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Comment by cooper_ganglia | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I drive through 3 other towns before even getting to the town I work in. And the town I work in is 10-15 minutes off the "main road" (if you can even call it that, lol) so setting this up with public transport means having an entire bus SOLELY for me. You'd waste more than you'd save. I can't live closer, and my work can't move. These are the realities of living in the country. It's awesome and I wouldn't change it for the world, but stuff is just far apart, no matter what.

People really, really do not understand what living rural is like.

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> People really, really do not understand what living rural is like.

The same criticism applies equally well to rural dwellers about urban life which is why someone rural could be shocked by the idea someone might actively choose to to travel by high quality public transportation.

I have lived both rural and urban and actively choose urban. Rural is a fine choice too, but rural dwellers shouldn't expect their energy intensive and economically expensive lifestyle to be subsidized by urban dwellers forever. Maintaining a huge road network with relatively low utilization is massively expensive and western rural life is currently among the most carbon intensive lifestyles.

Are you hypothesizing that eventually everyone will/should move to urban areas? I don't think that will end up being sustainable either.

For better or worse, Urban dwellers are the majority in the US - the "Fuck Cars" blanket statements get a bit frustrating to see as someone in a rural environment.

> Maintaining a huge road network with relatively low utilization is massively expensive and western rural life is currently among the most carbon intensive lifestyles.

Yet it's necessary, and cheaper than the alternative when you have industry which must exist in a rural setting (such as farming). Attempting to mandate public transport for rural settings would cost more, and may even be more carbon intensive.

So as much as people who live in rural areas shouldn't dictate how public transport is instituted in dense urban areas, neither should urbanites dictate how transport in rural areas is managed.

Urban dwellers in America isn’t a dense city. It’s a loose collection of smaller cities all over the place. The US census defines urban as having 5,000 people in an area.

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