I hear ya on that. My philosophy is that if I'm going out for coffee I'll pay for a good one from a local Cafe. Most mornings I'll make it at home to compensate for the cost.
alphabetsheep
joined 1 year ago
Or support a local Cafe that treats their workers right. Can be hard to find, but they do exist.
This is key. Urban planners and environment folks focus so much on their respective fields and don't consider dignity enough. Of course we'd all like cheap, fast, sustainable transportation, but not if that means being packed into bench seating, plagued with delays, and sometimes even risk our safety due to other passengers. Trains don't have to be bad, but the penny-pinching planners often ruin the experience.
I live in the middle of nowhere and drive race cars on the weekend, I think we agree on a lot of things. I love having plenty of space, not a fan of close neighbors, apartment living or any of that shit.
I still want cheap trains and micromobility though. Every once in awhile I need to go into the city and taking my ebike in on the train is so much better than driving. Also even if you still drive like normal, it would go so much smoother if all the city folks stuck to the train and got off the roads.
Not saying cars should be more expensive, and definitely not saying city living is the way, but having better options for city folks only helps the situation for the rest of us.
Good resource thanks for posting! It seems like they really went out of their way to avoid mentioning EBikes. My experience has been that for folks with disabilities EBikes are a game changer as they allow people to put in as much effort as comfortable but not go past that. I also think the section about it getting sweaty could have mentioned EBikes as a potential solution. I understand they don't want to piss off cycling purists, but I think it's important to recognize the positive impacts these new technologies have.
Finally, I get their stance on helmets and agree that helmet mandates aren't ideal. That said, I think it's disengenuous to say that helmets are useless. It's true that those studies looking at city helmet use found no difference in safety overall, but I'm not convinced that wearing a helmet wouldn't improve my personal safety. I've absolutely wrecked a helmet riding on the street, and I'm very glad it wasn't my head instead.