.
The rich are loving it because they have more reason to fire people.
You can’t do anything until the problem is immediate you can’t do anything that would take time solutions not allowed infrastructure is illegal only car same forever no change material conditions are a personal attack injustice offense against me
You know whats also an offense? Your lack of punctuations.
Hi, I’m Trevor Moore. Did you know that it’s illegal to say “I want to kill the President of the United States of America”?
RIP Trevor Moore, one of the funniest (and whitest) kids u know.
He died like a Russian dissident except his death was actually an accident
It is going to be very funny (read: horrifying) watching the American economy entirely grind to a halt, due to our car centric design of everything just completely imploding as ICE vehicle commuting itself becomes a luxury.
We’re so fucking delusional about this.
Cars are unaffordable.
Gas is unaffordable.
Public transit basically doesn’t exist outside of some major cities, but not even close to all.
If it costs more to go to work and be able to go to work, than you are paid for working, it is imminently rational to not go to work.
Just most people in general will completely lose their minds as this gets worse.
What will win?
Just get an EV or Hybrid or Motorcycle or E Bike…
Or…
No, cuz that’s gay/stupid/‘unreasonable’… ?
The problem in the US is that everything is to far from everything else thanks to low density, sprawling suburbs. Public transport works best in high density neighborhoods where they constantly have enough passengers that allows for a bus every 5 minutes. The other difference is that in my city you don’t get any free parking, because the land value is insane and parking garages charge something like $10/h or so. This means for me driving into the city would be expensive, inconvenient and slow because of the traffic lights on every corner, so bus or tram wins every time over the car.
Worry not, 15 year financing will save North America!
Coming soon:
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Or just can’t afford to buy a new vehicle, ironically enough. I would love little more than to get rid of my car for an EV right now but I was barely staying afloat before gas prices started to surge, now it’s just even more precarious.
I guess you could put it like this:
How do we improve traffic?
Raise gas prices, dramatically.
Anybody who cannot just stop driving will tell you the many many ways why that’s a terrible idea without like 15 other things done first
Apparently motorcycles are selling really well. Ebikes are gonna be big winners in town too. Transit ridership appears to.be slightly up but lots of cuties are still below pre pandemic levels due to cuts
I would LOVE a motorcycle, but the reality is that if anything hits you, even a tiny car, you’re going to get smeared. Best case scenario, you just destroy one leg if you fall over.
I have literally had dreams about riding a motorcycle, but I just can’t balance the risk on that one. If the rider makes a small mistake, dead. If there is a foreign object in the road that you hit and go flying, dead. If a deer pops out in front of you, dead. If some crazy person in a tiny car gets mad at you, dead. If some crazy person in a big truck gets mad at you, dead.
There are so many ways to be dead and so little between you and a lot of big immovable objects. Our little meaty bodies are not meant to sustain the forces that happen in a motorcycle crash. Yeah, you should wear a good helmet and all the riding gear, but at most, it will just serve to contain the meat paste that your body will be transformed into if you get hit hard.
So depressing. It looks like so much fun.
Yeah I lost a friend to one in college in a rather horrific crash and I’m not nearly as athletic or coordinated as he was, decided I’d always stay away from them after that happened.
But at the same time, using mopeds and motorcycles is extremely common in Central and South America, Asia, and Africa.
And many of those places have road infrastrucure as bad quality as ours.
Yeah, if 10% of US drivers just switched instantly from cars to motorcycles, that’d be quite dangerous, because most American car drivers are idiots who shouldn’t own cars or be able to drive them.
But… if 10 or 20 or 30% of US car drivers just… stop driving, full stop… and then more people switch to motorbikes…
Might be less of a blood bath?
I don’t want to justify the use of cars, but the reality is that it’s a big place here. Also, much of the place has winter. A motorcycle is more of a toy than transportation unlike other countries. A lot of people can’t afford a car and a motorcycle–hell, they can barely afford the car.
Now our obsession with big trucks is just stupid.
I sold my bike after getting into a head on collision in my car when some guy playing with his phone decided to smooch his headlights with mine, had I been on two wheels I’d be dead. Get a dirtbike and go off road, just as fun to twist the throttle without the traffic and road rage.
