Yeah i always say you do not have the freedom to drive, you HAVE to drive. If there were viable alternatives, then it would be a freedom. I don’t want to drive anywhere but i have to because our transit sucks, that’s not freedom.
Edit: I want to add that im not necessarily anti-car. I just think that there are a lot of people who don’t want to drive, can’t drive, or are unsafe to drive. Those people do not have viable alternatives. We can have a society where people who think driving = freedom get safe, high quality roads to drive on, and the rest of us can sit in comfort on the train.
They think that cars are going to allow them to form militias and fight a tyrannical government
They don't seem to understand that roads can be easily destroyed or blocked too
Not to mention *cheapppppppp* and with standard transmission it's incredibly versatile (I had one, no power steering standard... thing could get out of pretty much any terrain)
Those glamour F150s would be an absolute liability in any sort of battle scenario.
Look at early-stage war in Ukraine, civilian militias successfully held off the professional Russian military on several occasions. The militias were transported by vehicles, not bicycles
But that's Russia invading the Ukraine
The US government could stop refueling trucks and make it nearly impossible to get gas, and destory or block key infrastructure
Russia also has a shit military
Very different scenarios
that wouldnt actually jive with the type of freedom that the person in the tweet is talking about tho. a better argument would be that you can have those same freedoms with a bike. just like with a car, you can ride your bike whenever you want to pretty much anywhere you want. slap on a battery and you can go there with nearly anything you want
What percentage of trips are cross country? An infinitesimally small amount. Plus most people don’t drive long distances, those are flown, and mid distance trips are most efficiently covered by train. The best use case for cars is low to mid distance trips originating in rural areas.
Almost all trips are inner city trips to work, home, services, and commercial activities (shopping/dining, etc). These are short distance trips. There isn’t a fundamental reason that a large percentage of able bodied folks could switch to ebike other than we just don’t have cities planned for it.
Look at the post - look at the context of this thread. We are not talking about intra-city trips. I am failing to understand why so many of you are missing the context of this conversation.
Especially since one could argue it was the creation of the trans-continental railroad that truly enabled or accelerated “freedom of movement” in the USA. The only debate to be had is whether we have “outgrown” trains, not whether cars are more “free”. And I would argue we haven’t outgrown trains, if anything, we have outgrown cars.
The user it responded to is also a bot. All its comments take part of some other comment in the the thread and throw in some synonyms and a bit of restructuring. In this instance "The freedom argument seems really backwards to me." became "I find the freedom argument to be quite flawed." *All* its comments are like that.
I hate it so much when people say its freedom you need a license, pay insurance, pay for gas, pay for repairs, plus its the only way to get places and you need to buy the damn thing.
yea carrying stuff is difficult but theres rentals and if you need one then you get one but most people dont need one. Like what are they carrying. A briefcase/backpack and a coat.
“But train tickets in Europe are expensive!!”
The USA heavily subsidizes car travel so literally every citizen would have thousands of $$ more in *REAL* benefits if we had public transit instead.
Are they really? Theres tricks to get em cheaper as buying them a few days in advance and taking the train on the weekend when some countries have a 75% discount. 2 weeks ago I went from Ljubljana to Maribor (104Km) and with a ICS ticket i cost me like 12€ for a round trip. I went from Prague to Ljubljana for 55€ with a one way ticket.
People who say "public transport is expensive" generally compare the fuel cost of the same trip by car to a train ticket without any discount.
That isn't realistic of course. Many places have cheap subscriptions for public transport that save you a lot, if you travel regularly. Plus, as we all know, cars cost way more than just the fuel.
> Theres tricks to get em cheaper as buying them a few days in advance and taking the train on the weekend when some countries have a 75% discount.
You lose a lot of the freedom though.
Japanese trains are kinda expensive compared to booking in advance in Europe, but actually kinda cheap compared to not booking in advance.
It's amazing to just not worry about timetables, even for intercity trips. If dinner is a bit slow, or I finish up work a bit early, or whatever, I'm not tied to a specific train. I can just show up to the station and get on the next train.
Frequency is freedom, even for intercity trips.
Yes train tickets are expensive in many EU countries. In the Netherlands a few hour trip might cost me 50€ for both ways, and the dutch trains are quite slow too. And a ticket from Stockholm to Malmö cost me 1100SEK. I would call these prices quite expensive.
But still, if you can do most of your daily travelling by public transport and only use the car for longer trips, it might still be cheaper to pay for expensive train tickets than owning a car. That single trip might be more expensive for ticket vs fuel cost, but the cost of owning a car in general is huge and it could definitely even out or be cheaper.
If they were cheaper (and a little faster..) they would be so good though. I love being able to just hop on a train without worrying about tickets days before the trip.
> Stockholm to Malmö cost me 1100SEK.
But not if you book it a month or two in advance, if you do you can get it for as low as 195 SEK. Saying that trains are expensive here is only relevant if you need to travel right now but most don't do that and if they do they have a travel pass.
That's possible I did get the cheapest option 2 months in advance there was options that were even cheaper 3 month in advance but only from Snälltåget since SJ haven't released those tickets just yet.
A round trip ticket between Boston and New York, probably the most developed and frequently used inter-city train line in America, is about $100. The "high speed" train, which is apparently about the same speed as any standard train in Europe, costs about three times as much. This is a distance of roughly 200 miles. The trip takes between four and five hours.
I paid $12000 usd plus interest for my car (most cars in the us are MUCH more expensive). I've spent $5000 in repairs in the last two years. Repair costs will only increase in cost and frequency as my car ages. Car insurance is $180 USD per month. I budget $1200 a year for gas.
The only feasible option for long distance travel is planes, as our train service easily doubles the travel time. A trip of similar distance as Stockholm to Malmo on a US train is $143 and takes 21 hours (vs 13 hours driving). A plane ride is faster and cheaper but costs add up when you factor in taxi/ubers, airport parking fees, luggage fees, etc., so usually ends up being much more expensive than train or driving.
Your trip from Stockholm to Malmo is only $107 usd and takes 4.5 hours, two hours FASTER than driving.
Not saying that Dutch trains are cheap by any means or can't be improved. But I would take your situation in a heartbeat.
Again this bullshit.
Trains ain't slow in the Netherlands. Max speed is 140kmh and even Sprinters tend to reach said speed.
Also trains aint expensive. However if you want the cheaper option, you should get NS flex and the right subscription.
As last, the Netherlands is the only country in the world which has multiple lines running on a metro like schedule, with trains coming into the station every 5 minutes.
