East Coast-West Coast feud

[trinityvixen]

This is hilariously true, but it's too bad he didn't get into the reasons why us East Coasters dislike long car rides. For starters, most urban-dwelling folk are pretty damned loyal to the cities in which they live. Bostoners prefer their town, New Yorkers don't believe other cities even exist. Why drive four hours away to some place that is clearly inferior in every way?

Not to mention, we have mass transit options and bad parking situations that make doing our own driving seem a fool's game. West Coasters never figured out that mass transit thing so good despite the fact that they built townships worth visiting as far apart and twice over again as any city in the NE corridor.

I find this amusing because I reverse discriminate against West Coasters for driving everywhere and it makes me a tad bitter that, as a result, everyone out there knows where every town ever is from Washington State to Baja. No, seriously. I was in a class with three Californians once, and just from listening to them, I ascertained that they none of them lived even within five hours of each other, and no major cities were mentioned. Yet each one knew exactly where the other two lived and off of what freeway. Shit, if I lived five hours away from someone in New York, they'd practically be in Canada. I get lost in my home town as is!

Comments

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

I actually get carsick on long rides, since living a mass-transit-only life. I'm in a taxi, like, once every 2 or 3 months, and last two times I went on car trips w/ my parents, I nearly barfed. Which I never had a problem with when I lived in car land.

Well, I live on the ground in car land now, I just don't ride.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that as I got older, I was less able to handle doing certain things in a car, especially if I'm not in the front seat. I can't hardly read without wanting to throw up.

However, I grew up taking long car rides, so I still enjoy them. I just don't take them in between cities in the NE corridor. Because that's death.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I live in NJ, routinely make a two hour round trip every week for dinner, consider anything less than 5 hours to be a brief hop in a car, and have driven a fair amount over this area in the last few years. Do I have to be exported or something? I think, at the least, suburbs like Long Island would need to be excluded... we drive everywhere. Everywhere. To the point where friends at college would look askance at our mentioning of driving to a party when there was a perfectly fine bus, or walkable.

I can't speak for most of the west coast, but I've been through LA before and I was just in San Fran last week, and I was really impressed by the mass transit system (specifically the busses. The subways were okay but the touristy cable cars were nigh-useless) they have there. Given that parking was like $50 to just stop anywhere, I can't imagine the parking is any better than NYC either.

But I guess "People who have cars and like to drive will drive more and people who don't have cars because they use mass transit a lot don't really drive places" isn't as catchy of a title.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I like long drives, but that was because my family took them all the time while I was growing up. But driving around cities here is death. Not gonna do it.

As for mass transit in California, yeah, there's some in cities. But almost none inter-city.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

It's very true. If I'm 'driving' to NYC my preferred method is driving to Jersey City, parking by chuckro and walking to the PATH. I'll drive around cities, just not in them.

Out west from what I saw, there are busses between cities in areas (San Fran to San Jose, or LA to San Diego) but not so much across the country over than Amtrak/Greyhound. But that sort of makes sense, it's like the Boltbus to Boston but there's no equivalent to get from NYC to Orlando. It's a big state. Even having been to two ends of it, I don't really have an accurate picture of just how large it is.

I think if it had city-versus-uncity it would have been a totally convincing argument.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

East Coast cities also just aren't that different. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are much more different from each other than, say, NYC and Washington D.C. It's not worth the 3-4 hours of travel to visit another East Coast City unless there's some very specific event or person to see, because it's all more or less the same.

And the obvious fact--cars are just much more expensive relative to public transportation over here. I can afford a car, but why would I spend another ~$5000/yr. for a parking spot in my building's garage?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think the cities all have different things about them. In fact, the difference in mass transit between NYC/Boston/DC makes a huge difference in the feel of the city. The different styles of the system give it different character. Otherwise, all true things.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

I regularly take 2hr (nigh-exactly) car trips, either by bus or by private car, but that's about my limit. Past that, train or plane plz.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

Depending on the time of day, someone living 5 hours away might also be on the other side of the triborough. ;)

Maybe it's because the NY transit is just so great, but I find every other (American) city's mass transit system to be laughable. I don't really find Boston's to be all that usable, let alone Philly or DC's. I think what the East Coast really got right as a whole was regional rail. You can take local trains all the way from Baltimore to Boston without too much difficulty. I'd love to be able to do that here.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

A lot of people made the "traffic = unreasonable drive times" point at that post. I hadn't thought about that at first.

And yes, NYC has the best transit system in the country. The T and the DC Metro are ridiculous in comparison.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

It's funny that while I was in NYC, I missed driving. Now that I'm somewhere I drive most places, I miss having mass transit (especially when I'm drunk). The funny thing about that is that in NYC, I had no problem walking 20 blocks because it seemed silly to take the subway such a short distance. Out here, I rarely do that because it just seems farther (though I will bike it).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm the same way. I go away for a weekend and driving is just about the best thing ever. Stick me somewhere where I'm dependent on cars (and other people's schedules to use them) and I'm ready for the subway again!

[shell524.livejournal.com]

If you lived somewhere where you were dependent on a car, you'd probably have your own and other people's schedules probably wouldn't dictate your use of it.

I feel like having a car is more free than being reliant on public transit schedules. Being able to come and go as I please and never having to stuff myself into my car with 18 strangers are damned nice.

[avram]

We took the Metro while we were in Montreal. It gets you where you're going, but it's tiny. Chris said that there are individual subway stations in NYC that are more complicated than Montreal's whole Metro.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

That seems to be 100% city people. Considering how many millions live in the suburbs between DC and Boston (and it's pretty much nothing but suburbs between there - even the farms are suburban) and drive constantly, it's a little bit of an odd assertion to me.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think it's being exaggerated for comic effect, but, yes, the target is mostly urban dwellers. :)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I am sure that there is less of an aversion to long drives on the West Coast as it is a great big open space that developed with the car rather than before it. But I think he's overstating his case.

I grew up with a lot of long, well medium length, drives. My perception growing up was that everything was three hours away--my grandparents, my aunts and uncles. Except for the ones that were five or seven hours away, but for those drives my dad always made sure to leave at about 9 at night so we'd sleep through most of it. I also know that my brother does day trips from Boston to ski resorts in Vermont, four hours away. This is not that uncommon. At my summer camp, counselors would go to Montreal on their day off, a good seven hour drive, yes for a daytrip.

Let's talk instead of the western aversion to long commutes instead. In NY, practically everyone has a commute of 45-60 minutes. People commute by train from Philly to New York every day. People in Boston commute from NH, where there's no income tax. I don't know about California per se, but in a lot of the country, a commute of longer than 20 minutes is holy shit so long.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

I dunno. A LOT of people in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and Houston drive a good 45-60 minutes to and from work. A good 15 minutes of that is usually traffic, but still... Again, commute-time-aversion depends on where one lives, and probably city vs. non.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

The building my last job was at was literally a block from Penn Station. One day I was in the elevator and this guy asked me if there was a pharmacy in the building. I said no, but there was a Duane Reade by Penn Station. And he was like, that far?! I said, it's only a block away. He said, I'm from LA, I don't walk anywhere, I'll figure something else out. End of elevator ride. :-P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Now there is true stereotype. I was astonished to learn just how much New Yorkers walk than the average American, but not all that much, you know? Because my stereotype of west coast folk is that they drive to get around the block. New Yorkers won't take the subway two stops (except sometimes, maybe in a storm or winter).