If only our public transport was affordable. We pay way more than other European countries (besides maybe Germany and the Scandinavian countries), especially when you consider how little distance you’re really travelling. As an example, to get from Eindhoven central station to Amsterdam central station you take 1 train, it takes you 1 hour and 20 minutes and you pay €22,70 for a one way ticket. If we’re looking at distance, this is about 120 km. This means that to get there and go back home you pay €45,40.
If you travel by yourself you can argue that it’s worth it to take the train there since parking + fuel isn’t that cheap here either. However, as soon as you have more than 1 person the car quickly becomes the cheaper option, even with parking included. As long as they don’t solve this issue I don’t see any success in their push to get people to use public transport. And I know the solution will probably be to make everything even more expensive but that’s not going to help in the long run either…
A lot of people only tend to look at the fuel costs and maybe parking. However you’re forgetting a big part of the costs of driving which is that every km adds to the depreciation in the cars worth as well as requiring more maintenance.
It’s very easy to say just buying fuel is pretty cheap, but those costs are easily doubled if you look at the full costs. Check out www.anwb.nl/auto/autokosten for examples of how much variable costs/km actually are.
That said, this is for solo travelers… It’s true that when you add more people the costs become much lower / person if you go by car since the costs just get multiplied with public transport. Exactly why my next vacation with 4 people will still be by car…
However I’ve started taking the train for work now which still comes out a lot lower (40% discount outside of rush hours helps a lot too!)
Thanks for the link, I never had a look at that before. If I look at my car, the variable costs per km (without the fuel) are €0,15 per km. The fixed costs are only interesting if you don’t have a car and are looking at getting one, I have to pay those costs regardless of whether I leave it at home or not. That means that taking the car in my example above would add another €18 which does change things a little bit.
However, my main point was that people would flock to public transport if they were using the prices you sometimes see in other countries. For example, in Italy it costs me around €10 to get a return ticket from Florence to Pisa. The trains are slightly less fancy of course but they’re still very serviceable. If they could make it so you pay maybe €30 for a return ticket from Eindhoven to Amsterdam, it would make it a lot more enticing to take the train.
If I were to drive my car to work I would double the amount I drive per year. If you don’t think this adds a lot of costs then I don’t know what to tell you. If you drive somewhere incidentally sure, it doesn’t really matter.
In most countries the maintenance costs for highways are funded from the budget of the country, and thus split on the whole population. Those amounts are not included when someone makes a cost calculation for driving from A to B, unless one has to pay for a vignette for using the highway.
Also the cost of the car maintenance per kilometer is often not taken into account.
What is also annoying is that the budget allocated for the maintenance of the railway infrastructure is in most countries a lot less than that allocated for road infrastructure, further increasing the costs of train tickets (and thus the apparent cost of train travel) when compared to road travel.
The trains and subways are already very full. Just making things cheaper will not be enough. We need to massively invest in new lines and more frequent trains everywhere.
One of the train companies here are using a 3 coach commuter train for long intercity travel. It’s extremely unpleasant, people are always standing in the aisle and sitting on their suitcases by the doors.
I honestly have no idea why they can’t just… make the train longer?! The 30 min frequency is not an issue for me, although it isn’t great. The constant overcrowding on the other hand is horrible.
Germany has monthly local public transport passes for 49€ for all local public transport including regional trains. So if you wanted to go that kind of distance, you propbaly buy that instead and use public transport for some trips in the city or for some other trip. For groups some states have state passes, which can be very cheap as well. Lower Saxony for example has the Niedersachsenticket, which is 25€ for the first person, another 6€ for the next and then 5€ for each of the next three people. That works for a day after 9am for all regional public transport in the state. So you could get everybody within a normal sized car on a similar distance for 46€.
In other words, I am sorry, but public transport in the Netherlands is more expensive then in Germany. At least it is on time thou.
That pass doesn’t cover trains you actually want to take between regions. It’s basically a subway pass equivalent.
Source: I still pay €25 to go to the nearest city because it’s a 1+ hour train ride and going local station to local station sucks. Yes I have been busted by the Deutche Bahn employee checking Tickets and thought the country wide pass worked.
Ulm- München is abou 120km and it takes to 2:00 by regional train. Berlin - Magdeburg is also similar and at about 1:45. Both can be used using that pass.