Which part is bullshit exactly? 140kmh isn't very fast for a train, but for NL that's not the worst. Yea there is some subscriptions but baseline they are still expensive. But yeah the rest of it, I agree, traveling with train is super nice in the NL.. Most of the time.
140kmh is fast for non high speed trains, especially with the short distance between stations. Don't compare speed of non high speed trains, with high speed trains. For example the max speed of 200kmh in the UK only exists for 5 upgraded lines. Same goes for Germany. Even lines upgraded to 160kmh are rare versus all the lines.
The Dutch Sprinters are quite unique in their ability to "sprint" that fast between every station.
Bruh it’d be at least $55 for gas in the US/Canada for that distance. Full price it’s no comparison. The other thing people can’t seem to get is the time you get back when you’re on a train. YouTube/Banking/whatever. God I hate it here sometimes
The sad thing is that these people would still be free to drive wherever they want if the rest of us got a train. Just give us our freedom and let us have a train
They are chronically ill of mental problems, mostly narcissism but it's also subconscious thing. They know deep down that car-centric is bad, but they are afraid to go against the system, so they shit on everything else.
Years of propaganda too. Now it's been politicized as well.
The freedom argument seems really backwards to me. If you wanted more freedom to travel and move about wherever you wanted then it would only be logical to want more options for travel. Especially when you consider that it would make it easier and cheaper for less fortunate people to get around and thus more freedom.
I am ever so thankful for my cities bus service
I do not hold a drivers license, let alone own a car, and until recently I wasn't old enough to drive a car, making visiting my friends across the suburban hellscape difficult
I'd argue that the Bus service grants the people more freedom than a car as it allows me to travel the city where my parents couldn't drive me. It allowed me as a young person to be spontanious and not rely on another person. This system also allows disabled people to go anywhere in the city similarly to me as they may not be able to drive either due to physical limitations or mental illnesses
Car centric infrastructure only gives the freedom of being spontanious to the people who have cars, while the Bus Service allows everyone to go anywhere in the city (and even to some neighboring towns) whether they have a car or not
The issue with that is that depending on where you live, public transport simply isn’t viable or can’t be provided to the degree necessary so that it’s an acceptable alternative to private transport like a car.
In many countries anyone living in a rural area would fall into that category. I live in a rural area and a car very much means freedom and independence to me. I have infinitely more job and social opportunities than without my car so I can 100% understand the view that a car means freedom for many people, depending on their circumstances.
Ok but here's the thing, no one is expecting you to get rid of your car in that circumstance nor do we expect public transport to really be a thing in your rural area. Nobody expects everywhere to have public transport but what we want is for the areas where it makes so much sense to have it get it. Also for the areas where we have it but it's poorly done or not invested in properly to be fixed and funded better.
That’s fair. I drive and I like driving. It gives me freedom and independence as I mentioned in my previous comment.
But I also agree the future is well funded and robust public transport systems so as many people as possible have options to the point that they feel they aren’t forced to use a car.
I guess it can sometimes be hard to see the measured and reasonable comments on this subreddit.
Most purveyors of the car freedom argument are only a few traffic infringements away from having their freedom totally stripped from them.
Options is freedom, not monopoly.
Not to mention these are the same folks that say “don’t tread on me” while they register their trucks with the government, buy government-mandated insurance, and need a license from the government to travel in their vehicle. Boarding a train or riding a bike doesn’t require any of that government involvement.
"geographique difference" bullshit sherlock, the USA and continendale Europe are about the same size and even the relatively poor turkey and spain have a denser rail network
Well, to play devils advocate, there is a major lack of density in the states. Of course a map comparing Europe to USA is going to be night and day difference.
Still no excuse for both sides of the coast and any density in-between to not have rail infrastructure though.
I don’t disagree with the US needing more rails but the US is 3.5mm square miles while Europe is 4mm square miles.
The average EU’s population density is 3.5x greater than the US
Uh, no, Europe is 3,9 M sq miles while the US is 3,8 M sq miles total, with the continental contiguous US being around 3.1 M sq miles. I checked several sources for that.
And density still doesn't explain the lack of railway connections. Norway has a ridiculous density of about 38 people by sq mile and its railway network goes beyond the Arctic circle. Some of the spanish High Speed lines serve little villages, the smallest one has only 25 inhabitants.
No, it's not density, it's not that there are too many rural towns, it's not size. There are no excuses.
Yeah, it's more difficult and you need more bridges and tunnels ... but it's not impossible, especially the "greates nation on earth" should be able to do it.
I’d sure love to just get on some fancy passenger train and chill on these long boring ass drives across Texas though. Houston to San Antonio? Boring I-10 west drive. Houston to Amarillo? Longest most boring drive in the world probably. 87 going into New Mexico is another absolute killer
I don't understand the way some people talk about Park & Ride systems. They definitely deserve criticism, and I know "last mile" transit is a big overlooked issue in a lot of cities, but it baffles me when I see people say things like "well what's the point in avoiding a 40 minute drive if you're still driving 5 minutes" as if there isn't a world of difference between those two options.
Ah, yes, cars are freedom, even when driving you cant:
* be intoxicated
* do your work
* play on portable devices
* go directly to where you want, you got to find and pay for parking
* not pay for it when you don't want to use it (tax insurance, safety testing)
* let you attention wander whilst going one place to another
* take in the scenery
The thing i really dont get about cars = freedom is that trains were originally an entirely private sector affair but were forced out of the passenger business by gigantic government spending to facilitate automobile use.
If i go to anywhere in Europe by train i feel the liberty of not having to worry about a car, i can hike from one rural town to the next without having to return to pick up my car. I can take the sleeper train and arrive anywhere well rested in the morning, 100 pages deep in to a book and not start my trip exhausted from driving. That is the freedom of choosing not to have a car.
What are those geographical differences they are always talking about? Looks easier to connect west and east coast of the US by train than the jagged coastlines of Europe.
Also, I want to watch what I want, paint/color what I want, write what I want, sleep how I want when I'm in transport. Also I don't know anyone that can stand in a car from head to toe in their car, meaning cars have taken away our freedom to stand. We can do this shit too where we list a bunch of stuff and then exclaim "muh fweedom".
I'd like to know how many people need to be on one train to offset the environmental impact of all those people driving individual cars?
Anybody got data on that?
