It’s like none of you have actually been to a city in the USA having an event. Do any of you see times square on various holidays or have been to a parade?
Someone makes an admittedly lame jokey stereotype about the US.
A bit like a broad stereotype about the French liking baguettes, the Scots hating Scots, the Brits having bad teeth and talking like Austin Powers, or Germans not having a sense of humour. Even the Germans don't get offended. They've been taught that this is meant to be funny, and that the rules of etiquette suggest they should not be offended by it.
But the real punch line is always some humourless Americans taking it at face value and getting genuinely offended. "They're saying we don't have public transport. They're clearly idiots!"
Do any of you see times square on various holidays or have been to a parade?
No. No one outside the US has ever heard of New York. Just like everyone in the US drives a pickup truck everywhere. lol
The first time I took a cab in Germany, I went to a mall; dude drove right into the building. I was like “wtf is this dude doing?” As we passed a parking area and went through the concourse.
yes because the average american has made a choice to have a car-centric society with car-centric infrastructure and could totally just not use a car to get 8 miles across town and back for their job every day how silly of us
I guess my grandfather allowed it to happen when his neighborhood got destroyed by Robert Moses in New York. Or there was absolutely nothing that could be done to stop it because he was politically backed.
8 miles isn't too far to bike! I used to ride about that to commute. When I started, it took me around 40 minutes to get there, and an hour and a half back. Slight incline one direction.
About six months in, I was down to 20ish there, and less than 40 back.
Winter sucked pretty bad, someone got me gore-tex mittens though. Still had my eyelashes freeze
this is true, and would be good at least half the year so fair point but still need a good alt in winter. Still, cutting out half the year of car commuting is a lot better than nothing
That would be a neat trick since both of my grandmothers are dead! But yeah exactly the infrastructure is not only not built for biking but pretty hostile to it as well, not to mention that there is usually no dedicated space for storing a bike on location and theft is pretty high for bikes. The change to make biking viable is possible but the amount of inertia is high and would be at least as difficult as implementing widespread EV changes I would guess
Well, I was in a student exchange to Boise, Idaho about 20 years ago and did a daily walk around the neighborhood for some fresh air. Three days in, I was stopped by a frantic police officer with his fucking gun drawn because someone had reported me as some kind of child molester who was scouting for victims, because someone just walking was a completely alien concept there.
I was taken to the fucking police station because the policeman thought I was making shit up either. My host family had to wiggle around with my German passport and threaten to get the Embassy involved until they decided I wasn’t worth the hassle and dropped the whole thing… So I learned two things from that exchange:
What if I told you a car is not necessary for travel. Take the red ticket, and it all ends. You board your flight and go back to the west, back to your long highways and calculated suburbs. But take the blue ticket, and I show you how far these two feet can walk.
Oh I’ve been to New York and the Wash DC Smithsonian, likely the two best public transit systems in the USA. BART in San Fran also is fine but could be better.
But I’ve also gone to Madrid, Tokyo and some other cities around the world. There’s no comparison. Best in the USA is closer to average of Europe, while average of USA is pretty bad public transit wise.
Ex: I’ve also gone to big cities like Nashville, Manilla Philippines, Los Angeles where things are closer to bus-only and the local traffic suffers greatly as a result. The general expectation in the USA is that ‘public transit is for the underclass’. In contrast, you do see rich people take Wash DC metro, NYC, and especially Tokyo’s subway. And it makes a difference when both rich and poor take the same system.
But all USA cities are car-first designed. As opposed to European model where cars are actively being de-prioritized on a city level.
Except like, New York City. One place in USA where walking works extremely well across the whole of Manhattan. But further out is less good transit, but the central island is well made.
Moreso cities on the west coast are more car centric. East coast cities predate cars by quite a bit. Sure many east coast cities modified themselves to accommodate cars, but their layout originally was suited for walking and horse travel.
It’s a joke that’s circled round like an Ouroboros. Americans say “The European mind can not comprehend this” under images of racing trucks with US flags on. Then Europeans do this in response.
So many have been made with varying degrees of irony to the point it’s meaningless.
Add comment