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Comparing an American highway map to a train map is telling. The highways are a neat, practical grid, and we cut the landscape to enable that. The traintracks
by Bartweiss 10y ago
Comparing an American highway map to a train map is telling.
The highways are a neat, practical grid, and we cut the landscape to enable that. The traintracks, coming later, had to circumvent both natural features and the highways occupying the best routes. Plus, without a culture of train travel, express routes are pricy and most trains stop constantly to fill up and scrape together a profit. Worse, even our express trains simply have slow top speeds.
The one thing I'm proud of is our train system for freight, which is actually quite efficient.
- jrockway 10y agoThe rail system predates the interstate highway system by almost a century. The reality is that the highway system was built by the government, and the rail system was built by private companies. The government had better planning tools than the private companies (eminent domain), and ended up with a better system.
- ghaff 10y agoFurthermore, if you look at old maps of many cities, you'll note that many current highways either are adjacent to still-used railroad tracks or use the right of ways of railroad lines that no longer exist.