7 ms·

It’s too bad that the potential to do the obvious thing - build trains to the transit deserts - is not an option even worth mentioning. This is the state of US

by osdiab 7y ago

It’s too bad that the potential to do the obvious thing - build trains to the transit deserts - is not an option even worth mentioning. This is the state of US infrastructure.

melling 7y ago
We should be building subways west into New Jersey too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://www.nj.com/traffic/2017/04/new_york_subway_extension_to_nj_may_not_be_dead_after_all.html https://www.nj.com/traffic/2017/04/new_york_subway_extension...
- Merrill 7y ago
  We should be moving jobs west into New Jersey so less transit across the Hudson is needed. The Hudson is a fjord, a flooded valley carved out by glaciers between the Palisades of New Jersey and the bedrock of Manhattan, and not an ordinary river. Transportation across it is expensive, both in terms of investment and energy costs, and should be minimized.
  - melling 7y ago
    Few people stay at the same job forever. We want to increase mobility by mass transit. Ideally, you could live in Brooklyn and commute to New Jersey, for example.
    - HarryHirsch 7y ago
      Few people stay at the same job forever. That's the other problem that no one is talking about, everyone changing their job every three years. You can't live close to your job, instead you have your hour-long commute. It's exhausting and a waste of time and gasoline.
    - Merrill 7y ago
      We should make it easier for people to relocate to lower cost of living areas with good jobs. It's easier to commute to Jersey City or Newark from New Jersey residential communities than it is to commute from Brooklyn. Plus there are a bunch of tax and other administrative issues with living and working in different states. JPMorgan may move workers out of New York, here's where they may go -- https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/jpmorgan-shifting-workers-new-york https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/jpmorgan-shifting-worker...
  - vertex-four 7y ago
    Jobs could move west into New Jersey if New Jersey were better connected with where the other jobs are. That is, you could hop on a reliable train to meet with a client.
wbl 7y ago
Transit expansion is expensive compared to intensifying frequency and land use in the core.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Only in the US! Somehow, Paris is able to build them for a tiny fraction of the cost. And since we’re talking about France here, it’s certainly not due to a dearth of workers rights.
  - weberc2 7y ago
    I imagine it’s easier to persuade people who are used to and depend on trains that they should build more train lines. For better or worse, most Americans are happy with their cars and train transit is at best a nice-to-have.
    - wan23 7y ago
      In New York City though, we are used to and depend on trains, and we still can't get more built at a reasonable cost or speed.
sokoloff 7y ago
Someone owns the land on which that rail must run and the stations built. They may not want to sell. Eminent domain taking is time-consuming and expensive (probably should be more expensive). In a most of these cases, this land is in neighborhoods that already have a housing shortage. If you’re going to take the land of groups of people to build transit, you’ll displace many households at once and into a market with reduced supply and increased demand. Anyone want to wager whether those property owners will be truly properly compensated? Anyone want to wager whether tenants displaced will be compensated at all, let alone enough to find a comparable place?
- FearNotDaniel 7y ago
  Someone once owned the land on which all of Europe's railways are currently running quite nicely, thank you. It's not really a convincing argument against building railways in general. Public service or private enterprise, it's pretty much guaranteed that existing occupants of the land will get shat on by whatever interests stand to profit from doing so, but that doesn't mean that building the thing doesn't benefit the community as a whole.
- osdiab 7y ago
  One half of your point is that the US government is too incompetent/malicious to actually care for or remunerate its own residents, even as the richest country in the world. I can’t wave that problem away, and it contributes to my point about the dire state of American infrastructure. But separately, as much as I respect the right for someone to their property, I think we as a society in the USA overindex on that personal right vs the public benefit and the health of the community as a whole, hobbling forward progress. Just like the other commenter talked about Europe, I’m living in Japan currently - a far older country with far more people per sq foot who had to be relocated for the very thorough transit system here to be developed, with far less resources than the USA had when it was being built out. The result is not that you end up with housing shortages, the effect is instead that transit dramatically increases the amount of viable land to live on within a reasonable commute to the city, creating cheap housing surpluses - provided that incentives are set up properly to encourage that housing production, as opposed to the USA’s hopelessly restrictive permitting/zoning + the incompetence of government to efficiently utilize land at transit stations + the unwillingness of the govt and electorate to allow private enterprise to do it instead (as it extremely profitably is done here in Japan). That’s why I can get my current 1 bedroom apartment 15 minutes from the center of Tokyo for $600/mo here, a literal impossibility in even 2nd or 3rd tier American cities like the one I grew up in. And no, I’m not living in a shoebox or a soulless high rise, I live in a vibrant walkable neighborhood of low rises - since the combination of transit development, small (re: proper scale) streets and unrestrictive zoning means that a high quality of life is accessible to far more people. Not to mention that if American cities were willing to deprioritize cars a bit you can probably get a pretty good system going almost entirely built on streets that are way wider than they need to be/evicting cars from those thoroughfares... glad to see baby steps in NYC and SF to do it a little, but at this rate it’ll be centuries before anything significant happens.
perl4ever 7y ago
People have endless elaborate theories about the complicated reasons why passenger trains can't/don't work in the US, and they all seem to assume the US just can't do rail. But, you know, there are some passenger trains, and if you ride them and pay attention, you will see the big problem - the US has lots of rail and it's used for freight, which takes precedence. So, maybe people should step back and ask whether this is actually a logical way for the country to be run, economically and environmentally.
- Merrill 7y ago
  The existing rail system is very efficient for heavy freight. High speed intercity rail needs a new railway system. There can't be any grade crossings with highways - a 200 mph train hitting a flatbed semi with a bulldozer on it is not something you want to have happen. The railway has to have curves of much larger radius that are banked correctly for high-speed operation. High-speed rail can have steeper grades, since the locomotives are powerful and the cars are light. High-speed rail is electrified with overhead catenaries, while freight is diesel with high clearance for double-stacked container cars.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Most of what the California high speed rail project is doing in the central valley is grade separation work for the existing freight rail and the future high speed rail line. In the past I've mentioned you could build a high speed rail from Chicago -> St Louis -> Kansas City -> Denver -> Colorado Spring for about $100 billion. Probably.
    - Merrill 7y ago
      They are starting in the flat and rural Merced to Bakersfield segment. The hard parts are getting from Merced to San Francisco and from Bakersfield to Anaheim.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        I think the tunnel through the Diablo Range isn't a big deal except for money. There is already an aqueduct running through the same section. San Gabriels are more difficult.

