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#102 Jun 27 2016 at 10:15 AM Rating: Excellent
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Kuwoobie wrote:
It's as if they made it that way on purpose so they could say "See? Public transportation sucks. Buy more cars."
Actually feel kind of bad for anyone in a swing state/city/region/whatever for this reason. There's so much energy wasted sabotaging the other side's political ambitions when the two are at relatively equal strength.
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#103 Jun 27 2016 at 10:40 AM Rating: Excellent
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Also, a new one for the list: baby outfits with snaps.

Fumbling around at 2:45 in the morning trying to change a diaper, hands don't work right and the two parts don't want to snap together, always seeming to miss a snap and then they aren't lined up, dim light makes it hard to see. Finally you nearly get everything done and then, oops you took to long! You get to clean up baby spit up now... Smiley: glare
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#104 Jun 28 2016 at 3:33 PM Rating: Decent
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lolgaxe wrote:
gbaji wrote:
(um... not much more than the metro card, but usable 24 hours a day and not just until midnight).
What? ... Wait, no, okay, I see. The card works until midnight of the thirtieth day. As in it expires on the thirty-first day. It's 25/8 the rest of the time. And if I really need it at 0001 of the thirty-first day then I just buy a new one from the vending machine since I'm going to anyway. I mean, I understand the mistake. Country bumpkins that visit do it all the time.


Ah. I misread the information on their site. There's an extraneous comma in there that threw me. I thought it was a bit strange that the "unlimited" passes would only allow free transit until midnight, but it's not like I was spending a ton of time on research.

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gbaji wrote:
Driving in San Diego is still much much less expensive than taking the bus/rail in NYC.
$227 (gas and insurance, your numbers)/month is "much much" less than $113/month? Smiley: dubious


When we factor in cost to rent, which was the point being discussed at the time. Silly me for assuming I didn't need to explicitly restate the very point we were discussing: That the difference in rent in NYC more than makes up for the cost of driving a car in San Diego.

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It takes me five minutes to walk to the station, maybe fifteen~twenty minutes to my stop, and another five to my office, but during that time I'm getting a ten minute walk and during that ride I read. I can "bop" over to any store or restaurant or whatever whenever I want for any reason I want, run over to a friend's house at any time day or night without thinking about bus schedules and transfers or worrying about getting home afterwards as well. Kind of why they're called "schedules."


Still massively less convenient than driving a car though. Explain to me exactly how you get a decent sized grocery run's contents back home from the grocery store? I'm honestly curious how people who don't own cars manage to transport anything larger than what can be easily carried in a bag or backpack. Do you just not do that? Do you pay to have stuff delivered to your door?

Heck. Just this last weekend, I decided to buy a stand mixer. Drove to the store. Picked up the model I wanted, put it in the car, and drove home. Total time about 40 minutes. And because I went into the store, and they were having a sale, I got it for about half cost. How would you have managed that? I get a nice 5 minute walk. Good exercise. Not so much fun lugging around a 40lb box though. I certainly could have ordered it online, and had it delivered. And waited a week or so after making the decision for it to arrive. And probably paid more for it. And hoped it didn't have a problem and need to be returned. But I guess it's worth it because? Why? I'm not seeing any advantage at all to using mass transit.

Jophiel wrote:
Which is fine but not really worth arguing about when one party has no frame of reference.


Which is amusing considering from my perspective, people who argue the virtues of mass transit are the ones who don't have a frame of reference with regard to driving in a city with a well designed road system. From my point of view, they are the ones "stuck" having to use an older method of travel because the city they live in was never upgraded to utilize a newer/better way. Their experience with car travel is the nightmare of traversing crowded streets, and never being able to find parking, and having to pay silly amounts when they do find it. But what they don't realize is that all of those negative exist *because* of the very design of their cities that depend on tightly packed streets so everything is close to a mass transit stop.

It's a total cart before the horse problem. I meet people all the time who move here from other locations around the world, and it's amazing how many of them will relate basically the same story about how at first they thought it sucked that San Diego doesn't have a good mass transit system, because that's what they were used to using. But once they got used to using a car to get around, the light went on and they can't stop talking about how much more convenient it is. All these limitations they used to have to deal with suddenly vanish. They literally didn't know what they didn't have. Until they had it.


