I think you just underestimate how awful public transport is in the US. Beating what’s available here is not a high bar to clear, especially when it’s nonexistent in many places. It can also vary pretty widely across and within regions. I imagine public transport in London is a different beast from public transport in Manchester, for example.

When I was visiting Manchester in March, it was pretty great. I could get around the city via bus, tram or walking pretty easily, and trains between Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds were all pretty clean, even late at night, and the most I paid for two round-trip tickets was £48.40 going to Leeds and back. Everything else was below £30 for two people, round trip.i Wherever I got off, I could get an Uber to where I was going for less than £10 if I didn’t feel like waiting for a bus, or there wasn’t a bus nearby. For a similar trip here, for one person going from NYC to Philadelphia and back would run me in excess of £100 with Amtrak making the trip in about 90 minutes, or closer to £30 round trip, but with each leg taking nearly 3 hours without any delays on NJ Transit. A 15 minute Uber here to work would routinely run me close to £20 each way, before accounting for a tip.

Nobody was screaming in my face asking for “donations,” there weren’t people with amplifiers blasting music, or homeless folks left to stew in their own filth keeping entire cars unusable for anyone else due to the stench. Even walking about the cities at all hours of the night, I had a grand total of 3 people ask me for money in a week. Residents apologized a few times about how awful things were there, but it was absolutely lovely, even in the parts they thought were local embarrassments for allegedly being unbearably dirty or run down. Granted, it was nice and cool, so I didn’t get to see if Manchester gets the same lovely summer effect that NYC does, where every outdoor space smells like hot piss and garbage once the temperature clears about 27°C.

Granted, spending a week in a city as tourists isn’t the same as living there, but from folks I know who’ve made the move, it was a massive upgrade in terms of things like public transit and general quality of life compared to life in the US or Canada. I ran the numbers, and it would actually make sense for me to take over a 50% pay cut if I could move there. Heck, it was cheaper for us to eat out for every meal for a week straight for two people and me buying several coffees out a day than it is for me to shop and prepare every meal at home and make all my own coffee here. Even if things aren’t as good as they used to be, they’ve still got us soundly beat in many regards.

The UK just decided they’re not in Europe. The rest of Europe has better PT than the UK. In the UK it was cheaper to hire a van and drive to Exeter than to catch the train, absolutely ridiculous.

I think most Americans like the idea of public transport, and including a robust national rail network. The reason it doesn’t exist are the oil and automotive lobbies. (Mostly oil.). Poorly educated Americans (the ones wearing MAGA hats) are easy to manipulate by these groups, as well.

I’m genuinely curious if people actually use the phrase ‘US Americans’, or if it’s a reference to that Miss Teen USA contestant rambling about world peace

Americans don’t generally have a negative thing to say about public transportation. Americans, however, prefer to drive their own vehicle for many reasons. For one, being independent, not relying on a schedule. Not worrying about missing their transportation and catching a later one, then being late to the arrival of their destination.

I don’t know where you live, but in the big cities of the U.S., public transportation… isn’t exactly hygienic. You will smell urine. You will encounter chitty people. You will be spending time reading all the random chit people write/scratch onto the walls and glass. You will sit on uncomfortable chairs, might even touch someone’s chewed up gum by accident.

I’ve seen some chit both in city busses and trains but this was in Chicago and some parts of NY. Never would I ever want to live that life. Ever.

Seriously.

I think you should leave

Edit: lol guys, for real, how do you not get the joke…? It’s literally the source material for the meme. It’s the name of the show.

E2: I think I should leave :(

My wife is Arab, wears a headscarf. She stopped at a red light, cop car whips around to the side of her vehicle and told her that driving the vehicle she has will catch attention and get car jacked. They outright told her never to stop at that red light and the following three red lights on that road, day or night.

Yes. I’ve been told that by cops in prior years.

That said, things have improved enormously in the last 10 years. There is a vibrant downtown area, and fairly large pockets of redevelopment around it, with safe(-ish) and affordable housing.

Only when turning left. Seriously, a city planner or something had a huge beef with turning left at lights and launched a war against it.

To assholes yeah. I grew up in a pretty rural area and still drive through some holes in the wall regularly with traffic lights where I’m stopped and there’s no traffic in miles. I still stop because that light is there for a reason. To save lives by enforcing some consistency in the rules.

I was commenting more on the misspelling of third.

Lmao this is too real

it’s* very common here

My grandmother is convinced it’s still like that. She would not have let me go to WSU except it’s the only school in Michigan that offered a degree in Mortuary/Postmortem Science