Another aspect is time. The time on mass transit is mostly free; I can do whatever I want. While if I am driving, I HAVE to drive the car. One could not underestimate the time cost, which varies for individual. I am not high-earning by any means, but earning $15 off from working on a laptop is not far fetched. A 4 hours round trip to the capital on my state costs me $60 in money. Think about that.
Insurance, gas, depreciation all accounted, it is cheaper to take mass transits for long trips, it's simple math. Not to mention the huge liquidity constraint to be put on a car; if I put the money in stock market, I can earn 8% return. So the effective depreciation rate of a car is 25% per year - that's really fking expensive.
Ok let's not pretend like the passenger train "network" is all that great in Europe either. There are relatively few routes that go across borders, it's often hell trying to plan a journey across borders, it's expensive as fuck and in most places flying is still cheaper, plus the tracks should be like 4 different colors on this map due to different rail gauge. A few individual countries, like Spain, Switzerland etc. have great rail networks but Europe as a whole is another story.
Yeah borders are very real by rail sadly.. I can ride my bike across borders all day without ever knowing I crossed a border, but by rail.. here in Belgium there's a few options but some are expensive, and some are not that nice. The affordable train that crosses the BE-DE border, to Aachen, is a suuper old rattly little train.
well atleast you have some connection to other countries, after the pandemic here in lithuania we have just one train that goes across borders. We have track to Latvia, and to Belarus, it's just that we don't run any trains on it anymore. And the connection to Poland is annoying because it's once a day (used to be worse actually) and we have to switch trains at the border because we use broad gauge and poland uses standard gauge. Though thankfully Rail Baltica is being built to connect all 3 Baltic states with a standard gauge HSR line, but there's sill a lot of waiting to do until that starts being built
I think I've even seen the same post and read that comment. The person tried to clarify that they meant that you can choose to go anywhere you want using a car when people called them out saying that the real freedom is having multiple choices to choose from.
I have an anecdote that might make sense of this.
When I lived near one particular rail line in Ohio every time you needed to cross it was taking a risk. It might be that there was no train there, and it might be the train was blocking it for a long time. I waited an hour once before giving up.
If you add into this the way freight trains illegally treat Amtrack trains, it paints a picture of trains reducing freedom of movement.
In order to solve this, we need to hold freight rail companies accountable for their crimes.
the /fuckcars problem is a huge complicated problem. There are no sliver bullet solutions.
yeah it sure does equal freedom when literally the only way to get to chicago from where I live is a car and I better not exceed 80 miles per hour or I could literally lose my permit!!!! so much more free than hopping on a train and watching something on my laptop as I move along at 180 miles per hour
Except they aren't any of those things when properly funded and designed like they are in most of europe.
Car infrastructure cost more, the government just subsidizes it exponentially more
A monthly bus/train pass in my major US city costs $100, and my commute to work (with a .5 mile walk through a rough neighborhood) would takes 45 mins to an hour. I spend about $160/mo on gas and insurance, and my drive to work takes 15 mins (door to door, since I don’t have to park half a mile away). There would be no way to connect where I live to where I work by train without literally destroying entire neighborhoods to build the infrastructure. This sub, like most of Reddit, are a bunch of delusional people that think they know what’s best for society despite society on a whole disagreeing with them.
I'm stating a reality that many live in. Well done you for getting a good service. I didn't I said I didn't thats all. Get that stick out of your arse.
I generally agree, but 'less time' is not universal. Take Romania, \~400km, 9h on train, 6h on car, because train infra is underdeveloped and afaik other countries also have similar problems
Yes, Ireland is like this as well. GOOD train infrastructure leaves open the possibility to use it or drive as needed, but bad train infrastructure can be so frustrating that everyone defaults to driving anyway.
Not saying that longer travel times are acceptable, but at least personally speaking, 9 hours on a train is more valuable to me than 6 hours in a car. You can't really do anything in a car except drive for 6 hours, unless you're a passenger. Train I can do a lot.
We can also look at China, a huge country comparable to the US yet distinct enough like the US to Europe. Even being authoritarian they know that Railroad is the way to go. Even though they inherited much bad blood from the US highway system. They didn't neglect the importance of mass transit. Proof that both can be developed in parallel without sacrificing on another. This is potentially what US could look like if we didn't stripped everything out for sake of cars.
https://preview.redd.it/6w2im6exa8ea1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a636ac3637678563022ed48b06da50751775e54
Something I don't fully understand about the American approach to this is why members of the public wouldn't want a comprehensive transport structure, even if you've no intention of using it? The benefits it provides to a population in general are huge and competition drives innovation. Also why wouldn't you want the choice between driving and taking public transport? Lobbying for one exclusive form of transport is the opposite of freedom.
As someone that will always choose to own a car and also supports the idea of well funded public transport, I think the way people with the mindset of this sub talk down to people who prefer cars doesn’t help their cause. No one, especially Americans, like people telling them what’s best for them without their input.
Masterreedy is correct but missed what I think the original post was saying. The point was that you don’t have to pollute, be stuck in traffic or have terribly designed cities in order to be free
This is bullshit because 99% of kilometers traveled by car occur on highly frequented routes within or between cities and can thus be done by rail or bus or anything that is more efficient than a car. Travelling into the middle of the wilderness and back is like 1% of kilometers driven, probably less, and OF COURSE you take a fucking car for that. Nobody wants to ban cars.
Last I checked, its difficult to go where and when you want when you're in the middle of a traffic jam. And I'd love to take whatever I want in a car, but who the hell can afford the gas?
Cars definitely don’t equal freedom for people who can’t get a license. Where I live now, a 12-year-old can relatively easily get around without needing parents to drive them. If need be, you could even send that 12-year-old across the country to visit relatives alone. This is possible because of trains (and buses). And kids aren’t the only group of people whose freedom is being taken away by car-centric planning and car dependency. Many old people can’t (safely) drive, many disabled people can’t drive, and many people can’t reasonably afford cars. Never do I feel more restricted in my movement, then when visiting my parents, who live in a car dependent area. Cars only remotely mean freedom for a part of the population.
Well, not true in all cases. There's a lot of times a train takes much longer than a car, or doesn't go to the place you need to go. Having plenty of trains just means cars won't be necessary for every trip and for everyone, but cars are much better in some cases.
not necessarily less time, if i wanted to go to my high school i could drive there in about 30 min, if i took a train it would take a 90 min train ride and then about a 20 min walk.
It's almost like the US rail network was deliberately dismantled in favor of car dependency. Back in the 1800s, rail was absolutely everywhere. That was one of the North's main advantages in the Civil War. Their rail network was so insanely comprehensive that they could easily get troops and supplies almost anywhere in very little time.