So yeah. No frame of reference.
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#105 Jun 28 2016 at 4:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Which is amusing considering from my perspective, people who argue the virtues of mass transit are the ones who don't have a frame of reference with regard to driving in a city with a well designed road system.

Yeah, I've never driven a car around the suburbs before. Gosh, how could I ever imagine what it's like!? Smiley: rolleyes Smiley: laugh
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I certainly could have ordered it online, and had it delivered. And waited a week or so after making the decision for it to arrive

Seriously? You don't have Amazon Prime? Shoprunner? Nothing? Are you Amish?

Edited, Jun 28th 2016 5:04pm by Jophiel
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#106 Jun 28 2016 at 4:07 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
It takes me five minutes to walk to the station, maybe fifteen~twenty minutes to my stop, and another five to my office, but during that time I'm getting a ten minute walk and during that ride I read. I can "bop" over to any store or restaurant or whatever whenever I want for any reason I want, run over to a friend's house at any time day or night without thinking about bus schedules and transfers or worrying about getting home afterwards as well. Kind of why they're called "schedules."

Or, you know, for those occasions where a direct A to B route in a car would be helpful they have these things now called "cabs" or "Uber" or, ****, bike rental stations depending on the city.


Which I mentioned earlier in the thread as an extra expense you have to factor into the equation. There are some things that you just have to have a car to do, even in a city with a well designed mass transit system. If you're paying for a cab, even just a few times a month, that's going to seriously add up. And I guess the other issue for me is impact on your decision making and planning. People who use mass transit as their primary means of transport have to actually think differently about how they do things. The only things you can do spur of the moment have to involve things within short walking distance. Everything else has to be planned ahead of time, since it's 30 minutes just to get anywhere at all outside that short walking range. This tends to constrain people. You're going to tend to adjust your life to fit into the things close by you. The store that's just a block of two away becomes the store you go to, not because it has the best selection of goods, or the best prices, but because it's the store that close enough to walk to. If you want to go somewhere else, you have to plan and time it to coincide with some other trip you're taking.

I honestly think that leads to a more provincial mindset, not the other way around. Because at the end of the day, no matter how tightly packed your local neighborhood is with shops and stores, it's never going to be remotely as broad and diverse as all of the places I can get to, quickly and easily, by driving a car. I don't just have a good noodle house, and a nice Italian restaurant, and a good burger joint nearby. I've got 15 noodle houses to pick from, 20 Italian restaurants, 100 burger joints, etc, etc, etc, none of them any particularly greater difficulty to get to than the others. I've got a hankering for Mongolian Pot soup? I hop in my car and am sitting down at a table 10 minutes later. I realize I'm out of my Twin Rabbit brand fried onions that is only carried by this one Asian restaurant in town (and costs $4 instead of $16 on Amazon Prime)? Oh noes! It's 15 minutes away. My mom calls and wants me to help her fix the sound on her TV when playing her classic VHS collection because she switched around the cables again? 20 minute drive (I seriously bought her a combo dvd/vhs machine just to fix this issue btw). Oh. And that involved driving to the freaking Wal Mart that was 5 minutes from her home, picking out a box, transporting it back to her home in my car, and installing it. That extra trip alone would have taken an extra hour or so via mass transit. And heaven forbid the connections are wrong for her TV or something. Guess we'll have to wait until next time cause the trip to the store will take too long to make. Oh wait! I have a car, and a road system that allow me to just run back to the store and exchange it. Right now. It's like mind blowing!
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#107 Jun 28 2016 at 4:15 PM Rating: Excellent
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The funny part is that you keep making these arguments to me as though I've never used a car or don't drive around or anything. Golly, I'll never know the amazement of driving six miles to buy onions! Oh, wait, I could drive a hundred miles to buy onions if I wanted to but I don't because they're onions.

New York has 8.4 million people and less than 50% car ownership. Jinkies, that's 4 million people who can't figure out what to do when mom's VCR breaks! Oh, wait, they all manage just fine. And, seriously... VCR? Week to get packages? Are you a time traveler from 1992? Maybe buy your mom some of those new fangled DVDs instead of combing a Walmart looking for the last VCR on earth like some sort of hobo.
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#108 Jun 28 2016 at 4:18 PM Rating: Good
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I live in a large city, and that 30 minutes you are talking about exists whether I take my own car or a Lyft.

