Bread and CircusesIs this too much to ask? Evidently it is. 😕
#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis
#ClimateAction #WarOnCars #BanCars
Hughster@breadandcircuses Not everyone lives in a city. All those millions of people in towns and villages will always need private transport of some kind, unless one would rather try to forcibly depopulate the countryside like some modern-day version of the Highland Clearances.
LisPi@hughster @breadandcircuses Did you know that most of the old-time USA was built on the back of trains & rails?
Those thing were abandoned or torn up during the 20th century to make the automobile industry happy. They literally bought rail operations to shut them down.
@lispi314 It wasn't some auto industry conspiracy: cars became omnipresent and trains less used because cars were much more convenient and flexible than trains, serving every location in the country point to point. It happened in pretty much every economically developed country in the world, even though the US went further than most in reshaping development around it.
Trying to deny this is pointless and doesn't help us solve the problems of car dependency and traffic in cities and large towns.
Sharon Gibson Morgan@hughster @lispi314 The construction of the Interstate Highway System, begun in 1956, also contributed to the convenience of the automobile over train travel. It definitely cut down on travel time to get from point A to point B. For instance, the time it takes to get from Milwaukee to Chicago is about 90-minute drive from I-94 E to the Loop. The scenic route takes 3 hours, 12 minutes.
@SharonGibson3 @hughster An investment of course that would have had overall much better returns if instead it had been made out of railways.
And that they were operated by the state rather than purely by profit-based organizations, as that has also predictably led to disaster almost everywhere it has been tried. With Japan as a notable exception that got around that through strict & active regulation.