Simply living their lives
Classic. Right-wing ideology in a nutshell. People must be allowed to do whatever they want, provided that what they want to do is expensive and destructive and dangerous.
Fuck public transportation yeah? Fuck pedestrians and cyclists yeah? The only decent people are the ones in cars, god damn it, so give everything to them and punish all those reckless lazy anti-capitalist people who don’t have six cars in their garages.
Freedom! Freedom freedom freedom!
For people who own cars, that is. Not for all those other people, the ones who refuse to support the automobile industry. Lazy irresponsible greedy buggers.
I suggest the National Parking Platform be built in the Thames Estuary – preferably somewhere near the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery
I just learned what an LTN is—low traffic neighborhood—and I totally get why people are against them. I mean, who doesn’t want to live in a neighborhood where cars are passing through 24 hours a day, blowing their horns, spewing their pollution (because of course there won’t be any of those socialistic electric cars), running down their kids, and taking up all the parking?
Internal combustion über alles!
What constitutes a “bus lane not in use”? Do they just mean the driver doesn’t see a bus right now? In which case, the bus lane inevitably develops the same level of traffic as all other lanes, leading to slower buses, encouraging drivers to return to their private cars?
Also: Why is it when discussion of public transit comes up in city councils, it’s all about costs and how much the government is subsidising the busses and trains. Somehow the public funding of roadways and associated infrastructure does not count as a subsidy. Drivers just expect to have these things provided, and cue the strenuous objections if the roads are not properly maintained, or driver-inconvenient safety measures are being discussed.
Seanna, not just that, but buses and trains receive ‘subsidies’ while roadways are ‘investments’. Around Nebraska, I heard all the time how the government never did anything for the person speaking. Said person then goes outside, gets in their SUV/monster truck, pumps it full of government subsidized gasoline, and drives it on streets built by government money. They go home and turn on lights that are provided by the government-run electric company, and send their waste to government-built landfills. They send their kids to public (in the US, meaning government-funded) schools, where they are able to purchase government-funded lunches without a huge cost outlay. They flush their toilet using government-provided water (extremely cheap, I might add) and the waste goes to a government-funded sewage treatment plant.
Then they complain because their neighbor rides a bus that gets ‘subsidies’.
Also, around here, many people are descendants of homesteaders, which means they got their land from the government FOR NOTHING.
I certainly wouldn’t expect them to understand that, of course. Most of them watch Fox News.