Having lived in Portland for my 20's, and Los Angeles in my 30's and now my 40's, I can honestly say that I prefer NOT having a car, and having a good transit system. I actually finally crumbled and got a car last year, after being in L.A. for almost 15 years. Because the city does't have a good transit system. Too bad the car traffic sucks just as bad, if not worse!

When I move back to Portland to die, not sure if I will keep my car or not.

Also, when I was working in NYC, a cab took you anywhere in manhattan, for almost nothing, and you could also take a train in way less time then it took to drive.
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#109 Jun 28 2016 at 4:21 PM Rating: Good
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Also, arguing diversity and abundance of restaurants between New York City and San Diego is like arguing Italian ethnicity population density between Italy and Mars.

Edited, Jun 28th 2016 3:21pm by stupidmonkey
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#110 Jun 28 2016 at 4:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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But he said Mongolian! Aren't you impressed?
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#111 Jun 28 2016 at 4:28 PM Rating: Good
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I left the milk out too long this morning and now I've got a whole bottle of Mongolian cuisine.
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#112 Jun 28 2016 at 4:31 PM Rating: Good
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Why do you have Yak Milk in the first place?
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#113 Jun 28 2016 at 5:28 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Which is amusing considering from my perspective, people who argue the virtues of mass transit are the ones who don't have a frame of reference with regard to driving in a city with a well designed road system.

Yeah, I've never driven a car around the suburbs before. Gosh, how could I ever imagine what it's like!? Smiley: rolleyes Smiley: laugh


You've never lived for any period of time in a city where the freeways and roadways are actually designed to be fast and convenient for car travel. It's not just driving in the suburbs. It's driving through them, or from one suburban section of a county to another. Most older cities use a wheel and spoke design for their freeways (out of necessity). While certainly better than the absurdly narrow and ad-hoc system they'd have trying to build through the more populated areas of the city, it does mean that traffic has to route around things instead of going in a straight line. It also means that the feeder routes (the spokes) tend to be exactly the sort of ad-hoc routes often with the very horrible traffic congestion you were trying to avoid in the first place, making travel in our out of the center much much slower.

San Diego, because it grew mostly during the age of the automobile, and was actually proactively built (mostly) rather than reactive, has a very well designed grid pattern, with several major north/south routes, and several major east/west routes, and a number of diagonal routes between them as well. The major freeways travel directly through the most populated sections of the city rather than around them (literally, the intersection of Interstate 8 and Interstate 5 is just north of downtown at Mission Bay), but because it was designed this way (and the "most populated" areas are still relatively sparse and distributed), traffic is actually much better than in any other freeway system I've driven through. Our rush hour is much shorter than it is in LA, and even at the worst part of it, traffic still flows pretty well.

As the city population grew, we built outward into the surrounding areas, building roadways as we went to connect the various smaller towns in the county, each time making sure that adequate connective routes were maintained. Because of this design even if there's a nasty accident, there are a half dozen other routes you could take to get to your destination that are nearly equal in terms of total distance. Cause... it's a grid (more or less). You get a single bad accident on the wheel part of a spoke and wheel designed highway system, and you're stuck. Everyone in the feeder routes is stuck. Heck. Even just slowness from congestion in one part of the system causes slowness everywhere else.

And don't get me started on LA. Lots of people talk about the LA freeway system, and LA is considered the prime example of the car culture, but the reality is that it's freeway system is terribly designed and was built almost completely reactively. They have too many junctions that intersect too close to each other, and create massive jams where they meet. Their roadways are constantly lagging behind traffic requirements (horrifically so, if you've ever driven the stretch of I5 where it literally narrows to 2 lanes for about 5 miles). If your idea of what a large automobile commuter highway system looks like comes from driving in, or even talking to people who've driven in LA, you're looking at the wrong example entirely.

