Comment by kibwen
15 days ago
Roads are such an apocalyptic blight on the landscape that I'm all for burying as many of them as possible. 200 feet down, 200 billion feet to go.
15 days ago
Roads are such an apocalyptic blight on the landscape that I'm all for burying as many of them as possible. 200 feet down, 200 billion feet to go.
Or you know, crazy idea, just have less roads, use something more efficient less impactful to nature. Can't imagine what that could be.
It doesn't matter, there are downsides.
In an ideal train world you still end up with railroad tracks everywhere that interstates exist with the same wildlife downsides. Running trains at ground level is an order of magnitude cheaper to build than building it elevated so wildlife can go under. Running underground is another order of magnitude more expensive. The expense directly relates to how much we can build at any one time - we can build a lot more if we choose run on the ground.
In the ideal train world you still end up with roads everywhere because "last mile" freight needs to get places and trains don't work well for it (think your kitchen trash). Passenger trains always rely on the fact that people can walk a short distance to the train, but freight cannot walk. Passenger trains also cannot be blocked by freight loading/unloading which means you need a separate road system. Passenger trains need to run frequent, you might not go anywhere in the next half hour, but someone on your block will and if the trains are not frequent (every 5 minutes or less) cars are a great quality of life improvement: unlike cars passenger trains cannot mix with freight and be good in areas where things are not busy (A bus can mix with freight well in less busy areas, but they still need to be frequent and that is rarely the case again pushing people to cars and thus against what "you can't imagine"). This in turn means we have more places wildlife is blocked.
Airplanes are the only exception, but they don't cover all the needs and so even if we forced everyone to fly for longer trips (at significant climate costs) we still need all the roads in the middle of nowhere for the people (farmers) who live in those ares.
Hate to burst anyone's bubble but trains in its current form aren't solution to mass transit. They help, sure, under certain circumstances, but are very costly to run and in peak you need huge amount of them. 1 disruption and everything stops, you can't just take an exit and go through villages.
Case point Switzerland, the train country of this world. Efficiency, cleanness, reach, small country. Yet its prohibitively expensive here and highways are chock full of commuters just like anywhere else. For weekend trip ie to mountains they (+ post buses where trains don't go) are very restrictive which is understandable, but car becomes a must anyway.
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The thing with trains is, you have to build them on elevated sometimes anyway, just because of geography, unless if you maybe live in a super flat pace.
And a train track, is way better for wildlife. Even if you run high frequency, most of the time the track is occupied or empty for a while.
Case and point, we have trains going threw mountains and all across everywhere. And the amount of wildlife being hit is vanishingly small. Animals turn out not to be stupid. Many small animals might even survive if they are on the track.
A single train line, can replace many car lanes.
The most dangerous animals for crashes are (a) human suicide (b) cows.
> In the ideal train world you still end up with roads everywhere because "last mile" freight needs to get places and trains don't work well for it (think your kitchen trash).
This is just lack of imagination. Let me guess you are American?
You can easily have train tracks (ie trams) that connect trash collection points. And people can bring their garbage to those points with a simple cart. Just like people go shopping. At worst what you need minor trash collection points that then get moved to the major ones with tiny electric trucks.
And since the volume of such traffic is low, you can easily run that on something like bike lanes or simply in mixed traffic. And you can mostly do that in the night. This is how it already works for areas that are car-free. Its really not magic.
> Passenger trains also cannot be blocked by freight loading/unloading which means you need a separate road system.
No all you need is separate cargo stations or breakout lines. And that exists, and has existed in the past.
If a rail track is so occupied with passenger trains, then clearly there is enough demand for another line.
Most rail lines are not that occupied and can handle an occasional cargo train, you just don't run crazy large trains like in the US.
And bonus, each new rail line increases capacity far more then equivalent car line.
> but they still need to be frequent and that is rarely the case again pushing people to cars
Your argument does not make sense, bus and trains are the same. You have a 'lane' the lane has a certain capacity. For both you can decide on frequency. And on both you can instead run trucks or cargo trains. If capacity of 1 lane can't handle demand, you need another lane.
And individual car transport on one of those lanes, is by far the least efficient overall solution.
A lot of your points are literally just lack of imagination and lack of investment.
maybe this is why Brin and Allen were so obsessed with airships, not to speculate too much but they sound like they could be an ideal short-run, low-impact, high capacity transit system if done right
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Me neither. A bus? A train? A bicycle? What do you mean, don’t leave the room for interpretation.
The roads and the borders