7 ms·

The DFW area has built 90+ miles of light rail in the last 20 years (that's just under the total amount for the Bay Area which had older systems), and it is sti

The DFW area has built 90+ miles of light rail in the last 20 years (that's just under the total amount for the Bay Area which had older systems), and it is still expanding. It's not my impression that light rail is done having regularly used the system

throwanem 10y ago
It's not done at all. It just hasn't been favored in a few decades - if Chomsky is accurate, as the direct result of some impressively Gilded-Age-level corruption. Even Baltimore's relatively rudimentary system is excellent, if you don't mind using a bus or your feet to get to places the train alone doesn't reach. And as we leave fossil fuels behind, the incentives will realign around what some forward-looking people (and a few contrary oafs like me, too) are already doing - that is, using public transit for the bulk of daily travel, and keeping a car or using hire cars only on those occasions when public transit isn't well suited to a need for heavy haulage, or close timing, or the like. And, honestly, I can't wait. I'm really sick and tired of people, in some cases colleagues, assuming that because I take the light rail, I must be impoverished, or barred from driving for medical or other reasons, or possessed of an unusually high tolerance of danger, or whatever. Not that they're not well-meaning, and I do appreciate them looking out - but I find it an irritating set of assumptions to overcome, especially when it takes a solid year to get it through people's heads that yes I commute as I do by choice and preference and no I do not need anyone to organize any car pools and yes I own a car and no I'm not suffering some kind of privation that forces me to take the train every day. Ironically, what really put it over was an offhand joke I made during one of these conversations, to the effect that it saves on gym membership because, when your commute involves three miles on foot, every day is leg day. Why it should be that that'd get the point across and put an end to the questions, I've no idea, but it works, so I'll take it. It'll be nice to see the use of public transit normalized a bit, among professionals, if only to make one a little less odd-man-out to use it.
- phlo 10y ago
  My preferred line of argument to overcome such assumptions: My time is too valuable to waste navigating a car through traffic, and hiring a driver (permanently or per-trip) woulnd't make financial sense. Yes, driving there may save you 10 minutes on a half-hour commute, but in the same time I'll get done 20 minutes of work/whatever.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    My commute takes an hour over 20 minutes by car, and my organization hasn't shown enough interest in making me able to work remotely to issue a device approved for secure VPN access, so I can't really make that argument go. But it works well for those who can. (I don't mind not having remote capability all that much, honestly. I've done the on-call 24/7 thing for enough years not to want to do it any more.)
Synaesthesia 10y ago
Chomsky complains that catching a train from Boston to New York is not any faster than it was for him in the 50's; I'm not expert on US rail but it does seem to be behind if you compare to Europe and Asia's high speed rail networks.
- throwanem 10y ago
  He must've been writing before the Acela Express made its debut. But Boston and New York are close enough that I'd argue true high-speed rail isn't all that much needed. Which is good, because there's no way in hell our government-supported passenger rail monopoly could ever implement it. That's half the problem right there - nobody can compete with Amtrak because Amtrak can undercut everyone, so Amtrak's service can suck as much as it likes. (Which is not all that much, in the Northeast Corridor! What we have there may not be super fast, but it is reliable and comfortable. Everywhere else in the US seems a different story.)
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Acela is pathetic. For Boston to New York, it saves 30 minutes over the regular train, reducing the 4 hour journey to 3:30. I'd say that's close enough to casually describe as "not any faster," especially when many other civilized countries' trains cover that sort of distance in an hour or so.
  - ericd 10y ago
    Acela Express is barely faster than the existing trains, because most of the track isn't high-speed capable. And I certainly wouldn't mind 1 hour service between northeastern cities... NYC to Boston is a bit shorter than the TGV main high speed trunk in France (Paris-Lyon, 300 km vs ~450), and DC to Boston is longer (630 km). Currently, Acela takes 3.5 hours NYC-BOS. TGV best case (300 km/hr) would shave a lot of time off there. Amtrak is government supported to a very limited extent compared to road traffic. If rail maintenance was paid for by the government, like all road maintenance is, it would be substantially more competitive cost-wise with other forms of travel. They're not terrible because they're sitting on a monopoly, they're terrible because their budget has been kept at barely life-support levels by congress.

