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On May 03 2021 02:26 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 02:10 KwarK wrote:On May 03 2021 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
Biden's pandemic policies look an awful lot like exactly what Trump's administration did throughout 2020, with the key difference being that certain media outlets bend over backwards to portray Biden as far better despite few material differences. Trump laid the groundwork for mass vaccination and Biden upped the production a smidge, Trump gave stimulus checks and Biden did too, and so on. Trump certainly wouldn't have earmarked money for a union pension bailout, but that's just because Trump and Biden have different special interest groups that they give $100 billion dollar windfalls to.
The popular narrative was always going to be "look how much better things are now that Trump is gone." It's weird how much things look exactly the same despite all the media outlets singing the praises of Biden nonstop. The COVID relief packages only look similar if you’re not paying attention. Are you not paying attention or are you paying attention but misrepresenting the facts? Trump’s COVID strategy primarily involved giving money to businesses in the hope that they’d spend it in a way that trickled down to the people. Biden’s gives money to people so that they spend it at businesses. One is cheap loans, low interest rates, grants, etc. while the other is extended unemployment, payments to self employed people impacted, eviction relief, rent relief, additional SNAP, and direct stimulus payments to individuals. Let’s say Biden is proposing pissing in a bucket and Trump advocates for a bucket of piss poured over people. They both involve people. piss, and a bucket, and an element of transfer between those but they’re not really the same. Additionally, it’s asinine to ignore the dramatic changes to CDC leadership, the significantly increased federal coordination of vaccine distribution among the states, and basically everything Trump did or didn’t do during the month and a half or so period that led up to the passage of the Cares Act on March 27, 2020. It’s also hilarious to read someone talk about their view as though it’s counter to “what the media is saying” when that view happens to be blasted everyday on Fox News.
yeah. we litterally went through where the money goes and the differences. even today someone posted it.
with the vaccination effort, there is no comparison really. it is 1m per day vaccinated (grifter in chief) vs. consistently hitting 3m (under sleepy woke Joe), sometimes even more.
now that link is like a month old and additional - interesting - problems have arisen... people are getting lazy and are not showing up for their 2nd shots... and additionally especially male Republicans are very much hesitant to get vaccinated.
which is not good for them personally, but obviously not helpful for the goal of vaccinating wide swaths of the general public to eradicate the virus or at least make clusters as small and ineffective as possible.
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I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport.
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
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On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:
I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport.
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
I think what the US needs to do is focus on major rail between closer cities. So LA to NY isn't something you go for at first, what you do is go LA to SF and LA to Vegas. Similar things with other states and other cities (I live in LA so those two are easy for me to pick out).
I lived in Germany for two years and taking the train everywhere was amazing and I wish I could do it in LA. I would be in vegas a lot more often if I didn't have to drive my ass 4 hours each time I wanted to go
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On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:
I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport.
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
Consider that, for a significant portion of US history, the utility of rail was so great and so pervasive that it gave rise to an industry powerful enough to inspire one of the world's first antitrust efforts. Even without accounting for the role of technology in changing the game, I think it's absolutely the case that rail can work in the US and should be prioritized as a component of widespread infrastructural renewal.
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I'm somewhat convinced that the ubiquity of cars/trucks in america is largely due to railroad barons.
A lot of the distances traveled by car don't really make sense compared to the rail versions of them, if we had kept up that infrastructure innovation (ie, if we had bullet trains around when Japan first did) instead of into highways and roads. But the cultural revulsion towards railroad barons cannot really be understated, and it was pretty much justified too. Imagine if Elon Musk or Bezos or Bill Gates had regularly had daily death tolls so high they frequently couldn't even count them, at their american places of operation.
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yeah probably railroad barons. and rugged individualism.
