111–120 of 130 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And get rained/snowed on like an animal?
Plenty of things you do are “like an animal”. I cycle in Amsterdam all the time, and while rain is unpleasant it is really not the end of the world.
We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.
Life is so much more enjoyable when you move away from the suburbs and get rid of your car. The freedom to just walk to your destination and having everything within walking range is priceless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The freedom to get in my car and go anywhere in the country, in the company of my entire family, no less, is priceless.
You can rent a car anytime you want to go on a longer excursion. It is far harder to rent walkability or access to amenities. You can’t rent “my children can walk to school and I can walk to pick them up for lunch” nearly as easily. Nor can you rent “it’s my buddy’s birthday and we wanted to go out on the town without a long car ride after”. Nor can you rent the physical benefits of movement to apply to your many car…
Some historians point to the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway (barely mentioned in the article) as playing a primary role in the outbreak of World War I. The naval forces of Britain had made the decision to switch from coal to oil, and that mean Britain would have a more maneuverable and faster fleet than Germany - so Germany followed suit. Unlike British sea access to Persian oil at the time, the only German option was tra…
That’s fascinating, I hadn’t come across that. Britain must have needed a ridiculous amount of oil as they were also importing from Mexico at the time. According to Tuchman’s The Zimmerman Telegram, Mexican oil is one of the big reasons that Germany tried to form an alliance with Mexico. Cutting off that oil would have hindered their navy.
Some historians point to the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway (barely mentioned in the article) as playing a primary role in the outbreak of World War I. The naval forces of Britain had made the decision to switch from coal to oil, and that mean Britain would have a more maneuverable and faster fleet than Germany - so Germany followed suit. Unlike British sea access to Persian oil at the time, the only German option was tra…
That’s fascinating, I hadn’t come across that. Britain must have needed a ridiculous amount of oil as they were also importing from Mexico at the time. According to Tuchman’s The Zimmerman Telegram, Mexican oil is one of the big reasons that Germany tried to form an alliance with Mexico. Cutting off that oil would have hindered their navy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil
It looks like the Germans had access to it, also?
This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. As an aside, TIL that there are actually two Tripolis, one in Libya and the other in Lebanon. I have hea…
> This article made me think about how the presence of trains indicate peace. Trains are so vulnerable to attack. Their existence depends on everyone with access to the tracks to trust and agree with their purpose. I suspect if we're mourning these trains, we also mourn the loss of peace and stability in the region. Trains can also indicate war :) They are crucial for logistics, and were especially so before WW2. My…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t lose any of that having neighbourhoods where you don’t need a car to pick up some milk. I don’t think we should ban private cars or anything, but when public schools have 3 lane car pickup lanes several blocks long there’s an issue.
My cousin's husband has been mugged three times in his life. Each time was when he was walking to school in NYC, each time was with a deadly weapon, and each time there was a chance he could have died. I've never heard of a single person being mugged driving to school. I'm not saying this is the primary reason to have cars and live in the suburbs, but not being forced to share space with every random person in your v…
Also, the plenty of people get killed in cars.
We really need to eliminate car dependence in our cities.
Nope. More electric cars and more highways. Dallas is the future.
It’s true that progressives are wild about transit, but I wish more conservatives resisted the urge to view cars as the natural political opposite.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The freedom to get in my car and go anywhere in the country, in the company of my entire family, no less, is priceless.
You don’t lose any of that having neighbourhoods where you don’t need a car to pick up some milk. I don’t think we should ban private cars or anything, but when public schools have 3 lane car pickup lanes several blocks long there’s an issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. The freedom to get in my car and go anywhere in the country, in the company of my entire family, no less, is priceless.
You can rent a car anytime you want to go on a longer excursion. It is far harder to rent walkability or access to amenities. You can’t rent “my children can walk to school and I can walk to pick them up for lunch” nearly as easily. Nor can you rent “it’s my buddy’s birthday and we wanted to go out on the town without a long car ride after”. Nor can you rent the physical benefits of movement to apply to your many car…