throwanem 10y ago

It's not done at all. It just hasn't been favored in a few decades - if Chomsky is accurate, as the direct result of some impressively Gilded-Age-level corruption. Even Baltimore's relatively rudimentary system is excellent, if you don't mind using a bus or your feet to get to places the train alone doesn't reach. And as we leave fossil fuels behind, the incentives will realign around what some forward-looking people (and a few contrary oafs like me, too) are already doing - that is, using public transit for the bulk of daily travel, and keeping a car or using hire cars only on those occasions when public transit isn't well suited to a need for heavy haulage, or close timing, or the like. And, honestly, I can't wait. I'm really sick and tired of people, in some cases colleagues, assuming that because I take the light rail, I must be impoverished, or barred from driving for medical or other reasons, or possessed of an unusually high tolerance of danger, or whatever. Not that they're not well-meaning, and I do appreciate them looking out - but I find it an irritating set of assumptions to overcome, especially when it takes a solid year to get it through people's heads that yes I commute as I do by choice and preference and no I do not need anyone to organize any car pools and yes I own a car and no I'm not suffering some kind of privation that forces me to take the train every day. Ironically, what really put it over was an offhand joke I made during one of these conversations, to the effect that it saves on gym membership because, when your commute involves three miles on foot, every day is leg day. Why it should be that that'd get the point across and put an end to the questions, I've no idea, but it works, so I'll take it. It'll be nice to see the use of public transit normalized a bit, among professionals, if only to make one a little less odd-man-out to use it.

phlo 10y ago
My preferred line of argument to overcome such assumptions: My time is too valuable to waste navigating a car through traffic, and hiring a driver (permanently or per-trip) woulnd't make financial sense. Yes, driving there may save you 10 minutes on a half-hour commute, but in the same time I'll get done 20 minutes of work/whatever.
- throwanem 10y ago
  My commute takes an hour over 20 minutes by car, and my organization hasn't shown enough interest in making me able to work remotely to issue a device approved for secure VPN access, so I can't really make that argument go. But it works well for those who can. (I don't mind not having remote capability all that much, honestly. I've done the on-call 24/7 thing for enough years not to want to do it any more.)

Synaesthesia 10y ago

Chomsky complains that catching a train from Boston to New York is not any faster than it was for him in the 50's; I'm not expert on US rail but it does seem to be behind if you compare to Europe and Asia's high speed rail networks.

throwanem 10y ago
He must've been writing before the Acela Express made its debut. But Boston and New York are close enough that I'd argue true high-speed rail isn't all that much needed. Which is good, because there's no way in hell our government-supported passenger rail monopoly could ever implement it. That's half the problem right there - nobody can compete with Amtrak because Amtrak can undercut everyone, so Amtrak's service can suck as much as it likes. (Which is not all that much, in the Northeast Corridor! What we have there may not be super fast, but it is reliable and comfortable. Everywhere else in the US seems a different story.)
- mikeash 10y ago
  Acela is pathetic. For Boston to New York, it saves 30 minutes over the regular train, reducing the 4 hour journey to 3:30. I'd say that's close enough to casually describe as "not any faster," especially when many other civilized countries' trains cover that sort of distance in an hour or so.
- ericd 10y ago
  Acela Express is barely faster than the existing trains, because most of the track isn't high-speed capable. And I certainly wouldn't mind 1 hour service between northeastern cities... NYC to Boston is a bit shorter than the TGV main high speed trunk in France (Paris-Lyon, 300 km vs ~450), and DC to Boston is longer (630 km). Currently, Acela takes 3.5 hours NYC-BOS. TGV best case (300 km/hr) would shave a lot of time off there. Amtrak is government supported to a very limited extent compared to road traffic. If rail maintenance was paid for by the government, like all road maintenance is, it would be substantially more competitive cost-wise with other forms of travel. They're not terrible because they're sitting on a monopoly, they're terrible because their budget has been kept at barely life-support levels by congress.