this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
273 points (96.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26355 readers
1214 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I've heard the legends of having to drive to literally everywhere (e.g. drive thru banks), but I have no clue how far apart things are.

I live in suburban London where you can get to a big supermarket in 10 minutes of walking, a train station in 20 minutes and convenience stores are everywhere. You can get anywhere with bus and train in a few hours.

Can someone help a clueless British lemmyposter know how far things are in the US?

EDIT

Here are my walking distances:

  • To the nearest convenience store: 250m
  • To the nearest chain supermarket: 350m
  • To the bus stop: 310m
  • To the nearest park: 400m
  • To the nearest big supermarket: 1.3km
  • To the nearest library: 1.2km
  • To the nearest train station: 1km

Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 16km

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee -2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Knock off this "public transportation is only for big cities" propaganda bullshit. The US literally had a comprehensive rail network. The town of 1000 I used to live in had a train that connected to anywhere in the nation in the 1930s.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 5 days ago

To piggy back off this comment, I'm surprised the streetcars in Kenosha, WI don't get brought up much for what we could have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcars_in_Kenosha,_Wisconsin

It began in June 2000. It was done by doing the municipal equivalent of looking for deals on Craigslist; they bought old cars from larger cities and did a little conversion to get the track gauge right.

Can every small town do this? As it stands, probably not. It depends on larger cities having hand-me-down trolleys, and there just aren't enough cities doing that for it to work on a widespread basis. But I think it does show that there's a path to doing this in North American small cities if larger cities can get their shit together.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I really don’t know what you’re on about. I stated what we have today. Period. My comment has nothing to do with “propaganda” or rail history in the US. Did you even reply to the right comment?

[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Did you read your comment?

Inter-city public transportation is all but imposable for smaller locations

You took that out of context.

That was intended to mean, as I said, in a modern context. As in you cannot get there via public transportation today. This conversation has nothing to do implementing transportation, this has to do with what we have and how accessible smaller towns are.

So were you looking to be angry or something?