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On May 03 2021 00:09 plasmidghost wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2021 18:03 BlackJack wrote:On May 01 2021 23:21 plasmidghost wrote:
Now that Biden's first 100 days have officially passed, I've been disappointed in some ways regarding things like him not doing student loan forgiveness or pushing to decriminalize marijuana, but I also have been thankful for his administration building the COVID response from the ground up so quickly and getting a bunch of people vaccinated, as well as the relief package providing a ton of help for low-income people with children. All in all, it made me realize that I was extremely wrong in thinking both parties were the same in 2016 when I voted for Gary Johnson. There's a lot more Biden and his administration can do, but I think that this is a good start. Eh, we were basically vaccinating 1M people per day when Biden took office. There's no reason to believe the vaccine effort would start to scale down when he took over instead of continue to scale up. Also, 2 other COVID stimulus packages went through under Trump. Not to say Biden is the same as the orange guy but I don't think the examples you provided say very much in setting them apart. I get that about the vaccines, but my statement on the COVID stimulus is that Biden's provided way more to the low and middle class than Trump's two did. Should the direct payment stimulus itself had been better? I believe so, especially because of optics, but there's still a lot of good for people who need it, which they barely got under the Trump stimulus plans sans the $1800 total payments. Show nested quote +Low- and moderate-income households -- those making $91,000 or less -- are set to receive nearly 70% of the tax benefits from the most recent coronavirus relief law, the center found. The calculation includes the $1,400 stimulus checks, which has the largest impact, and several tax credit enhancements.
But nearly half of Trump's cuts went to households in the top 5% of the income distribution -- who made about $308,000 -- in 2018.
Those making $25,000 or less will receive an average tax cut of $2,800 this year from Biden's package, boosting their after-tax income by 20%. Under the Trump tax measure, these households saw a $60 reduction, on average, in the first year, or about 0.4% of their after-tax income.
Middle-class taxpayers will see their federal levy decline by an average of $3,350, or 5.5% of after-tax income, this year. The Trump law cut their taxes by about $930, or 1.6% of after-tax income, on average.
The highest-income 0.1% percent of households enjoyed a tax cut of $193,000, or 2.7% of after-tax income, from the 2017 tax act. They will receive nothing from Biden's package. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/stimulus-temporary-tax-cut/index.html
The article you're citing isn't comparing the COVID stimulus under Biden to the COVID stimulus under Trump. It's comparing the COVID stimulus under Biden to tax cuts under trump from 4 years ago. Your claim still may be true, but this isn't really any evidence for it.
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On May 03 2021 02:54 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 02:26 farvacola wrote:On May 03 2021 02:10 KwarK wrote:On May 03 2021 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
Biden's pandemic policies look an awful lot like exactly what Trump's administration did throughout 2020, with the key difference being that certain media outlets bend over backwards to portray Biden as far better despite few material differences. Trump laid the groundwork for mass vaccination and Biden upped the production a smidge, Trump gave stimulus checks and Biden did too, and so on. Trump certainly wouldn't have earmarked money for a union pension bailout, but that's just because Trump and Biden have different special interest groups that they give $100 billion dollar windfalls to.
The popular narrative was always going to be "look how much better things are now that Trump is gone." It's weird how much things look exactly the same despite all the media outlets singing the praises of Biden nonstop. The COVID relief packages only look similar if you’re not paying attention. Are you not paying attention or are you paying attention but misrepresenting the facts? Trump’s COVID strategy primarily involved giving money to businesses in the hope that they’d spend it in a way that trickled down to the people. Biden’s gives money to people so that they spend it at businesses. One is cheap loans, low interest rates, grants, etc. while the other is extended unemployment, payments to self employed people impacted, eviction relief, rent relief, additional SNAP, and direct stimulus payments to individuals. Let’s say Biden is proposing pissing in a bucket and Trump advocates for a bucket of piss poured over people. They both involve people. piss, and a bucket, and an element of transfer between those but they’re not really the same. Additionally, it’s asinine to ignore the dramatic changes to CDC leadership, the significantly increased federal coordination of vaccine distribution among the states, and basically everything Trump did or didn’t do during the month and a half or so period that led up to the passage of the Cares Act on March 27, 2020. It’s also hilarious to read someone talk about their view as though it’s counter to “what the media is saying” when that view happens to be blasted everyday on Fox News. yeah. we litterally went through where the money goes and the differences. even today someone posted it. with the vaccination effort, there is no comparison really. it is 1m per day vaccinated (grifter in chief) vs. consistently hitting 3m (under sleepy woke Joe), sometimes even more. now that link is like a month old and additional - interesting - problems have arisen... people are getting lazy and are not showing up for their 2nd shots... and additionally especially male Republicans are very much hesitant to get vaccinated. which is not good for them personally, but obviously not helpful for the goal of vaccinating wide swaths of the general public to eradicate the virus or at least make clusters as small and ineffective as possible.
