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I feel like the argument weakens when he compares countries. I'm looking at the railway maps of France and Japan thinking: 'this entire country is the size of a

I feel like the argument weakens when he compares countries. I'm looking at the railway maps of France and Japan thinking: 'this entire country is the size of a single, largeish US state'. Total land area is a problem to be solved in the US for train travel, and we only have Russia and China to compare to. City to city comparison makes much more sense

bencoder 8y ago
>France Only Texas and Alaska are larger than France. I give you Alaska, due to the geography and low population, but Texas is just slightly larger and has half the population of France - not a massive difference. I think it could be reasonably fair to compare countries to single states at least?
- lbriner 8y ago
  You can, of course, compare countries to states but sadly too many of these articles make sweeping generalisations and don't mention the compromises. Most people would much rather have the convenience of a car if possible and cheap but in Japan it is often neither due to space constraints and generally parking is illegal on most roads. Compare Texas, lots of open space and historical reasons necessitates car travel except for major urban to urban transport which could be done by train but why bother? As in the UK, the acceptance that cars be supported for some journeys means that on balance, they are better to use for most others. Even for me, the coach runs direct from my town to Heathrow airport in a similar time to a car and pretty cheap but it won't always run when I need it so why not drive (or get a lift)?
  - esotericn 8y ago
    This is an interesting comment. As a Londoner (have lived both centrally and in the suburbs) I think you're right that it's one or the other. If you design for cars (e.g. M25, UK motorway network and roads, towns like Swindon and MK) then cars are the uncontested king. In an area like London, it almost becomes an emergent phenomenon. The suburbs have car use because they're not very dense and it still beats sporadic bus routes. In the centre there's just no space. Forget parking, Uber might be slower than the tube in a no-congestion scenario simply due to traffic lights and giving way.
seszett 8y ago
> this entire country is the size of a single, largeish US state So why is there no comparable railway network in those largeish US states that are comparable to EU countries? Or in the many (almost all of them) states that are smaller than France and Japan?
- ams6110 8y ago
  There used to be. Americans, for the most part, prefer drive their own cars for short to moderate trips, or fly.
  - objektif 8y ago
    Prefer is an interesting choice of words in this case. Its like me prefering comcast as an ISP.
  - superseeplus 8y ago
    Sort of off-topic, but every time someone says this, I am reminded of the subprime car loan market where the same car is sold at inflated prices and usurious interest rates to people who have bad credit, then repossessed and sold again. If we had decent public transport, that wouldn't happen.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Because there would be nowhere to go. Imagine building a rail network in New York. Where would it go? How often do people need to get from NYC to Syracuse? And if you built a train to Syracuse, what would you do once you got there (without a car)? The city is the centerpiece of a region with a million people, less than 1/6 of whom live inside the city?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >How often do people need to get from NYC to Syracuse? For people living to Syracuse, tons of times. Equally many times with any EU train that connects e.g. Paris to a city within 50 or 100 or 200 miles. >And if you built a train to Syracuse, what would you do once you got there (without a car)? The city is the centerpiece of a region with a million people, less than 1/6 of whom live inside the city? If it's "a million people" it should be able to afford its own public transport connected to the train station, which answers the question "what to do there without a car". It's not like there aren't places in Europe, Asia etc that are exactly like this...
amoitnga 8y ago
When they talk about the train in Russia, they really only talk about the train in Moscow. Everyone I know says stations are very nice, and schedule during peak hours is like a train/min. BUT, at the same time, it's much much more packed than here in new york. Even during rush hour I don't feel pressed against other passengers here.
pouetpouet 8y ago
This argument doesn't hold water. Why is there no decent regional train system in the US then? Your point explains why there is no coast to coast NYC-SF bullet train, fair enough. Each US megaregion [0] could have a decent train system like France, Germany or Japan. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_Stat...
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  The short answer is that not enough people want that. The argument seems to be that they would if only they knew how awesome it was. But that argument isn't sticking, so the political will to make it happen is not there.
  - meddlepal 8y ago
    I take the Acela from Boston to NYC often. It's okay but not great. Nothing like the TGV which I've also ridden. If the trip could be two hours instead of 3.5+ that would be great but as it is it is barely justifiable over flight (being dropped off midtown is a big bonus tho). The benefits for even longer travel just don't exist. Once you start getting into the 4+ hours on a train it's almost always better to find a flight.