I'll say it again: Until you've lived and driven for a period of time in a city that actually has a well designed road and highway system, you simply do not understand what it's like and how much better it is than any other means of traveling around a city/county. There's no comparison. Aside from a couple other cities in the south west (Phoenix actually springs to mind as a decently designed highway system), I *hate* driving in most other cities. I'm constantly looking at the ridiculously dense traffic that stretches as far as they eye can see, and wondering how the people who live there put up with crawling along on their highways all the time. So yeah. I get where the whole "cars suck. Let's build mass transit" argument comes from.

I just happen to know that there is a better way. If people would abandon the idea of increased density to support their desired mass transit system, and instead looked at more distributed city designs. There's no need to put everything in a single tightly packed city center. None at all.

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I certainly could have ordered it online, and had it delivered. And waited a week or so after making the decision for it to arrive

Seriously? You don't have Amazon Prime? Shoprunner? Nothing? Are you Amish?


Eh. Even Amazon Prime takes 2 days for free shipping (and can take longer depending on stock conditions). And the cost would have been higher than I paid at the store. And frankly, I've had enough issues with stuff arriving damaged (or just with any random problem with it), that I tend to avoid ordering online for anything that has like moving parts. Dealing with returns in a store is easy. Walk into store with item. Drop on return counter. Get money back, or store credit, or direct replacement for the item. Walk out. I'm back home in less than an hour with the item I want. Any online order, no matter how well managed it is (and Amazon is definitely one of the better sources in that regard), still takes a lot of time to deal with if you have to return it.

For me, it's more of an instant gratification thing. I tend to spend quite a bit of time thinking about buying something, figuring out the exact thing I want, etc. But once I make that decision, I kinda want it right now. So part of my buying process involves looking up various stores in the area and checking prices and deals. And when I find something that is what I want at the price I want, I just hop in my car and go buy it. If I get it home and find I don't actually like it, or it doesn't work the way I want (or is broken/damaged in some way), I can just hop back in my car and return it. The point is that I have the thing *today*. Not in 2 or 3 days. Maybe. If everything goes according to plan.

That's exactly what I mean by having to plan things out around the fact that it's inconvenient to shop by car for things. If you don't own a car, or have quick easy access to a large variety of stores, you're going to tend to do more online shopping and have more things delivered. And for you, the extra time involved is just "normal". For me, it's not. For me it's, "Ok. I've decided I do want to buy that thing. I'm going to get it today". And yeah, I can see for something that's a plus purchase, time spent thinking about it versus time spent waiting for it to arrive isn't really a huge deal either way. But what about things that break? I think I mentioned earlier about some light panels that broke into pieces one day. A person without a car would have to either order replacements (not sure how that's going to work anyway), or rent a car/truck, or take a cab (again, not sure that's going to work due to size issues), or pay someone to come out and replace it for him. Me? I drove down to an ACE hardware store, purchased the panels, put them in the back of my car, and drove home. 20 minutes later, I had replacement panels installed.

Could I have waited a few days to replace them? Sure. It's not like my home is unlivable without light panels covering up the fluorescent lights in the kitchen. But again, it's a matter of having to time your life around the limitations of your transportation methodology. I don't have to do that. Those reliant on mass transit do. I just believe that having a car represents a significant increase in freedom and mobility. I honestly can't even imagine trying to live without one. So many things just become super convenient and fast when you have one versus when you don't.
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#114 Jun 28 2016 at 5:48 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Yeah, I've never driven a car around the suburbs before. Gosh, how could I ever imagine what it's like!? Smiley: rolleyes Smiley: laugh
You've never lived for any period of time in a city where the freeways and roadways are actually designed to be fast and convenient for car travel. It's not just driving in the suburbs. It's driving through them, or from one suburban section of a county to another.

Yeah, they call those suburbs. Low density areas linked by high capacity highways? That's a suburb, Gbaji.
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San Diego, because it grew mostly during the age of the automobile, and was actually proactively built (mostly) rather than reactive, has a very well designed grid pattern, with several major north/south routes, and several major east/west routes, and a number of diagonal routes between them as well.

Those are called suburbs. Built in the 50's onward during the periods of urban expansion and designed around automobile traffic. Honestly, I have no clue why you think San Diego is somehow unique here.
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Eh. Even Amazon Prime takes 2 days for free shipping (and can take longer depending on stock conditions).