I think everyone here is capable of understanding that 3M per day is greater than 1M per day. The question is on what basis are you deciding that going from 1M per day to 3M per day is so much better than going from 0 per day to 1M per day in roughly the same amount of time? As someone with no pony in this race, both seem pretty solid to me.
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On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:
I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport.
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
It's not really a size issue but an urban planning issue, since trains aren't a popular alternative for long distance flights anywhere. Rather than focus on distance I would look at what kind of people use trains in Europe/Japan, and you have:
1. People that don't drive at all because they don't need a car in their home city
2. People that prefer to take a train instead of driving because it's faster / less tiresome AND they don't need a car to get around once at their destination
3. People that prefer to take a train instead of a short flight because it's less of a hassle
The problem is that 1 and 2 are not really applicable to the US.
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Exactly. It's about the public transport system as a whole. If you still need a car at the other end, you can't take a train. If you own a car anyway, you're less likely to take the train.
The big pay-offs come when much of the population trusts PT enough to sell their cars. That point seems a long way off in 99% of the US (and my country, for that matter). Even highspeed rail would be unlikely to change this because the missing link is always last-mile services in regional/outer-metro.
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On May 03 2021 06:12 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 02:54 Doublemint wrote:On May 03 2021 02:26 farvacola wrote:On May 03 2021 02:10 KwarK wrote:On May 03 2021 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
Biden's pandemic policies look an awful lot like exactly what Trump's administration did throughout 2020, with the key difference being that certain media outlets bend over backwards to portray Biden as far better despite few material differences. Trump laid the groundwork for mass vaccination and Biden upped the production a smidge, Trump gave stimulus checks and Biden did too, and so on. Trump certainly wouldn't have earmarked money for a union pension bailout, but that's just because Trump and Biden have different special interest groups that they give $100 billion dollar windfalls to.
The popular narrative was always going to be "look how much better things are now that Trump is gone." It's weird how much things look exactly the same despite all the media outlets singing the praises of Biden nonstop. The COVID relief packages only look similar if you’re not paying attention. Are you not paying attention or are you paying attention but misrepresenting the facts? Trump’s COVID strategy primarily involved giving money to businesses in the hope that they’d spend it in a way that trickled down to the people. Biden’s gives money to people so that they spend it at businesses. One is cheap loans, low interest rates, grants, etc. while the other is extended unemployment, payments to self employed people impacted, eviction relief, rent relief, additional SNAP, and direct stimulus payments to individuals. Let’s say Biden is proposing pissing in a bucket and Trump advocates for a bucket of piss poured over people. They both involve people. piss, and a bucket, and an element of transfer between those but they’re not really the same. Additionally, it’s asinine to ignore the dramatic changes to CDC leadership, the significantly increased federal coordination of vaccine distribution among the states, and basically everything Trump did or didn’t do during the month and a half or so period that led up to the passage of the Cares Act on March 27, 2020. It’s also hilarious to read someone talk about their view as though it’s counter to “what the media is saying” when that view happens to be blasted everyday on Fox News. yeah. we litterally went through where the money goes and the differences. even today someone posted it. with the vaccination effort, there is no comparison really. it is 1m per day vaccinated (grifter in chief) vs. consistently hitting 3m (under sleepy woke Joe), sometimes even more. now that link is like a month old and additional - interesting - problems have arisen... people are getting lazy and are not showing up for their 2nd shots... and additionally especially male Republicans are very much hesitant to get vaccinated. which is not good for them personally, but obviously not helpful for the goal of vaccinating wide swaths of the general public to eradicate the virus or at least make clusters as small and ineffective as possible. I think everyone here is capable of understanding that 3M per day is greater than 1M per day. The question is on what basis are you deciding that going from 1M per day to 3M per day is so much better than going from 0 per day to 1M per day in roughly the same amount of time? As someone with no pony in this race, both seem pretty solid to me.
