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On May 03 2021 12:24 IyMoon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 11:39 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: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.
I think his point was not that public transit is incapable of replacing cars, but that it is impossible to get from "bad to no public transit" to "good public transit that replaces cars" in a reasonable way.
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Trains are most commonly used in two ways:
1)When they are more convinient then cars. This generaly involves commuting from home to work and back. For example You live in small town or suburb surrounding big city with heavy car traffic. It works like that - You get in your car, then park at Your local train stattion, travel to city center and then walk (or take 1-2 stop tram/bus) to work. In many European cities this is actually faster then just using cars.
2)When You dont have the car or cant drive one. I mean I used train system heavily when I was teenager/young adult (and didnt have a car) to move around Poland. But once i got one i stopped using trains. Still for people who cant afford car or dont travel a lot train is a great option. Its cheaper and more convinient then long car travel.
As to 1)I think this can be only true in some of American cities, those more concnetred where most work is located in middle of town. Chicago and New York are like that, but they already have metro and public transportation system.
As to 2) I dont think Americans care a lot about those things, also i guess You can alway use bus.
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On May 03 2021 17:28 Silvanel wrote:
Trains are most commonly used in two ways:
1)When they are more convinient then cars. This generaly involves commuting from home to work and back. For example You live in small town or suburb surrounding big city with heavy car traffic. It works like that - You get in your car, then park at Your local train stattion, travel to city center and then walk (or take 1-2 stop tram/bus) to work. In many European cities this is actually faster then just using cars.
2)When You dont have the car or cant drive one. I mean I used train system heavily when I was teenager/young adult (and didnt have a car) to move around Poland. But once i got one i stopped using trains. Still for people who cant afford car or dont travel a lot train is a great option. Its cheaper and more convinient then long car travel.
As to 1)I think this can be only true in some of American cities, those more concnetred where most work is located in middle of town. Chicago and New York are like that, but they already have metro and public transportation system.
As to 2) I dont think Americans care a lot about those things, also i guess You can alway use bus.
You should also mention that on a train, you can actually use your idle time much more freely than when driving. If you have a long commute anyway, is a big deal for many to have the extra time to work, answer emails, read news, check social media, look for holiday destinations, shop online or whatever else. Busses, metros and even planes are much less suited for this.
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It’s country dependent, but in France people use trains because they are much, much faster than cars. Going to my parents from Paris takes 59 minutes with the train, or 2,5 hours by car if there is no traffic.
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On May 03 2021 19:54 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 17:28 Silvanel wrote:
Trains are most commonly used in two ways:
1)When they are more convinient then cars. This generaly involves commuting from home to work and back. For example You live in small town or suburb surrounding big city with heavy car traffic. It works like that - You get in your car, then park at Your local train stattion, travel to city center and then walk (or take 1-2 stop tram/bus) to work. In many European cities this is actually faster then just using cars.
2)When You dont have the car or cant drive one. I mean I used train system heavily when I was teenager/young adult (and didnt have a car) to move around Poland. But once i got one i stopped using trains. Still for people who cant afford car or dont travel a lot train is a great option. Its cheaper and more convinient then long car travel.
As to 1)I think this can be only true in some of American cities, those more concnetred where most work is located in middle of town. Chicago and New York are like that, but they already have metro and public transportation system.
As to 2) I dont think Americans care a lot about those things, also i guess You can alway use bus. You should also mention that on a train, you can actually use your idle time much more freely than when driving. If you have a long commute anyway, is a big deal for many to have the extra time to work, answer emails, read news, check social media, look for holiday destinations, shop online or whatever else. Busses, metros and even planes are much less suited for this.
I know buisnesses which count train travel as normal work hours for some positions. The morning trains from my home city to Warsaw (before pandemic) were full of people answering emails, browsing jira,confluence etc.
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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.