Sorry. I forgot that in actual city areas you can usually get your Amazon stuff the same day.
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That's exactly what I mean by having to plan things out around the fact that it's inconvenient to shop by car for things. If you don't own a car, or have quick easy access to a large variety of stores, you're going to tend to do more online shopping and have more things delivered.

Well, you might. I own a car and access to a bajillion stores and still find it infinitely more convenient to buy stuff from home.
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I just believe that having a car represents a significant increase in freedom and mobility. I honestly can't even imagine trying to live without one. So many things just become super convenient and fast when you have one versus when you don't.

Again, it's funny because you're acting like you're talking to people who don't own cars or don't have a frame of reference for driving around. It's as though I suddenly started talking about how wonderful my smartphone is and you guys can't imagine all it does for me.
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#115 Jun 28 2016 at 6:00 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
It's as though I suddenly started talking about how wonderful my smartphone is and you guys can't imagine all it does for me.
If everything said about San Diego is true, it's quite possible they don't have that technology available yet.
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#116 Jun 28 2016 at 7:59 PM Rating: Decent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
Also, arguing diversity and abundance of restaurants between New York City and San Diego is like arguing Italian ethnicity population density between Italy and Mars.


I'm not arguing diversity and abundance of restaurants within the entire metropolitan areas, but within a given travel time that someone might reasonably want to spend for lunch or dinner. In a city well designed for car traffic, pretty much any restaurant in the city is similarly available in a "reasonable" amount of travel time. But in a city designed for mass transit, the delta in terms of time and effort to reach restaurants outside a relatively small radius becomes significant. If you've got 5 restaurants in short walking distance from you, and 500 that require a 5 minute walk to the metro station, 5-10 minutes waiting for the train/bus, then 20-30 minutes transit time, then a 5 minute walk from the station to the restaurant, you're likely going to visit just those 5 nearby far more often than any of the others. On the other hand, if you have 100 restaurants that are all within a 10-15 minute drive, with open parking right in front of them, you're not going to weight one that's closer much more than one that's farther. The result is that even if the first case has several times more total restaurant options, you're not going to be availing yourself of most of them most of the time. The second case will result in a more diverse selection of restaurants over any given time period.


I'm talking about how the different methods of transportation affect the choices the people living there make. When the only options for transportation are mass transit or cab, you're going to weigh the time/cost of getting anywhere outside of walking distance quite heavily. You will therefore tend to restrict yourself to shopping and eating mostly in places that are within that short walking distance. Hence, even though NYC may have a far greater number of total choices, I'd wager that most people who live there actually shop and eat at a much smaller number of locations on average than someone living in San Diego. For me, the difference between driving to the closest shopping center and eating there, or shopping there, isn't much different than driving across town. The travel time/trouble weighs less than the potential interest in something different.

I think that people who live in mass transit communities tend to "settle" for what's closest to them more often. And I also think that they rationalize this to themselves by proclaiming (often quite loudly) that "everything I need is right near me, which is why I love living in this area". Er... Maybe everything you "need" is near you, so you don't "need" to go across town, but not everything you might "want" is near you. And IMO, that's a huge difference.
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#117 Jun 28 2016 at 8:50 PM Rating: Good
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While I started thinking about NYC restaurants, I came across this link.

The lower east side, alone, had 233 sit down restaurants in 2011

The top 10 city ZIP codes for total number of restaurants in 2009 were all in Manhattan, which is an island that is roughly 23 square miles! Leading the ZIP code pack was the Little Italy-SoHo area, with 331 joints.
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#118 Jun 28 2016 at 8:52 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Yeah, they call those suburbs. Low density areas linked by high capacity highways? That's a suburb, Gbaji.


You're not understanding what I'm talking about. Remember the whole "no frame of reference" comment?

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Those are called suburbs. Built in the 50's onward during the periods of urban expansion and designed around automobile traffic. Honestly, I have no clue why you think San Diego is somehow unique here.


Because you don't have the correct frame of reference. I just explained in the post you just quoted how the development and design of the entire metropolitan region in San Diego county is different than those which were large cities prior to the use of automobiles. San Diego was designed with car traffic in mind. Other cities had to adapt their existing design to try to deal with car traffic.

