I want trains so people can have cross country road trips on the weekend and not have to stay in their small hometown for the rest of their lives
I lived in Connecticut. I used to live in a city outside the capital, with transport available all the time. Then I moved to the sticks, 50 miles away. Same state, just the most rural part.
In a group I did, they showed a woman being a success story from the program. In the video, she was using our bus systems in rhe cities. 4/5 people chirped up and aggreed, “hey we don’t have busses in Connecticut this video is fake”. I was like, no yeah, we have busses, just not here.
So many people I met in that area, are born, live, work, retire, and die, without ever stepping foot out of their county.
It’s sad.
to be fair, public transit doesn’t cover even close to the majority of any non-east coast state
So many people I met in that area, are born, live, work, retire, and die, without ever stepping foot out of their county.
It’s sad.
It’s not sad. It’s called right to self-determination, and it means that people are free to live a boring life.
somebody never leaving the place where they were born is not evidence for or against self-determination.
If anything it’s evidence there is absence of social mobility and opportunity in those areas.
No you’re right, it’s not sad a person doesn’t get to travel. I myself have never left New England, but I’ve been all over it. What’s sad is they don’t know other cultures or way of life, then become fearful of them, then hateful, and dismissive.
It’s a pathway to ignorance of you aren’t a learning seeking person. Those people in rhe class didn’t know our state had public transport, and actively thought it was fake, the video no longer resonated with them, as it didn’t represent them. That’s whats sad.
That’s just not reasonably possible in the U.S. If I wanted to go Orlando to Detroit on a train that averaged 100mph without stopping it would take 12-13 hours, not including the trips to and from the train stations boarding etc. To California you’d have to throw another 1,000 miles on to that, so an extra 10 hours. 26-44 hours of travel on a weekend trip sounds horrible. If I were going for a week, sure. (Also a train without stops is hypothetical, it would take longer even if the train could go 150mph)
I don’t think they literally meant journeys from one end of the country to the other, but rather travelling distances of 100-500 km. Maybe even up to 1000 km would be preferable by rail, especially with night trains.
I do agree that if you for some reason specifically want to travel from Orlando to Detroit, plane is by far the superior option. But Orlando to Miami? Or Orlando to Atlanta? High speed rail would be perfect.
The train from to Miami has been quoted and attempted over and over since I was about 7 growing up in the greater Orlando area. 28 years later and it’s still in talks. They tried to connect Tampa to Daytona through Orlando. (All they needed to do was follow I4 as the road already goes there.). This is as far as that has gotten: (15 years on that alone)
High speed rail. Japan’s is 200mph.
Musk’s hyper loop was a scam but various others tests were 288 mph. Could go higher.
Japan is smaller than California, with several times the population density.
Reframe your thoughts as: taxpayers per mile of track. Then begin to understand.
Japan still runs trains to areas where there’s 1 village every 15-20 miles. Single track, that splits at the odd unmanned platform so people can board and trains can pass each other, and they have a train like every 10-15 minutes.
The USSR didn’t even bother with the platforms sometimes, just had a guy driving a locomotive by a bunch of villages every few hours, stopping any time he saw a farmer who had to take some cows to market or whatever.
Roads are expensive to build and maintain, cars are expensive to build and maintain. Every trip taken on a train or bike instead of a car saves the tax payers money.
Japan finds solutions, America finds excuses.
You have enough taxpayers to build 26 lane highways in California, but you’re telling me you don’t have enough money to build a 2 lane HSR?
Sorry, I’m not American. Looking at it from the outside. There are a lot of things America can do better.
But from a purely math perspective, it’s a good metric to explain why Japan has what it has.
They have it because they spent more money on rail and less on highways compared to the US. They chose the better infrastructure.
If you tax billionaires more you can pay for the high speed rail
Or healthcare. Or whatever else. Yes.
But you’ve already lost the war against the capital class and are left dreaming.
Sure thing bub
150mph is pretty slow for a decent cross country high speed rail service. For example the Chinese HSR hits Max speeds of 240mph with the single longest bit of track covering just over 1800 miles so not only is it possible its already been done.
OP means It’s impossible for Americans because we’re just so dumb.
China’s high speed rail loses enormous amounts of money. Even when you consider the secondary and tertiary economic effects. Even the Chinese government has more or less given up on it.
What do you mean given up? They’re still laying more rails and running more trains than ever. Even running dozens of trains a day, like 95% of the time the trains are fully booked, or it’s just soft sleepers and maybe standing available if you try to book the day of, or even a few days in advance for longer routes.
All public transit doesn’t make money. Even the United States interstate system hasn’t made a single penny in profit.
Public transit shouldn’t need to make a profit. It’s cool if it does, but it inherently shouldn’t need to.
The benefits of making people travel for jobs and places to spend money generates more tax revenue and more money for businesses than if they were stuck at home otherwise.
Precisely this. “Hey you need to make money” is what’s effectively killed Amtrak, and it killed passenger rail in much of the US (what wasn’t torn up by highway building).
So leave Saturday morning say 8, take a train at 9, get there around 9pm, get to your hotel by 10pm go to bed by 11pm get up at 6. Go have your breakfast meeting, leave for the train station around 8 to leave by 9am to get back by 9pm to get home, get ready for bed and go to work in the morning.
That is not a weekend trip to me. That’s a sitting in transportation for an entire weekend and not doing much of anything.
Sounds about the same as flying. Took 12 hrs to get from Cleveland OH to Venice FL. Took a redeye to Chicago, had a layover then took a flight from there to Sarasota FL. Left around 2AM and got in around 2PM.
Airplanes travel faster, but the whole system moves slower. Can’t say whether a train system would be better though…
Update: for shits and giggles, I looked at getting a ticket to Chicago on our rail system. The fastest route was 10HRs and it involves driving to Indianapolis and taking the shortest direct train from there. To put that in comparison, my drive to Chicago is ~5.5hrs. Greyhound Bus gets me there in 9 hrs.
So no, it’s not even close. That’s how bad the rail network is here. If you want to get somewhere, you need almost 3x the time to drive, you’d still need to drive for hours, and the cheapest ticket is 55 bucks one way.
–rural areas U.S.A has entered the chat– We need those trains, the stations they serve, and last mile fully electric self-driving vehicles to get our older citizens to their doctor’s appointments in the larger cities, and to and from the fancy train stations, and not have them be made to remember to reserve a seat 3-5 days in advance, and be waiting 45 minutes for a bus to show up to take them where they need to be and then another 45 to get back home. Also, last mile fully electric self-driving vehicles for round-trips to grocery stores around town, TIA.
Neighborhood electric vehicles are available. Rural USA can try electric buses. Increasing numbers of buses on routes will help. USA older folk are very un healthy. They are obese. Many are unable to walk in their own and need assistance. This is mostly unique to USA.
Move to Italy
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Dirt cheap cost of living
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Housing prices like it’s 1999
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Main line HSR that runs from Venice to Lyons and Milan to Reggio Calibre
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I want flying cars. Fuck trains. Build nuclear powered flying drone-like cars, what’s the fucking problem?