I get that and I share that sentiment. (political) tribalism sucks and makes us look the other way when something actually bad happens under _insert random gal/guy on my team_ and is not handled accordingly, or not tackled at all because of political expediency.
we actually had nice discussions around here(maybe it is me misremembering - probably an age thing  ), even though this is for the most part a "liberal" place.(US position, different from classic definition and what is going on in the EU)
we had conservatives, we had libertarians. but something actually happened with the ascent of Trump and fake news. I noticed something similar a couple of years earlier on various social media platforms as the refugee crisis unfolded(in an EU context).
the(national) discourse, which is a fragile thing to begin with - was disrupted by a flood of bullshit, (racist)memes and fake news. it overtook everything and riled up usually decent people. fueled even more by how algorithms silo you in to keep you engaged and coming back.
it was/is insane, made worse by a general mistrust in the "actual" news media. there's a reason Trump's fake news stuck so easily, US media for the most part has massive problems. though to paint them all as fake news... is even more stupid. as he seemed to exclude horrible outlets that can easily be categorized as propaganda outlets(gateway pundit?dailycaller? some opinion sections of fox news?), just because they liked him and propped up his heinous idiocy. narcissism at full display as well.
there are good and hard working media people if you keep looking - and even more so if you pay for it.
but to the actual point, those conservatives and libertarians got crazier as their media habits got crazier, fueled by the events mentioned above. and if you can't agree on the colour of the sky - as a represention of provable, objective facts...(it's blue btw, the answer - most of the time - IS blue) what is there to discuss? so they left... or were forcefully asked to leave.
I don't think it is just a phenomenon on the right(in the US), think about anti vaccing on the left as well or GMO scare or other examples I can't think of right of the top of my head. but there can be more named I am sure.
but hit hardest - imho - was the conservative sphere, propped up by a maniac at the helm(2015 and onward), a general mistrust of the "lame stream media" and misunderstood free speech fetishism.
so keeping all that in mind, and the general afwulness of too many Republicans, I think it makes sense people tend to flock around the other guy, mostly half heartedly anyway. and even though he is as old and imperfect as he may be.
what's the saying? among the blind the one eyed is still king.
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On May 03 2021 14:26 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 12:24 IyMoon wrote:On May 03 2021 11:39 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: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. I think his point was not that public transit is incapable of replacing cars, but that it is impossible to get from "bad to no public transit" to "good public transit that replaces cars" in a reasonable way.
Exactly this. Just look at all the states that still haven't extended medicaid because it would improve the ACA. Your infrastructure plan needs bipartisan support if it is going to work that doesn't exist in America right now. Even if that support existed, it is still a hard problem that would run into constant obstacles for the next decade.
The second bit is just a general culture shift around walking and biking. American driving culture in general is very hostile about sharing the road with bikes. You can't have a train station everywhere so you need to be able to walk or bike the last mile safely
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On May 03 2021 20:02 Biff The Understudy wrote:
It’s country dependent, but in France people use trains because they are much, much faster than cars. Going to my parents from Paris takes 59 minutes with the train, or 2,5 hours by car if there is no traffic.
Using the train system in France felt so much better than the regional system around me. Paris' metro was also a lot nicer too.
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Jup, the highspeed Rail in western europe is great. Zürich to Paris in like 4 hours? Thats faster than any flight if you include the full journey to the city center, boarding times and so on. By car it's like 5-6 if you got absolutely no traffic.
The local public transport in france striked 3 out of 4 times i wanted to use it while i was there, so i can't comment on that ^^.
I actually don't use my car anymore, i can store it for free at my parents and it might come in handy... But it didn't came in handy once in the last year so i basically pay taxes on it for absolutely nothing...