The results are not remotely similar. San Diego is not "unique" (great strawman there btw, given that I specifically stated that there are other cities in the southwest that are similarly blessed with well planned road infrastructure), but its road and city design is certainly radically different from cities like Chicago, NY, Boston, etc. And that makes for a huge difference in driving experience.

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Sorry. I forgot that in actual city areas you can usually get your Amazon stuff the same day.


Versus always being able to get it within the same hour by driving to a store? Way to sell it Joph!

The only things I order online are things that are either:

1. Significantly less expensive than purchasing in a store.

2. Not available for purchase in a store.

3. Relatively simple solid items that are unlikely to be damaged and have to be returned (obviously, numbers 1 and 2 can and often do outweigh this factor though).

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I just believe that having a car represents a significant increase in freedom and mobility. I honestly can't even imagine trying to live without one. So many things just become super convenient and fast when you have one versus when you don't.

Again, it's funny because you're acting like you're talking to people who don't own cars or don't have a frame of reference for driving around.


Well, given that at least two people spoke about not having cars (one because he lived in an area with good mass transit and one lamenting that he didn't have a car *and* didn't have good mass transit) and this entire portion of the discussion was sparked by your comment about half of the people living in NYC not owning a car, it maybe does seem relevant to discuss that aspect of the issue. I was speaking to the difference in lifestyle and travel for someone living in NYC versus living in San Diego. So.... yeah.

A large part of my point is that many people have a frame of reference that assumes that all highway systems are as poorly designed as the one where they live, and thus assume that this is true everywhere. I happen to think it's relevant to the conversation to point out that in San Diego, this is not true at all and that cars are much more useful for getting around than in any other city I've ever driven in (or attempted to drive in as it were). And not just because our public transit system sucks. It sucks because there just isn't much demand for it because our road and highway system is so well designed and our population is more spread out across the county (again, by design).

Aside from the occasional city council member who pushes for some sort of mass transit solution purely because he or she desperately wants San Diego to "be like other big cities" (Really? Why?), most people around here, when presented with the idea of building more mass transit pretty much have the same response: Why would we do that? We already have a highway that goes from <point A to point B>. And it goes everywhere else too! So what you are saying? I should get to point B by driving my car first to point A (which may not be remotely "on the way" from where I'm starting), parking it, paying money to get on a train, then go to point B, then reverse the process to get back home? I could just drive straight to point B, often in the same time it would take to get to the transit station you want me to use instead? That's... dumb.
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#119 Jun 28 2016 at 8:58 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji, you get that part of the reason that San Diego avoids mass transit is the whole "Don't want to have to carve 8 dozen tunnels due to the geographic layout of the area" might have something to do with it. Right?

