this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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Our entire continent has been given almost wholey over to the automobile, and despite it being a wasteful, ultra expensive, and inefficient way of transporting people and goods, because of entrenched interests we cannot well improve on it with even interstate freight and passenger rail being opposed by oil companies and car companies and probably Road repair companies and everyone else.
A real popular government would rally the population to overcome those entrenched interests and make a viable Interstate freight and passenger rail, it will not get any easier in time and it has to be done.
It would be a proper use of borrowed money as it would pay for itself many times over and lower the cost of living and doing business and make the us more competitive.
Without needing automobiles we could have higher standards of living with vastly lower expenditures.
This biggest argument i see is people somehow think things like transit will remove their freedom of mobility, when in reality it vastly improves mobility, especially for those who can't or don't want to drive.
My grandmother was trapped inside her house for years at the end of her life. All she could do was wait for people to visit her because she couldn't drive.
When I lived in a small city in Japan, if I went out during the day, there were ancient people all over the place who had taken the bus into town.
Anybody who would say that the American way of throwing elderly people to the wolves is better... Well, anyone who says that is just an inhuman monster, aren't they?
It blows Americans minds when they hear about how people go skiing in Switzerland, taking public transit from their front door to the foot of the ski hills.
On the way back, they can warm up with a gluhwein before taking public transit back. No worries about driving drunk since they're not driving.
Buts it not possible to play any sports without the dodge ram 3500 extra cab mega box extra large big horn edition.
The dodge ram commercial shows some guy driving offroad, smashing through snow, then climbing out and going skiing.
Some sucker buys the truck and spends 3 hours stuck in traffic slowly driving to the ski hill with his skis in the back.
"Cars are freedom!" ... so long as you register it with the government, insure it with a private insurance company, carry a photo ID from the government. Where a train you just pay and get on, or a bike you just ride.
Relying on the automobile has made us exceptionally vulnerable. At any time our only means of achieving an income can be removed. We spend magnitudes more money than we could otherwise and everything from building infrastructure to support so many cars everywhere, to the cost of cars and repairs, too the ability of others to take that away from us at a moment's notice.
With designed cities we could have housing on a direct line to our business sectors on a public transit, which would free up a substantial portion of our income, while if the housing was constructed intelligently and fairly we would free up the better part of half of our costs to live.
Also remote work could Free People from the commuting nightmare in White Collar work.