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On May 03 2021 23:33 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 23:12 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On May 03 2021 14:26 Simberto wrote:On May 03 2021 12:24 IyMoon wrote:On May 03 2021 11:39 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: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. I think his point was not that public transit is incapable of replacing cars, but that it is impossible to get from "bad to no public transit" to "good public transit that replaces cars" in a reasonable way. Exactly this. Just look at all the states that still haven't extended medicaid because it would improve the ACA. Your infrastructure plan needs bipartisan support if it is going to work that doesn't exist in America right now. Even if that support existed, it is still a hard problem that would run into constant obstacles for the next decade. The second bit is just a general culture shift around walking and biking. American driving culture in general is very hostile about sharing the road with bikes. I have a friend who works with the city here and he is a huge cyclist who came from a city that supported cyclists. He keeps trying to make bike lanes and some other things and they keep getting rejected, however a brand new parkade (that I don't think has ever been over 30% full, since we already have too much parking downtown, strange problem I know but we are small city and most of our shopping is on the outskirts) gets approved and the bike measures do not. I know this was mass transit discussion but it speaks to the culture here in much of NA where it is probably more common to be a 3 car family than a 1 car let alone a 0 car. If they have kids 16 or older you will see 4 and 5 car. My neighbor is in his early 50's he has a Truck (because he "needs" it for his trailer), his wife has a SUV, they have a sports car, and he has a motor cycle. That is not uncommon and he is not rich, his wife is an admin at the university and he is a powerlineman. They do well but I'm sure there are payments on all 4 and the trailer. The pandemic has even made it crazier with Trailers and trucks selling like hot cakes. The city is always stuck because some want more public transit and biking but it is really not that popular and opponents point out why spend money on something no one does, then the people who want too say if you make it accessible and easier people will do it. Deadlocks happen and nothing changes. It is hard to show people how expensive it is (let alone environmental things) to maintain all the roads for all the cars and trucks. Cars/Trucks mean "freedom" here to a lot of people and we have all grown up hearing how much the industry creates jobs, not to mention that we also profit off the oil and gas. And people are more sensitive then ever to losing their "freedom" so going for their cars/trucks would probably be as hard or a harder sell than Guns, even if you were just encouraging the mass transport and biking. I think it would work, if it is there people would use it and then more could sprout off from that you just need a really strong proof of concept. Someone suggested LA to Vegas and I think that would be a great start. People going to Vegas wouldn't need a car at the other end since you don't really need or want one on the Strip and people could fly into Vegas then take the train to LA for Disney or whatever. It would likely help both for tourism.
Honestly cars do mean freedom, they give you the ability to go to any place at any time. Whether or not people realistically use that freedom is a different question, but cars more than any realistically affordable alternative represent the ability to go where you want when you want without relying on anything.
And @public transportation in Germany: Our public transportation is supposed to be very good and that mostly holds up if you travel within cities, but the moment you want to travel between cities you're rolling the dice. Of the last 4 longer travels I made by train 1 took me roughly 5x as long as advertized to the point where I wasted most of the day, my full-week-ticket to work was short term cancelled for the entire week and the train that was supposed to bring me to an airport to catch a long distance flight just went through the station without halting and without prior announcement.
This isn't just me either, according to the official statistics roughly a third of the trains that do run have significant delay (which often means missing your connection train) and they don't release numbers on how many trains don't stop at stations they are supposed to or get cancelled entirely.
So while I find longer car rides exhausting and think that the train could be a much more pleasant replacement every time I take a train I get reminded why I should have taken the car. Also by car is mostly cheaper if you don't travel a ton by train.
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On May 04 2021 10:24 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 20:02 Biff The Understudy wrote:
It’s country dependent, but in France people use trains because they are much, much faster than cars. Going to my parents from Paris takes 59 minutes with the train, or 2,5 hours by car if there is no traffic. Using the train system in France felt so much better than the regional system around me. Paris' metro was also a lot nicer too.
Yeah, my parents live right on the segment where the train speed record was broken at 570km/h. It doesn’t go as fast with passengers in but you still get a cruise speed of 320 km/h, which is kinda insane if you think about it.
High speed train has made France tiny. Paris Marseilles is 3 hours 7 minutes by the train against 9 by car if you get zero traffic. It’s completely changed the way people live, and the way businesses operate.
