Makes sense. I’ve lived in three Australian cities and getting around on bike, bus, and rail is much easier than driving. Plenty of friends I met never even got a driver’s licence.
But as you get away from a city centre, things become challenging. By the time you’ve left a city region, you enter the Australian sprawl of nasty climate and nothingness between bits and pieces of civilisation peppered around the national map.
It’s a land where one state would be the 16th largest country (I forgot about WA) 10th largest country in the world. A place where I almost all cities, you can fit several European nations in between your’s and the next closest.
It’s car use and costs on roads reflects its low population having a density per square kilometre comparable to the scarcist places on the planet. But if you are in a city—at least those I was in—the infrastructure for not having a car is great. You’re really punished for driving a vehicle in one, yet many still do and are miserable every morning and afternoon.
I mean, it might also just be cheaper to maintain roads for walking, wheeling, and cycling too. They undergo less stress and pressure, even at much higher usage.
Makes sense. I’ve lived in three Australian cities and getting around on bike, bus, and rail is much easier than driving. Plenty of friends I met never even got a driver’s licence.
But as you get away from a city centre, things become challenging. By the time you’ve left a city region, you enter the Australian sprawl of nasty climate and nothingness between bits and pieces of civilisation peppered around the national map.
It’s a land where one state would be the
16th largest country(I forgot about WA) 10th largest country in the world. A place where I almost all cities, you can fit several European nations in between your’s and the next closest.It’s car use and costs on roads reflects its low population having a density per square kilometre comparable to the scarcist places on the planet. But if you are in a city—at least those I was in—the infrastructure for not having a car is great. You’re really punished for driving a vehicle in one, yet many still do and are miserable every morning and afternoon.
Feels like trains between cities would be way cheaper.
I mean, it might also just be cheaper to maintain roads for walking, wheeling, and cycling too. They undergo less stress and pressure, even at much higher usage.