ted to get the fuck out of here when she said: a lot of people wanted the lawnmower, but she doesn’t sell it to anyone (she mant she didn’t sell it to immigrants). And: “no offence to you, but your generation
do you drive, or take public transport? Americans will assume you drive, and then it is a pure waste of time. On the other hand, spending 3 hours on a train, one can sleep, work, watch a movie, read, whatever.
I drive, public transport in The Netherlands is horrible outside of the major cities. Even in the major cities it’s “meh” to be honest. The PR department of The Netherlands does a great job at portraying our country as some sort of engineering marvel / paradise. The truth is that mobility in The Netherlands is expensive and in case of public transport, it lacks proper connection to regions outside of the cities. The only reason why we “love” riding our bicycle around, is that it’s the only affordable mobility option.
Many people that cover longer distances, like myself, have a company leasing car. So it doesn’t hit my wallet as much.
I suspect you have much higher standards than Americans. Just curious, how much time/money would it cost for you to take public transport to work? (for Americans, something 70-80 miles away is literally an impossible commute without a car, except for a few exceptions along the NYC, Philadelphia, DC axis.
It would cost me about 75 euro’s (return) for a 4 hr commute (one way) with public transport to cover a distance of 150km (one way). This is a mixture of transportation modes, including bus and train.
Comparison with the car is quite difficult, but using a car cost calculator website, it says that for my car the average price per kilometer would be ~0,20 euro. So that would mean that the round trip would cost me roughly 60 euro’s by car. As for time, a one way commute to the office is about 1,5h to 2h by car, depending on traffic. So, twice as fast and 1/4th cheaper.
My company covers car expenses in the company leasing contract. All I have to pay is taxes to use the car privately, which in The Netherlands is quite high (compared to for example Belgium). So I pay 350 euro (net) a month to use the car privately. The mobility budget for the leasing car represents about 1000 euro gross a month. But of course if I were to take public transport, my company would reimburse that, but I would have to give up the car.
To be fair, the situation here in The Netherlands is not much different than you describe, outside the larger cities that is. Most people commuting to these cities from the smaller towns and villages are still heavily car dependent. Even within my own town, public transport is just a sham. If I were to take the bus to get groceries, I would have to wait 2 hours for the next bus that takes me back home. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