Aalen to Stuttgart can’t. Stuttgart to München Can’t.
“using that pass” means not taking the direct train line. And stopping locally.
Don’t ask me, ask a DB employee telling me that pass isn’t valid for those connections.
Edit: here’s the carve out
Please note, however, that the Deutschland-Ticket is not valid on trains operated by DB Fernverkehr AG or other long-distance providers such as FlixTrain (e.g. IC, EC, ICE, as well as RE operated by DB Fernverkehr AG). DB Fernverkehr is currently in talks with the German state governments and authorities about exceptions on certain sections of line.
The Deutschland-Ticket is currently also permitted for long-distance trains (IC, EC, ICE) between Rostock Hbf and Stralsund Hbf.
Sounds like a nice concept, I wish we had something like that here. And you might think trains run on time but there’s actually quite a lot of delays recently. Because our network is relatively small and almost everything passes through Utrecht all it takes is 1 minor disruption somewhere around there and it’s mayhem.
Feel free to tell me if I’m wrong but I think it’s cheaper to subsidise public transport than to build and maintain car infrastructure. The way I see it is that every euro spent on making transport cheaper is 2 euros saved.
Oh I fully agree with you, it’s just that it doesn’t seem like they invest much in public transport. It feels like you hear more about lines closing down and capacity on the line going down than new lines being created.
Bristol to London is about 1hr20m, ok it’s 185km so a bit longer, but the cost of a peak time return is £252.80. So it could be worse if your country decided to privatise the rail services, a natural monopoly, while keeping infrastructure and strike costs public.
Oh they privatised it alright. It’s just that the government holds all stocks for the company. So they have to subsidize the losses while fat CEO pigs run off with the profits.
This is why I always will say that the share the road campaign is and will always be pure bullshit. I love to ride my bike, but if I have to ride my bike with giant trucks and SUV’s imma going to say fuck to that and drive my car.
Cyclists need their own dedicated and barrier protected lane.
I’ve been riding for 30 years and am an advocate for motorcycling in general. Unfortunately, there are several very good reasons I can think of why this would not work in the US and by extension, Canada and Australia.
Skill:
Motorcycling is not for everyone. It requires a higher level of skill to operate a motorcycle than a car. It requires both hands and both feet, excluding many people with disabilities that otherwise could drive a car with little to no modifications.
Even small mistakes on a motorcycle have a huge impact.
Many people are intimidated by motorcycle riding.
Convenience:
I don’t advocate multi tasking when driving but I’m always sipping on a coffee or water bottle when I’m driving. You can rig up something on a motorcycle but it’s awkward.
I have a communication set up in my helmet so I can take calls and listen to music, but it’s only so-so. The wind noise interferes with the voice commands and gloves make touch screen usage awkward.
Gear:
There’s no protection from the weather or an accident other than what you wear. The appropriate gear then becomes a burden to carry around when you reach your destination (I’m an “All The Gear, All The Time” kind of guy so I always wear full face helmet, gloves, kevlar pants with padding over my regular clothes, and either a cordura, kevlar, or racing leather jacket - all with padding, and boots. The leather jacket weighs about 15 lbs by itself). Lugging that around is a pain in the ass, and the boots aren’t comfortable for walking long distances. Two armfuls of gear is simply not conducive for things like running errands, going to school where you go from class to class across a large campus, or working in a job where you can’t securely store all that gear.
Not wearing gear is a terrible idea; a fender bender in a car doesn’t throw you on the asphalt. My uncle got in and accident on a moped in a parking lot in Japan. Broke his jaw. He was going 5 mph.
Proper gear is bulky, heavy, and expensive, and it only can do so much in the way of protection and comfort.
Weather:
Many places have short riding seasons; can’t ride in snow, it’s brutal to ride in dry conditions when it’s below about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s brutal to ride in super humid conditions, it’s brutal to ride in desert heat.
It’s less safe to ride in wet conditions, period. Traction is an issue, emergency breaking is an issue, visibility is an issue, and of course, getting wet. If it’s cold and you get wet, hypothermia is an issue.
Moderate winds are a safety issue. I’ve been blown across a full lane of traffic. I’ve been blown into incoming traffic (luckily no one was coming the other way, but that was super lucky), you can be blown off of an elevated freeway section since the guard rails only go up about 3 feet in most places.
