To be fair. That's the Christmas market on the Altmarkt in Dresden and there's a huge parking garage right below it. 😄
Americans thinking that Europeans don't own cars is almost as dumb as Europeans thinking Americans never walk anywhere.
i mean... I'm basically the only American i know that has actually chosen to walk as a real way to get somewhere in the last 5 years.
the idea that most Americans literally never walk anywhere isn't inaccurate. especially for anyone living outside of a city.
About a quarter of my colleagues walk to work everyday. One doesn't even own a car. I don't live in a city.
Well, I was in a student exchange to Boise, Idaho about 20 years ago and did a daily walk around the neighborhood for some fresh air. Three days in, I was stopped by a frantic police officer with his fucking gun drawn because someone had reported me as some kind of child molester who was scouting for victims, because someone just walking was a completely alien concept there.
I was taken to the fucking police station because the policeman thought I was making shit up either. My host family had to wiggle around with my German passport and threaten to get the Embassy involved until they decided I wasn't worth the hassle and dropped the whole thing... So I learned two things from that exchange:
- 'Muricans do not know what "walking" is
- US police is next level power tripping
Given the amount of alcohol involved in these christmas markets, it really is a good thing that there’s not much parking space.
It's like none of you have actually been to a city in the USA having an event. Do any of you see times square on various holidays or have been to a parade?
I find these kinds of threads funny.
Someone makes an admittedly lame jokey stereotype about the US.
A bit like a broad stereotype about the French liking baguettes, the Scots hating Scots, the Brits having bad teeth and talking like Austin Powers, or Germans not having a sense of humour. Even the Germans don't get offended. They've been taught that this is meant to be funny, and that the rules of etiquette suggest they should not be offended by it.
But the real punch line is always some humourless Americans taking it at face value and getting genuinely offended. "They're saying we don't have public transport. They're clearly idiots!"
Do any of you see times square on various holidays or have been to a parade?
No. No one outside the US has ever heard of New York. Just like everyone in the US drives a pickup truck everywhere. lol
Well, no. However, the way that roughly half of y'all vote is utterly incomprehensible from this side of the pond.
What if I told you a car is not necessary for travel. Take the red ticket, and it all ends. You board your flight and go back to the west, back to your long highways and calculated suburbs. But take the blue ticket, and I show you how far these two feet can walk.
yes because the average american has made a choice to have a car-centric society with car-centric infrastructure and could totally just not use a car to get 8 miles across town and back for their job every day how silly of us
get 8 miles across town and back for their job every day how silly of us
A half hour cycle commute really isn't far. Almost anyone can do that, almost certainly including your grandma.
The real problem is the lack of infrastructure.
That would be a neat trick since both of my grandmothers are dead! But yeah exactly the infrastructure is not only not built for biking but pretty hostile to it as well, not to mention that there is usually no dedicated space for storing a bike on location and theft is pretty high for bikes. The change to make biking viable is possible but the amount of inertia is high and would be at least as difficult as implementing widespread EV changes I would guess
8 miles isn't too far to bike! I used to ride about that to commute. When I started, it took me around 40 minutes to get there, and an hour and a half back. Slight incline one direction.
About six months in, I was down to 20ish there, and less than 40 back.
Winter sucked pretty bad, someone got me gore-tex mittens though. Still had my eyelashes freeze
this is true, and would be good at least half the year so fair point but still need a good alt in winter. Still, cutting out half the year of car commuting is a lot better than nothing
Europe has working public transit, so parking garages aren't needed to the same level as American cities.
There are lots of American cities with large open-air commercial areas which are car-free.
For example, the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade.
Which has a farmer's market.
Oh I've been to New York and the Wash DC Smithsonian, likely the two best public transit systems in the USA. BART in San Fran also is fine but could be better.
But I've also gone to Madrid, Tokyo and some other cities around the world. There's no comparison. Best in the USA is closer to average of Europe, while average of USA is pretty bad public transit wise.
Ex: I've also gone to big cities like Nashville, Manilla Philippines, Los Angeles where things are closer to bus-only and the local traffic suffers greatly as a result. The general expectation in the USA is that 'public transit is for the underclass'. In contrast, you do see rich people take Wash DC metro, NYC, and especially Tokyo's subway. And it makes a difference when both rich and poor take the same system.
But all USA cities are car-first designed. As opposed to European model where cars are actively being de-prioritized on a city level.
Except like, New York City. One place in USA where walking works extremely well across the whole of Manhattan. But further out is less good transit, but the central island is well made.
Moreso cities on the west coast are more car centric. East coast cities predate cars by quite a bit. Sure many east coast cities modified themselves to accommodate cars, but their layout originally was suited for walking and horse travel.
"Lots" of American cities seems like an exaggeration.
Some American cities have certain areas which are car-free.
Wasn't Paris's speed limit set to like 15mph?
Multiple cities in Europe are becoming 'Walking First' cities where cars are effectively 2nd class.
Car free? No. But cars are being de-prioritized extremely these days.
Not car free but i can definitely tell you there is possibility to walk, public transit in MOST of EU cities. Starting from Scandinavia, almost any city with pop , 10k or more will have generally bus transport, and probable connectivity to nearest big city by train/bus, big cities have metro (Stockholm) that I know of Germany has vast network of rail(although it's schisse at moment with DB) , within cities its bus , that I know of . France almost any big city will have bus, tram and/or metro and long distance trains Same for spains cities , Netherlands is famous for its Public transport This is from what I know
Cars are severely slow and given less prio in these countries, in any of big city e.g. Barcelona, Paris, Hague, you can see you can go faster by public transportation or almost same time as car for same destinations , check it out in Google maps with comparisons
Spain has 195mph trains as well connecting huge swaths of the country. I fortunately was able to experience this.
The American concept of a "road trip" is just not the same in Europe. The Trains are far faster than your car would ever go. No reason to putter around at 80mph on a fast American highway when Europe just has faster modes of transit.
Long distance? Train. Short-distance? Train and/or bus. Its really easy over there, but difficult in America.
That being said: American Freight Rail moves way more than Europe Freight ever does. One of the problems here in the USA is that freight is the priority, and freight just doesn't need to be as fast as Passenger traffic. We kind of need to build a 2nd, separate rail system, to get anything like the Europeans have.
Even though this image is the above ground view of a giant ass parking garage. You all eat this shit up hook line and sinker.
It's a joke that's circled round like an Ouroboros. Americans say "The European mind can not comprehend this" under images of racing trucks with US flags on. Then Europeans do this in response.
So many have been made with varying degrees of irony to the point it's meaningless.
The first time I took a cab in Germany, I went to a mall; dude drove right into the building. I was like "wtf is this dude doing?" As we passed a parking area and went through the concourse.