by osdiab 7y ago

It’s too bad that the potential to do the obvious thing - build trains to the transit deserts - is not an option even worth mentioning. This is the state of US infrastructure.

melling 7y ago

We should be building subways west into New Jersey too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://www.nj.com/traffic/2017/04/new_york_subway_extension_to_nj_may_not_be_dead_after_all.html https://www.nj.com/traffic/2017/04/new_york_subway_extension...

Merrill 7y ago
We should be moving jobs west into New Jersey so less transit across the Hudson is needed. The Hudson is a fjord, a flooded valley carved out by glaciers between the Palisades of New Jersey and the bedrock of Manhattan, and not an ordinary river. Transportation across it is expensive, both in terms of investment and energy costs, and should be minimized.
- melling 7y ago
  Few people stay at the same job forever. We want to increase mobility by mass transit. Ideally, you could live in Brooklyn and commute to New Jersey, for example.
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Few people stay at the same job forever. That's the other problem that no one is talking about, everyone changing their job every three years. You can't live close to your job, instead you have your hour-long commute. It's exhausting and a waste of time and gasoline.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    We should make it easier for people to relocate to lower cost of living areas with good jobs. It's easier to commute to Jersey City or Newark from New Jersey residential communities than it is to commute from Brooklyn. Plus there are a bunch of tax and other administrative issues with living and working in different states. JPMorgan may move workers out of New York, here's where they may go -- https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/jpmorgan-shifting-workers-new-york https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/jpmorgan-shifting-worker...
- vertex-four 7y ago
  Jobs could move west into New Jersey if New Jersey were better connected with where the other jobs are. That is, you could hop on a reliable train to meet with a client.

wbl 7y ago

Transit expansion is expensive compared to intensifying frequency and land use in the core.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Only in the US! Somehow, Paris is able to build them for a tiny fraction of the cost. And since we’re talking about France here, it’s certainly not due to a dearth of workers rights.
- weberc2 7y ago
  I imagine it’s easier to persuade people who are used to and depend on trains that they should build more train lines. For better or worse, most Americans are happy with their cars and train transit is at best a nice-to-have.
  - wan23 7y ago
    In New York City though, we are used to and depend on trains, and we still can't get more built at a reasonable cost or speed.

