this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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[discussion] Frustrated with Driving and the Lack of Public Transportation (lemmy.4rs.nl)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hey everyone,

I'm just here to vent a bit, even though I know words won't change anything.

I'm from Saudi Arabia, where public transportation is almost nonexistent in most cities, including mine. I think Riyadh has some options, but overall, it's just not popular. So, like many others, I have to drive every day and fill up the gas tank weekly, if not more often. I absolutely hate wasting time driving.

When I say there's no public transportation, I mean it, no buses, no metro, nothing. There's a railway, but it only connects a few cities, not all.

Sure, Uber or taxis are available, but let's be honest, who can afford that for an entire month? Owning a car is much cheaper in the long run, especially for running errands for the family.

Driving stresses me out, especially at night with the bright headlights and fast speeds (most roads are 100 km/h, or about 62 mph). My daily commute to university takes an hour, and the traffic is terrible. I have to stay fully alert the whole time to avoid accidents, so by the time I arrive, I'm already exhausted, and of course there's no time to rest because classes start right away. I lose two hours every day just driving, time that I could be using to read, chat with friends, or even watch a movie if I were on public transportation.

I don't really have a solution to this problem, but does anyone else? It's becoming unbearable. Just to add, I don't have any close friends to carpool with. I once thought about sharing the driving with someone, but most of us have other commitments before and after college. In my case, I also have to drop my siblings off at school and pick them up later.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

How far is the university? Is it doable on an e-bike? Hopefully you could at least alleviate it a bit for shorter local trips by bike.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Under normal circumstances I'd say organize/lobby for better transportation alternatives, but in a petro-state monarchy... oof.

Short of emigrating, I guess hope this thing won't end up the disastrous boondoggle the critics claim it'll be?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I’d say organize/lobby for better transportation alternatives

We don't have this things here

claim it’ll be?

I'm not very interested in it, so I don't know much, and I don't like to talk about things related to Saudi Arabia. I just talk about what I've experienced in my daily life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I feel your pain. I moved from a rural area into Vancouver specifically to get access to the public transit here and, funny story, tomorrow I'm flying to VA for a memorial service and the town it will be in doesn't even have regional bus service... it's car or taxi only.

When you live in a rural area there's not much you can do... and if (like me with ADHD) you don't feel safe driving yourself, your options are: move, pay for taxis, or have good friends.

If this is important to you and others in your community, you could consider running for local city council[1] and look at trying to get some public transit options made available. My impression is that this may actually be pretty achievable since it sounds like MBS is throwing around a fair amount of money for infrastructure modernization and green energy initiatives - there might be federal funding available for electric buses.

Anyways, if you're like me and are uncomfortable driving for safety reasons moving would be my honest suggestion... but that's never an easy thing to do. Best of luck!

  1. Assuming local elected governments exist, Saudi Arabia is a monarchy - like a real one - so I have no idea what local governance looks like... do you guys have barons? Suddenly, I must go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole...
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

If I was from a rural village I don't think I would have the problems I mentioned, because it would be small and easy to move around.

The problem is I'm from Jeddah, a big city. To put it in perspective, it's 7 times bigger than Vancouver, and has 7 times the population (source: Wikipedia). It's the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. So here's the problem.