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It's also much easier to build infrastructure in regions of 447,435 km² than it is for 9.834 million km². Sweden is a little larger than California (423,970 km²

by Nadya 10y ago

It's also much easier to build infrastructure in regions of 447,435 km² than it is for 9.834 million km². Sweden is a little larger than California (423,970 km²) "The United States has terrible public transport" doesn't hold true for pocket regions which have very reliable public transport. You just can't very reliably go across the country because some of our states are larger than many, if not most, European countries. Not to mention geographical differences. Compare a topography map of Sweden with California.

ceejayoz 10y ago
> You just can't very reliably go across the country because some of our states are larger than many, if not most, European countries. This is such a weird argument. I can take a train from London to Paris to Zurich to Berlin, despite them being entirely different countries. You're telling me travelling between US states is somehow massively harder? > Compare a topography map of Sweden with California. Switzerland has a) some of the most challenging topography in the world and b) one of the most extensive, heavily used train systems in the world.
- soared 10y ago
  Yes, the US is bigger than Europe: https://jeffsbiketour.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/usa-europe.png https://jeffsbiketour.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/usa-europe...
  - corybrown 10y ago
    Your map clearly shows Europe being larger. Unless you want to completely ignore European Russia.
    - PerfectDlite 10y ago
      So, you're ok with Turkey and Syria being included in Europe?
      - corybrown 10y ago
        Both countries are far, far smaller than Russia.
  - vacri 10y ago
    Both the US and Europe are about 10M square kilometers in size, with Europe ending up marginally larger.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    Even your own map doesn't show that. The US is 3.797 million mi². Europe is 3.931 million mi².
- stagbeetle 10y ago
  > This is such a weird argument. I can take a train from London to Paris to Zurich to Berlin, despite them being entirely different countries. You're telling me travelling between US states is somehow massively harder? I think this has to do with the frequency of rest-stops/ tourist destinations. There are many places to stop and see if you were to have a track going through all of the EU, but if you do that with the U.S, you're just going through "nothing" for hours on end. There's no site-seeing, sparse and isolated rest-stops, etc. This is if we assume coast-to-coast travel, not just state-to-state. If we do, it's just not worth it to spend that much money.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  How long does it take for a train to get from London to Paris? A few hours? We have something like that: the Amtrak northeast corridor line between DC and Boston (with stops in Baltimore, Philly, NYC, and others along the way). Going from DC to NYC is probably somewhat comparable, and I think that takes 3.5 hours. However, going from the east coast to the west coast on a train means several days of travel. We do have that too, with Amtrak. It's horribly slow and no one uses it except people who really want the "see the nation on a train" experience. It's also really expensive, because you'll surely want a sleeper cabin for such a long trip.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    > How long does it take for a train to get from London to Paris? A few hours? 2 hours 16 minutes. Of course, as always, this is from station to station, not your real total journey because you don't live at the station.
- coredog64 10y ago
  The rail network in Switzerland runs primarily through the easiest to deal with terrain. There are a few lines that go through mountainous terrain. IIRC, none of them are any worse than some of the easiest traversals of the Rockies.
- Nadya 10y ago
  Your examples are all within a pretty close range of each other. Not to mention all being popular tourist destinations. Throw a trip to Italy in there and it doesn't change much. You've traveled to four different countries: roughly the size of a few states and only a fraction of the size of the US. A train from New York to Miami, Florida is around 2057 km leaving from Penn Station. From Paris to Zurich and Zurich to Berlin is 1622~ km. Although a tad larger going back to Paris from Berlin, a total of 2676 km. So for comparable distances and from [Tourist Attraction] --> [Tourist Attraction] things are comparable. Take a train around all of Germany, Switzerland, and France. The entire countries - and not just the capitals! You've still only covered a small portion of the US [0]. Things don't work when there is large amounts of nothing between areas that need to be connected. This is also why the US has laughably bad internet connections in most of the nation. It isn't worth laying down fiber in towns with populations <5,000 nor is it worth laying down rail. Size isn't the only issue but it is, in my opinion, the largest issue. Pun not intended. >Switzerland has a) some of the most challenging topography in the world and b) one of the most extensive, heavily used train systems in the world. My understanding of it is as coredog64 said in their reply, but also Switzerland is yet-another-tiny-country. It'd