you are from the US. you might not see the pony but please believe me, you are on it either way. you can't be neutral on a moving pony, to paraphrase.
efficiency in manufacturing increased. supply chains got better, more robust - and more federal money was spent specifically for this under Biden.
is that basic enough of an explanation? you might also want to look at other nations and their vaccination progress, US selfishness(if there was no pressure and the dire situation in India the US - probably - would still sit on a stockpile of AZ, but doing the right thing is good nonetheless) and overpaying(in comparison to EU countries) for vaccines paid dividends so far. comparison is a decent enough basis I hope ~
and sure. we could debate all the eventualities whether all this was necessary and 1m is already nice etc... but why? there is a rather clear chain of causation.
a ton of evidence suggests that former president "we need to look into injecting (bleach) into bodies - it knocks it out in a minute, sounds interesting to me" was anything but competent at fighting the pandemic when looking at the big picture. how one can politicize face masks during such an event is a rather unique achievement.
paying pharma companies the big bucks in advance for vaccine development was definitely one of the better moves by Trump. though looking at how Biden is spending money I bet he would have, at bare minimum, done the same.
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I just really dislike this hardcore partisanship where everything our guy does is good and everything the other guy does is bad. Anyone can look at the trajectory of vaccine administration in the US and see that it was scaling up nicely and would have continued to do so regardless of who was in charge after inauguration day. As you pointed out, there's plenty of other stuff you could beat Trump up about regarding the pandemic.
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On May 03 2021 05:59 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 00:09 plasmidghost wrote:On May 02 2021 18:03 BlackJack wrote:On May 01 2021 23:21 plasmidghost wrote:
Now that Biden's first 100 days have officially passed, I've been disappointed in some ways regarding things like him not doing student loan forgiveness or pushing to decriminalize marijuana, but I also have been thankful for his administration building the COVID response from the ground up so quickly and getting a bunch of people vaccinated, as well as the relief package providing a ton of help for low-income people with children. All in all, it made me realize that I was extremely wrong in thinking both parties were the same in 2016 when I voted for Gary Johnson. There's a lot more Biden and his administration can do, but I think that this is a good start. Eh, we were basically vaccinating 1M people per day when Biden took office. There's no reason to believe the vaccine effort would start to scale down when he took over instead of continue to scale up. Also, 2 other COVID stimulus packages went through under Trump. Not to say Biden is the same as the orange guy but I don't think the examples you provided say very much in setting them apart. I get that about the vaccines, but my statement on the COVID stimulus is that Biden's provided way more to the low and middle class than Trump's two did. Should the direct payment stimulus itself had been better? I believe so, especially because of optics, but there's still a lot of good for people who need it, which they barely got under the Trump stimulus plans sans the $1800 total payments. Low- and moderate-income households -- those making $91,000 or less -- are set to receive nearly 70% of the tax benefits from the most recent coronavirus relief law, the center found. The calculation includes the $1,400 stimulus checks, which has the largest impact, and several tax credit enhancements.
But nearly half of Trump's cuts went to households in the top 5% of the income distribution -- who made about $308,000 -- in 2018.
Those making $25,000 or less will receive an average tax cut of $2,800 this year from Biden's package, boosting their after-tax income by 20%. Under the Trump tax measure, these households saw a $60 reduction, on average, in the first year, or about 0.4% of their after-tax income.
Middle-class taxpayers will see their federal levy decline by an average of $3,350, or 5.5% of after-tax income, this year. The Trump law cut their taxes by about $930, or 1.6% of after-tax income, on average.
The highest-income 0.1% percent of households enjoyed a tax cut of $193,000, or 2.7% of after-tax income, from the 2017 tax act. They will receive nothing from Biden's package. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/stimulus-temporary-tax-cut/index.html The article you're citing isn't comparing the COVID stimulus under Biden to the COVID stimulus under Trump. It's comparing the COVID stimulus under Biden to tax cuts under trump from 4 years ago. Your claim still may be true, but this isn't really any evidence for it.