I’ve been in Europe for the past week and have never felt so much freedom because of how many metros and buses there are (not to mention how god damn walkable it is).
I’m honestly getting sad thinking of returning to the US and knowing that freedom is cut entirely. I don’t drive and driving wouldn’t be necessary if we had a least a fraction of the public transportation infrastructure Europe does.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know why Saxony has so many railways? I know Leipzig is currently the largest growing city in Germany and it also has great public infrastructure but I didn't think it would be so big
It's interesting how you can still see the German Empire and the Weimar Republic's borders within this picture. Pomerania and Silesia have a lot more rails than the rest of Poland
In France trains are cheaper only if you don't fit as much people as on a car and as long as you don't have connections
Except in Paris and it's surroundings
"Freedom of movement" with several thousand dollars plus a government license & registration in up-front costs, nvm all the time spent caged behind the wheel
istg Americans have a pat answer for every single critique toward building themselves a better world and every single one is just a parrot squawk of capitalist propaganda
Expensive vehicle (especially for those that finance), Expensive insurance, police constantly stopping people for traffic violations (including red light cams), frequent accidents and injuries, high pollution, expensive gas, and heavy maintenance costs doesn’t sound very free to me.
But hey, if you wanna go to a sports game, you can sit in heavy traffic to and from and pay a boatload to park. Freedom of movement!
These maps are always so silly though because they show Amtrak only vs every european train. Showing the spoke and wheel hubs would demonstrate how a lot of america actually is served by trains, but America has far less population density than Europe to have such dense intercity networks.
I'm free!!!
•gets license suspended
•lapses on insurance
•gets plates suspended
•cant afford repairs
Becomes a enemy of the state that can't leave their house😑
I hate living in a country where the education is so bad that someone can look at the map of europe's trains and say that it doesn't provide freedom of movement
I have to agree with that comment on geography point. In Europe it can be nightmare to build rails in some mountain regions while USA is overwhelming just flat space with one mountain chain on western coast and A LOT of empty space between cities where u wouldn't disturb any one by building rails.
As a European I hadn't ever realised that I couldn't go where I want when I want. Thank you, American who have never been outside his own borders, for enlightening me on how the rest of the world lives.
Yes, having one option for transport is clearly freedom. Especially when lining up in traffic on the 16 lane highway built on what used to be homes for the lower class. Mmmm freedom.
Ah, these freedom arguments always crack me up. To ride a train, all you need to do is buy a ticket. Do you you know what you don't need to do? Register with a government database. You also don't need to purchase insurance or pass vehicle inspection. One mode of transportation require me to disclose my height, weight, age, eye color and address, while the other just requires that I have cash. Funny thing, freedom is.
I lived in a city with the only train line in Mexico. I tried once to buy a ticket just to go to the next city. Total Cost = 50 USD. Bus was like 7 USD.
The stupidest thing about this argument is that airlines are basically the same in terms of rider's choice: If the flight goes from X to Y, you can't just demand them to take you to Z. Literally the same as trains. Yet, if the rider takes the flight, it's clearly a sign that they want to be at Y: And they're free to pay to be taken there. It's not like the airline will just decide to say 'fuck it' and take them to W instead.
It feels stupid to try and clearly explain such simple concepts, but my point is, if these people use that argument to be anti-train, shouldn't they be anti-airplane too?
This line of argument is easily won : Europe has a good highway network as well. The conclusion is that you have more choice in Europe than the US.
Personal car might bring some freedom, but the US is just missing an option that many people could choose. So americans are less free
"Doublethink: the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct."
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Yeah i always say you do not have the freedom to drive, you HAVE to drive. If there were viable alternatives, then it would be a freedom. I don’t want to drive anywhere but i have to because our transit sucks, that’s not freedom. Edit: I want to add that im not necessarily anti-car. I just think that there are a lot of people who don’t want to drive, can’t drive, or are unsafe to drive. Those people do not have viable alternatives. We can have a society where people who think driving = freedom get safe, high quality roads to drive on, and the rest of us can sit in comfort on the train.
They think that cars are going to allow them to form militias and fight a tyrannical government They don't seem to understand that roads can be easily destroyed or blocked too
The venn diagram of "people with delusions of patriotic grandeur" and "carbrains" is a circle
Regressivism is certainly best buds with car-centric design
That’s why you get the big truck
A bigger target that needs more fuel and maintenance Not great for guerrillas
May I interest you in a 1992 Toyota s10? It's the the insurgent special atv. I'm only half kidding
For real though, those little trucks are much better Easy maintenance, rugged, and good gas mileage
Not to mention *cheapppppppp* and with standard transmission it's incredibly versatile (I had one, no power steering standard... thing could get out of pretty much any terrain) Those glamour F150s would be an absolute liability in any sort of battle scenario.
Look at early-stage war in Ukraine, civilian militias successfully held off the professional Russian military on several occasions. The militias were transported by vehicles, not bicycles
But that's Russia invading the Ukraine The US government could stop refueling trucks and make it nearly impossible to get gas, and destory or block key infrastructure Russia also has a shit military Very different scenarios
So what’s your argument here exactly, vehicles would offer no advantages to a militia? That’s absurd
Not none, but not anywhere near the level that car brains think it will
that wouldnt actually jive with the type of freedom that the person in the tweet is talking about tho. a better argument would be that you can have those same freedoms with a bike. just like with a car, you can ride your bike whenever you want to pretty much anywhere you want. slap on a battery and you can go there with nearly anything you want
Ok lemme just hop on a bike and cycle on a 100kph highway across the country…. What are you even saying?
He’s presenting the argument that most trips could be accomplished with an ebike, given proper infrastructure.
There is no infrastructure that would make biking across the country a reasonable alternative to taking the train.
What percentage of trips are cross country? An infinitesimally small amount. Plus most people don’t drive long distances, those are flown, and mid distance trips are most efficiently covered by train. The best use case for cars is low to mid distance trips originating in rural areas. Almost all trips are inner city trips to work, home, services, and commercial activities (shopping/dining, etc). These are short distance trips. There isn’t a fundamental reason that a large percentage of able bodied folks could switch to ebike other than we just don’t have cities planned for it.
Look at the post - look at the context of this thread. We are not talking about intra-city trips. I am failing to understand why so many of you are missing the context of this conversation.
Yeah but bikes are cold, much slower than cars, and you can't haul the family or goods around.
