Comment by Schiendelman
19 hours ago
I spent ten years in the trenches of American urban design policy. The best we could do was lose very slightly less quickly. It's not changing. Trains are great, we should build more, and we probably should replace a lot of bus routes by subsidizing rides on Waymo and its ilk. It'll be cheaper and provide better service.
>Trains are great
I wonder how much that sentiment is that based on steampunk and 1880's nostalgia?
Yesh go to literally any other industrialized part of the world and see how ** backwards the US is on trains
I’ve become quite radicalized on trains after visiting Japan and Switzerland myself.
Not like the US didn't try. California spent 15yrs trying to build a high speed train and failed. Canada has been talking about building trains forever too and it usually goes nowhere because the budgets explode like every major infrastructure project these days.
UK spent $100M just to deal with bats in a single train tunnel, which is representative of the issue https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wryxyljglo
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Those are two unusually competent countries when it comes to trains. Try Germany or the UK for a more average outcome.
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OTOH, on my visits to Europe I am simultaneously impressed with the prevalence of passenger train options, but disheartened by the price. If Europe struggles to provide really affordable trains, there isn't much hope for the US. Aside from regional train options in the densest areas, we just have too much distance to cover. Infrastructure costs would kill the plan. At this point maybe we should just be trying harder to produce renewable fuels for planes.
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A huge amount, most self-proclaimed supporters of "public transportation" are primarily train enthusiasts (which is a fine hobby!). Any concern for safe, clean, effective transportation is incidental and is immediately abandoned if it ever means less trains.
Bus Rapid Transit is another option that could be amazing (while being much cheaper to implement), but it falls short for the same reason as trains: they require dedicated infrastructure that complicates driving, and complicating driving is political suicide.
One of the things I found when advocating for transit was that BRT cost savings in the US almost always come from reducing quality at stations, which loses public support faster than you save money. I found that voters are usually willing to spend far more on trains than on BRT, in excess of any savings.
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BRT is mostly "you get what you pay for" - cheaper at a cost of lower capacity. Given relatively low density of US cities - that might be the right tool tho.
None. Why would you think that? My guess is you're an American living nowhere near an urban rail system but I thought most people here would at least be passing familiar with modern trains. Even some American cities have them.
>modern trains. Even some American cities have them.
Which American cities have notable modern train systems? Not Portland, or NYC, or Washington DC.
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Why the ad hominem?
I've lived and travelled in a ton of places. Trains in low density cities are simply not working well enough. I now prefer to live in exurb and drive everywhere. It's so good.
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Also just like... looking at a train and noticing it can carry a ton more people than a car, has no concept of traffic, and can theoretically go as fast as possible.
But in practice runs empty most of the time, is commonly delayed by any problem on the line or station, and operates on a very limited schedule.
What makes you say that? I'd only propose them in very high density corridors (or in corridors where building a train would be paired with allowing high density).
A lot of it probably has to do with train advocates seeming like audiophiles extoling the virtues of phonograph records and the like. It seems like they are nostalgic for an 1880s utopia. That's just the vibe I get. I wonder what people in this thread think about The Line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Line,_Saudi_Arabia
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