Cargo:
Limited cargo space. Ever try grocery shopping on a motorcycle? Forget that value pack of toilet paper. Costco? Um, nope.
Family:
Totally unusable for a family. Can’t transport young kids at all (infants and toddlers), can’t go anywhere with a spouse AND children (yes I’ve seen the photos of a whole family on a scooter in SE Asia and wherever else. It’s not a good idea there and it’s not a good idea here because it’s not a good idea at all. Full stop.), can’t transport kids with musical instruments or sports equipment.
Other drivers:
There would still be other drivers on the road and they’re the single most detrimental element to motorcycle safety.
Travel:
I have a touring bike and particularly enjoy motorcycle travel, but it’s way easier and more comfortable in a car, and you can bring more stuff and travel with more people.
Bottom line:
Could you replace some single and couples trips, some times of the year, in some parts of the US, Canada, and Australia? Yes. Will it make a difference? I believe it would not even move the needle.
I love the idea of a world more calibrated for motorcycles and scooters and have had the thoughts you propose here myself. The particular countries you cite have populations that prohibit mass adoption on a scale where it would have a measurable impact. I’m my opinion.
Do you have a source for that? And in particular, do you have a source which reports how many of those people were bikers killed by cars, as opposed to the actual bikes/bikers killing other people?
The report did parse out some more specific info related to causes of accidents. It’s quite detailed. I didn’t see the comparison of bikers killed by cars vs killing other people though.
In 2021, there were the most motorcycle fatalities since records were collected in the mid 1970s at 6,084. Compared to 26,585 passenger car fatalities the same year. So at the statistical peak, there were still ~4.37 car fatalities for every 1 motorcycle fatality.
You’re likely thinking about the rate of deaths per 100,000 vehicles which is much higher for motorcycles than cars.
Look at any road, anywhere, any time of day, any time of year and you will see way more cars than motorcycles. There simply aren’t enough motorcycle on the road to account for more fatalities than cars.
What do you believe is the critical difference between Americans, and people from countries where they saw the climbing death rate and decided that it was important enough to reorganize their transportation? You’ve said that it has something to do with the nature of Americans themselves. What is wrong with Americans, then?
Oh boy, this is a complicated answer. Stay with me, there no TL;DR
First, I think the death part has nothing to do with how transportation is organized outside the US. Nor will it influence transit inside the US.
Transportation has been organized by urban development. I don’t know of any example where cars were banned or taxed or otherwise discouraged due to death rates. In America, regulation was the response to automobile deaths; seat belts, removal of steel dashboards and steering wheels, inclusion of airbags, crumple zones, and as of 2018, backup cameras are mandatory due to too many deaths of children behind cars. If you have an example of other countries organizing transportation based on automobile deaths, I’d be interested to hear that.
I don’t believe that’s a thing though, so for the purpose of my response I will be disregarding death as a factor of how countries organize transportation.
I know more about European urban development than anywhere else so I’ll stick to what I know and use Europe to compare. It may be different for Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America, etc.
Here we go.
European countries had been populated with developed civilizations hundreds of years before the US. There were well developed cities and roads prior to the invention of automobiles, and they were not developed with cars in mind. The result is that there wasn’t enough room to make big wide roads to accommodate cars.
Trains came first, so some infrastructure that could have been auto centric was already dedicated to rail infrastructure.
European populations were used to living within a confined territory that has already been built out for generations before the car came along. Europeans tend to have a greater sense of shared space, community, and commonwealth; private ownership is less of a priority, and strong/strict government regulation is more common, compared to the US.
Next…
In the US, there were huge swaths of undeveloped land when the car was invented. Henry Ford was an early adopter (some say inventor, I don’t know and don’t want to look it up so we’ll say early adopter) of the assembly line, bringing car ownership within reach of average folks. I can’t remember the exact figures, but Harley-Davidsons were more expensive than a Model T. (Fun fact, both companies started in 1903.)
So you have cars being mass produced immediately upon their inception, they’re useful and flexible and extend people’s sphere of experience, and can even be cheaper than motorcycles, certainly more practical (remeber, roads are more a suggestion for ~50 years after the car was born in most places in the US). They are widely adopted, several other manufacturers join the party, and almost immediately after the invention of the mass produced automobile, the auto industry is a significant part of the economy.