    - mynameisvlad 8y ago
      Japan's shinkansen travels at 2-2.5x the speed of the Acela. At the maximum speed of current bullet train technology, Boston - NY could likely be done in about 1.5 hours, Boston to Washington in about 2-3, and even Boston to Cleveland in around 3-4. That basically covers the entirety of travel in the Northeast corridor. This doesn't even cover the new maglev trains that are expected to go into service sometime in the late 2020s in Japan, which have a maximum speed of 550km/h, expanding the range of that 4 hour "maximum" significantly. The major problem with the Acela is that it mainly runs on older infrastructure that wasn't designed with HS trains in mind. This severely limits its speed on most of its route. Most HS systems in other places around the world are on newly developed HS lines that were built up specifically to support the much faster speeds and requirements of these trains, and are completely separate from the regular rail lines (which might be running in parallel nearby).
close04 8y ago
Germany and California are in the same ballpark when it comes to size and economic power. The state's internal transportation network should be just as developed but it is not. It's not only the size of the country, it's also the philosophy of the people and society.
yitianjian 8y ago
TO be fair, despite the US having some large emptier states, the US has nodes of very high urban density - most notably the Northeast corridor. From Boston to Washington there's around 50 million people, with - depending how you define it - a density of around 390/sqkm, three times that of France's 120/sqkm. Of course not representative, but you can definitely see the influence of the automobile in how these cities have grown. Compare to say, Moscow - another major urban city in a fairly sparse city - New York City has only added a few km of subway lines in the past 20 years compared to 150+km.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  Spot on. Public transportation is obviously built where people are.
Gravityloss 8y ago
That the whole of USA is a large land mass is no excuse for individual cities having bad public transport. To take the analogy over the top, Greenland is a part of Denmark, I don't hear them saying that because of that, they should start investing only in freeways for cars in Copenhagen?
coldtea 8y ago
>I feel like the argument weakens when he compares countries. I'm looking at the railway maps of France and Japan thinking: 'this entire country is the size of a single, largeish US state'. Not that old tired chessnut again. First, all of Europe is connected by trains. You can go from any country to any country in EU by train -- if you wish so. That's equally large to the US (and the train lines even continue down to Moscow and further down to Beijing). Second, it's not like you need to hook up all of the US or nothing. Where is a comparable and equally nice metro/train solution within a single small state (dozens of which are smaller than most European countries) or even within a city? Even Chicago or Manhattan are worse than anything shown train/subway wise.
- gok 8y ago
  > You can go from any country to any country in EU by train Surely you mean "continental Europe" unless there's a tunnel to Ireland > That's equally large to the US Uh, no. The southwestern tip of Portugal to the northeastern tip of Estonia is around 3300 km. The mainland US equivalent is 4400 km. Moreover, unlike Europe, the population centers are mostly along opposite sides.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    If you want to do it, the fast train from Birmingham ends at Holyhead station in Wales, and (depending which end of the train you're in) you walk about 100m to the check-in building of the ferry. I don't know for this place, but it's fairly likely that the ferry schedule aligns with the train schedule. Train+ferry connections used to be very common in Europe. Sometimes the train was loaded onto the ferry (still happens between Germany and Denmark). Some have been replaced by bridges, others are defunct, but where they still exist it's usually possible to buy an ordinary train ticket which includes travel across the ferry. Interrail/Eurail passes include the use of these ferries.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Surely you mean "continental Europe" unless there's a tunnel to Ireland Surely that's a pedantic objection, when you can get to 95% of EU (or more population wise) by train, and when you can just take the ferry off of Scotland (and France and UK are of course connected by train)...
WhompingWindows 8y ago
You can't claim that a high-speed line between Boston, Providence, CT cities, NYC, Philly, and down to Washington is not sensible. For many other states like Illinois, where there's one big city without much else near it, yes it's sensible to not have a great network of rails. However, there is really no geographic excuse for not having high-speed rail in the basically linear east coast corridor. Having traveled many times from Boston to NYC via car, which is about 5x cheaper than Amtrak and yes actually comparable in cost to the bus, depending on your MPG, it's kind of ridiculous to me that we don't have a better version of Amtrak by now.
jpatokal 8y ago
Both Russia and China have way better train systems than the US, both in the cities and outside them.

