alt text
tweet by amtrak ben: i think we should build high speed rail next to freeways only because it would make drivers feel like complete losers all the time
edit: fixed alt text
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
The one thing Germany did right in the last like 20 years: Deutschlandticket. One ticket, 49€ per month, regional/local public transport for all of Germany. I can literally take a bus from my apartment to the train station, hop on an RE train and go wherever I want, and then take the local bus in that town.
It doesn't include long haul highspeed trains, but the regional trains will still get you almost everywhere.
And if you travel a lot and invest in a BahnCard 50, long distance trains are not that expensive anymore. A Flex ICE ticket from Nuremberg to Hamburg will cost you 80€. Fuel will be more expensive. Well, if you buy the ticket a week earlier, you can get it very cheap like 13€.
BC 50 is only a good option if you frequently need to go on short notice – you get 50% of the Flexpreis, but the same Sparpreis offers as the BC 25, which costs about 1/4 of the BC50.
If you are flexible and can stay out of the busy hours you can still get great deals with the BC25.
I recently booked Berlin to Cologne for 2 people first class for 60€ total. On the way back the train had 2h delay, so I got 40€ refund. All in all about 100€ for a two people round trip.
And if someone wants to start the "2h delay!!!1!" talk: It would have been way worse on the highway, which had a major traffic jam for most of the day. Meanwhile I sat comfortably in the restaurant with beer, currywurst and fries (to quote Harald Juhnke: "no appointments and slightly tipsy" 👋)
Germans complain a lot about DB, it's a national hobby, but compared to France (tgv pricey as fuck!), Britain (basically 0 high speed): ICE is a pretty damn good service at a very affordable price, especially with a BC25. Sure, it should be faster on many stretches where the tracks can't handle high speed yet, but you really can't beat the ICE price and comfort level on many travels if you book a bit in advance.
Well, I mean... this is a bit of a "both sides" thing, maybe. We're in a not too bad spot, but could do much better, both things can be true I think.
A lot of it is valid criticism, and the situation is quite dire and will be for the unforeseeable future now. And just because the UK is a neoliberal hellhole doesn't mean Germany should become one as well.
But yeah, there's also a lot of non-constructive complaining, which frequently comes from people who aren't even using public transport and just want to justify why they have ("""neeeed""") a car.