The fact there is not a world class high speed train system on both the east and west coast of the US is a testament to how bad the country is at infrastructures. It would make soooo much sense.
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United States42674 Posts
On May 05 2021 00:23 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2021 10:24 Gahlo wrote:On May 03 2021 20:02 Biff The Understudy wrote:
It’s country dependent, but in France people use trains because they are much, much faster than cars. Going to my parents from Paris takes 59 minutes with the train, or 2,5 hours by car if there is no traffic. Using the train system in France felt so much better than the regional system around me. Paris' metro was also a lot nicer too. Yeah, my parents live right on the segment where the train speed record was broken at 570km/h. It doesn’t go as fast with passengers in but you still get a cruise speed of 320 km/h, which is kinda insane if you think about it. High speed train has made France tiny. Paris Marseilles is 3 hours 7 minutes by the train against 9 by car if you get zero traffic. It’s completely changed the way people live, and the way businesses operate. The fact there is not a world class high speed train system on both the east and west coast of the US is a testament to how bad the country is at infrastructures. It would make soooo much sense.
It wouldn’t make that much sense. High speed rail is a commuter thing, freight doesn’t mind wasting a day in transit, it’s only people, who want to do their day’s work and get back to their starting point no more than 12 hours after they left, that have such strict time constraints. High speed rail massively increases the viable commute sphere around job hubs and the principle value in that is in giving people somewhere affordable to live. The US is much, much larger than Western Europe and less densely populated. The need isn’t as great. Regular rail can meet the same need for people who want to work in NY but not live in NY.
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On May 04 2021 23:04 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2021 23:33 JimmiC wrote:On May 03 2021 23:12 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On May 03 2021 14:26 Simberto wrote:On May 03 2021 12:24 IyMoon wrote:On May 03 2021 11:39 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: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. I think his point was not that public transit is incapable of replacing cars, but that it is impossible to get from "bad to no public transit" to "good public transit that replaces cars" in a reasonable way. Exactly this. Just look at all the states that still haven't extended medicaid because it would improve the ACA. Your infrastructure plan needs bipartisan support if it is going to work that doesn't exist in America right now. Even if that support existed, it is still a hard problem that would run into constant obstacles for the next decade. The second bit is just a general culture shift around walking and biking. American driving culture in general is very hostile about sharing the road with bikes. I have a friend who works with the city here and he is a huge cyclist who came from a city that supported cyclists. He keeps trying to make bike lanes and some other things and they keep getting rejected, however a brand new parkade (that I don't think has ever been over 30% full, since we already have too much parking downtown, strange problem I know but we are small city and most of our shopping is on the outskirts) gets approved and the bike measures do not. I know this was mass transit discussion but it speaks to the culture here in much of NA where it is probably more common to be a 3 car family than a 1 car let alone a 0 car. If they have kids 16 or older you will see 4 and 5 car. My neighbor is in his early 50's he has a Truck (because he "needs" it for his trailer), his wife has a SUV, they have a sports car, and he has a motor cycle. That is not uncommon and he is not rich, his wife is an admin at the university and he is a powerlineman. They do well but I'm sure there are payments on all 4 and the trailer. The pandemic has even made it crazier with Trailers and trucks selling like hot cakes. The city is always stuck because some want more public transit and biking but it is really not that popular and opponents point out why spend money on something no one does, then the people who want too say if you make it accessible and easier people will do it. Deadlocks happen and nothing changes. It is hard to show people how expensive it is (let alone environmental things) to maintain all the roads for all the cars and trucks. Cars/Trucks mean "freedom" here to a lot of people and we have all grown up hearing how much the industry creates jobs, not to mention that we also profit off the oil and gas. And people are more sensitive then ever to losing their "freedom" so going for their cars/trucks would probably be as hard or a harder sell than Guns, even if you were just encouraging the mass transport and biking. I think it would work, if it is there people would use it and then more could sprout off from that you just need a really strong proof of concept. Someone suggested LA to Vegas and I