obolo
stux⚡️Luckily we already got most of it over here 👌🏻 🚄
Pukima@stux Exactly! My brother also doesn't wanna get his driver license anymore, since it's getting so expensive (2,5-3k in €). He's gonna move to a city near us anyway, but the public transport has a lot of room to improve.
ZZ Bottom
❤️
Patrick Schmitz@stux regular, fast, accessible and easy?
I wouldn't use any of those terms for the dutch public transport, especially when get outside of one of the big cities.
@schmitzel76 Mwaa it works 
I was born in the North-East so i know the struggles about public transit 
still, a lot better then most countries
@stux it can be a lot worse, but also a lot better. I have been living my entire life along the west coast, enclosed by Den Haag, Rotterdam and Delft. With those cities nearby, you would expect acceptable public transport. But you definately need to have a car to get anywhere. Sometimes it is even faster to go by bike than by public transport.
Natsura 
@stux which makes you super lucky. I live in the United States...and I don't drive... so I am stuck either taking multiple hours to get from point A to point B, or... I have to pay a lot of money to take a Lyft. 
Mozzarella Mommy@stux One can dream 😔️, unfortunately South Africa is so big it'd be pretty expensive to build rail infrastructure, and service delivery is dog tier so I doubt it'd run as well. I enjoyed my time in the Netherlands so much 🇳🇱. Even though it was a holiday it was nice to not stress about transport or getting lost because there was always a bus/tram/train to take you back 🚄.
Also, it may be the currency value difference (1€ = R20) but Ubers were ridiculously expensive 😵💫️.
Also, it may be the currency value difference (1€ = R20) but Ubers were ridiculously expensive 😵💫️.
Leah 
@stux get ready for... Self Driving trains. And that is possible now not some day in the future
Maxim Weinstein@stux I'm currently visiting Amsterdam, and I can confirm.
Fiona@stux I've heard really great things about Dutch public transport so looking forward to exploring around the Dordrecht area where we just rented a place gof my husband who now works partly in NL.
Mental@stux May I present you Berlin? It has it all, good public transportation, amazin local leadership and good distribution of wealth.
Wait what? They elected a new local government last year? Should be fine right? Absolutely, now all the plans for a city *not* evolving around cars have been terminated. Even better, they have deconstructed already existing bike lanes and replaced them with regular streets.
Also more parking inside the city cause we love to inhale smog.
🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🐧 🥦I want the trains too, but as an American I want the electric cars too. The U.S. is too big for 100% coverage by passenger trains.
Magnus Ahltorp@Methylcobalamin @stux You do know that the US existed before the automobile, right? And, there is no such thing as “too big for trains”.
Sure there is room for some electric cars, but not as a one-to-one replacement. You need to have radically fewer cars.
Do you live in the United States?
@Methylcobalamin I do know that the US is older than the automobile and that you had a widely used passenger train network. I don’t have to live there to know that.
Maybe the phrase you’re looking for is “sparsely populated”. That is *caused* by the car use, and can be undone.
Thank you for answering my question. You don't live in the U.S..
Most of the tracks in the U.S. are used for freight. Large scale passenger train routes haven't existed for the better part of a century. Much of the track has been removed and turned into walking paths and parks.
Rebuilding an entire country to be passenger train friendly is not a realistic idea. Even when passenger trains were the thing, people still needed cars & buses to get to and from them.
@Methylcobalamin You only added Alaska and Hawaii since then, right? How was the US smaller in any meaningful way a century ago than it is now? Or are you saying that technology is so much worse now than a century ago that it’s impossible because of that? It doesn’t make any sense at all.
I have a poor friend who lives in a cottage in rural West Virginia. It is a 15 mile trip on a deserted road to reach even a convenience store. There are a lot of people like her, a lot of people worse off too. A train or a bus system will not help them much.
Giving advice to a country you haven't lived in is not an intelligent thing to do. No disrespect.
@Methylcobalamin There are people like that in Sweden as well. We have trains. Everywhere? No. But the key is, how many people live like what you’re describing? 99%? 10%? 1%? 0.1%?
Why should these few people be the reason the rest of you travel by car? It’s not really because you have do it in solidarity, right?
There are MORE than a few people like that in the U.S..
Your advice is extreme, almost pie-in-the-sky extreme. Rebuilding an entire country.
You don't live here. You don't know the country. You don't know the situation so you can't give intelligent advice.
@Methylcobalamin So how many percent? If it were even 50%, which is ridiculous, that would mean that 50% don’t live like that.
I might not live there, but I obviously know a lot more about US history than you. The country was rebuilt for the railroads. Then it was rebuilt for the cars.
It’s not pie-in-the-sky to build rail networks, abolish the most harmful zoning rules, and narrow over-wide car lanes to make way for bicycle paths and sidewalks. It’s easy. Technically, maybe not politically.
Krzysztof Stenografow@stux i want warm, bright, wind- and rainproof sidewalks and public transport stops free of stinky abnegates and aggressive lumps before cities would be redesigned to be not around cars. Howgh.
@flamenco108 @stux And I want to be free from human-induced floods and droughts.
Frits@stux Yeaaahhhh!!!
Michael Ormsby@stux Interesting thing about Mastodon is the higher percentage of European participants. US and EU people start comparing lifestyles. Personally I think this is a good thing.
As a US resident I’m frustrated by the way cars dominate our landscape. I use a car but there are times when I wish it was safer and more pleasant to bicycle. Within the US it varies from city to city.
Also, my wife has early-onset Alzheimer’s and can’t drive. As we get older bicycle may be a good fallback option.
rayrayrayraydog@stux American here. As long as they have bathrooms I'm in. Too bad it's not going to happen
HeatherTX@stux
Here in Texas, we have cars and trucks and exploding rockets to Mars. 🫤
Some of us would like fast trains (and have wanted them for decades).
In a couple of cities, we have tiny commuter trains that run a few miles. 🤦♀️🤷♀️
Here in Texas, we have cars and trucks and exploding rockets to Mars. 🫤
Some of us would like fast trains (and have wanted them for decades).
In a couple of cities, we have tiny commuter trains that run a few miles. 🤦♀️🤷♀️
OddMinus1@stux I would love to see it. I wonder how a few things would be solved. Like if I would want to move to a different appartment, would I have to pack up my bed, sofa, table bags and other items and carry onto trains? And how are emergencies handled? Fire trucks, ambulances and police cars would require some substitution. I'm sure there are good hypothetical systems for this, but my mind is narrowly locked to the current infrastructure.
Aspen Proposal@stux The best case scenario that I have heard for self-driving cars pairs them with the sharing economy and largely eliminates car ownership. Reduces the number of vehicles by 90%, eliminates most parking lots and garages but still maintains a high level of convenience.
Aloha_Cecilia@stux Great post!
Existenz Häretiker@stux
I want free public transport so that mobility is no longer linked to income. Mobility should be a basic right.
I want free public transport so that mobility is no longer linked to income. Mobility should be a basic right.