Public Transportation

[Sarcelle]

This may be true in some cities and towns. But not where I live.

We have miles of bike trails and lanes.

In fact we have been named a “Bicycle Friendly Community” by the League of American Bicyclists. Which means:

But we don’t have public transportation.

That’s nice to hear.

However there are still people in your city that are handicapped such as the blind and still have a need to get around.

What are their choices, aside from taxis, which can be very expensive.

 

[maryjk]

That’s nice to hear.

However there are still people in your city that are handicapped such as the blind and still have a need to get around.

What are their choices, aside from taxis, which can be very expensive.

The same thing they do in other cities that don’t have public transportation.

They figure it out.

Same thing I did when my car died.

I figured it out.

That is what people do.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The same thing they do in other cities that don’t have public transportation.

They figure it out.

Same thing I did when my car died.

I figured it out.

That is what people do.

That is not a fair comparison. When your car died, you were inconvenienced for a few days, perhaps. Didn’t you eventually get it fixed or replace it? But for the people Sarcelle was talking about, they may not have the option you did. Their problem is every day. It is the rule, not the exception.

 

[Sarcelle]

The same thing they do in other cities that don’t have public transportation.

They figure it out.

Same thing I did when my car died.

I figured it out.

That is what people do.

Okay, you are a blind person on a limited income who needs to go.the doctor or to work or to go grocery shopping. You also are widowed and living far from family. There is no.public transportation available.

What would you have done?

 

[maryjk]

That is not a fair comparison. When your car died, you were inconvenienced for a few days, perhaps. Didn’t you eventually get it fixed or replace it? But for the people Sarcelle was talking about, they may not have the option you did. Their problem is every day. It is the rule, not the exception.

Actually, we purchased another car. So I was without my own car for over a month. I bummed rides or did without.

And no, it isn’t the same thing.

But the problem is handled the same way.

People have to figure out how to live their lives. If they live in a city without public transportation, then they live in a city without public transportation.

The city I live in, also doesn’t have a homeless shelter. If you are homeless and you come to or are in this city, there isn’t anywhere for you to shelter. There just isn’t.

 

[maryjk]

Okay, you are a blind person on a limited income who needs to go.the doctor or to work or to go grocery shopping. You also are widowed and living far from family. There is no.public transportation available.

What would you have done?

Gee, how did I get here, then? Unless I sprout up from the ground, blind and widowed, I would know that there isn’t public transportation here. I wouldn’t walk to to corner in hopes of a bus giving me a ride.

How did I get the money to move here? Heck, how did I move here if I have no family (or friends?) Any why would I move to a city or town where there limited options for government assistance, if that is what I needed? Wouldn’t I want to live where the government would take care of me, if that is what I wanted?

Or does this person have friends? And they could do what I did when I didn’t have a car or when I couldn’t drive? Could they call on friends? Call on their church? Or is the only solution to their problem public transportation?

AND I do need to add. that somehow you seem to think that I have personally stopped any movement toward public transportation in my city. As though I stopped the funding, trashed the buses or tore up the tracks. When in reality, we simply don’t have it. And like others in my city, I have figured out how to live without it, either by using my car or riding my bike or riding with someone else.

 

[Sarcelle]

Gee, how did I get here, then? Unless I sprout up from the ground, blind and widowed, I would know that there isn’t public transportation here. I wouldn’t walk to to corner in hopes of a bus giving me a ride.

How did I get the money to move here? Heck, how did I move here if I have no family (or friends?) Any why would I move to a city or town where there limited options for government assistance, if that is what I needed? Wouldn’t I want to live where the government would take care of me, if that is what I wanted?

Or does this person have friends? And they could do what I did when I didn’t have a car or when I couldn’t drive? Could they call on friends? Call on their church? Or is the only solution to their problem public transportation?

AND I do need to add. that somehow you seem to think that I have personally stopped any movement toward public transportation in my city. As though I stopped the funding, trashed the buses or tore up the tracks. When in reality, we simply don’t have it. And like others in my city, I have figured out how to live without it, either by using my car or riding my bike or riding with someone else.

