375
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
375 points (98.2% liked)
Asklemmy
49341 readers
850 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Once Kansas City had apparently a fantastic streetcar. Then the car companies bought it up and tore out the rails. Now we're getting a streetcar being built again but it's just doing downtown on one street. I'm not near the streetcar.
So I drive to work. It's 12 miles, about 30 minutes (or 20 miles, 30 minutes if I take interstate around the city... honestly this city is weird, EVERYTHING is 30 minutes away.) If I wanted to take the bus, the shortest time frame would be 1 hr 35 minutes... not including that I'd have to get halfway there to get to the first bus stop.
Cities... if I wanted to take the train, I can go to Chicago for relatively cheap using Amtrak... but gotta plan that 3 months in advance, and the 8 hour ride we HOPE doesn't get extended because Amtrak doesn't own the rails it's on. Flipside, driving is 8 hours. Other cities, St. Louis, Wichita, basically I have two train lines, one in state, and one cross country. If I want to go to Denver... it's not happening.
So to answer your question, I want you to try to imagine how bad you think our public transportation is. Then lower your expectations.
Sounds like a line from a Terry Pratchett book
Exactly this. Public transport in KC is effectively non-existent unless you live in the middle of downtown KCMO.
Also as far as Amtrak goes, my biggest annoyance is that I can't travel with my dog via train. In Europe many train systems allow dogs with varying regulations and costs, and sometimes you have to buy your large dog a seat which I think is fair. Amtrak in the US doesn't allow large dogs at all. Now with no domestic airline flying large dogs either (they stopped that during Covid and never brought it back), my only option to travel with my dog is driving. I would happily buy him his own seat on a plane or train, and he's a certified good boy (CGC and SPOT-ON certificates) so he knows how to behave in public, but nope, not an option.
For me, not having a car will never be an option as long as I live in the US, not because I couldn't manage to get around without one, but because I like taking my dog on adventures and what little public transportation we have in the US is not dog friendly at all.
See, I'll drive for the most part, because to add on to my bitching about public transportation.
One time had to go to a place for work training. It was 12 hours away. I wanted to drive, company says no, they have me tickets.
It took me 14 hours to get back home from what was a 12 hour car drive. And flying always ends with me pissed off.
So it's all just absolute shite.
But they are expanding the street car! ……a few blocks north. ヽ( `д´*)ノ
Also, Gladstone cancelled their bus contract entirely. If you want to take a bus in Gladstone, you have to call some weird company contracted by the city to drive you to the bus stop.
Everything is awful.
Edit: I just remembered. If you live in Blue Springs, the bus only comes twice a day. 6am and 3pm. If you take the bus, you ride for a few hours, get to work at 9am, leave work at 12pm to get back at 3pm.