bencoder 8y ago

>France Only Texas and Alaska are larger than France. I give you Alaska, due to the geography and low population, but Texas is just slightly larger and has half the population of France - not a massive difference. I think it could be reasonably fair to compare countries to single states at least?

lbriner 8y ago
You can, of course, compare countries to states but sadly too many of these articles make sweeping generalisations and don't mention the compromises. Most people would much rather have the convenience of a car if possible and cheap but in Japan it is often neither due to space constraints and generally parking is illegal on most roads. Compare Texas, lots of open space and historical reasons necessitates car travel except for major urban to urban transport which could be done by train but why bother? As in the UK, the acceptance that cars be supported for some journeys means that on balance, they are better to use for most others. Even for me, the coach runs direct from my town to Heathrow airport in a similar time to a car and pretty cheap but it won't always run when I need it so why not drive (or get a lift)?
- esotericn 8y ago
  This is an interesting comment. As a Londoner (have lived both centrally and in the suburbs) I think you're right that it's one or the other. If you design for cars (e.g. M25, UK motorway network and roads, towns like Swindon and MK) then cars are the uncontested king. In an area like London, it almost becomes an emergent phenomenon. The suburbs have car use because they're not very dense and it still beats sporadic bus routes. In the centre there's just no space. Forget parking, Uber might be slower than the tube in a no-congestion scenario simply due to traffic lights and giving way.

seszett 8y ago

> this entire country is the size of a single, largeish US state So why is there no comparable railway network in those largeish US states that are comparable to EU countries? Or in the many (almost all of them) states that are smaller than France and Japan?

ams6110 8y ago
There used to be. Americans, for the most part, prefer drive their own cars for short to moderate trips, or fly.
- objektif 8y ago
  Prefer is an interesting choice of words in this case. Its like me prefering comcast as an ISP.
- superseeplus 8y ago
  Sort of off-topic, but every time someone says this, I am reminded of the subprime car loan market where the same car is sold at inflated prices and usurious interest rates to people who have bad credit, then repossessed and sold again. If we had decent public transport, that wouldn't happen.
rayiner 8y ago
Because there would be nowhere to go. Imagine building a rail network in New York. Where would it go? How often do people need to get from NYC to Syracuse? And if you built a train to Syracuse, what would you do once you got there (without a car)? The city is the centerpiece of a region with a million people, less than 1/6 of whom live inside the city?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >How often do people need to get from NYC to Syracuse? For people living to Syracuse, tons of times. Equally many times with any EU train that connects e.g. Paris to a city within 50 or 100 or 200 miles. >And if you built a train to Syracuse, what would you do once you got there (without a car)? The city is the centerpiece of a region with a million people, less than 1/6 of whom live inside the city? If it's "a million people" it should be able to afford its own public transport connected to the train station, which answers the question "what to do there without a car". It's not like there aren't places in Europe, Asia etc that are exactly like this...

amoitnga 8y ago

When they talk about the train in Russia, they really only talk about the train in Moscow. Everyone I know says stations are very nice, and schedule during peak hours is like a train/min. BUT, at the same time, it's much much more packed than here in new york. Even during rush hour I don't feel pressed against other passengers here.

pouetpouet 8y ago

This argument doesn't hold water. Why is there no decent regional train system in the US then? Your point explains why there is no coast to coast NYC-SF bullet train, fair enough. Each US megaregion [0] could have a decent train system like France, Germany or Japan. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_Stat...