I personally know someone who had moved to Pennsylvania from Ohio for a job. He arrived in Pittsburgh while his wife stayed behind in Cleveland. Shortly after his move, he started having problems with severe vertigo that he was afraid of driving since he could suffer another episode on the road. He was later diagnosed with meuniere’s disease. He was in a strange city with no social support and since he lived out in the more rural areas, no public transportation. So it is indeed possible that a scenario I just described can happen.

Nowhere in my previous posts did I say that public transportation is the only solution, but it could be one of the solutions along with the others you have listed. Nowhere in my previous posts did I say that I blamed you for the absence of public transportation. Where have I said that?

That being said, I have observed that in the US, there seems to be a stigma attached to public transportation.

 

[ringil]

Okay, you are a blind person on a limited income who needs to go.the doctor or to work or to go grocery shopping. You also are widowed and living far from family. There is no.public transportation available.

What would you have done?

Those against public transportation would say “Church vans”, “friends”.

That’s their idea of “getting it done”.

 

[maryjk]

I personally know someone who had moved to Pennsylvania from Ohio for a job. He arrived in Pittsburgh while his wife stayed behind in Cleveland. Shortly after his move, he started having problems with severe vertigo that he was afraid of driving since he could suffer another episode on the road. He was later diagnosed with meuniere’s disease. He was in a strange city with no social support and since he lived out in the more rural areas, no public transportation. So it is indeed possible that a scenario I just described can happen.

But he wasn’t a widow and he wasn’t blind.

Nowhere in my previous posts did I say that public transportation is the only solution, but it could be one of the solutions along with the others you have listed. Nowhere in my previous posts did I say that I blamed you for the absence of public transportation. Where have I said that?

That being said, I have observed that in the US, there seems to be a stigma attached to public transportation.

Of course you didn’t *say *you blamed me. You only seem to think that I should be able to answer any question you throw at me about the lack of public transportation.

We don’t have it. No one that lives here is asking for it.

I will say that the public transportation I have used, in the past, as been dirty, broken down and never on time. So, I wouldn’t ask for it.

 

[Sarcelle]

But he wasn’t a widow and he wasn’t blind.
Of course you didn’t *say *you blamed me. You only seem to think that I should be able to answer any question you throw at me about the lack of public transportation.

We don’t have it. No one that lives here is asking for it.

I will say that the public transportation I have used, in the past, as been dirty, broken down and never on time. So, I wouldn’t ask for it.

Oh dear, I apologize if I have offended you. I do not expect you to have the answers and if I come across.as.pushy, than again I apologize.

If a city has no public transportation and its.residents are.fine with it, that’s okay. We can speak of our experiences and I have experienced first rate.public transportation in the places I have lived in. Clean and always on time.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

How popular is public transportation (PT) in your town? What improvements would you think are beneficial to improving PT?

Here, generally only the poorest people ride the bus. We have Amtrak as well, but this is mostly for people taking trips.

When I was a poor student I would ride the bus in Austin Tx. It was free at the time. Aside from the price I enjoyed using the bus. I got to stop a robbery, met a few girls, and help deliver a baby. Can’t get that on the Freeway.

ATB

 

[Mickey_Finn]

We live adjacent to the Motor City (Detroit MI), so public transport is not a hit here. Part of it is we are all about the car culture and part of it is public transport consists only of buses. Smelly, broken, nasty, ugly, slow, badly organized buses.

I don’t think they are badly organized.Just badly maintained.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

That’s nice to hear.

However there are still people in your city that are handicapped such as the blind and still have a need to get around.

What are their choices, aside from taxis, which can be very expensive.

My Dad was going blind at the end of his life. I guess their is another means of transportation our public transportation has set aside for the elderly and blind. Instead of expecting them to use common public transportation , they have access to smaller buses that will arrive at their home/apartments when they call and schedual ahead.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Speaking from an Australian perspective, we probably don’t do too badly compared to a lot of other places. But the reality is that traffic is getting more and more congested, with billions of dollars being spent on tunnels in our area (Brisbane, and SE Queensland), which then invariably run at a big loss. In fact, I wonder who is going to lend money for tunnel construction soon, since the companies that run the tunnels don’t make money.

couriermail.com.au/business/doubts-about-traffic-forecasts-are-already-undermining-brisbanes-latest-tunnel-project-for-investors/story-fnbdkrr9-1226635576967

QUEENSLAND is staring at another great tunnel project failure in terms of how much it cost to build and how much it will be sold for.

