Comment on Being poor is expensive
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours agoA few minutes in a traffic jam? Pah, that isn’t a traffic jam. They last for far longer.
I never need to wait an hour for a bus - at most it’s 20 min and that’s late in the evening.
I think it’s a big sign of societal poverty when people are condemned to cars!
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
That sounds nice for you, but that’s not how public transit works in most American cities. I’ve been stuck in standstill traffic in a bus, and in a lot of areas here dedicated bus lanes are rare.
When that’s the state you’re stuck in as a poor person, it doesn’t matter that there are all these negatives attached to taking a hollowed out public transit system; if you don’t have the money for a car you either take it (and spend an extra hour or two commuting each way due to delays or wait times) or you don’t go anywhere. Someone with the money to buy and maintain a car is objectively not more impoverished than the person who is scrounging for $1.75 to pay fare.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
Again, that is a policy failure. Do not blame the public transit & pro-walkability/bicycleability organisations, but the car lobbies.
Also, c’mon, a car is more expensive to maintain - it impoverishes you more. You have to pay for petrol/electricity/hydrogen, have to face traffic jams and still focus during travel, find parking spots, waste a ton of your local currency on paying it off, and so on.
No fucking thanks.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
Do you know the phrase that you can’t get blood from a stone? Someone who can’t even afford the car has a worse quality of life in places without good public transit, that’s why for the most part everyone who can afford it chooses to drive in those areas. I blame the state and the federal governments for improper funding, not transit agencies. Someone who can choose to spend money on driving a car instead of rent is not somehow worse off than their neighbor who can’t afford a car but still has to get to their job with an added 1-2 hours tacked on to their commute each way.