Here’s some long winded bullshit. I have a lot of feelings and I’m taking this opportunity to let them out. This can be safely ignored. TL;DR: public transportation in the southern US is a fucking hellscape.

There’s a lot of buses in my county. If I worked downtown I’d have to take an Uber a few miles to the bus stop or spend about an hour walking, spend a couple of hours on buses and hope I make all my transfers, then spend up to 20 more minutes walking to wherever I work. Then do it the opposite way coming home.

That’s the worst case scenario from my door. Best case still has me ubering or walking an hour to sit on a bus for an hour and a half.

The alternative is that if I go in early by car I can spend 25-30 minutes on the road headed in and an hour home in traffic.

If we had rail from the burbs to any downtown location it would be much more feasible and much quicker than driving. If they would reimagine the bus system it could be about the same as taking a car but with less stress and fewer people on the road. But they won’t. Too much oil money in this town to ever do that.

On to the next long-winded story!

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Where I grew up it was all rural. I love being out in the country (not so much the people, but out in the country they’re easy to avoid). However, there aren’t enough people to have a public infrastructure. Hell, where I grew up there was no city government and I don’t remember the county doing anything except collecting trash (we were on well water). There’s no Uber, no buses, no taxis and the nearest real grocery store is half an hour away by car. If they sold their cars they would have no way to get to work or to get any groceries that aren’t provided by the local unaffiliated grocery store that’s twice the price of the stores in town, mostly dry and canned goods with very little fresh food, and half the food is out of date. Hell, even to get to that shitty store would be a four hour round trip walk from the hovel I grew up in. Hell, it was a half hour walk down a two lane highway with no sidewalks through tick and snake infested ditches for a little kid in either direction to get to a school bus stop where I grew up. Guess how I know that.

CEOs wonder why people hate back to work initiatives. Journalists wonder why we can’t just sell our cars and eat less avocado toast (at less than a dollar per serving, avocados are cheap as hell) to get by. Because rural communities with the working poor and middle class exist. Because even living in the fifth largest metro area in the US has a nightmare of public transportation that turns my workday into literally half of my life if I’m dependent on it.

I guess if I want zero quality of life I can sell my vehicles. That’s not how it should be but that’s definitely how it is currently.