• Gammelfisch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    There’s always an “U-Bahn” station nearby. Public transportation and Americans…WTF…and your damn pick-up trucks and SUVs would not fit in the European parking garages!

  • shininghero@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    It still blows my mind when I look at Dutch intersections in Google’s street view. They managed to fit cars, bike lanes, and even commuter trains into their intersections without any issue.

    • TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      In the US, you can only choose 2 of those things. Add a third, someone is going to die.

      I have a buddy that went Amsterdam. He’s a bigger dude and the FIRST thing he told me about his trip was “you have to fucking bike everywhere”. Sounded wonderful to me but his tone of voice suggested otherwise.

      • Kühlschrank@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        11 个月前

        I even don’t know what he’s getting at - I’ve never had access to a bike the many times I have been there. Transit and walking are also perfectly viable options and there are still cars outside the center

        • abbadon420@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          11 个月前

          It’s almost like it’s not black and white. Like I work in a major city. I can walk and bus everywhere I want. But I live in the “countryside”, as far as The Netherlands still has “countryside”, and there’s nothing in walking distance, a few local commodities in biking distance, but I have to take the car for anything serious (like a decent supermarket).

          • Baŝto@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            0·
            11 个月前

            I have a similar situation here in a German village. There are a few supermarkets in 5km distance and more supermarkets + a train station in 10km. But I’m already on the denser country side with having 12 villages in a 5km radius.

            I think our bus service is okay as long as it’s not night, weekend or a holiday. With something coming every hour and for 3h half-hourly during afternoon rush hour. How is your bus service?

            • abbadon420@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              0·
              11 个月前

              We don’t have a bus, but busses in my area are not fantastic. The coverage is very sparse, with few direct lines. So if you want to go one town over (5km), it might take you an hour or more, because you always have to go through the regional centre (small city).

              My town does have a train station, which takes me to the closest big city in 30 minutes (20km). That train departs every 15 minutes, except for weekends and nights. I can’t conplain too much about the train service, except that it m’s not very fast. But there’s plans to run a fast line as well, an “intercity”

              • TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zipEnglish
                0·
                11 个月前

                We have people that live in a state called Rhode Island, which is 16x smaller than the Netherlands. It’s insane to hear them bitch about not having a car.

                *I’m only comparing the Netherlands to a US state (not country) because Texas is 20x larger than the Netherlands.

        • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          0·
          11 个月前

          Every time I visit Amsterdam, first thing I do is take a ferry to Overhoeks, grab a patatje with saté sauce and then proceed to walk through Amsterdam for 8 hours straight. Every time I take different routes. What I’m trying to say here is, it’s a damn fine walkable city.

  • Fabrik872@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    On a christmas markets or similar action i usually go to drink som alcoholic beverages how does it work in us if you have to drive home?

    • smoker@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      Options are:

      Stay at a friends place

      Have someone drive you

      Get an uber/lyft/taxi

      Drive drunk anyway

    • mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      There’s a reason we have so many drunk driving accidents. The responsible groups will designate one person to not drink at all so they can drive. You’ll see Uber or Lyft a little bit more now too.

      Basically everyone just gambles with other people’s lives.

    • PedestrianError :vbus: :nblvt:@towns.gay
      0·
      11 个月前

      @Fabrik872 @Sine_Fine_Belli Though we’re not the majority, there are plenty of USians who don’t live in sprawl hell and there’s probably some correlation between going to public downtown events and living and/or working near downtown. Suburbanites who commute to a downtown office are likely to be somewhat more familiar with transit options than their neighbors who never leave suburbia.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    In America, you have thousands in tiny cars. Weak and undisciplined, unable hold more than four people.

    In Germany, one big car on a long steel road carries thousands of people.

  • ceenote@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    The American reaction will either be confusion or envy, there is no in-between.

    I’m the latter.

  • Marinatorres@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    Usually it’s transit + walking + park-and-ride, not ‘giant garage under the market.’ When the space is for people, you don’t need to store cars there.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    The worst part is when my fellow Americans are very “we tried nothing and we’re out of ideas” about it. Or worse, actively fighting any changes.

    • NotJohnSmith@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      Weird I’m in the UK and have the image… ah, forget that, while I’m not on vpn now I was earlier and it must have cached

    • Serpent@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      Holy shit… im in uk visiting. Had no idea this is what the internet is like now.

  • andyburke@fedia.io
    0·
    11 个月前

    I appreciate the anti-car sentiment, not so much the anti-American one:

    The United States is 27.5 times bigger by total area compared to Germany: 3,794,100 sq mi vs 138,065 sq mi.

