Yup, large automakers bought up a lot of rail lines, especially local inter- and intracities, and tore out the tracks as part of the highway program. My hometown had extensive tram lines (and a halfway built subway that we ran out of money for in the 20s) that got ripped up when I75 got built.
A lot of cities also just did this of their own accord, partially to enforce segregation and redlining. Awful harder for black and brown people to get to your Rich White Neighborhood if there’s no train or bus service to easily take them there.
How do you expect someone to imagine life without a car, when they live in an area where you have to drive three miles to get to the nearest store, and there are no sidewalks or bike lanes?
Can you really shame the caged mouse for being unable to imagine a forest?
Are we shaming them? I’m just acknowledging they can’t even conceive of an alternate future, which I think what “car-brained” is getting at.
But it’s a bit like the copper tops in the Matrix–they’ll always potentially be your enemy, through no fault of their own. For instance, these car brained people you are so eager to have sympathy for will show up in droves to complain about anything that would even theoretically lengthen their car commute by even a microsecond.
They did keep and expand on the rail routes! The US had an awesome rail network, including extensive passenger rail, until roughly the 1950s.
Yup, large automakers bought up a lot of rail lines, especially local inter- and intracities, and tore out the tracks as part of the highway program. My hometown had extensive tram lines (and a halfway built subway that we ran out of money for in the 20s) that got ripped up when I75 got built.
A lot of cities also just did this of their own accord, partially to enforce segregation and redlining. Awful harder for black and brown people to get to your Rich White Neighborhood if there’s no train or bus service to easily take them there.
Americans aren’t car brained, they’re trapped in a system they didn’t build and can’t control.
A distinction without a difference.
A mouse raised in a cage will be cage-brained.
Too many USAians can’t imagine life without driving a car, the same way that mouse can’t imagine a forest.
How do you expect someone to imagine life without a car, when they live in an area where you have to drive three miles to get to the nearest store, and there are no sidewalks or bike lanes?
Can you really shame the caged mouse for being unable to imagine a forest?
Are we shaming them? I’m just acknowledging they can’t even conceive of an alternate future, which I think what “car-brained” is getting at.
But it’s a bit like the copper tops in the Matrix–they’ll always potentially be your enemy, through no fault of their own. For instance, these car brained people you are so eager to have sympathy for will show up in droves to complain about anything that would even theoretically lengthen their car commute by even a microsecond.
If calling people names that sound insulting in order to point out their lack of intelligence and/or imagination isn’t shaming, then maybe not…
And I’m not defended car dependency or even sympathizing with car-users. I’d much prefer to have a robust rail system.
I was merely pointing out the flaw in your “distinction without a difference” argument. There is a difference.