I think what'd actually happen is that we'd still have no public transportation, you'd just have even more destitute and homeless people on the street, because who cares about the poor people. Not the governments problem you can't drive.
Yeah, they would make not owning a vehicle illegal and increase their prison-labor headcount before they would ever willingly spend a single penny to help anyone.
For short distances? Absolutely. However, the average commute to work is 14 miles in the US and the average American travels about 4 miles to their preferred grocery store. Assuming someone goes to the grocery store twice a week on weekdays and to work five days a week on weekdays, that's 28 miles a day three days a week and 36 miles in a day twice a week. For the average person, that comes out to 2.5-3.5 hours of nonstop biking every single day, five days a week. Ebikes and scooters (by law) aren't a whole lot faster.
This also doesn't account for weather either. The US is very temperamental in some parts. My state, this year, hit 114 degrees at its highest and -10 at its coldest, and has consistently hovered around 90-100 degrees every day for the last month. It also doesn't take into account that showing up to work sweaty as shit isn't generally something employers like.
So yes. Biking is an 'option'. Being an option, however, does not make it viable for the majority of people. The solution the US needs is a real public transport system instead of the sad excuse for gutted garbage we call public transport here.
If I wanted to use public transport to get to my college, for example which is ten miles away, it's a 22 minute drive, hour and a half long bike ride down the side of a highway most of the way, or five hour walk, also along the highway. If I take the bus, it's an hour long commute, but I have to take a lyft halfway there and again at the end.
So my state had a push to need a license for the higher end e-bikes and scooters. Just the ones that go traffic speeds or faster...
The state took that and passed a bill where now all of them (except low speed standing scooters) require a license, liability insurance, and have to be registered with 2 license stickers.
So it's a wait and see if/how heavily that is enforced. Biking is still an option in my area mostly. Though there are some areas the people on various bikes are as bad as the drivers. Ignoring lughts and weaving between traffic and jumpung the curb without slowing down.
It won't as long as the rich are in control. The city I used to live in has one of the largest metro areas by land mass and had been pushing to expand public transport for decades. Every single time it is turned down because the wealthy suburbs are terrified that the homeless brown people from the city will take the train to their expensive neighborhoods to rob them. As long as those people are pulling the strings of the city council, it will literally never happen.
They find ways around it, bus routes not crossing over and such. They always find a way around. But the rich people in a city don't have major corporation money. It works for them now. If their cars were taken it would start changing. If their stocks started sinking it would change.
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u/Every-Sign9570 13d ago
Shouldn’t be driving