be more fair to compare it with a 3rd of New York. Does a third of New York have an extensive, heavily used train system? Yes. It so happens to have one of the most extensive rail systems out of any state in the US even! Why? My guess is the size: it's a smaller state with more concentrated populations. New York (State): 141,300 km² Switzerland: 41,285 km² Does anyone have information on how extensive and heavily used public transport is in, say... Russia? Then we'd at least be closer to any size comparisons. I'm only familiar with Moskva and Sankt-Peterburg (Moscow and Saint Petersburg) which is the capital and the second largest city, so I'd expect them to be well connected - so that isn't exactly saying much. Looking at the rail map on Wiki [1] doesn't tell you which are public transport lines and which are freight lines. So it's hard to get a good idea. [0] http://i.imgur.com/uwOnbWY.png http://i.imgur.com/uwOnbWY.png [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Russia_Rail_Map.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Russia_R...
tbihl 10y ago
The problem with US public transit is not its interregional distances, but the low density of its regions. Diffuse populations defeat transit. People in those diffuse regions are more likely to utilize cars for midrange travel because the time to reach transit is high. In many regions, this means that transit is only for people too poor to have reliable cars, introducing another problem. That we have any American cities with decent transit seems to be largely thanks to the restrictive geography of those cities, as well as some excellent activists (Jane Jacobs being the easiest example.)
- Nadya 10y ago
  So... it's the interregional distances between populated regions? Same difference honestly. The argument boils down either way to "US is too big". Smaller countries or countries where half the country isn't populated (due to geography such as frozen tundra or large mountains), focusing population in a smaller region of that country don't have to deal with as many pockets of low density populations. Because they're small.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    > So... it's the interregional distances between populated regions? No. It's a lack of "populated" regions at all. The problem being described is that the population density is too even.
  - tbihl 10y ago
    Thanks for responding. I'm afraid I haven't made myself clear; let me see if I can do better. The issue is not the spacing of our metro areas in relation to one another (interregional distances). Rather, we have bad geometry withinour metros (intra-regional distances.) To me, this seems to stem largely from the many ways we've subsidized automotive transit and low density, single family residences since WWII. The difficulty created by our development pattern is that you can almost never gather enough people into one place to justify building a train station, subway station, or even a bus stop. When you can gather them, it's normally by those people driving to the stop, and the disappointing crowd that shows up often doesn't pull enough weight to get reliable, frequent service to those stops. And as long as those people are going to get in the car anyway, and then have to wait a long time to catch the next bus/train, a lot of them are just going to say "the hell with it" and drive to their destination instead. Alternatively, maybe you live in a downtown area where there actually are enough people in close proximity to justify transit stops with a high level of service. If you're in a typical American city, you'll run into the problem at the other end of your journey. Sure, you easily walked to your stop, but maybe when you get off at your other stop, several miles from the center of town, you're still several miles from the store, or the restaurant, or your friend's house. And it's typically not on streets that are pleasant to walk, because they're not very interesting and the cars may be quite fast. So you'll have to make your friend pick you up, or pay for Ubers both ways, or walk anyway in an act of defiance against the place you've ended up. None of that sounds great, and if you even did it once, you're probably thinking seriously about driving your car next time. And so it turns out that what you really need are at least two places, neither of which really require cars, for transit to be all that helpful. And in the US, we seldom have that, because we have a single center of intensity, with the density decreasing radially in all directions. These places don't have to be huge, either. A compact outlying town of 30,000 or so could reasonably have hourly bus service to the major city an hour away. The key is that the town needs to be walkable enough that people can easily get to the bus, and the big city also needs to be navigable without a car. As to intercity: I'm not saying NYC and LA should have a dedicated rail line between them, but it would certainly be reasonable to have SF, LA, and SD all connected by rail, perhaps high-speed. But at the same time, given the spread out development of those three cities, it doesn't surprise me at all that that's not feasible.
Dylan16807 10y ago
> It's also much easier to build infrastructure in regions of 447,435 km² than it is for 9.834 million km². If that's true, so what? Split it into 20 separate jobs, each equivalent to Sweden in terms of landmass, population, and budget. Or maybe 48 separate jobs.