San Diego is about to increase fares and reduce service. They seem to think they have a captive audience in the poors, the disabled, the old.
Yet there are so many deaths on motorcycles. This week alone there has been at least one death a day where I live. I used to want to buy a bike. Nope.
I’m patiently waiting to see what else it takes for Americans to overthrow this government.
From his pedophile ring to unlawful executive orders, wars, tariffs… Trump keeps breaking the law and acts outside their beloved constitution. All with consent from the majority in both ruling parties, either by direct support ® or silence (D).
They won’t.
Despite what you hear on lemmy, the average american is not living in some kind of fascist hellscape. They are working a pretty decent job for a wage that pays their bills, and everything for them is more or less the same as it was under Biden. They are unhappy with the increased cost of things - but they aren’t even close to “riot in the streets”.
Instead, their strategy will be:
- ignore the federal government until the next election
- vote in opposition politicians in city and state elections in the meantime
Legally, the states can’t make laws that contradict federal law. But as the case of marijuana legalization has shown, the federal government is very hesitant to push back on laws passed by states with broad popular appeal. So in the meantime, we’ll likely see moves by the states to become more autonomous, and will see more anti-Trump politicians make names for themselves and get ready for the national stage.
My 60 year old dad straight up said “idk why people get so worked up, the president won’t affect your life that much anyway”. Even people who hate trump still have families, children, a life that while bad, is still worth holding onto for them. Better to keep their head down and try to scrape by with their loved ones than go off to die in a revolution. And who would lead them?
People like to talk about grand ideas of revolution and overthrowing government, but then reality sets in while trying to actually work out the nuts and bolts of it.
some of us have seen the bs over the last decades though and did not have kids and may be willing to fight just to hold our heads up. Some kids to will see the bs and take a stance. Thing is it does not go right to violent revolution. Some of us will bartley the scrivner it up and it will wratchet in multiple ways.
I mean… what was the last significant action you took against the administration? Like, something you had to go out of your way to do, that cost you some amount of time, money, effort, or risk? How many other people were helping you?
Nice try Kash.
I protest regularly and irregularly. It takes time and other people is kind of variable. During the last election I worked to get a person on the ballot. Helping is just something you do. Sometimes people have more complex things and need some help with setup or managment of it. I like to keep a pretty managable thing for myself that fits who I am but I will stow it to help someones more significant thing take shape. I have been involved in some planning and making of things.
Yep it’s the classic “first they came for” dilemma. Your dad is probably a straight white guy with a decent job cruising to retirement. That’s great for him and his family. No need to do anything to push back on the trends now while it’s easy because it’s not affecting him.
It’s definitely been awful for a whole lot of people though. Immigrants and brown Americans are getting ICE’d (the detention centers are worse than most people want to know 🙈). Trans people are being harassed and pushed out of society, they can’t even renew their passport without having their gender forcibly changed or feel safe going to the bathroom.
There are real things that folks like him could do to show the GOP that they need to pull back, but the truth is they are going to wait until they come for them, once it is too late.
Your dad is probably a straight white guy with a decent job cruising to retirement.
If this were the actual cause, then where are all the gay Mexicans rioting in the streets. There should be, at minimum, millions, if protesting and rioting were popular ideas.
Null hypothesis: until their lives are significantly impacted, most people will ignore the administration and wait for it to blow over. Not because they are scared, but because they are busy and have lives that they care about living.
I have a number of coworkers that are immigrants, black, etc. It’s still been hard to get them intricately engaged in the subject of politics, and they’ve still trusted immigration/customs when traveling internationally.
To a lot of people in more stable communes of the USA, it’s not life/death. But I will grant, “invasions” like Minneapolis, or the abduction of Rumeysa Ozturk, do pull people into that fight.