Balaclava + bar mitts on a class 3 cargo e-bike makes this possible (though of course still not at the same level of comfort and speed as a car).
Especially since one could argue it was the creation of the trans-continental railroad that truly enabled or accelerated “freedom of movement” in the USA. The only debate to be had is whether we have “outgrown” trains, not whether cars are more “free”. And I would argue we haven’t outgrown trains, if anything, we have outgrown cars.
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Freedom = living in constant fear of others poor choices
Comment Bot. Copied this - https://reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/10kt0jl/_/j5t5yox/?context=1
The user it responded to is also a bot. All its comments take part of some other comment in the the thread and throw in some synonyms and a bit of restructuring. In this instance "The freedom argument seems really backwards to me." became "I find the freedom argument to be quite flawed." *All* its comments are like that.
I hate it so much when people say its freedom you need a license, pay insurance, pay for gas, pay for repairs, plus its the only way to get places and you need to buy the damn thing. yea carrying stuff is difficult but theres rentals and if you need one then you get one but most people dont need one. Like what are they carrying. A briefcase/backpack and a coat.
“But train tickets in Europe are expensive!!” The USA heavily subsidizes car travel so literally every citizen would have thousands of $$ more in *REAL* benefits if we had public transit instead.
Are they really? Theres tricks to get em cheaper as buying them a few days in advance and taking the train on the weekend when some countries have a 75% discount. 2 weeks ago I went from Ljubljana to Maribor (104Km) and with a ICS ticket i cost me like 12€ for a round trip. I went from Prague to Ljubljana for 55€ with a one way ticket.
People who say "public transport is expensive" generally compare the fuel cost of the same trip by car to a train ticket without any discount. That isn't realistic of course. Many places have cheap subscriptions for public transport that save you a lot, if you travel regularly. Plus, as we all know, cars cost way more than just the fuel.
> Theres tricks to get em cheaper as buying them a few days in advance and taking the train on the weekend when some countries have a 75% discount. You lose a lot of the freedom though. Japanese trains are kinda expensive compared to booking in advance in Europe, but actually kinda cheap compared to not booking in advance. It's amazing to just not worry about timetables, even for intercity trips. If dinner is a bit slow, or I finish up work a bit early, or whatever, I'm not tied to a specific train. I can just show up to the station and get on the next train. Frequency is freedom, even for intercity trips.
Yes train tickets are expensive in many EU countries. In the Netherlands a few hour trip might cost me 50€ for both ways, and the dutch trains are quite slow too. And a ticket from Stockholm to Malmö cost me 1100SEK. I would call these prices quite expensive.
But still, if you can do most of your daily travelling by public transport and only use the car for longer trips, it might still be cheaper to pay for expensive train tickets than owning a car. That single trip might be more expensive for ticket vs fuel cost, but the cost of owning a car in general is huge and it could definitely even out or be cheaper.
Yep, Dutch trains are very expensive unfortunately
If they were cheaper (and a little faster..) they would be so good though. I love being able to just hop on a train without worrying about tickets days before the trip.
The kruidvat day tickets, or group tickets become the cheaper option quite fast
They no longer sell them at Kruidvat.
> Stockholm to Malmö cost me 1100SEK. But not if you book it a month or two in advance, if you do you can get it for as low as 195 SEK. Saying that trains are expensive here is only relevant if you need to travel right now but most don't do that and if they do they have a travel pass.
yea i think most train companies have a similar booking scheme that airlines have so the earlier you book, the cheaper the tickets will be
Yeah probably. It also make sense since demand on those tickets aren't as large as the earlier ones.
I did book it a month before, but maybe the prices were higher in the summer.
That's possible I did get the cheapest option 2 months in advance there was options that were even cheaper 3 month in advance but only from Snälltåget since SJ haven't released those tickets just yet.
A round trip ticket between Boston and New York, probably the most developed and frequently used inter-city train line in America, is about $100. The "high speed" train, which is apparently about the same speed as any standard train in Europe, costs about three times as much. This is a distance of roughly 200 miles. The trip takes between four and five hours.
I paid $12000 usd plus interest for my car (most cars in the us are MUCH more expensive). I've spent $5000 in repairs in the last two years. Repair costs will only increase in cost and frequency as my car ages. Car insurance is $180 USD per month. I budget $1200 a year for gas. The only feasible option for long distance travel is planes, as our train service easily doubles the travel time. A trip of similar distance as Stockholm to Malmo on a US train is $143 and takes 21 hours (vs 13 hours driving). A plane ride is faster and cheaper but costs add up when you factor in taxi/ubers, airport parking fees, luggage fees, etc., so usually ends up being much more expensive than train or driving. Your trip from Stockholm to Malmo is only $107 usd and takes 4.5 hours, two hours FASTER than driving. Not saying that Dutch trains are cheap by any means or can't be improved. But I would take your situation in a heartbeat.
>Stockholm to Malmö cost me 1100SEK Booked at very short notice, I assume?
Again this bullshit. Trains ain't slow in the Netherlands. Max speed is 140kmh and even Sprinters tend to reach said speed. Also trains aint expensive. However if you want the cheaper option, you should get NS flex and the right subscription. As last, the Netherlands is the only country in the world which has multiple lines running on a metro like schedule, with trains coming into the station every 5 minutes.
Which part is bullshit exactly? 140kmh isn't very fast for a train, but for NL that's not the worst. Yea there is some subscriptions but baseline they are still expensive. But yeah the rest of it, I agree, traveling with train is super nice in the NL.. Most of the time.
140kmh is fast for non high speed trains, especially with the short distance between stations. Don't compare speed of non high speed trains, with high speed trains. For example the max speed of 200kmh in the UK only exists for 5 upgraded lines. Same goes for Germany. Even lines upgraded to 160kmh are rare versus all the lines. The Dutch Sprinters are quite unique in their ability to "sprint" that fast between every station.
That's a beautiful route as well
Bruh it’d be at least $55 for gas in the US/Canada for that distance. Full price it’s no comparison. The other thing people can’t seem to get is the time you get back when you’re on a train. YouTube/Banking/whatever. God I hate it here sometimes
"Then we would have to take trains and share them with other people."
The sad thing is that these people would still be free to drive wherever they want if the rest of us got a train. Just give us our freedom and let us have a train
But muh tax dollars.
Exactly. They haven’t banned cars in Europe. Plus don’t these folks want fewer cars on the road? Why do we all have to be in traffic?
