Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

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> Poor people driving economy boxes and living in a 4th floor walkup apartment with 3 roommates

People living in 4+ story apartment buildings have extensive options for transit that don't involve driving their personal "economy box" around. And to the extent they do, the "poor class" in the USA continues to pay lower prices for gas than any other industrial democracy, including in places like Australia and Canada with comparable per-capita driving statistics.

That argument seems like a canard. Yes, higher gas prices suck. They suck rather less than land wars in Europe though, so... what's the option here? I know there's a partisan angle there that says something about fracking, but needless to say short term inflation isn't well treated by half decade infrastructure projects. Gas is going up because Russia invaded Ukraine, and there's nothing anyone in the west can do about that right now regardless of whether they drive an EV or not.

(Won't lie though, that I'm totally loving the Tesla right now.)

I lived in an apartment in suburban Atlanta that was 4 stories in a county with no public transit whatsoever. Plenty of places in the U.S. have little or no public transit in the US but also have the density to support apartment buildings.

That's not "plenty", that's Fayette county[1]. It's very much an outlier, just like current fuel prices. The overwhelming majority of urban poor can (and do!) get by just fine without personal vehicles.

I have to say this debate is just exhausting. People just don't want to accomodate any solutions beyond "We Must Have Cheap Gas For Our Trucks In Perpetuity". I mean... that's just not the world we live in. And the rest of us (including and especially the urban poor!) have been looking at alternatives for decades.

[1] Here's Georgia's helpful site. Indeed Atlanta transit is sort of a mess, but it's there and it does work. No doubt you didn't take the bus when you lived there, but you almost certainly had options you weren't aware of. https://www.gatransit.org/page/TransitNearMe

I was in Henry County, GA, which has a lot of poor areas (including where I was living) with no MARTA in place. It's been over a decade since I lived there, but I'm not sure what's in place now.

Plenty of people live in in multi-story walk-up units in small and medium sized New England cities that have mediocre (if any) public transit that becomes nonexistent if you have to commute for work.

I think you'll find "plenty" of people in Worcester and Springfield and New London take that "mediocre (if any)" public transit every day. You didn't ride those buses, because you chose to have a car. Lots of people choose to have cars. People who have cars and don't take public transit nor prioritize transit policy, then complain about fuel price effects on the people who public transit is aimed at, are precisely the problem I was talking about.

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