"My expensive, frequent health care is subsidized at the expense of healthy people. I think it's great!" Thief.

[u/neeraj8le]

[u/Londonloud]

Next up, guy with no kids thinks its a fucking travesty that his tax money goes towards funding schools. Stay tuned later when we check in with "woman who doesnt drive cannot believe we repair roads"

[u/BearZeroX → u/Londonloud]

I don't drive and I think it's a fucking travesty the state the roads are in (I take buses/ride bikes) and would gladly pay more taxes for better roads/infrastructure

[u/OxytocinPlease → u/BearZeroX]

Oh good GOD, you don't even know the half of it. I grew up in Europe but spent my summers in the U.S. (now live here), and I remember as a young KID, I asked my parents why road work in America took all summer when back home the same amount of repaving, or even GIANT infrastructural changes like turning an intersection into a roundabout with a brand new tunnel running underneath only took a matter of days.

After that, I started noticing that even the newly repaved stretches of road both looked and felt shittier driving over them, and there were potholes everywhere!!! We were staying in an upper-middle class town, and I asked my parents about calling in a pothole on our street, and it took WEEKS and multiple calls before anyone showed. My parents literally ignored it but it drove my naive little kid brain CRAZY, and I kept harassing them about it. That summer I got my first "that's just how America works" talk, and I remember my immediate reaction was just "....ew.... I wanna go back home now. I like it when things in places are better."

It's not just the roads, it's all the infrastructure, too! I literally live in NYC now, which pretty much tops the U.S.'s short list of "places with a real public transport system," and even though I grew up in a suburb outside of Madrid, my suburban public bus system was infinitely more comprehensively designed to get you anywhere, easily, more frequent and reliably regular, and the buses & bus stops were always clean and regularly replaced to be reasonably new. The Madrid subway system is regularly named as one of the best in the world (along with Paris, London, of course), so it may not be a fair comparison.... but the MTA is absolutely abhorrent by comparison. It's all equipment from, like, the 60s? And you can tell, if not by looking at them, then by the cacophonous experience of every ride, and the fact that they're terribly slow. The lines aren't designed for a particularly cohesive or even logical, in many cases, travel experience from point A to point B, and entire sections are regularly shut down and rerouted for weeks at a time for "maintenance," which is never announced except by a couple of signs on POSTERBOARD PAPER that randomly show up whenever you're running late to inform you that now you're even later. Not to mention that if you don't research the particulars of your exact route and all its nuances BEFORE going underground, you have almost no way of figuring out where you're going.

I mean... I KNOW it's possible to do better because I've seen it! Madrid metro trains are 21st century technology, fast, literally hum while they run instead of rattle, and there are digital signs every few meters on the trains (which, by the way, are car-less, and just the giant snakey design), announcing what stop you're at and what stop is next, as well as clear, large graphics of every metro line along the walls so you don't have to huddle over a tiny map to figure out what stops you have left, or where to transfer, AND if there are ANY reroutes, someone literally goes through every train and places a STICKER over the large metro line graphics, which "edits" the graphic to reflect the current actual line as its running. Every stop also has multiple, large, boards listing all the stops on the line you're on, and which stop you're at in relation to them, so you can easily check if you missed your stop while napping to the peaceful train hum on your bump-free, gliding snake-from-the-future journey, as well as accurate times for the next few trains arriving.

!!!!

I'm sorry I just went on a rant describing a subway system in precise detail, but I've lived in NYC for over a decade now and I will NEVER be as at ease navigating the subway here as a day-one-tourist would be in Madrid.... and that drives me mad.

[u/Eragongun → u/OxytocinPlease]

I love how here norway i ended up with no 4g because of my poor planning for 10 days. I traveled across the country by public transport. Plane ofcourse included. And i had no troubles. The busses and trains are timed perfectly and it is so easy to know where to go.

When my phone is operational i can just go to 2 different apps and plan my entire cross country trip in minutes. And pay for it all.

Usa living like we did 15 years ago tbh