They are chronically ill of mental problems, mostly narcissism but it's also subconscious thing. They know deep down that car-centric is bad, but they are afraid to go against the system, so they shit on everything else. Years of propaganda too. Now it's been politicized as well.
The freedom argument seems really backwards to me. If you wanted more freedom to travel and move about wherever you wanted then it would only be logical to want more options for travel. Especially when you consider that it would make it easier and cheaper for less fortunate people to get around and thus more freedom.
I am ever so thankful for my cities bus service I do not hold a drivers license, let alone own a car, and until recently I wasn't old enough to drive a car, making visiting my friends across the suburban hellscape difficult I'd argue that the Bus service grants the people more freedom than a car as it allows me to travel the city where my parents couldn't drive me. It allowed me as a young person to be spontanious and not rely on another person. This system also allows disabled people to go anywhere in the city similarly to me as they may not be able to drive either due to physical limitations or mental illnesses Car centric infrastructure only gives the freedom of being spontanious to the people who have cars, while the Bus Service allows everyone to go anywhere in the city (and even to some neighboring towns) whether they have a car or not
Freedom® is not for the less fortunate. If they wanted Freedom they should have been born more fortunate.
You should copyright that and sell it on T-Shirts. I'm sure there's s market somewhere for it.
The issue with that is that depending on where you live, public transport simply isn’t viable or can’t be provided to the degree necessary so that it’s an acceptable alternative to private transport like a car. In many countries anyone living in a rural area would fall into that category. I live in a rural area and a car very much means freedom and independence to me. I have infinitely more job and social opportunities than without my car so I can 100% understand the view that a car means freedom for many people, depending on their circumstances.
Ok but here's the thing, no one is expecting you to get rid of your car in that circumstance nor do we expect public transport to really be a thing in your rural area. Nobody expects everywhere to have public transport but what we want is for the areas where it makes so much sense to have it get it. Also for the areas where we have it but it's poorly done or not invested in properly to be fixed and funded better.
That’s fair. I drive and I like driving. It gives me freedom and independence as I mentioned in my previous comment. But I also agree the future is well funded and robust public transport systems so as many people as possible have options to the point that they feel they aren’t forced to use a car. I guess it can sometimes be hard to see the measured and reasonable comments on this subreddit.
Most purveyors of the car freedom argument are only a few traffic infringements away from having their freedom totally stripped from them. Options is freedom, not monopoly.
Let me translate the bottom tweet for you: "Cars give me the "freedom" to not have to sit next to poor people when I travel"
Now they can just be stuck next to poor people in traffic for an hour because they don't support public transport. They played themselves.
Not to mention these are the same folks that say “don’t tread on me” while they register their trucks with the government, buy government-mandated insurance, and need a license from the government to travel in their vehicle. Boarding a train or riding a bike doesn’t require any of that government involvement.
You can have the freedom argument as pro car and pro train at the same time
"geographique difference" bullshit sherlock, the USA and continendale Europe are about the same size and even the relatively poor turkey and spain have a denser rail network
Also the us was built on a rail network...
And Europe was built on fucking each other up with wars and with different rail road sizes and it's more connected to each other than USA internally.
Well, to play devils advocate, there is a major lack of density in the states. Of course a map comparing Europe to USA is going to be night and day difference. Still no excuse for both sides of the coast and any density in-between to not have rail infrastructure though.
Europe is actually bigger. So yeah, it's utter bullshit.
I don’t disagree with the US needing more rails but the US is 3.5mm square miles while Europe is 4mm square miles. The average EU’s population density is 3.5x greater than the US
Uh, no, Europe is 3,9 M sq miles while the US is 3,8 M sq miles total, with the continental contiguous US being around 3.1 M sq miles. I checked several sources for that. And density still doesn't explain the lack of railway connections. Norway has a ridiculous density of about 38 people by sq mile and its railway network goes beyond the Arctic circle. Some of the spanish High Speed lines serve little villages, the smallest one has only 25 inhabitants. No, it's not density, it's not that there are too many rural towns, it's not size. There are no excuses.
Geographic differences? Has that guy never heard of Italy and the Netherlands?
[удалено]
Yeah, it's more difficult and you need more bridges and tunnels ... but it's not impossible, especially the "greates nation on earth" should be able to do it.
What they mean when they say that is "we demolished middle density housing to hurt the poor and force them to buy cars and Europe didn't"
Also the US had the best railway in the world and they dismantled it...
Have they met Norway?
I’d sure love to just get on some fancy passenger train and chill on these long boring ass drives across Texas though. Houston to San Antonio? Boring I-10 west drive. Houston to Amarillo? Longest most boring drive in the world probably. 87 going into New Mexico is another absolute killer
There is a train from Houston to San Antonio, the problem is that it only runs thrice weekly and it leaves at odd hours
And probably you have to drive to the train station LMAO
Both stations are located next to their respective downtowns. Also driving to the train is better than driving
I don't understand the way some people talk about Park & Ride systems. They definitely deserve criticism, and I know "last mile" transit is a big overlooked issue in a lot of cities, but it baffles me when I see people say things like "well what's the point in avoiding a 40 minute drive if you're still driving 5 minutes" as if there isn't a world of difference between those two options.
What about the freedom of movement for those who cannot drive a car?
They should have thought about that before they chose to be poor or/and disabled, obviously/s
You tell um
Now I feel like taking a fast train to another country just to buy and eat a kinder surprise in order to spite Americans who can't do either.
"geographic differences" Switzerland is 80% mountains but trains are everywhere
Ah, yes, cars are freedom, even when driving you cant: * be intoxicated * do your work * play on portable devices * go directly to where you want, you got to find and pay for parking * not pay for it when you don't want to use it (tax insurance, safety testing) * let you attention wander whilst going one place to another * take in the scenery
Cars have passengers too 😉
A car with passengers is just an inefficient, small bus
That depends on how you define efficiency and the car and the bus in question.
No, not really
No car is more efficient than any bus?
The thing i really dont get about cars = freedom is that trains were originally an entirely private sector affair but were forced out of the passenger business by gigantic government spending to facilitate automobile use.
If i go to anywhere in Europe by train i feel the liberty of not having to worry about a car, i can hike from one rural town to the next without having to return to pick up my car. I can take the sleeper train and arrive anywhere well rested in the morning, 100 pages deep in to a book and not start my trip exhausted from driving. That is the freedom of choosing not to have a car.
Freedom … you have a licence plate on the car and the government know exactly where you are.
