The length of this traffic jam.

lynny@lemmy.world to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 76 points –
72

My brother in Christ you are the traffic

I'm sure one more lane will fix it.

Speaking of which, is there a r/fuckcars equivalent over here?

Also /c/citylife@beehaw.org. In a sense. Somehow they had the bright idea to also invite car fans. That's not going to cause any issues at all, no it certainly won't.

You can be a car guy/car fan and still recognize that cars don't belong into city centers and that trains are objectively better for mass transit. Both should exist.

Traffic jams would be a whole lot less damaging if they were all electric. Just sitting there with the AC and radio on is a whole lot less emissions compared to fossil fuels.

I prefer a rock solid public transport system, and plenty of safe walking areas and no-car zones. EVs help minimally in the grand scheme, since they are costly to produce, especially the batteries.

Yea, that only works for cities. America will still need tons of cars for everywhere that isn't a city. It's a very low density country, all things considered.

There's large swathes of territory nearly as dense as parts of Europe with incredible public transit. Look at the density of Spain and overlay it on top of the northeast US, then compare the public transit.

Yea, but the northeast, especially major cities like NYC, Boston, and Philly, does have better public transit than a lot of the US. I know it still sucks overall (and don't get me going about the costs), but a lot of the infrastructure was built during the car boom. People do like cars, and they make sense for most of America given how much sprawl we have.

Local transit of those cities is pretty good, I'd agree. But the lack of intercity transit, like high speed rail, is such a shame.

Which won't happen especially in car first cities. I am in Michigan, it's the home of the automobile and everything is built around it. To accommodate a good mass transit they would need to demolish large portions of the cities to install rail lines because busses are a lack luster bandage. Even with cities with great bus lines like Lansing or Ann Arbor it still can take hours for a trip across the city when a car gets you there and back in minutes. Business will also need to accommodate and give longer time off for doctors appointments. My wife rides the bus often in Lansing and if she has a appointment that is only a 10min car ride she is gone for 3 hours on the bus.

To accommodate a good mass transit they would need to demolish large portions of the cities to install rail lines because busses are a lack luster bandage.

I mean, we did that for cars, and it only made things worse

example BEFORE and AFTER

Good luck with that, though. If this is America, and I think it is, we find ways of making a good public transit system suck. I also think we need to take a hard look at how our towns and cities are desined as well, and make them to where they're optimized to be able to drive into a central location then bicycle or hoof it to whrever you wanted to go within a couple miles.

That's true, but electric cars won't fix the core issue of car dependency and massive traffic jams

The two issues I have with current EVs is you can't work on them and they don't last as long as gas vehicles.

I have a old suburu and it still runs fine

Its also worth remembering there is a lot less maintenance to do on an EV. No oil to change, lubes to replace, belts that break...

Besides the batteries, an EV car should last longer than a gas car.

They have the same components except the engine, but they weigh more and the batteries dont last as long as a well maintained engine. EV cars should not last as long.

They have the same components except the engine

  • Transmission (usually larger and more expensive than the engine)
  • Exhaust, muffler and catalytic converter
  • Gas tank, fuel pump and vapor hose
  • Ignition coil(s), spark plugs, oil pump, intake and exhaust manifolds and fuel injectors
  • Fucking belts
  • CV joints, differentials and transfer case (I think)

It doesn't though. Electric cars full of DRM

DRM... which makes you need to replace belts, and oil?

I didn't say they were easier to work on, just lower maintenance. On my gas car i need to change the oil ever 6 months. You dont need to do that with an EV.

I'm mostly referring to the "smart" features. Modern EVs are a not designed to be taken apart and understood

You may as well declare that your permanent address. It's where you live now. May as well try and find happiness where you are.

You'll meet friends there, settle in, maybe get married and have some kids, grow old and retire to the back seat, having lived a rich and full life.

In a few generations, the fact that the cars can move will only be a children's story, and eventually forgotten altogether.

Trust me bro, just one more lane

because trains are too expensive or something

"AMErIcA iS TOo bIg!"

"HaRDwoRkINg AmERIcANs!"

"ThE goVeRNmENt!"

Random nonsense copium bullshit go!