(I will admit to being that second one. I only saw it as racism, until I read more into the oppression of Gaza. It was a subject I had been relatively ignorant on, or had a “both sides” attitude on until then)
There are street clashes happening in various cities periodically now. It’s just not full on storming the Bastille levels. Yet. The AI bubble is hanging over us, ready to implode any day now and the Iran war is gonna make that worse, nevermind any other unknown factors that might happen
Your dad could be wrong. There is a turning point where a snowball effect will start where when the bottom part of the economy can’t make it to the end of the month, the rest of the country will feel the consequences.
If things continue as is, cities with expensive housing are gonna end up with shortages of janitors and baristas because they all left due to being priced out
Sadly you are probably right. The only decent ones speaking up are AOC and Bernie, and they have been yelling into the void for many years now.
But the large majority has nothing to hide, is white and is not affected until it’s too late. First they come for the…
Didn’t Bernie come close-ish to winning the Democratic national primary for president and push a great number more people to identify as socialist, to the point where Mamdani openly ran as a socialist and became mayor of NYC?
Also, iirc, the US is no longer majority white. And Trump had sizeable latino support in the last election. I think that people just don’t categorize themselves into identity groups as much as some would like to believe, and simply have a default state of hoping that bad times will blow over
You are right, no matter the colour of your skin or the minority group you belong to, most people prefer kicking down.
Let’s not tax billionaires, I’ll be one next week. Humans are terrible at self awareness and we have been stripped of solidarity by algorithms on top of that.
On small scales (towns, communities) solidarity works. That’s why we should work on reconnecting. Meet your neighbours, join a club. Maybe this is what also helped Mamdani? I sure hope the US will figure this out, Bernie is too old now but AOC would make a wonderful leader.
It’s already happened, the coup is done.
I still see a small chance to reverse this, if only the rest of the world wouldn’t continue sucking up to this criminal government.
The funny thing is how you pretend that it wouldn’t be the same fucking thing in any other country. I don’t recall seeing this line of garbage about Hungarians “allowing” Orban to control the country for 16 years.
The article is about the US.
But since you mention him, Orbán was plenty bad, afaik he acted largely within the law. Like the gerrymandering in the US that disenfranchises minority voters. And as I said, Trump acts outside the law in addition to all the fucked up stuff they’re doing by the book.
hes saying that people were not suggesting hungarians allowing orban to do things. Honestly Im pretty sure I did see things blamine hungarians for the state hungry with voting and such though. So not sure I agree on him. Still I get that many people are nasty despite the many americans tha actually are fighting in the ways they can.
There was plenty critique for Orbán here, I really cannot stand the whataboutism this comment shows.
We have our problems in Europe as well that we need to takle quickly and decisively. If Trump gets away with shit there is someone else in the world taking note, it’s a preview of what may come for us soon.
My original comment is in part frustration but also a genuine question. People being driven into existential crises just sucking it up and taking on a 4th job? I would have beheaded Ronald McDonald long before.
If it makes you feel better I am unemployed and protesting. I will keep protesting even if I get a job (technically I substitute teach). Im more take a bullet than leave a bullet though. So we either get through it like south korea and hungary or I eventually fall one way or another. But yeah I don’t get people able to live day to day business as usual.
How I feel is irrelevant, but thank you for protesting. Getting out there regularly is important and may encourage others to join you.
I believe we will all get through this, the question is how much unjust suffering and death needs to happen first.
Ukraine did a thing iirc that lead to them being a massive resistance to Russia.
Bus lanes and trams are a symbol of “communism” and car is a sign of “freedom” until you realize that the ultimate freedom is choosing to walk, bike, take transit, or drive to your destination.
his employer won’t reimburse him for mileage once he fully transitions into his new role next month
2018 Chevy Silverado, which he uses to carry equipment and supplies for the hotels, this year.
Well, that’s a fucking problem. Don’t take a job in which you are expected to use a personal vehicle for work purposes. Work provided vehicle and submit receipts for gasoline. Insurance company won’t like it. You won’t like how fast your car goes through tires and then dies. Etc.
I still don’t get truck culture.
I grew up kinda out in the sticks, fair number of religious nuts and racists.
You know what they’d say about trucks, in the late 90s?
If you need a truck, like, really actually need a truck, you get it and use it only for actually hauling shit, or towing something.
Then you have a sedan or similar for everything else.