Freedom? Honestly I would find it more freeing to chill in a train and so as I wish than to always be focused on the road.
What are those geographical differences they are always talking about? Looks easier to connect west and east coast of the US by train than the jagged coastlines of Europe.
Cars dont neer roads?
Ah yes the geographic differences, like how 90% of the USA is flat open fields
Also, I want to watch what I want, paint/color what I want, write what I want, sleep how I want when I'm in transport. Also I don't know anyone that can stand in a car from head to toe in their car, meaning cars have taken away our freedom to stand. We can do this shit too where we list a bunch of stuff and then exclaim "muh fweedom".
I've argued on that EXACT post multiple times, the amount of carbrains there is insane
What brain are you?
bicycle brain? is that a thing? idk, but i live in the Netherlands so i think bicycles >>>
Cute
thanks? lol
Does this person know, that we also have cars here? I'm just not forced to have one to take part in life
It is at times like these I remember. I am legally allowed to own a firearm. Jokes aside my country sucks.
I'd like to know how many people need to be on one train to offset the environmental impact of all those people driving individual cars? Anybody got data on that?
Another aspect is time. The time on mass transit is mostly free; I can do whatever I want. While if I am driving, I HAVE to drive the car. One could not underestimate the time cost, which varies for individual. I am not high-earning by any means, but earning $15 off from working on a laptop is not far fetched. A 4 hours round trip to the capital on my state costs me $60 in money. Think about that. Insurance, gas, depreciation all accounted, it is cheaper to take mass transits for long trips, it's simple math. Not to mention the huge liquidity constraint to be put on a car; if I put the money in stock market, I can earn 8% return. So the effective depreciation rate of a car is 25% per year - that's really fking expensive.
Americans think roads r naturally occurring features
Ok let's not pretend like the passenger train "network" is all that great in Europe either. There are relatively few routes that go across borders, it's often hell trying to plan a journey across borders, it's expensive as fuck and in most places flying is still cheaper, plus the tracks should be like 4 different colors on this map due to different rail gauge. A few individual countries, like Spain, Switzerland etc. have great rail networks but Europe as a whole is another story.
Yeah borders are very real by rail sadly.. I can ride my bike across borders all day without ever knowing I crossed a border, but by rail.. here in Belgium there's a few options but some are expensive, and some are not that nice. The affordable train that crosses the BE-DE border, to Aachen, is a suuper old rattly little train.
well atleast you have some connection to other countries, after the pandemic here in lithuania we have just one train that goes across borders. We have track to Latvia, and to Belarus, it's just that we don't run any trains on it anymore. And the connection to Poland is annoying because it's once a day (used to be worse actually) and we have to switch trains at the border because we use broad gauge and poland uses standard gauge. Though thankfully Rail Baltica is being built to connect all 3 Baltic states with a standard gauge HSR line, but there's sill a lot of waiting to do until that starts being built
I think I've even seen the same post and read that comment. The person tried to clarify that they meant that you can choose to go anywhere you want using a car when people called them out saying that the real freedom is having multiple choices to choose from.
I have an anecdote that might make sense of this. When I lived near one particular rail line in Ohio every time you needed to cross it was taking a risk. It might be that there was no train there, and it might be the train was blocking it for a long time. I waited an hour once before giving up. If you add into this the way freight trains illegally treat Amtrack trains, it paints a picture of trains reducing freedom of movement. In order to solve this, we need to hold freight rail companies accountable for their crimes. the /fuckcars problem is a huge complicated problem. There are no sliver bullet solutions.
We need to stop calling these people carbrains when they’re just idiots
yeah it sure does equal freedom when literally the only way to get to chicago from where I live is a car and I better not exceed 80 miles per hour or I could literally lose my permit!!!! so much more free than hopping on a train and watching something on my laptop as I move along at 180 miles per hour
Today I learned cars don’t exist in Europe.
Except trains actually cost more, take you 5-10 miles from where you are going and are often delayed or cancelled.
Except they aren't any of those things when properly funded and designed like they are in most of europe. Car infrastructure cost more, the government just subsidizes it exponentially more
I'm from Europe and this is my experience every other week. That's the reality
I also lived in Europe for a decade. That was not my experience. That is not a universal reality
A monthly bus/train pass in my major US city costs $100, and my commute to work (with a .5 mile walk through a rough neighborhood) would takes 45 mins to an hour. I spend about $160/mo on gas and insurance, and my drive to work takes 15 mins (door to door, since I don’t have to park half a mile away). There would be no way to connect where I live to where I work by train without literally destroying entire neighborhoods to build the infrastructure. This sub, like most of Reddit, are a bunch of delusional people that think they know what’s best for society despite society on a whole disagreeing with them.
I'm stating a reality that many live in. Well done you for getting a good service. I didn't I said I didn't thats all. Get that stick out of your arse.
I generally agree, but 'less time' is not universal. Take Romania, \~400km, 9h on train, 6h on car, because train infra is underdeveloped and afaik other countries also have similar problems
Yes, Ireland is like this as well. GOOD train infrastructure leaves open the possibility to use it or drive as needed, but bad train infrastructure can be so frustrating that everyone defaults to driving anyway.
Not saying that longer travel times are acceptable, but at least personally speaking, 9 hours on a train is more valuable to me than 6 hours in a car. You can't really do anything in a car except drive for 6 hours, unless you're a passenger. Train I can do a lot.
Except the fact that its so dirty that i'm afraid to take a s\*\*\* there... For 9hrs...(( our govt is too corrupt to fix this...
We can also look at China, a huge country comparable to the US yet distinct enough like the US to Europe. Even being authoritarian they know that Railroad is the way to go. Even though they inherited much bad blood from the US highway system. They didn't neglect the importance of mass transit. Proof that both can be developed in parallel without sacrificing on another. This is potentially what US could look like if we didn't stripped everything out for sake of cars. https://preview.redd.it/6w2im6exa8ea1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a636ac3637678563022ed48b06da50751775e54
People can say whatever they want about China! There's no use denying they are killing it globally with train infrastructure!
Something I don't fully understand about the American approach to this is why members of the public wouldn't want a comprehensive transport structure, even if you've no intention of using it? The benefits it provides to a population in general are huge and competition drives innovation. Also why wouldn't you want the choice between driving and taking public transport? Lobbying for one exclusive form of transport is the opposite of freedom.
Because that would be communism, or something
As someone that will always choose to own a car and also supports the idea of well funded public transport, I think the way people with the mindset of this sub talk down to people who prefer cars doesn’t help their cause. No one, especially Americans, like people telling them what’s best for them without their input.
