916
Pretty much every day someone parks their car on the tram tracks and blocks our city's tram network from operating
(feddit.org)
This does unfortunately happen multiple times per day. Sometimes it’s smaller incidents where the tram driver can get out and collapse the car’s mirror. Other times the owner of the car comes out of a nearby house after the tram used its bell extensively (like today) and moves the car. And then there are times when police needs to get involved to tow the car which often takes upwards of 1 hour.
The truly infuriating part is that if the tram damages a poorly parked car, the transportation company will have to pay the damages. Poorly parked vehicles never get fined and the owners will only need to pay if the car ends up getting towed.
Why do we accept that drivers sabotage a city’s public transport infrastructure like this?
The fact is, most people shouldn't be driving. That's not an individual criticism its an objective condition.
Which is why we need trains and hi quality public transit!
It's also better really.
I used to live in a place where I needed a car to go anywhere because the buses were so unreliable, infrequent and useless (all going through the town centre with lots of delays). I hated it, because everyone drove and was stuck in traffic. Driving is very stressful too.
And now I live in a big city, have really dense public transport for 20 bucks a month flat. No more finding and paying for parking spaces. Being able to go back from a different place than I arrived. No more parking meters timing out. No more maintenance. No more fuel costs. No more insurance. No more traffic fines. No more yearly inspections. No more people damaging my ride with shopping carts. I love it honestly. And to top it all off I can ride while playing with my phone and not having to pay any attention to the road. No need to be sober either for that matter.
Quality quickly drops off leaving the city unfortunately but that's the thing with cities, you rarely need to leave them anyway.