    EU countries make these kinds of snarky posts a lot, some of them while having total populations that are way more homogeneous while also being smaller than a midsized American metro area.

    The scale of America is rarely comprehended by people from these smaller countries.

    • De_Narm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      But like, there is no reason you should have to travel further, just because your country is bigger.

      In addition, as an EU resident you can travel across the EU like it’s one big country. The US is only about twice as large as the EU.

    • Traister101@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      America is huge but all the people live in cities, just like in EU countries and literally the rest of the world. Look at a population map, nobody lives in most of America

    • Timbo1970@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      This is a common false argument. The size is irrelevant when you build a city for people and not cars. The millions of spare square kilometres are there for farming and other natural uses. The city or town with more than a few thousand people can be built like this just fine. You see if in lots of other countries and cities that have tonnes of spare space.

      • Warl0k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        11 个月前

        If we’re being totally fair, Americans do deserve some credit for helping with Dresden’s city planning.

    • AstaKask@lemmy.cafedeleted by creatorEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      Americans can’t comprehend scaling infrastructure, or the diverse make up of Europes population.

    • JoshuaFalken@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      This isn’t the only event of its kind in Germany, so people aren’t crossing the country just for a market. Maybe a few towns over or so. Like a New Jerseyan going to Times Square to watch the ball drop - or to get a better pizza.

      As far anti American sentiment goes… the country that comes to mind when thinking of car centric infrastructure is often America so, this sentiment is rather accurate.

    • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      I can buy a single ticket and travel from Helsinki to London, by land, for 131€. You can go from LA to New York for under $630. Why not more transport?

    • gusgalarnyk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      This comment makes no sense in relation to this topic. This is a picture of a winter market in a German city (theoretically, I’m not verifying it but it looks legit). The size of the country as a whole or even really the population makes no difference when comparing this to the US and it’s cities. As someone who’s lived in multiple cities in both countries and visited far more, the population density is the only distinction and that can be designed for. Kansas city is urban sprawled to hell by design and Berlin isn’t all that different, except Berlin has trains galore.

      Actually looking up the data on where I live right now, Mannheim, and where I just came from, Kansas City this point is easily driven home.

      KC:

      • 825 km2 area
      • 508k people
      • 623 people/km2 density
      • 2.2 mil metro

      Mannheim:

      • 145 km2 area
      • 316k people
      • 2186 people/km2 density
      • 2.3 metro

      America is the home of the car. Germany isn’t even considered to have the best public transit and yet any country with that as a priority thrives in human centric metrics.

      It was a nightmare to drive downtown in KC, find parking, visit a handful of shops, and drive home. It took time and money and was generally dangerous.

      Going anywhere in the entire metropolitan area of Mannheim takes me max 30 minutes, and that’s by tram. I walk most places and that’s 1-10 mins of walking for all my needs. I can walk a block to my nearest Christmas market, 5 blocks to the next and something like 10 to the next. Nothing even remotely as communal or friendly in my suburban neighborhood in KC.

  • LOGIC💣@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 个月前

    Americans can understand if you phrase it differently.

    “You know how sometimes, you go to a big event, and the parking is so far away from the event that they have to ferry people from the parking lots to the event using a bus? Well, this is just like that, except you park at home.”

    • 18107@aussie.zoneEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      I refuse to take any kind of public transport. That’s why I carry my own elevator with me in case I need to enter a skyscraper.

    • Luffy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      11 个月前

      Imagine McDonalds Drive in, but instead of everyone has his own car, everyone has 1 big car they ride in.

      • LOGIC💣@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        11 个月前

        Well, even when you park in the parking lot, you have to walk to the area where the bus stops in order to pick you up. For the sake of convenience, let’s call that area a “bus stop.” So, you simply need to find the “bus stop” near your home.

        • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
          0·
          11 个月前

          Okay but when you drive to the “bus stop” near your home, where do you park your pickup truck? And, are there multiple sizes of bus? If not, how will my community know that I’m the manliest man, if I don’t roll up in the biggliest vehicle?

          • Wrufieotnak@feddit.orgEnglish
            0·
            11 个月前

            That’s the good thing about it: you will roll up in the biggliest vehicle, one bigglier than most people will ever drive themselves!

        • MrSmith@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          11 个月前

          I actually lol’d. (not actually, but I’m in a better mood than I was before reading it, so it’s as close to ‘lol’ as it gets)