One defining characteristic of America and Americans is individualism. We have all this “freedom” so we make a wide spectrum of choices about everything.
Part of that is private ownership. I am an individual, and as such I have my stuff and it’s not for anyone but me.
Now, after WWII, European economies are recovering, European cities are rebuilding within the same constrained infrastructure that was there before, while the American post war economy is flourishing, manufacturing is strong, and soldiers coming home have access to advantageous home buying programs.
In response to this confluence of events, and due to the vast swaths of undeveloped land, communities sprung up outside of, but adjacent to, urban centers. Suburbs have entered the chat.
To connect them, roads are built, and all these new cars are being manufactured now that raw materials are available again after the war. Suburbs have single family homes, not apartments or the kind of housing blocks of flats common in Europe. There’s a period of suburban sprawl, enabled by and coexisting with, roads and cars.
Now you have people experiencing an apex of private ownership: their own land, home, car. When they’re in their home the Commonwealth is not visible. When they’re in their car they’re using the Commonwealth, but individually, physically separated by steel and glass. These cars are powerful and relative to what came before, comfortable, and technical marvels.
Ok, still with me?
Branding is a thing. Advertising is a thing. Cars advertise a certain identity. Teenagers start taking old cars from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, customizing and modifying them into Hot Rods. A car is more than a car, it’s an extension of self. An exercise of personal agency. AND it’s still a vehicle (pun very much intended) for individual freedom - both freedom of movement and freedom from the Commonwealth.
Now you have this recipe where cars are baked into the DNA of America and Americans. Even though the internal combustion engine wasn’t invented here, America’s coming of age after WWII is inextricably linked to cars.
At this point, its hard to conceive of being American without at least access to a car, if not direct ownership of one. Our urban planning lost out in many ways to the suburban dream, and suburbs are too far flung and disconnected to link via rail. Suburbs then grew into their own population centers, but not in an urban manner with density. The population is all spread out. Public transit isn’t effective without density.
In order to find cheap enough housing and good enough jobs, one has to live many miles away from work, necessitating a car. Suburbs were built for cars, not walking and biking. Many don’t have sidewalks at all. Suburbs have big driveways and big garages, for big cars.
It’s also shockingly easy to get a driver’s license. Because it’s understood that you need a car.
In Europe, there’s less room to accommodate wide streets, driveways, garages. Gas is more expensive. It’s costly and more regulated to get a driver’s license.
SO!
It’s not that there’s something wrong with Americans that makes them addicted to their cars, it’s that there’s something very American about car ownership. So much so that our built environment logistically makes public transit difficult to be efficient, and people have strong relationships with their cars.
That’s my oversimplified but long winded OPINION based on my subjective experience as a former certified Harley-Davidson mechanic, former Tesla mechanic, and son of a 50+ year mass-transit city planner. I love cars and motorcycles. And I also love buses trains and trolleys.
Dude… Dude. Come on. This is like a cliche about American’s warped self-perceptions. You denied the premise without explanation (“I think the death part has nothing to do with how transportation is organized outside the US,” a truly absurd thing to say) and then went … away. Far, far away.
It isn’t about whether or not Americans are “more addicted” to automobiles. Simple political choices could be made regarding road infrastructure that would save lives without requiring that people drive any less! You don’t even mention that in your multi-story wall of text that frankly no human being is ever going to do more than scan briefly. Americans are choosing to have dangerous infrastructure, when safe infrastructure exists. Driving deaths are going UP in the USA, dramatically up, while every other major jurisdiction is continuing to bring them down, some from levels a fraction of what the USA had before the recent spike. You need to have a more sophisticated model to explain it than, “Driving is American.”
Yes, I used too many words. In doing so I buried the point.
First - you asked what I thought made Americans different which I answered. Now you’re making a different point that better policy options would result in better outcomes. Sure, that’s fine, and it’s true - but it’s not what you asked. My answer is that Americans have a relationship with cars that is not based on rational policy or optimal mobility, or mortality rates - but instead, we have an emotional and cliche warped self-perception that informs our choices, including transit in general and automobiles specifically. We can keep on that thread if you want but that was my answer. I tried to give background by explaining where I think this comes from, and disclosed that I’m basing this on my own experience; it’s my opinion.
