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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • I do. But I still live in the south, and my work is outside the city, to the north west of it, to be exact.

    The average is 40 minutes commute time (for my city). So I’m already quite a bit off.

    And yes, of course, if I lived in the south east of the city it would take me 1,5 hours at least by public transport. 40-60 minutes by car on average. But I wouldn’t move there, as that is too far off.

    But most of these other possible places would mean, that I would most probably also always have to drive through the city center or take a big detour outside of it. Both possibilities aren’t actually preferable. So again I wouldn’t live there and at the same time work at the same company.

    I just need to look at one of my brothers. Lives relatively close to the center but still a bit south of it. Could take 2 subways in 30 minutes (including walking) but still decides to take the car most days where he has to drive through heavy traffic, that takes him at least the same amount of time.

    So no, a lot of people aren’t that sensible. They just do what they are used to and often enough even vehemently go against even the possibility of changing that with weird as excuses (smells terrible weird people, always packed, always delayed etc.) Which for most times of day and most routes just isn’t true.

    Just take a look at the available cars nowadays. You can barely even buy a smal car, as those aren’t even produced in such a variety anymore. Because 1. People keep buying the big SUVs, and 2. Manufacturers can make way more money with those than with small cars.

    Hell, in Germany they are actively debating making parking spots bigger, because the cars keep getting bigger (btw look at carsized they have a great visualization for this), instead of simply reglementaing how big cars can get, before they are either forbidden or so heavily taxed that it’s just not worth to buy something large.



  • But that mostly just means that you have terrible public transport where you live. Not that it’s inherintely bad.

    If I would take a car to work, it would take me at least (!) 50 minutes (depending on traffic, usually longer). With public transport plus bike I’m at 65 minutes. So just a bit longer, but delays are pretty uncommon (maybe 3 minutes every now and then). Plus I can relax, read or watch a show. And it’s incredibly cheap thanks to the Deutschlandticket (49€, but 14€ of that is payed by my employer). Only for fuel (not counting insurance, tax, repairs etc.) It would cost me at least 180€.

    So yeah just this tiny delay is okay in my opinion, considering what I’m saving (money, environment, worries about a car…)

    And I never said, it’s the ultimate solution. I’m just saying especially those huge as cars are a fucking monstrosity more or less. Because easily 95% of users don’t even need such a huge vehicle. They just want it. And don’t give a fuck what that entails for the environment and for other people. (especially looking at pedestrian and bike safety).

    More people should just really consider if the car they chose is really what they NEED and if every trip they are taking with it is truly necessary.





  • I mean it depends on where you live. But sports clubs are easy enough to find if you just search for your sport and area.

    Same I would guess with other hobbies.

    Fitness groups no idea to be honest.

    Volunteering: there are usually quite a few forums and such discussing volunteering opportunities. In my country the biggest ones are the volunteer fire department, volunteer first aid (red cross, Johanniter, ASB, Malteser, etc.), technical relief (THW), and different organisations regarding the homeless and poor (biggest ones probably are the Bahnhofsmission and Tafeln) - this is all Germany specific but I’m sure there are somewhat similar things in other countries, too. For smaller things the are often even websites from the local government where you can search for volunteering opportunities interesting you, by topic.






  • Where I live, it’s free for school children and people on welfare etc. For university students it’s 5€ a year, for adults it’s 10€.

    So really not a lot, but you also get access to a lot of other online services for free (encyclopedia, streaming service for older and arthouse films, magazines etc.)

    Late fees are just there to keep you from keeping a book or whatever for long periods of time, because then other wouldn’t be able to read them.




  • Where I live (Germany) they usually have cards with which they can pay at most big gas stations. Kind of like a pin protected voucher card. They usually have a maximum limit though.

    So when we operate a mobile gas station in catastrophic events like big wildfires etc. We usually have to get a limitless card, because otherwise we need a new card 3-4 times a day because we refill our 450 liter tank so often.

    Most fire stations and probably police stations too have an emergency depot though. As does the city. Sometimes the city depot is shared with the depot of the public transport company though.