FPSXpert

That sounds more like a pet problem or a training issue than a transportation issue though.

Have you heard a freight train horn compared to a light rail horn? They're much quieter.

As for your situation, might I suggest instead pressuring the neighbors to help you apply for a permit for a "railroad quiet zone"? In my state at least that is a thing where a neighborhood can pressure a rail company via local government to have a designated corridor like this. The corridor will have any railroad crossings updated to have a "NO HORN" indicated signage since the train will not blast its horn on approach to the intersection, similar to this picture but my state also has requirements that the intersection will have speakers playing a sound indication that a train is approaching, and the train will have its bell ringing but no loud train horn. It's much quieter than the normal setup where they must per federal law lay on that horn multiple times as they come up on an intersection.

Hi vegan here. Okay not really, I'm from the south and we eat the hell out of ground beef pork bbq etc all the time lmao.

Just because a small low income populated city is having financial troubles does not mean that the large and medium sized cities cannot do better with how lackluster they are being. Cincinnati can have some bus and transit improvements despite Appalachia to the east having ghost towns everywhere. Detroit can have a light rail network and commuter buses despite Flint having a water crisis. And Houston should never have cancelled their mass transit plans of MetroNEXT because their new mayor hates the idea of it and picked cabinet members to kill it, even if we are in the midst of an immigration crisis to the south.

Re on groceries, another awesome tool that I like for living car-lite in the south of all places is grocery delivery. For 50 buckaroos a year Walmart will bring your groceries straight to your doorstep, no bullshit required. No driving to the local supermarket, no slow crawling looking for parking, no darting through a sketchy looking parking lot at night, no crowded aisles and dodgy people on motor carts inside, no half hour long line for checkout, no please remove item from the bagging area calling an attendant to give your introverted ass a heart attack from an unwarranted conversation. Literally open the website add items and it just shows up at my door the next day. I also feel I make my money back because I'm not spending on impulse purchases. And I can shop in my underwear if I feel like it!

The one with a stop within 3 miles of your house, and a connecting bus that runs through every 15-30 minutes can take you closer. Or if you're like me leave the bike at the station and bike home after.

Gadgetbahn^TM^

The trick is you do both buses and trains. You use the buses to connect communities that don’t have large transit requirements between them and then for commuting you use buses to direct people to train stations where they can get the trains to work/ where they need to go en masse. Transportation is a multilevel solution that requires multiple modes to get people where they need to go but you can’t just rely on buses as quite frankly they lack the ability move all that many people even across quite short distances.

Multi-modal transport! This really is the way to do it and it's a damn shame that so many governments still seem hell-bent on the highway only. TxDOT's motto literally might as well be if you don't like it get out. The way it should be is this: If you wanna drive, drive but you are going to pay for your fair share. Nothing terribly expensive as seen $9 a day is all it takes in New York, and as an added benefit the reduced traffic from people taking other means will cause less car traffic for you. Sunny day and you want to enjoy the scenery, you got time? Separate grade bike paths along multipurpose drainage areas already being used and government-owned ROW, can bike wherever you're going on those shorter trips. Pouring rain outside and not safe to ride, but don't want to drive? Take the bus, a raincoat will keep you dry for the walk between home and the covered bus stop. Need to get to the airport across town? That's 30 miles, take the train and you'll be there soon and not have to worry about car parking since you left the car at home.

This really is how things should be. But that would also mean big finance from car loans and big auto from repairs and costs, big insurance from legal fees of cars, and big energy sector from oil / gas / polymers / etc would all lose from less resources used. So they pressured the shit out of government to change things for the worse. Hopefully it gets better soon before I get too old to benefit from it.

BRT is a very good use case for this, where if rail is too expensive per mile to maintain from ridership you can still have a fast connection with 15 minute headways or better.

It's popular because it's cheap and fast to implement, so much so that latin american cities all over have been having massive success with them despite a limited budget. Unfortunately where I'm at the political fight has gotten so bad that they are cancelling bus lanes with lame duck reasoning such as "the paint is too expensive to maintain" and "we need more lanes for general traffic to sit in traffic in".

And yet there is no comment on the random acts of violence on the streets of New York. Road rage, violence against people walking around, engaging with the same crazies/junkies/homeless on the roadways. And don't even get me started on the number of road head going on.

All I know is [there were more than 39,000 fatalities in the country in 2022 involving motor vehicles, of which 27,000 were drivers or passengers inside a vehicle](there were more than 39,000 fatalities in the country in 2022 involving motor vehicles, of which 27,000 were drivers or passengers inside a vehicle). It's okay you can click the link, those are numbers straight from the government. Comparatively there appears to have been 356 air-vehicle related fatalities, 26 bus occupants, and 88 under other transit related for the same year. Statistically I'm going to feel safer on the train than I will on the highway.

And even then if you still don't see yourself riding on there, you should still support it! Support it so that people like me are riding that instead of driving, meaning I am one less car in front of you and one less car in traffic that you have to deal with :)

I'd like to wish a merry fuck you to the sore on the inside of my mouth that has been a goddamn fire the last few days. Fuck cankersores nothing seems to be touching it.

American companies being welfare queens, imagine that.

A couple things I have to note, also as someone that used to do gun repairs and basic gunsmithing for a shop back in the day:

1. They are a bitch to clean, but the right tools can make it a lot easier. Get a boresnake, proper cleaning solvent and lube, patches and brushes, both brass and regular brush. Watch a youtube video and learn how to properly clean it. Pop out the two push pins and field strip it and cleaning it is rather easy. For the upper run boresnake through with solvent and patches until clean, then run it through again with lube. EZ.

(Also learn to clean or at least do a half-ass clean if time is a problem after every range visit, we got so many firearms that looked like they hadn't been cleaned in years and were always a real bitch to take care of. My personal favorite was someone upset that we couldn't magically restore his "5 years in a garage in Florida humidity in a duffel bag never fired or cleaned" that was rusted and pitted to hell, and that it couldn't be brought back to factory new for 30 bucks 😂)

2. I haven't personally had this happen to me, but also range use will vary wildly from combat use so I can't speak on this too much.

3. They are because aluminum is very popular for manufacturing. If taken care of properly, this won't be an issue. See above that most people don't clean and maintain theirs properly lmao

4. Skill issue. Memes aside a good quality BCG is important for this reason. More people need to learn how the parts work on their build and change out parts as necessary if they are having issues with certain parts of it.

I completely agree with everything except the bit about Bear Creek, I can't talk shit when my 300blk upper from them runs well 😂

I mean, nobody wants to admit that they ~~ate 9 cans of ravioli~~ own a BCA, but I do and it's actually been surprisingly nice.

Okay memes aside, if buying BCA/PSA tier bottom bin parts know how to inspect them and make sure that they're good quality. With any firearm purchase actually give it a good look over, clean and prep it, know how to do little things like sanding down a feed ramp with a little bit of time and sandpaper (youtube is great for this). Don't just buy something planning to just shove it in the closet and not do any sort of work or prep or testing it at the range because if you do that, it's going to be a lot worse if you need it to work and it doesn't :)