Like, … the yokels of 20/30 years ago would all be laughing at the yokels of today.
I don’t get how these people can be this aggresively stupid, its literally an insult to their ‘heritage’, fucked up as that heritage may or may not be.
It’s masculine insecurity. Our culture doesn’t produce men who are secure in their gender identity so they have to constantly proofs it to themselves and others all the time. Once you see it, you realize it’s the root cause from everything from truck nuts to looksmaxxing
Right but like, I’m basically from them.
And I am a guy.
And I have been insecure.
I addressed this via self reflection, learning about myself and others, finding things I wanted to become good at and then becoming good at them.
Like I totally agree with you that trucknutz are literally gender affirming care, but I… I don’t get it.
I can’t relate to or understand such people beyond pathologizing them and basically treating them as an NPC sub type.
They would! I remember my gear head uncles scoffing and laughing at the extended cab in the 90s.
They would absolutley laugh at these yuppies. Now some of them are the yuppies.
its wild.
Yep I remember that too, specifically
Extended cab? Ridiculous. Like ‘hwaaaak ptooie’ ridiculous.
Whatchu gonna do with that?
Take your wife down to the feed and seed, ask her for help liftin bags into the bed?
Ahhahahahah!
Swear to god I heard nearly exactly that at some point.
This implies your wife is so large she couldn’t just sit in the passenger seat to one’s right.
… correct.
Multi-stage / trap joke, they want you to walk into that one so they can start making fun of you and her from that angle too.
Your description of the 80s and 90s lines up with Charleston SC, but not with backcountry SC, or anywhere I went in Alabama or Texas.
The default is a pickup, sedans are for posh people.
I feel like the legality of not reimbursing him for using his personal vehicle for work purposes is fairly dubious though I’d be lying if I said I knew the specifics of the laws there.
Employer: taps head They’re a contractor and I don’t pay then enough to live.
I think in his case he’s salary as a regional manager. Contractor is a whole other thing.
I can only see so much of the article so I don’t know where he’s based, but I know in some places the reimbursement is mandatory. Per IRS mileage reimbursement is currently $0.725/mile. Working in hospice I drive to patients homes with my supplies full time, which cuts me a check for about $300-450 mo, which more than covers gas.
I actually just switched to a hybrid so since reimbursement stays the same, it’ll start paying for the car a well.
Given the cost of fuel, a bus pass for me (if I still had to commute, I work from home now) for a month is now just over $800/mo.
6 years ago, that was $375/mo.
I don’t think the issue is limited to car drivers, I suspect more than a few folks who took public transit with me are looking at a pretty impactful monthly cost.
Trains. Overhead wire. Green energy. Build it now or suffer later.
I agree.
That does nothing to address the current (rapidly rising) commuting costs happening now, though.
We need Americans to feel the pain hard enough they screen for trains
Would be wonderful.
Unfortunately the time to do it was years ago. Obviously the next best time is to start now, but it will be years before results and that doesnt help those impacted now.
We need to Americans to come to psychologically distrust driving.
Way too much land, way too little education, and way too much selfishness to allow for that.
Buy a bike. Carpool. Work from home.
Militarize against police for eviction defense?
I think you missed the part where I pointed out that I do work from home.
I’d also point out that riding a bike for the commutes I’m mentioning is a non-starter, its too large of a distance for a daily commuter ride.
Again, the point is that this is not a car commuter exclusive problem, and its going to impact people who use mass transit. There are plenty of train lines that aren’t powered and require dual electric/diesel engines. Infrastructure installation to extend lines takes time, not to mention the lack of rail infrastructure in the first place that impacts the overwhelming majority of the US.
where I pointed out
Yes I did where was it
the infrastructure to deal with this problem does not currently exist because we tore it all down after world war 2 and that is a problem with building this infrastructure even though the problem will only get worse.
That’s a hell of a take
relief now!
You pissed in your bed America. I was telling you to stop now you’re too tired to stand and complaining about all the piss.
Yes I did where was it
Very first sentence.
Given the cost of fuel, a bus pass for me (if I still had to commute, I work from home now) for a month is now just over $800/mo.