think that would be a great start. People going to Vegas wouldn't need a car at the other end since you don't really need or want one on the Strip and people could fly into Vegas then take the train to LA for Disney or whatever. It would likely help both for tourism. Honestly cars do mean freedom, they give you the ability to go to any place at any time. Whether or not people realistically use that freedom is a different question, but cars more than any realistically affordable alternative represent the ability to go where you want when you want without relying on anything. And @public transportation in Germany: Our public transportation is supposed to be very good and that mostly holds up if you travel within cities, but the moment you want to travel between cities you're rolling the dice. Of the last 4 longer travels I made by train 1 took me roughly 5x as long as advertized to the point where I wasted most of the day, my full-week-ticket to work was short term cancelled for the entire week and the train that was supposed to bring me to an airport to catch a long distance flight just went through the station without halting and without prior announcement. This isn't just me either, according to the official statistics roughly a third of the trains that do run have significant delay (which often means missing your connection train) and they don't release numbers on how many trains don't stop at stations they are supposed to or get cancelled entirely. So while I find longer car rides exhausting and think that the train could be a much more pleasant replacement every time I take a train I get reminded why I should have taken the car. Also by car is mostly cheaper if you don't travel a ton by train.
A car rental is usually more expensive than a train. Which is the honest comparison for me. I live in biking/walking distance of work and food stores. Thus owning a car is a giant waste (parking rental costs nearly as much as a commuter pass would), any usage then starts with a rental or taxi.
A 1 day rental is 120 USD when I just checked. They offer as low as 60 USD in theory. Adding fuel, travel time/cost to rental place and the train is most of the time cheaper. I hardly ever have a time critical arrival when privately travelling, so I can live with half an hour of delay on top of that if it should happen.
As always the biggest benefit of train or other methods of commuting (outside rush hour) is that you get exercise and spend the time doing something while travelling.
A car is great when you want to vacation in nature though. Much harder to get out in the middle of nowhere without one. Also required if you live outside a large city in most cases.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
The "57 cents per mile" rule that you can use to write off business expenses related to car travel is probably a much more fair comparison for gas + maintenance + amortized purchase cost than cost of car rental. Make it higher or lower based on whether or not gas is cheap and whether or not you bought an overpriced and/or unrealiable vehicle. Rentals add on unrealistic overhead not associated with your average cost of driving and using that as a comparison is mostly just disingenuous.
In the US in quite a few places, in practice it's much cheaper to own a car than to set up a living arrangement where you can live without a car. Only exception is cities like New York or San Francisco that actively punish you for having a car.
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Living without a car/public transit infrastructure comes down to density more than anything else. If a subway stop is near dozens of apartments, it makes a lot more sense than a stop near a bunch of single family homes. Connecting very dense urban living areas with dense commercial buildings/workplaces is how you start getting people out of cars. If you have reliable transport at a lower cost, at a marginal time increase, it gets people out of cars.
Inter-city high speed rail doesn't make as much sense to me in the USA. Get in-city mass transit working effectively first, then think about connecting good mass-transit networks with high speed rail. If you still need to have a car when you arrive somewhere, the incentive to take a train drops a lot.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On May 05 2021 00:58 Lmui wrote:
Living without a car/public transit infrastructure comes down to density more than anything else. If a subway stop is near dozens of apartments, it makes a lot more sense than a stop near a bunch of single family homes. Connecting very dense urban living areas with dense commercial buildings/workplaces is how you start getting people out of cars.
Yeah, stuffing people into giant apartment complexes rather than single family homes certainly makes mass transit more tenable.
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I really appreciate y'all for offering perspectives and insights onto the train transit question!
One unrelated thing I appreciate is that Biden just significantly raised the refugee cap after pressure from progressives in the Dem party. I fully expected him to not listen to the progressive wing but this is a welcome surprise
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EPT
