re: #231 William Lewis

I wish.

This is the US however and as you remember everything is far away and there is no such thing as usable public transportation. So I drive to and from work each night and if I want something to do outside of the house even now I have to drive somewhere.

Decent public transportation in the trains/buses of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (they changed their name didn’t they?) is one of the things I miss the most from my times in Germany.

My way of looking at it is that at this time, “a reliable public transportation system meaning very few own private autos” would be a bad thing. Especially since the demand hasn’t yet dropped enough for it to be possible to practice proper social distancing, and without assigned seats for the entire run, you’re just as likely as not to sit where someone was shedding viruses an hour ago anyway. Though I will admit it’d be likely to leave a lot fewer people willing to go and pull their groceries in-person (which I will also admit I prefer doing, because sending an order-puller instead, you have no control over which individual package they grab, nor any way of knowing whether there are products totally out of stock until they tell you 3 to 4 hours after you made a doomed order), since there’s more often than not way too much to carry back home on foot or via a train (or heaven forbid, bus).

I’ve actually argued that this should almost vindicate that public-transport-hostile mindset here instead!