Also, don’t make shit up and fake quote because you misread and want to be shitty about it.
too large of a distance for a daily commuter ride
You didn’t mention this: what distance did you have in mind?
The current average commute for my state is about 15mi, but that number (annoyingly) includes WFH which skews the numbers.
Mine, for example, would be a 60mi commute if I still had one.
Edit: And I don’t think I should have to really mention that the overwhelming majority of commuters are leaving their town for work…
Ride that bike 20 miles to work. Easy!
I do know a guy who rides his bike everywhere and he is HOT. Saw him in a suit and he has the kind of body that suits were designed to flatter. Wow.
Some people do they’re in great shape from all the biking and don’t need gym memberships
You want infrastructure the nerds have been shouting about since it was torn up 81 years ago and infrastructure to make this not happen again or not matter takes time which is why we didn’t want it torn up and then wanted to build it back maybe listen to us next time
You ignored my last suggestion of quitting the job and joining with your neighbors to ban evictions in your community.
We had electric buses with overhead wires in São Paulo in the 80s.
The US had electric interurban railroads in the Rockies a hundred years ago.
It can happen very fast.
No I’m sorry I’m informed that trains do jot ql4eady exist and so cannot exist
Yeah. I feel very lucky to have moved to a place where I have an electric train and an electric bus system powered by hydroelectric.
Oh wait, climate change means our glacial flow is 12% of the typical rate and the province is announcing a datacenter construction plan?
Well fuck me too I guess.
What… the fuck…? Where do you live that this costs 800 FREAKING DOLLARS???
Northeast US.
The bus stop by me also was shut down, so if I were to do it now, I’d have to drive 25min east. The parking is limited though, so either its pay someone for a monthly parking spot, get there early enough (5:50am, after that its unlikely you’ll find a spot), or get dropped off. Or take the risk of a parking ticket I suppose.
Or I could drive 15 min west, away from where I’d be going, and pay an hourly rate for parking. About $25/day, or a monthly cost of ~$250 (last I checked with someone who goes this route). It’ll add another $30/mo to the commuter pass for the bus as well.
(EDIT: Just checked out of curiosity - and no more monthly parking there, its now only flat rate of $2.50/hr. There are other lots a block or two away in a few directions that may still offer monthly, but I couldn’t say.)
If I drive for about 30 minutes, I can get to a train station where its $400/mo, though the parking cost there is higher at $300/mo, my cousin does that ride but his wife drops him off.
These are not uncommon costs for commuting into major cities.
That is horrifying. I can get a monthly transit pass in my city for $88, which is actually down from 10 years ago, when it was $100.
in my city
There’s the difference. Most people aren’t commuting inside the city. If I were to live in the city where my job is, commuting would be drastically cheaper (though I’d also just bike it, but thats a different matter).
The cost of living there, though, is astronomically high. It also wouldn’t work out for my wife, who works more in the agricultural industry, not even getting into the other factors like public schools/quality of education, air quality, etc.
It been a lonnngg time, but in 2008 a 30 day bus pass was $45 in connecticut. brb, gonna go look it up.
https://www.cttransit.com/fares $63 bucks
edit edit, I see you are accounting for… your parking too. well, thats… different.
In 2008, I think the train pass for where I was then would have been $65/mo
Now that pass is… (Checking)… Oof, $100 for the weekly, $295 for the monthly.
on a bus? what state?
idk why a train is so much more, I think I am comparing apples to oranges here, apologies, ill hush now.
I was just commenting on the train pass I had at that time with the last comment.
And NJ. NJT doesnt run everywhere (honestly it runs very little outside of a few counties IMO), there are companies that service a large portion of the state as NJT registered operators.
I took mass transit the moment I went more than a few miles (of course it also jumped to a 30mi each way commute at that point), but ive been pure WFH for a long while now.
That said, the increases in bus costs of late directly caused by the increases in fuel costs are astounding. A lot of people are going to be hurt by this.
My main point in this thread has been simple - its not just car drivers impacted by fuel costs. Commuters taking mass transit are already being hit by it, and its going to get worse.