What is crazy is that with 1 passenger per car, that is not that many people. Like not even 50. You could all fit in a single bus

Or motorcycles/bicycles, if you really want personal mode of transport.

Please no motorcycles they are annoying and loud as fuck

They don't have to be

And yet they always are. Not to mention dangerous (statistically, per user-mile).

Also, please don't argue with me on that last point. Instead, argue how safe they are with a doctor or nurse at your local emergency room. They will, I'm certain, agree with you.

If those 50 people are all going to same places than the bus goes. At the same time.

A coworker was taking the bus to get home. 2 hours due to two line changes where they can wait up to 30 minutes for the next bus. I started giving him a ride home when I could.

5 minutes out of my way and cut his commute down to 20 minutes. From 2 hours. That's 120 minutes down to 20 minutes. With just that extra hour of sleep he's much happier.

An extra hour and a half of each day wasted on public transportation.

Public transport is great in cities, but as soon as things get more sparsely populated, you get diminishing returns. Everything takes longer, runs infrequently, and still barely gets you close.

But then if they run more frequently, they'd be empty.

Yet, where I live, they keep introducing hostile rules, new houses can only have one parking space, at a time where kids are having to live with their parents for longer, so their mobility, job opportunities, etc are really hampered. It would be one thing if there was decent public transport infrastructure, but there's literally nothing, just people becoming 'stuck' because those who make the rules often don't think about areas as a whole.

Most people live in cities. The fraction of rural population is small and getting less.

Not as true as it used to be. Many companies are still allowing working from home. The rural areas around me have seen a huge influx of new construction since you can live anywhere and work for many jobs. Both myself and wife work from home and have considered moving out of the city but won't until the kids are done with school.

[Image description: A photo of a road with two lanes. There is bumper-to-bumper traffic reaching an approxime 53 car length.]

Was it really necessary to stop and hold up traffic just for this picture though?

I find it more infuriating that there is usually no other option than traffic. If only there was a long distance mode of transit that wasn't prone to frequent traffic and collision

Just wait until you realize there used to be a train to every town, including every single small town.

We had the passenger train networks, it was what built the country, but now it is gone.

If only there was a long distance mode of transit that wasn’t prone to frequent traffic and collision

If you're in the US, even trains won't help. De/under-regulation means there are over a thousand collisions and/or rail failures every year. Even if passenger trains were given priority, the lax safety and maintenance standards allowed on freight lines would cause monumental delays.

Back in 2017 or whatever that North American solar eclipse was, I drove down to Bend Oregon to view it. After, there was bumper to bumper traffic almost the whole way north, back to Seattle, WA. There was literal bumper to bumper traffic from Bend, OR to Issaquah, WA. That was almost 350 miles and took basically an entire day. It was horrible having to pee on the side of the road in bumper to bumper traffic in the middle of nowhere. Protip? Don't try to drink the Gatorade just to have a pee bottle.

This isn't mildly infuriating. Now, if you took a second shot of the traffic in front and there was nothing - just the echo of a brake check an hour earlier. That would be mildy infuriating.

Which is why electric cars will reduce this kind of thing. When you are using a high regen that slows you down you are less likely to hit the breaks which won't trigger people behind you to break.

Been there before. We recently had a semi truck tip and spill thousands of frozen French fries across all lanes of the highway. They closed it completely down for hours. People were literally reversing on the highway to back up to the nearest exit. It was terrible

See, as much as I hate Texas and especially TXDOT, I will give it props for it's access roads that run alongside the interstates. Stuff gets too backed up, folks can just drive over the grass to the access road. It'll back the access road up, too, but it'll be moving, at least. Hell, out in west Texas you can see where the locals have made their own exit because the nearest one is a 10+ mile drive out of the way.

I don’t know if this counts as “mildly” infuriating, I’d be freaking OUT with a traffic jam that long, especially if I had somewhere to be at a certain time!

Wait, this is long? This looks like regular traffic to me...

Not from any large city in America, are you?

Any large city period.
Seriously, I live in The Netherlands which is the size of a post stamp, even we cannot make public transport work (especially outside of the larger cities), thus we also have to deal with traffic jams. All the comments of the "Fuck Cars" community are quite ignorant on the issue that public transport can only work efficiently in cities, not to connect rural areas to those cities.