by Nadya 10y ago

ceejayoz 10y ago

> You just can't very reliably go across the country because some of our states are larger than many, if not most, European countries. This is such a weird argument. I can take a train from London to Paris to Zurich to Berlin, despite them being entirely different countries. You're telling me travelling between US states is somehow massively harder? > Compare a topography map of Sweden with California. Switzerland has a) some of the most challenging topography in the world and b) one of the most extensive, heavily used train systems in the world.

soared 10y ago
Yes, the US is bigger than Europe: https://jeffsbiketour.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/usa-europe.png https://jeffsbiketour.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/usa-europe...
- corybrown 10y ago
  Your map clearly shows Europe being larger. Unless you want to completely ignore European Russia.
  - PerfectDlite 10y ago
    So, you're ok with Turkey and Syria being included in Europe?
    - corybrown 10y ago
      Both countries are far, far smaller than Russia.
- vacri 10y ago
  Both the US and Europe are about 10M square kilometers in size, with Europe ending up marginally larger.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Even your own map doesn't show that. The US is 3.797 million mi². Europe is 3.931 million mi².
stagbeetle 10y ago
> This is such a weird argument. I can take a train from London to Paris to Zurich to Berlin, despite them being entirely different countries. You're telling me travelling between US states is somehow massively harder? I think this has to do with the frequency of rest-stops/ tourist destinations. There are many places to stop and see if you were to have a track going through all of the EU, but if you do that with the U.S, you're just going through "nothing" for hours on end. There's no site-seeing, sparse and isolated rest-stops, etc. This is if we assume coast-to-coast travel, not just state-to-state. If we do, it's just not worth it to spend that much money.
Arizhel 10y ago
How long does it take for a train to get from London to Paris? A few hours? We have something like that: the Amtrak northeast corridor line between DC and Boston (with stops in Baltimore, Philly, NYC, and others along the way). Going from DC to NYC is probably somewhat comparable, and I think that takes 3.5 hours. However, going from the east coast to the west coast on a train means several days of travel. We do have that too, with Amtrak. It's horribly slow and no one uses it except people who really want the "see the nation on a train" experience. It's also really expensive, because you'll surely want a sleeper cabin for such a long trip.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  > How long does it take for a train to get from London to Paris? A few hours? 2 hours 16 minutes. Of course, as always, this is from station to station, not your real total journey because you don't live at the station.
coredog64 10y ago
The rail network in Switzerland runs primarily through the easiest to deal with terrain. There are a few lines that go through mountainous terrain. IIRC, none of them are any worse than some of the easiest traversals of the Rockies.
Nadya 10y ago
Your examples are all within a pretty close range of each other. Not to mention all being popular tourist destinations. Throw a trip to Italy in there and it doesn't change much. You've traveled to four different countries: roughly the size of a few states and only a fraction of the size of the US. A train from New York to Miami, Florida is around 2057 km leaving from Penn Station. From Paris to Zurich and Zurich to Berlin is 1622~ km. Although a tad larger going back to Paris from Berlin, a total of 2676 km. So for comparable distances and from [Tourist Attraction] --> [Tourist Attraction] things are comparable. Take a train around all of Germany, Switzerland, and France. The entire countries - and not just the capitals! You've still only covered a small portion of the US [0]. Things don't work when there is large amounts of nothing between areas that need to be connected. This is also why the US has laughably bad internet connections in most of the nation. It isn't worth laying down fiber in towns with populations <5,000 nor is it worth laying down rail. Size isn't the only issue but it is, in my opinion, the largest issue. Pun not intended. >Switzerland has a) some of the most challenging topography in the world and b) one of the most extensive, heavily used train systems in the world. My understanding of it is as coredog64 said in their reply, but also Switzerland is yet-another-tiny-country. It'd be more fair to compare it with a 3rd of New York. Does a third of New York have an extensive, heavily used train system? Yes. It so happens to have one of the most extensive rail systems out of any state in the US even! Why? My guess is the size: it's a smaller state with more concentrated populations. New York (State): 141,300 km² Switzerland: 41,285 km² Does anyone have information on how extensive and heavily used public transport is in, say... Russia? Then we'd at least be closer to any size comparisons. I'm only familiar with Moskva and Sankt-Peterburg (Moscow and Saint Petersburg) which is the capital and the second largest city, so I'd expect them to be well connected - so that isn't exactly saying much. Looking at the rail map on Wiki [1] doesn't tell you which are public transport lines and which are freight lines. So it's hard to get a good idea. [0] http://i.imgur.com/uwOnbWY.png http://i.imgur.com/uwOnbWY.png [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Russia_Rail_Map.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Russia_R...

