this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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Now how about using iron tires on iron road? And using public transport?
Although I agree that using cars on pointless journeys is a waste and not good for the planet, but using public transport isn’t always an option.
If I’m travelling 6 miles in to town then I’m taking the tram, but it really isn’t feasible when travelling 40 miles to work and back 3 times a week. Sure there are trains, but I would have to get up an hour earlier, set off an hour earlier, wait 50 minutes for the train home, and get home two hours later. As I would also have to take the tram 40 minutes to the train station and walk 20 mins before that.
I have a car that I use for work. Outside of that I’m walking or taking public transport.
"My city is fucking designed wrong so the public transport sucks" isn't really the rebuttal you think it is. Obviously, the real problem there is your city is fucking designed wrong and the vast majority of people shouldn't have to be living 40 miles away from work to begin with!
I live in Manchester. Which is an amazing city for public transport. I work in Cheshire which isn’t.
As I said. To take the train. I must walk from my town 20 minutes to the Metrolink, then take that 35-40 minutes into Manchester, then take the train 45 minutes to Cheshire, and then finally walk another 20 minutes to the office. That’s without counting any waiting periods in between. VS 75 minute drive.
We haven’t even factored in it rains 70% of days here. Or even the cost.
You can moan at my boss for not allowing fully WFH. But my point was some people can’t just commute everywhere. Perhaps when I’m more experienced I can find a job closer to home or more remote, but for now this is all I can do.
Edit: I have nothing to rebut to people online. I was merely giving an example. Get off your high horse mate.
IDGAF about your boss. If I were gonna moan about something, it'd be about the shitty state of British Rail or some other macro/policy issue, not anything specific to your situation.
That said, I live in fucking Atlanta -- the poster child of terrible American sprawl and traffic -- and have figured out how to make cycling for most trips work. I have no doubt that you can do better. Get yourself a damn Brompton (so you can easily take it on the train) and turn that 40 minutes of walking + 35 minutes of Metrolink into however many minutes of biking, for example.
Nothing you could say will convince me that there isn't even a single suitable job for you right now in Manchester. Or that there isn't a single suitable residence for you right now in whichever town in Cheshire you work in, for that matter.
Why are you so angry bro, can’t we just talk without the anger.
I clearly stated that Manchester has incredible public transport, sure the train prices could be improved as they’re some of the most expensive in Europe, but it isn’t a case of poor infrastructure. It’s just the nature of having to take multiple modes of transport to get to work. Do you want us to build train stations in every shitty little town? What are the implications of that undertaking for the very few people that have a commute like mine.
Imma say if you live in the US then you’re in no position to lecture me about our infrastructure.
As for the job. No there wasn’t a more suitable job for me. I’m a new software developer and I had 60+ interviews with many companies in Manchester and several in London and none of them would hire me, due to the unorthodox method I entered the trade.
Also, no I will not relocate away from my family to spend three days in the office.
You have unrealistic expectations on someone who is vastly in the minority with commutes like this.
Do you shop on Amazon? As I don’t, I don’t support businesses like that. What’s the carbon footprint I’m saving here.
Do you purchase from fast food places like McDonalds? Because I don’t. I don’t support businesses like.
In fact I rarely buy new things and if I do I am supporting my local businesses, even if it means I am paying more.
Do you consume alcohol and all the carbon footprint that that entails? As I don’t.
I’m a simple guy. I drive to work and i rarely leave my home town outside of that. I walk everywhere, 3.6 million steps a year, and on weekends I walk around the woods and just chill out. My commute leaves me driving 12k miles a year and that’s my largest carbon footprint. I don’t go on airplanes, I don’t take taxis as I can go anywhere in Britain on train, heck I can go across Europe on train.
Hey you are doing your best and actually thinking of ways to be better. Don't let critics keep you down. (Just throwing my support your way)
Thanks for taking the time, you really didn’t have to.
The other person just seems unreasonable to me. All we can do is our best and try to make conscientious choices and hope we leave this place better than before we got here.
People get really weird about this, they act like you MUST cycle and train it everywhere and anything is just an excuse.
If you admit you're vastly in the minority, then why did you feel the need to chime in in the first place? If you actually aren't a reactionary concern troll, you need to realize that making the perfect the enemy of the good like that adds nothing to the conversation and only discourages people from embracing alternatives.
And if I'm angry, by the way, it's because the sort of shit you just did happens every single goddamn time and is THE major impediment to actually getting shit changed. It's not some small-but-loud minority of coal-roller (or "Chelsea tractor" in your case, I guess) blatant right-wing assholes who are stopping improvements from happening; it's all the allegedly-well-meaning moderates quibbling everything to death for not being perfect who are the real problem!
I’ll admit it was a reactionary comment as I see the sentiment a lot without any nuance and it kinda annoys me, considering I make conscientious choices all the time and people like you (maybe not you in this instance) will pass judgement and make me question myself.
It was also a little strange shitting on a places public transport infrastructure when my city likely has the second best in the whole of Britain, so it seemed like you’re coming from a place of ignorance rather than passion. Pretty easy to go online and check out the public transport in Manchester, and realise yeah they’ve got it good there. Although, the buses in smaller towns leave something to be desired.
I apologize for having come across as "passing judgement." I was going for a tone closer to this (trying to shock you out of complacency), but missed the mark a bit.
Technically, I didn't dispute your mention of Manchester having good public transport (which I have no reason to disbelieve); I shat on British Rail's intracity public transport. And yeah, I freely admit that Amtrak is infinitely worse: the entire 5-million-people Atlanta metro area is served by one train a day, which shows up roughly at midnight! I figured that just means I know a thing or two about extremely shitty rail, LOL.