rootusrootus 8y ago
The short answer is that not enough people want that. The argument seems to be that they would if only they knew how awesome it was. But that argument isn't sticking, so the political will to make it happen is not there.
- meddlepal 8y ago
  I take the Acela from Boston to NYC often. It's okay but not great. Nothing like the TGV which I've also ridden. If the trip could be two hours instead of 3.5+ that would be great but as it is it is barely justifiable over flight (being dropped off midtown is a big bonus tho). The benefits for even longer travel just don't exist. Once you start getting into the 4+ hours on a train it's almost always better to find a flight.
  - mynameisvlad 8y ago
    Japan's shinkansen travels at 2-2.5x the speed of the Acela. At the maximum speed of current bullet train technology, Boston - NY could likely be done in about 1.5 hours, Boston to Washington in about 2-3, and even Boston to Cleveland in around 3-4. That basically covers the entirety of travel in the Northeast corridor. This doesn't even cover the new maglev trains that are expected to go into service sometime in the late 2020s in Japan, which have a maximum speed of 550km/h, expanding the range of that 4 hour "maximum" significantly. The major problem with the Acela is that it mainly runs on older infrastructure that wasn't designed with HS trains in mind. This severely limits its speed on most of its route. Most HS systems in other places around the world are on newly developed HS lines that were built up specifically to support the much faster speeds and requirements of these trains, and are completely separate from the regular rail lines (which might be running in parallel nearby).

close04 8y ago

Germany and California are in the same ballpark when it comes to size and economic power. The state's internal transportation network should be just as developed but it is not. It's not only the size of the country, it's also the philosophy of the people and society.

yitianjian 8y ago

TO be fair, despite the US having some large emptier states, the US has nodes of very high urban density - most notably the Northeast corridor. From Boston to Washington there's around 50 million people, with - depending how you define it - a density of around 390/sqkm, three times that of France's 120/sqkm. Of course not representative, but you can definitely see the influence of the automobile in how these cities have grown. Compare to say, Moscow - another major urban city in a fairly sparse city - New York City has only added a few km of subway lines in the past 20 years compared to 150+km.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago
Spot on. Public transportation is obviously built where people are.

Gravityloss 8y ago

That the whole of USA is a large land mass is no excuse for individual cities having bad public transport. To take the analogy over the top, Greenland is a part of Denmark, I don't hear them saying that because of that, they should start investing only in freeways for cars in Copenhagen?

coldtea 8y ago

>I feel like the argument weakens when he compares countries. I'm looking at the railway maps of France and Japan thinking: 'this entire country is the size of a single, largeish US state'. Not that old tired chessnut again. First, all of Europe is connected by trains. You can go from any country to any country in EU by train -- if you wish so. That's equally large to the US (and the train lines even continue down to Moscow and further down to Beijing). Second, it's not like you need to hook up all of the US or nothing. Where is a comparable and equally nice metro/train solution within a single small state (dozens of which are smaller than most European countries) or even within a city? Even Chicago or Manhattan are worse than anything shown train/subway wise.

gok 8y ago
> You can go from any country to any country in EU by train Surely you mean "continental Europe" unless there's a tunnel to Ireland > That's equally large to the US Uh, no. The southwestern tip of Portugal to the northeastern tip of Estonia is around 3300 km. The mainland US equivalent is 4400 km. Moreover, unlike Europe, the population centers are mostly along opposite sides.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  If you want to do it, the fast train from Birmingham ends at Holyhead station in Wales, and (depending which end of the train you're in) you walk about 100m to the check-in building of the ferry. I don't know for this place, but it's fairly likely that the ferry schedule aligns with the train schedule. Train+ferry connections used to be very common in Europe. Sometimes the train was loaded onto the ferry (still happens between Germany and Denmark). Some have been replaced by bridges, others are defunct, but where they still exist it's usually possible to buy an ordinary train ticket which includes travel across the ferry. Interrail/Eurail passes include the use of these ferries.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Surely you mean "continental Europe" unless there's a tunnel to Ireland Surely that's a pedantic objection, when you can get to 95% of EU (or more population wise) by train, and when you can just take the ferry off of Scotland (and France and UK are of course connected by train)...

WhompingWindows 8y ago

You can't claim that a high-speed line between Boston, Providence, CT cities, NYC, Philly, and down to Washington is not sensible. For many other states like Illinois, where there's one big city without much else near it, yes it's sensible to not have a great network of rails. However, there is really no geographic excuse for not having high-speed rail in the basically linear east coast corridor. Having traveled many times from Boston to NYC via car, which is about 5x cheaper than Amtrak and yes actually comparable in cost to the bus, depending on your MPG, it's kind of ridiculous to me that we don't have a better version of Amtrak by now.

jpatokal 8y ago

Both Russia and China have way better train systems than the US, both in the cities and outside them.