Comment by panick21_

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.