Growing up in California makes any semblance of an effective public transportation system something of an irregularity. The subway system in Vienna was very effective, and it was very nice to be able to ride pretty much all of the public transport with the month long pass without having to worry about being fined. It was almost frustrating that I was only checked once at the gate for my pass, because we paid fifty euro for the pass for the entire month. In light of this, I spent four days in Berlin riding the public transport system without ever buying a ticket. Not the smartest plan to be sure, but I was also hoping that the authorities there would be as lenient as the authorities in Vienna were to those that had been caught by the authorities without their tickets; twice classmates of mine were found to be without their tickets and the authorities simply asked them to buy a ticket at the next stop.
The infrastructure of Vienna is set up so that it can more easily accommodate a more centralized population, and seems to only recently have begun to include the outskirts of the city within the greater public transport system. I have wondered in the past why the United States does not have a better public transportation network, and I think the problem comes down to simple geographic layout. Besides incredibly metropolitan areas such as New York or Chicago, the feasibility of an effective public transportation network like the Ubahn in the German speaking countries that I visited is simply nonexistent. Los Angeles provides the most troubling example of all, as it is such a spread out city that every single resident is almost required to own a car if they are going to be able to get around the city in a timely manner. Because our national growth has been so exponential since the time that the automobile was popularized, it has simply been easier to build an extensive road system that allows the individual person or family to navigate the country for themselves. This didn’t seem to be such a problem until the environmental impact of such reliance on automobiles has become clearer and clearer, and I think over the next century or so we will see the development of a much more thorough and comprehensive public transit system. It is much more difficult to institute these sort of changes in a society that has been designed to accommodate one mode of travel than to craft and improve one that has been in existence for many years, but it has become clear that it will be necessary for the health of the planet to at least make an attempt.
This was particularly on display when I took the suggested random train ride through the streets of Vienna, stopping at random places to try to get a better feel for the city as a whole. It struck me that this would be a very difficult if not impossible task in most American cities, because even if public transportation (buses in particular) were available to take us to different remote areas of the city, they would be so infrequent that it would be a giant time commitment to do this. But in Vienna it was quite easy to take a tram out to a part of the city that you were unfamiliar with, and expect that another tram would be along to take you back in about 15 minutes or so.
When I was out in Vienna I got off at a couple of very beautiful areas that were reminiscent of the city center and the history that comes along with it. I walked through a park that had a few people napping, and laid down for a short while myself with the intention of trying not to look like the giant tourist that I usually come across as. However my pleasant stops were also slightly marred by the fact that I also got off at one or two stops that were clearly the seedier areas of the city. I have never felt particularly unsafe in any areas of Vienna, but that is also partly due to the fact that I am a large person that can come across as intimidating for those that don’t know me. However despite the fact that I didn’t necessarily feel as though my safety was being threatened, I still did not linger in these areas that contained an inordinate amount of liquor stores with bars of grates over the windows, and shops that had no qualms about advertising their sex merchandise (of course this is a common theme throughout the European cities that I have visited, which is probably more of an indication of the prude American society than the other way around).
I thought that the differences between the news coverage on CNN international and American CNN was interesting, but almost negligible in some senses. On my last trip to Europe I watched a lot of the BBC, but unfortunately we didn’t get that channel at either our dorms or at any of the hotels or hostels that I visited. I thought that the BBC was great for simply reporting the news without a bias or spin, and wasn’t too concerned with polarizing political debate because it acted as a true source for news rather than a device with which a certain agenda could be pushed. Of course American news coverage is notorious for espousing a certain slant in its reporting, with Fox leading the charge of course, but I thought that CNN international was drifting more toward the American news coverage that we are used to. I should say though that I think that CNN does a reasonably good job at remaining impartial compared to some of the other news outlets that are seemingly more popular.
I thought American CNN was a little bit more disposed to focus on the more negative aspects of the news while the international news did not dwell quite as extensively on those things. I was surprised by how much CNN international used negative storylines to advance the news, and it seemed as though they had transitioned to this style somewhat recently and were still getting used to it. The commercials advertised polarizing shows about financial shows in which pundits yell at the screen about what the viewers should do were highly reminiscent of their American counterparts, and at times the only way I could tell which version of CNN I was watching was by the accents that the pundits had.
No comments:
Post a Comment