Potential buyers of the tolling rights to the 4.6km Legacy Way connecting Brisbane’s Western Freeway with the Inner City Bypass, due to open in 2015, are already doubting official forecasts.

With good reason.

The city’s two other tunnel projects, RiverCity Motorway’s Clem7 and BrisConnections’ Airport Link, have both been spectacular failures for investors, although the infrastructure will remain and serve Queenslanders well for the next 100 years.

I can remember when I was a kid, and there was a rubber factory and tannery just a few hundred meters away. Every morning and afternoon a large number of workers would walk to and from work past our house. In other words, they lived close to where they worked.

But those days are long gone, along with the factories (they’re probably in China or South East Asian countries). Now people commute ridiculous distances in some cases, and they often don’t use public transport when they do. Every day there are thousands of commuters from the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Ipswich doing the return trip to or from Brisbane by car.

Unless there’s some unprecedented new public transit technology, or society and governments stop the wasteful way of life we currently practice, I don’t see much changing.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

I am a big fan of public transportation.

I do have a driver’s licence but never owned a car and drive very little.

It’s not to do with money. I have a decent job (I’m an assistant vice president in my company) and even qualify for a company car, but did not accept it. Instead they pay me a first-class public transport pass.

Why?

I love to be on public transport. I love the slow pace and watching things outside the window without having to get active. I love the occasional conversations and stying close to the pulse of what’s driving other people. I love being able to sit back any enjoy a good book or the newspaper on my way to or from work. People who say, you could drive in half the time are missing the point that time spent driving is time lost whereas time i have for myself is quality time.

I also go on public transportation when I’m travelling on vacations. The best way to get a feel for a new city is to grab a ride on the first bus you see and let it take you where it will. You learn so much more about what that city is really about than if you do the official sightseeing tour and see just the glamorous stuff they want you to see.

 

[Sarcelle]

I am a big fan of public transportation.

I do have a driver’s licence but never owned a car and drive very little.

It’s not to do with money. I have a decent job (I’m an assistant vice president in my company) and even qualify for a company car, but did not accept it. Instead they pay me a first-class public transport pass.

Why?

I love to be on public transport. I love the slow pace and watching things outside the window without having to get active. I love the occasional conversations and stying close to the pulse of what’s driving other people. I love being able to sit back any enjoy a good book or the newspaper on my way to or from work. People who say, you could drive in half the time are missing the point that time spent driving is time lost whereas time i have for myself is quality time.

I also go on public transportation when I’m travelling on vacations. The best way to get a feel for a new city is to grab a ride on the first bus you see and let it take you where it will. You learn so much more about what that city is really about than if you do the official sightseeing tour and see just the glamorous stuff they want you to see.

In the city I currently live in, I usually drive to get places. However when I am traveling in new places, I use public transportation to explore.the place. I’ve done this when I visited Seoul, Tokyo, Seattle, and San Francisco.

You’re right. You learn so much more about the city.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

In the city I currently live in, I usually drive to get places. However when I am traveling in new places, I use public transportation to explore.the place. I’ve done this when I visited Seoul, Tokyo, Seattle, and San Francisco.

You’re right. You learn so much more about the city.

My dad loved to explore a culture by riding public transportation. When I was a young girl we flew to Mazatlan, took a third class bus (with chickens and pigs) to Mexico City, then took another third class bus to Alcopoco. He always loved exploring the differnentbus classes. Then in the Phillipeans, we rode those crazy mini buses open buses that you had to run to get on. Sadly, I don’t have the confidence to peruse my fathers love of public transportation in strange areas as I grew up.

When I was I first grade, me and my BFF took three buses to get to our water park. When I traveled back to Mexico, we were too scared to take different buses (being young women ) … I did take the local buses in Rome though! Now I see many buses/PT empty when I drive next to them.