Monster is actually a company that I will try to avoid as much as possible, specifically for their marketing. It’s one of the few energy drinks that I can tolerate and it would be my default “go to” when I need one, but I refrain from buying them because I remember seeing their giant pickup trucks in the streets of my city and I hate them.
I bought hundreds of cans before but since I’ve seen a few of their monstrosities parade in my city, I avoid them.
Only it was probably not “pspspsp” because as a French speaker, I’ve never understood that English onomatopoeia. It doesn’t make that sound in French. When I try to get the attention of a cat or another animal, it’s usually more of a “dzkdzkdzk” or “tzktzk” sound. A bit like the sound of a kiss but made with tapping the tongue on the roof of the mouth instead of with the lips.
I don’t drive but I live on a four lane road in front of trafic light and beyond particles, for me it’s a combination of multiple things, all from cars.
There’s the pollution from the combustion particles, but the noise is also a significant source of stress. From the young dudes that want to impress and rev their engines, to the huge trucks with trailers, they are all noisy and it makes it impossible to keep the windows open. Even the electric cars are noisy. Some of them sound like they are constantly honking at low volume. Plus, their tires are also making that white noise when they move at a certain speed, and they also shed microplastics.
And then because we don’t have emergency lanes, there are several emergency vehicles passing in front of my apartment multiple times a day, sirens blasting and honking at cars stuck in trafic.
Also, the visual aspect of a car sewer makes me depressed. Seeing them everywhere. A sea of cars in cities, but also deep in nature.
Last year I visited a few Carribean islands and all of them were choked by cars. Want to take a hike? Just get a car, there’s a parking on the top of the volcano.
The article ends on the note that electric cars will at least help with the pollution from combustion particles, which is good. But the noise and the sea of cars will remain, they’ll just be electric.
And face coverings are now illegal in public.
This reminds me of the song Dearly Beloved by Bad Religion.
Dearly beloved, dearly beloved, dearly beloved
(Make no mistake, despite our traits I’ve seldom seen)
I can’t relate to you (I can’t relate to you), I can’t relate to you
…
Do you know my name - sing a light refrain
For a man estranged - I won’t deny that I’m inclined to isolate
Dearly beloved…
I don’t have a car nor a house and I’m in my 40ies. I’ve been told multiple times that I’m not a responsible adult as long as I don’t have one of these.
It’s just what I’ve used most outside of Canada. But yeah, not just DB. We’re missing a lot of the “train culture” present in Germany and other rich countries, and that is reflected in local and political will.
Like, as much as there is also a thriving car culture in Germany, and the reputation of DB (also somewhat justified), there’s actually more than a handful of people that thinks having passenger trains in their towns and cities is a necessity. And there’s even actions taken to reopen some lines that were previously closed! YouTube is sometimes suggesting me videos of train route reactivation in Germany, and it’s incredible to see the will of the people to have a passenger train back in their villages, and the positive(!) comments.
Meanwhile in Canada any attempt at maintaining current rail service, let alone reviving passenger trains in smaller towns, or even cities, will be met with apathy by most people.
He should have been a landlord if he wanted to get into other people’s homes without permission.
No consequences for that.
Huh? I’m not sure if you’re serious but I can give it a try.
Short answer : The tracks to Lévis have been removed decades ago and it’s now a bike path.
Cynical answer: There are still tracks close enough to the city that a connection and new station could be built. However Via Rail is required to be profitable so it wouldn’t happen. It’s North America, just use a car (electric)!
Car-less person answer: You kind of can. Take a train to Québec City and use the ferry to Lévis.
But to me the bigger rhetorical question is, why the hell doesn’t the Québec region have any kind of commuter trains.
The REM solves the issue of dedicated tracks, but it’s a light rail stuck to a core metropolitan region, because it’s “for profit”. It wouldn’t reach the people complaining in the article, because they are too far, and not profitable.
Plus, the financing method for the REM, a public-private partnership, is cannibalizing public transit in the Montréal region. It has a non-compete clause with public transit, because profit.
The REM is not a model to follow.
I’m mostly familiar with trains in Germany and I know a comparison is unfair, but it seems like we’re missing an entire part of a coherent transit system.
We have Via trains, that can loosely be compared to Inter-city trains. Long distance between cities and more expensive. We also have commuter trains like GO and Exo that serves a metro area and all the suburbs around. They are cheaper (subsidized), you can get a monthly pass, no seat reservation, and they are more frequent (than Via trains).
But we have nothing akin to regional rail. I’ll just quote a definition from Wikipedia:
Regional rail usually provides rail services between towns and cities, rather than purely linking major population hubs in the way inter-city rail does. Regional rail operates outside major cities. Unlike Inter-city, it stops at most or all stations between cities. It provides a service between smaller communities along the line that are often byproducts of ribbon developments, and also connects with long-distance services at interchange stations located at junctions, terminals, or larger towns along the line. Alternative names are “local train” or “stopping train”.
I understand the people complaining in the article, but as someone without a car, I also rolled up my eyes and thought ‘but what did they expect from Via?’ Exo and GO trains are specifically for commuting but they don’t reach them. Relying on last minutes tickets from Via for commuting is, IMHO, a bit insane. They are missing a regional train. Right now our society expects them to drive their car (electric!) to Oshawa then use GO, if they want to commute by train.
We are missing regional trains in Québec too. It’s equally stupid that someone can go from Montréal to the end of an Exo train line for $10 while the next city with Via would cost triple that, and with less departures. There’s also two rail lines between Montréal and Sherbrooke. Both are used for freight, but no passenger trains. I’m still salty about this one because the little town where I grew up, on one of those lines, had passenger trains for more than a century before being cut by Paul Martin in the 90ies.
Beyond the recurring issues that you mentioned with the priorities and the lack of tracks, neither our provinces nor the federal government have any cohesive plan for transit. It’s either by city and metro region, or Inter-city with Via or coach. Nothing in between. Even if we give priority to passenger trains, we’re stuck with a ginormous car culture that says trains and buses are a waste of taxpayers money. I would really love to see more investment than just in Alto, even if it’s still a good thing, but I’m afraid Via is going to stagnate for a while longer.
I understand why Germans whine about their trains but I’m so damn jealous. If we could only have half of their system. At least some regional trains!
Don’t worry, car collisions are only one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the US.
Who cares if you’re blind, you need to go places. Here’s your license. The other shiny dots are just NPCs.
Anything but public or active transit.
This article seems to be from a European / mild winters point of view, and mainly for people training?!
I live in Montreal and a winter bike is very much a thing. If not you have to prepare yours and spend much more time and money on maintenance.
And since lots of us here are using bikes through snow storms, slush, ice, salt, calcium, you can be assured that most of us will not use a fancy road bike for this.
I don’t even use my hybrid in winter and have a cheap mountain bike just for this. But I must admit that I use it less and less, not because of disc brakes, but because we have a bike share system that is now working year-round. So sometimes I just rent a bike and don’t have to bother with all the maintenance winter would be imposing on one of my own bikes.
I cynically wonder what the “targets” could be for the training.
TBF it seems like it wasn’t really useful in the first place.
Or is this how the world learned about Abu Grahib? And wasn’t Obama supposed to close Guantanamo?
I’m sure those human rights abuses reports were taken seriously. /s
Of course. My meat tenderizer connected to the internet has an accelerometer and sensors. For a small monthly subscription fee it tells me how hard I need to beat the meat, and for how long. All powered by AI for my convenience.
There is a quote attributed to Voltaire that says :
Common sense is not so common.
My cynical ass tells me that if we can grow storage devices, the tech is gonna be bought and patented by a giant corporation so they can charge us a hefty price for it.