I’m 25 and I don’t have a drivers license. I mean, I’ve never really felt the need to go and get one. Public transport is usually the fastest option where I live, and it takes a lot less responsibility to use it.
But most people would still prefer driving, rather than using the public T. Why?
…or completely inadequate.
Or forced to be inadequate, in the case of Baltimore.
We were supposed to get a new east-west light rail line. It was shovel-ready and federally funded. However, our wonderful governor Larry Hogan, in his push to punish those Baltimore ni- I mean, apply his fiscal conservative bona fides, canceled it, calling it a “boondoggle”. Instead of this “boondoggle”, Hogan threw his support behind the Purple Line, a similar light rail proposal to connect the whiter, wealthier suburbs in Montgomery and PG Counties. It was funded by public-private partnerships and ended up the subject of land disputes, went billions over budget, and is only just finally getting off the ground.
He also pushed for highway expansion projects that just so happened to benefit his real estate investments, but we don’t begrudge him for that for reasons of…
I remember having a bus come every hour. If you miss that bus, then oops you’re an hour late for work.
If you run 5 minutes late in your car, then you are 5 minutes late for work.
Also if you have to take 3 or so busses to connect somewhere, depending on how the scheduling worked out, you could get unlucky and have an hour wait between bus 1 & 2 and an hour wait between bus 2 & 3.
Taxis cost a decent amount of money here.
Uber/Lyft/etc are hit and miss. App says if you need to be somewhere at 9am, to request the ride at like 8:30 or whatever. And when you do, you don’t get anyone showing up or someone will grab your ride, not come to you for 10 minutes, and then put your request for a ride back out there for someone else to grab.