Ah yeah, that's a good point.
From what I can gather, there are things like the unemployment insurance being halved in the Biden plan but also including the first $10k be non-taxable, and the benefits lasting months longer. There was a significant amount more dedicated to state, local, and tribal governments under the ARP.
There's also adult dependents like college students being eligible for the $1400 checks, which is nice (but I still am annoyed with Manchin for not agreeing to the full $2000). Trump did do more in direct payments to people, that part I think can't be really argued on. Additionally, Biden's bill was much more focused on people and government, and I didn't see much besides $25 billion going to restaurant companies compared to Trump's bill. And looking at all of what the bills do, it's rather difficult to compare them in my eyes, since they each did a lot of different things. Biden's proposal was a lot of things in one large bill, most of them okay to great, while the CARES act did a lot for corporations but should've done more for low and middle-class Americans. I think that Biden takes it if I had to compare them.
(also I grabbed the figures off of the Senate bills but they're ridiculously long, with the shorter of the two being 241 pages)
https://www.newsweek.com/how-joe-biden-stimulus-deal-compares-donald-trump-key-issues-1574301
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On May 03 2021 07:31 BlackJack wrote:
I just really dislike this hardcore partisanship where everything our guy does is good and everything the other guy does is bad. Anyone can look at the trajectory of vaccine administration in the US and see that it was scaling up nicely and would have continued to do so regardless of who was in charge after inauguration day. As you pointed out, there's plenty of other stuff you could beat Trump up about regarding the pandemic.
Are you trying to paint the Trump administration as one being capable to mount an adequate response to the covid pandemic?
I have to admit that I don't really understand the point of what you're posting.
My best guess is: "Trumps" vaccine numbers not as bad as people paint it?
I really wonder, how much of it was really pushed through against the will of the admin... How high could MAGA numbers really have been already? We'll never know cause the wealthiest nation in the world is going batshit crazy with science denial.
On May 03 2021 08:02 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 07:31 BlackJack wrote:
I just really dislike this hardcore partisanship where everything our guy does is good and everything the other guy does is bad. Anyone can look at the trajectory of vaccine administration in the US and see that it was scaling up nicely and would have continued to do so regardless of who was in charge after inauguration day. As you pointed out, there's plenty of other stuff you could beat Trump up about regarding the pandemic. Is Trump's Covid response considered bad because he is the other guy, or because he denied it existed, tried to undermine efforts taken and advocated bogus and downright dangerous 'cures'? Is there any reason to actually assume the 'success' of vaccination efforts under Trump can be attributed to him, or are they in spite of him? His public comments would suggest the latter, more then the former.
lol 
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On May 03 2021 07:31 BlackJack wrote:
I just really dislike this hardcore partisanship where everything our guy does is good and everything the other guy does is bad. Anyone can look at the trajectory of vaccine administration in the US and see that it was scaling up nicely and would have continued to do so regardless of who was in charge after inauguration day. As you pointed out, there's plenty of other stuff you could beat Trump up about regarding the pandemic. Is Trump's Covid response considered bad because he is the other guy, or because he denied it existed, tried to undermine efforts taken and advocated bogus and downright dangerous 'cures'?
Is there any reason to actually assume the 'success' of vaccination efforts under Trump can be attributed to him, or are they in spite of him?
His public comments would suggest the latter, more then the former.
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On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport. + Show Spoiler +
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
High speed rail will never happen in America because of land rights. Most cities in the US do not have space for them and any forfeiture would be tied up in courts forever. There isn't the will to sacrifice some for the needs of the many.
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On May 03 2021 09:32 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport. + Show Spoiler +
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
High speed rail will never happen in America because of land rights. Most cities in the US do not have space for them and any forfeiture would be tied up in courts forever. There isn't the will to sacrifice some for the needs of the many.
The government will and has used imminent domain to get the land they need for projects. Land rights don't really mean as much as it used to. And as long as people are paid at market rate for their land and given enough time to relocate, they will more than likely do so. Money talks and people will sell in a second.
The biggest issue for improving transportation is the car industry as they won't want to sacrifice their profits. Granted, as was stated before, in the US you'll more than likely still need a vehicle for whatever you want to go see/do, so it's just a matter of convincing enough people that the investment is worth it.