Right?
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#120 Jun 28 2016 at 8:59 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Explain to me exactly how you get a decent sized grocery run's contents back home from the grocery store?
Live somewhere that's designed to negate the need for a "monthly decent sized grocery run." If I need milk, I just go get milk. I don't need to plan how much milk I need a month and ration it or whatever. I guess I could pay the huge $5 and have a month's worth of food just delivered that afternoon? I guess if Walmart is like a mile away from you then that's how much you pay for gas. You really showed us.
gbaji wrote:
And waited a week or so after making the decision for it to arrive
Is your San Diego in Afghanistan? Because it takes literally six days to get a package from New York to Afghanistan. No, seriously, I had a $3,000 coffee machine picked, delivered, installed and the old one removed in less than four hours.
gbaji wrote:
There are some things that you just have to have a car to do, even in a city with a well designed mass transit system. If you're paying for a cab, even just a few times a month, that's going to seriously add up.
There are some things, sure, which is why there are cabs. I can't really think of anything I'd need to do a few times a month that'd need a cab for, though. Irregular use isn't really a factor any more than it'd be for you if you decided to drive to Vegas for a weekend.
gbaji wrote:
The only things you can do spur of the moment have to involve things within short walking distance. Everything else has to be planned ahead of time, since it's 30 minutes just to get anywhere at all outside that short walking range.
That might be literally the wrongest anyone could possibly be while still speaking a vaguely human language. Are you sure you don't live in Afghanistan?
gbaji wrote:
I've got 15 noodle houses to pick from, 20 Italian restaurants, 100 burger joints, etc, etc, etc, none of them any particularly greater difficulty to get to than the others.
For one no one believes that, and apparently quality isn't a factor for you, but for comparison's sake even on the worst conditions of the most congested day of the apocalypse, on the far end of Long Island (Like, I don't know, Southhampton?), and being blackout drunk I'd still be less than thirty minutes from the middle of Midtown Manhattan. Because express lines. And taking the wrong train at least once while being drunk. Anyway, in that five square miles is everything from quick cart foods to the highest end dining for every type of food in the world, not to mention every level of shopping and entertainment, and they're all closer to me without a car than your 135 ... let's call them "restaurants" are to you with.
Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
San Diego, because it grew mostly during the age of the automobile, and was actually proactively built (mostly) rather than reactive, has a very well designed grid pattern, with several major north/south routes, and several major east/west routes, and a number of diagonal routes between them as well.
Those are called suburbs. Built in the 50's onward during the periods of urban expansion and designed around automobile traffic.
The funniest part about this is that one of the most famous uses of the grid plan was the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 for the streets of Manhattan. San Diego wasn't even part of America yet when we were using his vaunted "superior road system." We have the same road system and mass transit. Smiley: laugh
gbaji wrote:
Er... Maybe everything you "need" is near you, so you don't "need" to go across town, but not everything you might "want" is near you.
Probably because when discussing things you would discuss "needs" before "wants," as "wants" are of lesser value. If you want to discuss "wants" as well, keep in mind that we're still talking about New York City, so everything we'd "want" is also near. Usually near the stuff we need. Because that's how real cities work. The things you need and the things you want aren't on opposite sides of the city.

Edited, Jun 28th 2016 11:03pm by lolgaxe
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#121 Jun 28 2016 at 9:09 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji defends cars because he's Republican and so has to hate public transit. And he defends San Diego because he's tribalistic and has attached his self-worth to the city he arbitrarily lives in, which is a symptom of his Republican nature and their adherence to tribalism and inability to examine their own life.

#122 Jun 28 2016 at 9:10 PM Rating: Excellent
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Well, gabji never "wants" to go to a Broadway show, so "wants" doesn't really matter.

Right?
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#123 Jun 28 2016 at 9:12 PM Rating: Good
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trickybeck wrote:

gbaji defends cars because he's Republican and so has to hate public transit. And he defends San Diego because he's tribalistic and has attached his self-worth to the city he arbitrarily lives in, which is a symptom of his Republican nature and their adherence to tribalism and inability to examine their own life.
Add to that that San Diego is "conveniently" split into low income and high income neighborhoods and you might see why gbaji loves it so much.
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remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.

#124 Jun 28 2016 at 9:33 PM Rating: Excellent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Well, gabji never "wants" to go to a Broadway show, so "wants" doesn't really matter.
Yeah but who really wants to? I mean, besides people from all over the world from every social and economic level?

I guess the only people who wouldn't want to see a show would also describe Fast and Furious movies as a "tour de force."
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George Carlin wrote:
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#125 Jun 28 2016 at 10:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Because you don't have the correct frame of reference. I just explained in the post you just quoted how the development and design of the entire metropolitan region in San Diego county is different than those which were large cities prior to the use of automobiles. San Diego was designed with car traffic in mind. Other cities had to adapt their existing design to try to deal with car traffic.

I didn't say "city", I said "suburbs". You don't think that suburbs were explicitly designed around automobile traffic? Huh. It's funny that you get all miffed about "San Diego is unique" while desperately trying to pretend that it's any different from a thousand suburbs laid out in the last half century.
Quote:
Versus always being able to get it within the same hour by driving to a store? Way to sell it Joph!

Without leaving the house? Well... uhhh... yeah. Weren't you just whining about how long a subway ride would take or whatever? But you'll spend time in the car driving around and I'll spend time on my *** doing whatever I want and we'll both have our product. So, go you, you freedom warrior Smiley: laugh
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#126 Jun 29 2016 at 8:24 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
So, go you, you freedom warrior Smiley: laugh
Maybe he, too, has a six cd changer and cup holders?
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George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
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