tbihl 10y ago

The problem with US public transit is not its interregional distances, but the low density of its regions. Diffuse populations defeat transit. People in those diffuse regions are more likely to utilize cars for midrange travel because the time to reach transit is high. In many regions, this means that transit is only for people too poor to have reliable cars, introducing another problem. That we have any American cities with decent transit seems to be largely thanks to the restrictive geography of those cities, as well as some excellent activists (Jane Jacobs being the easiest example.)

Nadya 10y ago
So... it's the interregional distances between populated regions? Same difference honestly. The argument boils down either way to "US is too big". Smaller countries or countries where half the country isn't populated (due to geography such as frozen tundra or large mountains), focusing population in a smaller region of that country don't have to deal with as many pockets of low density populations. Because they're small.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  > So... it's the interregional distances between populated regions? No. It's a lack of "populated" regions at all. The problem being described is that the population density is too even.
- tbihl 10y ago
  Thanks for responding. I'm afraid I haven't made myself clear; let me see if I can do better. The issue is not the spacing of our metro areas in relation to one another (interregional distances). Rather, we have bad geometry withinour metros (intra-regional distances.) To me, this seems to stem largely from the many ways we've subsidized automotive transit and low density, single family residences since WWII. The difficulty created by our development pattern is that you can almost never gather enough people into one place to justify building a train station, subway station, or even a bus stop. When you can gather them, it's normally by those people driving to the stop, and the disappointing crowd that shows up often doesn't pull enough weight to get reliable, frequent service to those stops. And as long as those people are going to get in the car anyway, and then have to wait a long time to catch the next bus/train, a lot of them are just going to say "the hell with it" and drive to their destination instead. Alternatively, maybe you live in a downtown area where there actually are enough people in close proximity to justify transit stops with a high level of service. If you're in a typical American city, you'll run into the problem at the other end of your journey. Sure, you easily walked to your stop, but maybe when you get off at your other stop, several miles from the center of town, you're still several miles from the store, or the restaurant, or your friend's house. And it's typically not on streets that are pleasant to walk, because they're not very interesting and the cars may be quite fast. So you'll have to make your friend pick you up, or pay for Ubers both ways, or walk anyway in an act of defiance against the place you've ended up. None of that sounds great, and if you even did it once, you're probably thinking seriously about driving your car next time. And so it turns out that what you really need are at least two places, neither of which really require cars, for transit to be all that helpful. And in the US, we seldom have that, because we have a single center of intensity, with the density decreasing radially in all directions. These places don't have to be huge, either. A compact outlying town of 30,000 or so could reasonably have hourly bus service to the major city an hour away. The key is that the town needs to be walkable enough that people can easily get to the bus, and the big city also needs to be navigable without a car. As to intercity: I'm not saying NYC and LA should have a dedicated rail line between them, but it would certainly be reasonable to have SF, LA, and SD all connected by rail, perhaps high-speed. But at the same time, given the spread out development of those three cities, it doesn't surprise me at all that that's not feasible.

Dylan16807 10y ago

> It's also much easier to build infrastructure in regions of 447,435 km² than it is for 9.834 million km². If that's true, so what? Split it into 20 separate jobs, each equivalent to Sweden in terms of landmass, population, and budget. Or maybe 48 separate jobs.