horse

I don’t know if it counts as a habit, because I don’t have a schedule or anything, but I ride my bike an average of 150km per week.

Serious question: How do you tell someone suicidal that opens up to you, that you can’t handle the topic without making them feel worse?

Sure, the FDP is mostly irrelevant at the moment, but the AfD got the 2nd most votes in the recent EU elections, right behind the CDU/CSU which are also very much pro car and anti bike infrastructure. In the east the AfD often got more votes than any other party in most places. The upcoming state elections won’t go any better either. None of the current ruling parties are going to be in the next government when Germany has its federal elections next year. It’s going to be a right wing government and I have zero faith in the CDU/CSU not to form a coalition with the AfD when the time comes. Things are really fucked here at the moment and they are going to get much worse before they get better (if they get better at all).

As others have said, Germany is not as bad as the US (at least as far as I can tell looking at the US from the outside), but it’s still fucking terrible and will likely get worse under future governments, which are all but guaranteed to be right-wing, quite possibly including the outright fascists of the AfD.

Public transport is useless, especially the train network, which is horribly outdated technically and has been gutted by quasi-privatisation. Trains are frequently late or cancelled (which counts as on time for German Rail’s statistics). If you don’t live in a city you basically have to own a car because of this, especially in smaller towns where there might only be like two busses a day (or none at all). There are some small improvements being made in cities, but they are hugely lacking and slow. They will also likely not survive future governments, which are promising car-centric policies and trying to import the anti-cyclist culture war from the US.

So yeah, it’s bleak and the future looks even bleaker. With how things are going politically at the moment urbanism will be the least of our worries though.