this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2025
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I did not understand at first what this comic was about. And when I finally got it I had to realize that I simply can't relate because I never drove a car before and the last time I commuted by car was over thirty years ago when my dad had to drive me to school in grade 2 elementary. Been either walking, biking or taking transit for my commute my whole life.
North American culture is really weird. My wife doesn't bat an eye for having to commute an hour to her work one way. She's been doing this ever since she moved back to Canada from Europe ten years ago, and she's fine with it. Meanwhile I went out of my way to always go for jobs that are no further than half an hour away by transit or bike, even if it meant settling for a lower salary.
There are lots of places, like where I live, that just straight up have no public transit; no buses, no trains, no taxis. We have a couple medical taxis to take folks to appointments if they have Medicaid/Medicare, and if I drive 2 hours I can catch a Greyhound bus or a plane, but that's it. If I want to shop at Walmart it's a 30 minute drive. My in-laws are about 300 miles away, so any time we visit it's about a 5 hour drive, depending on whether we eat on the way or not.
That's terrible. I can't imagine living like that.
Costco is fairly far from me. It's a 25 minute bike ride in non-snowy weather. I can bike there, load up a cart and uber it home to my wife, or try to haul it back in the bike trailer if not too bulky.
Walmart is half an hour away by transit, but prefer to just shop local instead. Most grocery stores, butcher, cheese store, bakery all within a 10 minute walking distance.
In laws are the same deal though, 5.5hr train (due to freight priority), 5hr drive or 6hr bus (due to all the stops). In Europe a train would take me to the next country's capital within two hours for $35. Here you board the train to Toronto like you are at an airport, with everyone constantly checked for their fares, lined up boarding one by one, luggage check & weight limit, assigned seating. 3x price of European rail and all this hassle for a max 120kmph travel speed. Insanity.
Car dependency sounds like the opposite of freedom.
It depends. It means I live in an area where I have a lot of other freedoms. I can go build a shed and nobody is gonna ask me about a permit. I can plant a garden or put up a fence and my neighbors aren't gonna complain to an HOA about how it looks. And I have the freedom to drive to places much further away and leave whenever I feel like it instead of working around somebody else's schedule.
There are trade offs for every way of living, but it would be nice to have "something" around here as an option.