Commenting for update on response ^
?
What update are you expecting here?
Your response to that comment. I wanted to know, so I used a comment as a bookmark.
Wait. Where are you that a bus pass changes price based on fuel?
Northeast US.
Costs go up -> price goes up.
EXACTLY. GIVE A CHOICE!!
I myself am a car person but still. Give us a choice. I would be ALL FOR banning cars in our downtown area and just having to bike walk or bus to get there from farther away. Cars ruin cities.
We need them in rural. But thats far fewer people.
Bus lanes and trams are a symbol of “communism” and car is a sign of “freedom”
This is basically it.
I saw a post the other day that argued to the conservative mind there must be an underclass. There must be poor people whose lives suck. If you try to make things good for everyone, you’re going against nature and will just make things bad for everyone.
Thus good public transit is bad. If different classes of people all mingle then it’s like mixing your food up on the plate and that’s just wrong!
They really are like children
But but the oil and car companies DESERVE our income! Corporate rulers are just born better! /s
Thank god.
No, not commuting. Commuting in cars.
They could take public transit and spend three hours one way commuting to their eight hour shift.
I will be going back to the office soon. It is crap.
I could walk about seven blocks to a train, take it to central station, transfer to a different train which has a stop about two miles from my office in a non-walkable place (less so if it’s raining, snowing, etc). I would then have to take an uber those last two miles.
I mapped it out, it’s about a 1.5 hour adventure each way, three hours total if nothing goes wrong. Still going to get wet on the walk to work if it’s raining/snowing for that seven block walk.
Or I can drive 40 minutes one way. While I do not enjoy paying for gas or contributing to pollution, I would not held hostage to that commute. Also, when I need to pick up someone in my family, grab something at the grocery store, etc now I’d have to go home, get the car and head back out anyway vs just doing it on the way home.
I would love to be able to do the trip end to end in a reasonable time, but it just isn’t possible. Now had work not closed their downtown office and relocated to the fucking sticks, I would have had a train stop at the end of the block and a 20 min train ride on either end. Good thing the corp is saving lots of money by putting out in central bumfuck where the rent is cheaper. Thanks for that.
I do two hoursand it’s rough. My bus route is a good cannidate for bus lanes and high frequency, though they’re not gonna run more than once an hour in the early AM because I’m an edge case
If the average American is working mostly to pay rent and commuting costs, they’re less likely to look for a new job, or to try to improve conditions at their current job.
But hey. At least you know you’re FREE.
But we’re not even free. I want a refund
So now you’re telling me that investing in a culture that denies basic physical reality might result in a situation where reality is inconvenient?
There’s now less traffic during rush hour. But you know, just like with the pandemic, those cars will come back doubled just as soon as fuel becomes cheap again regardless of who made it cheap again.
Stupid trump is literally the green party! LOL. He’s forcing people to think about commuting! He’s forcing people to get rid of their cars…flooding the used car market and affecting their price so others may afford a ride. He is also making food and foreign good expensive… So people are loosing weight and buying less junk! Shipping companies will be forced to use paper based packaging because it has less plastic… And lighter products so less fuel is used.
LOL… Not lol. The price to pay is this gigantic ball of hurt just slowly accumulating. I hope it dissipates in a slow leak rather than a big pop.
People already made several attempts at his life.
Takes just one angry marine…
And then an angry nightclub owner.
Can you tell that Marine to hurry the fuck up?
They are a bit arthritic, just need to distract the nurse for them a bit, and off they go to finish the war they fought 86 years ago.
I mean, commuting was unaffordable for a lot of American workers beforehand, too. I knew a guy that worked at a grocery store, had his car destroyed by an uninsured driver, and when he had a night shift, there was no public transportation. He had to shell out more in Uber and taxi to get to and from work than he made on his shift.
It’s just a lot more, I guess. At least, EVs will start selling again, right?
If you can avoid highway to get to work, a .50cc scooter sips gas and doesn’t need a motorcycle license to ride.
Bicycles have infinite mileage…
Or if you’re like the guy I saw the other day, you can intentionally take the highway during rush hour and split lanes the whole way.