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On May 03 2021 10:52 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 09:32 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport. + Show Spoiler +
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
High speed rail will never happen in America because of land rights. Most cities in the US do not have space for them and any forfeiture would be tied up in courts forever. There isn't the will to sacrifice some for the needs of the many. The government will and has used imminent domain to get the land they need for projects. Land rights don't really mean as much as it used to. And as long as people are paid at market rate for their land and given enough time to relocate, they will more than likely do so. Money talks and people will sell in a second. The biggest issue for improving transportation is the car industry as they won't want to sacrifice their profits. Granted, as was stated before, in the US you'll more than likely still need a vehicle for whatever you want to go see/do, so it's just a matter of convincing enough people that the investment is worth it.
The most comparable project would be the national highway system. That was done for national security reasons, but the federal government already uses commercial planes which are better and faster than high speed trains. It was also built in a time period where half the country wasn't convinced that government was communism.
The reason you still need a car is because public transit is incapable of being a good solution. If you build it up slowly it is never enough to not need a car and nobody uses it. If you plan for ten years from now then it costs too much and no one wants to pay for it. We can see if Biden's infrastructure plan will deliver anything of value, but there isn't political will in this country for high speed rail and any projects will run long enough to be sabotaged by the next president or congress.
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On May 03 2021 11:39 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 10:52 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On May 03 2021 09:32 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On May 03 2021 04:20 plasmidghost wrote:I'd like to get some more information and perspectives onto the Biden administration's major push into passenger rail transport. + Show Spoiler +
When I was in the Czech Republic, I was able to take a train from Prague to Ostrava, an about 240 mile drive, in around 3.5 hours. It cost me $20 round-trip. I greatly enjoyed the ride, being able to stand up and walk around whenever I wanted, and also was able to get to the station about 20 minutes before the train left and boarded with no problems.
Places like Japan and their Shinkansen system can regularly hit 200mph and can cover driving distances in around 40% of the time, but are significantly more than $20 (I used a reference of Tokyo to Osaka roundtrip, which is around $270).
My questions on this are: Can these systems in Europe and Japan be replicated in the US? I believe that people would definitely try it at first, but would there be enough people using trains to justify its expense? Additionally, is the US too big for a train system to be practical? My thoughts are, if we are able to have a system like Shinkansen, it would definitely be enough to justify the expense. Since the distance between, for instance, Los Angeles and New York City is about 2500 miles, a direct train there would take 12-13 hours unless a faster train is developed. This is compared to the flight time of five hours, not counting time spent in security and getting bags.
I know right now, I'm supportive of passenger rail transport becoming significantly better in the US. Trains are cool and I think that for shorter distances, like say LA to Seattle, it could be seen as better than flying in terms of experience.
High speed rail will never happen in America because of land rights. Most cities in the US do not have space for them and any forfeiture would be tied up in courts forever. There isn't the will to sacrifice some for the needs of the many. The government will and has used imminent domain to get the land they need for projects. Land rights don't really mean as much as it used to. And as long as people are paid at market rate for their land and given enough time to relocate, they will more than likely do so. Money talks and people will sell in a second. The biggest issue for improving transportation is the car industry as they won't want to sacrifice their profits. Granted, as was stated before, in the US you'll more than likely still need a vehicle for whatever you want to go see/do, so it's just a matter of convincing enough people that the investment is worth it. The most comparable project would be the national highway system. That was done for national security reasons, but the federal government already uses commercial planes which are better and faster than high speed trains. It was also built in a time period where half the country wasn't convinced that government was communism. The reason you still need a car is because public transit is incapable of being a good solution. If you build it up slowly it is never enough to not need a car and nobody uses it. If you plan for ten years from now then it costs too much and no one wants to pay for it. We can see if Biden's infrastructure plan will deliver anything of value, but there isn't political will in this country for high speed rail and any projects will run long enough to be sabotaged by the next president or congress.
Can I take a guess that you have never lived anywhere with good public transit?
I never needed a car in Germany, I never needed a car in Chicago.
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EPT