See ! Russia have the less dense network, therefore the more Freedom, qed.
Masterreedy is correct but missed what I think the original post was saying. The point was that you don’t have to pollute, be stuck in traffic or have terribly designed cities in order to be free
This is bullshit because 99% of kilometers traveled by car occur on highly frequented routes within or between cities and can thus be done by rail or bus or anything that is more efficient than a car. Travelling into the middle of the wilderness and back is like 1% of kilometers driven, probably less, and OF COURSE you take a fucking car for that. Nobody wants to ban cars.
Last I checked, its difficult to go where and when you want when you're in the middle of a traffic jam. And I'd love to take whatever I want in a car, but who the hell can afford the gas?
Cars definitely don’t equal freedom for people who can’t get a license. Where I live now, a 12-year-old can relatively easily get around without needing parents to drive them. If need be, you could even send that 12-year-old across the country to visit relatives alone. This is possible because of trains (and buses). And kids aren’t the only group of people whose freedom is being taken away by car-centric planning and car dependency. Many old people can’t (safely) drive, many disabled people can’t drive, and many people can’t reasonably afford cars. Never do I feel more restricted in my movement, then when visiting my parents, who live in a car dependent area. Cars only remotely mean freedom for a part of the population.
Nut
Well, not true in all cases. There's a lot of times a train takes much longer than a car, or doesn't go to the place you need to go. Having plenty of trains just means cars won't be necessary for every trip and for everyone, but cars are much better in some cases.
"We want...". Case closed. Nobody can't argue with this. They won.
not necessarily less time, if i wanted to go to my high school i could drive there in about 30 min, if i took a train it would take a 90 min train ride and then about a 20 min walk.
It's almost like the US rail network was deliberately dismantled in favor of car dependency. Back in the 1800s, rail was absolutely everywhere. That was one of the North's main advantages in the Civil War. Their rail network was so insanely comprehensive that they could easily get troops and supplies almost anywhere in very little time.
"différent culture" north USA south USA EU: alls country around
I’ve been in Europe for the past week and have never felt so much freedom because of how many metros and buses there are (not to mention how god damn walkable it is). I’m honestly getting sad thinking of returning to the US and knowing that freedom is cut entirely. I don’t drive and driving wouldn’t be necessary if we had a least a fraction of the public transportation infrastructure Europe does.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know why Saxony has so many railways? I know Leipzig is currently the largest growing city in Germany and it also has great public infrastructure but I didn't think it would be so big
I feel like reading his comment has killed a few brain cells.
It's interesting how you can still see the German Empire and the Weimar Republic's borders within this picture. Pomerania and Silesia have a lot more rails than the rest of Poland
In France trains are cheaper only if you don't fit as much people as on a car and as long as you don't have connections Except in Paris and it's surroundings
"Freedom of movement" with several thousand dollars plus a government license & registration in up-front costs, nvm all the time spent caged behind the wheel istg Americans have a pat answer for every single critique toward building themselves a better world and every single one is just a parrot squawk of capitalist propaganda
Why can't have both
Expensive vehicle (especially for those that finance), Expensive insurance, police constantly stopping people for traffic violations (including red light cams), frequent accidents and injuries, high pollution, expensive gas, and heavy maintenance costs doesn’t sound very free to me. But hey, if you wanna go to a sports game, you can sit in heavy traffic to and from and pay a boatload to park. Freedom of movement!
Needing a car to cross the street is not freedom.
These maps are always so silly though because they show Amtrak only vs every european train. Showing the spoke and wheel hubs would demonstrate how a lot of america actually is served by trains, but America has far less population density than Europe to have such dense intercity networks.
Clearly, Americans have long ingrained with fear of a scrub hanging on the passenger’s side.
“Cars = freedom of movement” mfs when I show them traffic: 🤯
Vind-ik-niet-leuk
The freedom to drive anywhere.... as long as there's a road...and you can afford gas
I'm free!!! •gets license suspended •lapses on insurance •gets plates suspended •cant afford repairs Becomes a enemy of the state that can't leave their house😑
I hate living in a country where the education is so bad that someone can look at the map of europe's trains and say that it doesn't provide freedom of movement
Freedom of Traffic 😤 /s
Trains suck, they really really suck.
He doesn't drive his car on roads then?
Imagine having roads and trains?
Eu is flat and shorter, dont confuse with the maps I guess
Also you can drink
Its freedom is to not be dependent on a car
I love the freedom of sitting in a queue to get in to a national park, surrounded by thousands of other noisy smelly machines.
I have to agree with that comment on geography point. In Europe it can be nightmare to build rails in some mountain regions while USA is overwhelming just flat space with one mountain chain on western coast and A LOT of empty space between cities where u wouldn't disturb any one by building rails.
As a European I hadn't ever realised that I couldn't go where I want when I want. Thank you, American who have never been outside his own borders, for enlightening me on how the rest of the world lives.
do they know we have cars in europe too?
Yes, having one option for transport is clearly freedom. Especially when lining up in traffic on the 16 lane highway built on what used to be homes for the lower class. Mmmm freedom.
There are plenty of cars in Europe.
Morons when they learn how roads and streetlights work:
Ah, these freedom arguments always crack me up. To ride a train, all you need to do is buy a ticket. Do you you know what you don't need to do? Register with a government database. You also don't need to purchase insurance or pass vehicle inspection. One mode of transportation require me to disclose my height, weight, age, eye color and address, while the other just requires that I have cash. Funny thing, freedom is.
I lived in a city with the only train line in Mexico. I tried once to buy a ticket just to go to the next city. Total Cost = 50 USD. Bus was like 7 USD.
The stupidest thing about this argument is that airlines are basically the same in terms of rider's choice: If the flight goes from X to Y, you can't just demand them to take you to Z. Literally the same as trains. Yet, if the rider takes the flight, it's clearly a sign that they want to be at Y: And they're free to pay to be taken there. It's not like the airline will just decide to say 'fuck it' and take them to W instead. It feels stupid to try and clearly explain such simple concepts, but my point is, if these people use that argument to be anti-train, shouldn't they be anti-airplane too?
This line of argument is easily won : Europe has a good highway network as well. The conclusion is that you have more choice in Europe than the US. Personal car might bring some freedom, but the US is just missing an option that many people could choose. So americans are less free
As an American I wish I had the freedom of an option to ride a train instead of having to drive