Next - you seem to start with an assumption that I don’t agree with or frankly, even understand; this notion that transportation is somehow organized around mortality or fatality rates. Why? You have not cited anything that credibly makes this connection, and I don’t see one, so I dismissed it. It’s not a thing. Show me, prove it, explain what you mean at least; I can change my position. Currently, my position is that your premise is false or flawed. Or that “organized” is maybe a bad word choice and you mean something else perhaps.
Also - I absolutely DID provide an explanation: transit is organized around population mobility, and is related to urban development, not death rates. (Again this word organized. I have a problem with this word. Maybe “regulated” is what you’re looking for? I feel that I did address the fact that inside the US, individual freedom is sacrosanct. It’s politically very hard to get voter support for taking away personal freedom, and the status quo is a high level of personal freedom when it comes to cars.)
I sense a gulf of disconnect here: Americans are choosing to have dangerous infrastructure, when safe infrastructure exists. And I full on guffawed at Simple political choices could be made…. What American political system are you looking at? I would like two orders of that, please!! Don’t conflate “simple” with “easy”. Playing the flute is “simple” with only two elements, your breath and your finger movement. It’s not “easy” though.
A large part of my tome was dedicated to showing how Americans don’t make choices based on optimal outcomes, common sense, or what’s best for society. I don’t want to go down another rabbit hole here, but in the last presidential election nearly 75 million Americans voted for Trump, not because he’s the best choice for a leader, not because he was effective in his prior administration for the country as a whole, but - massive oversimplification warning: because he appealed to a narrow sense of self interest and proved extremely effective at delivering self interested results.
Simply put, Americans could choose a less dangerous infrastructure but don’t, in the same way they could choose less gun deaths but don’t. I don’t need a more sophisticated model to explain it because it’s not a sophisticated thing; it’s the opposite of sophisticated. It’s basic. Confounding? Frustrating? Stupid? OK, yes. But sophisticated, it is not. Sorry?
I don’t care if no human being is going to do more than scroll my wall of text, by the way, I was talking to you.
At this point, its hard to conceive of being American without at least access to a car, if not direct ownership of one.
Well, that’s privilege speaking. Poor people do not own cars. When you lose your income and calculate your runway before you starve to death on the street, the first thing you sacrifice is your car. The car’s primary function for the working class is to serve your employer. There are an entire class of Americans who do not drive.
Murder is defined in Indiana as either the intentional killing of another person without justification, or causing the death of someone while committing or attempting to commit a violent felony, regardless of intent to kill (the felony murder rule).
Definitions matter.
I’m not arguing the horrible nature of the event or careless disregard on the account of the perpetrator, but incorrect statements like this are how we’ve ended up in a situation where people throw around terms like “fascist” and “communist” for anything they don’t like, and as a result, many people have no idea what those words actually mean.
This cop had a history of pulling shit like this. He’s a murderer, and people being willing to make excuses for it and treating the police as some sort of civic religion is how we got here.
Yep! I’ve noticed my life is worth considerably less than a parked vehicle. So this sadly doesn’t surprise me. They might paint more lines though!!! So that’s neat. Right? Count the bodies like sheep.
I mean, aren’t you sick of the rampant corruption? These fucks doing whatever while you can barely afford food and rent? I am. I’m fucking sick and tired. Where is living? Where the fuck is life? We built a shit ass world and I am mad. What I love doing is playing games and messing with linux configs, i do that plenty. What I don’t enjoy is anybody with a centimeter of power becoming absolutely corrupt. Its exhausting.
Dont worry, it’ll be fine as long as we mail the police department a check for $35 bucks afterwards. Though maybe there should be s discount here, them being cops and all…
Distract myself? My guy, the world is burning, those with power are openly corrupt, we are literally just missing the seventh horn. I’m not running out in the streets ice picking people. I have people that rely on me. That doesn’t mean I’m not filled with rage every time I see another rich cuck whose leaned the entire system in his favor get exactly what he wants at the expense of us all for the 450th time.
You’re just doing it again. You’re looking for ways to justify and distract yourself from very unhealthy patterns of thought, even as they worm their way the very justifications and distractions you employ. Listen to what people are telling you.
I’m never going to be okay with our society setup how it is. So that people in power are allowed to leach from whoever with impunity. Simply because they can. Thats fucked up. I will never accept it. There is no healthy thought pattern that comes to acceptance with that reality. The wretched accept a bleak tomorrow.
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