sokoloff 7y ago

Someone owns the land on which that rail must run and the stations built. They may not want to sell. Eminent domain taking is time-consuming and expensive (probably should be more expensive). In a most of these cases, this land is in neighborhoods that already have a housing shortage. If you’re going to take the land of groups of people to build transit, you’ll displace many households at once and into a market with reduced supply and increased demand. Anyone want to wager whether those property owners will be truly properly compensated? Anyone want to wager whether tenants displaced will be compensated at all, let alone enough to find a comparable place?

FearNotDaniel 7y ago
Someone once owned the land on which all of Europe's railways are currently running quite nicely, thank you. It's not really a convincing argument against building railways in general. Public service or private enterprise, it's pretty much guaranteed that existing occupants of the land will get shat on by whatever interests stand to profit from doing so, but that doesn't mean that building the thing doesn't benefit the community as a whole.
osdiab 7y ago
One half of your point is that the US government is too incompetent/malicious to actually care for or remunerate its own residents, even as the richest country in the world. I can’t wave that problem away, and it contributes to my point about the dire state of American infrastructure. But separately, as much as I respect the right for someone to their property, I think we as a society in the USA overindex on that personal right vs the public benefit and the health of the community as a whole, hobbling forward progress. Just like the other commenter talked about Europe, I’m living in Japan currently - a far older country with far more people per sq foot who had to be relocated for the very thorough transit system here to be developed, with far less resources than the USA had when it was being built out. The result is not that you end up with housing shortages, the effect is instead that transit dramatically increases the amount of viable land to live on within a reasonable commute to the city, creating cheap housing surpluses - provided that incentives are set up properly to encourage that housing production, as opposed to the USA’s hopelessly restrictive permitting/zoning + the incompetence of government to efficiently utilize land at transit stations + the unwillingness of the govt and electorate to allow private enterprise to do it instead (as it extremely profitably is done here in Japan). That’s why I can get my current 1 bedroom apartment 15 minutes from the center of Tokyo for $600/mo here, a literal impossibility in even 2nd or 3rd tier American cities like the one I grew up in. And no, I’m not living in a shoebox or a soulless high rise, I live in a vibrant walkable neighborhood of low rises - since the combination of transit development, small (re: proper scale) streets and unrestrictive zoning means that a high quality of life is accessible to far more people. Not to mention that if American cities were willing to deprioritize cars a bit you can probably get a pretty good system going almost entirely built on streets that are way wider than they need to be/evicting cars from those thoroughfares... glad to see baby steps in NYC and SF to do it a little, but at this rate it’ll be centuries before anything significant happens.

perl4ever 7y ago

People have endless elaborate theories about the complicated reasons why passenger trains can't/don't work in the US, and they all seem to assume the US just can't do rail. But, you know, there are some passenger trains, and if you ride them and pay attention, you will see the big problem - the US has lots of rail and it's used for freight, which takes precedence. So, maybe people should step back and ask whether this is actually a logical way for the country to be run, economically and environmentally.

Merrill 7y ago
The existing rail system is very efficient for heavy freight. High speed intercity rail needs a new railway system. There can't be any grade crossings with highways - a 200 mph train hitting a flatbed semi with a bulldozer on it is not something you want to have happen. The railway has to have curves of much larger radius that are banked correctly for high-speed operation. High-speed rail can have steeper grades, since the locomotives are powerful and the cars are light. High-speed rail is electrified with overhead catenaries, while freight is diesel with high clearance for double-stacked container cars.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Most of what the California high speed rail project is doing in the central valley is grade separation work for the existing freight rail and the future high speed rail line. In the past I've mentioned you could build a high speed rail from Chicago -> St Louis -> Kansas City -> Denver -> Colorado Spring for about $100 billion. Probably.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    They are starting in the flat and rural Merced to Bakersfield segment. The hard parts are getting from Merced to San Francisco and from Bakersfield to Anaheim.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      I think the tunnel through the Diablo Range isn't a big deal except for money. There is already an aqueduct running through the same section. San Gabriels are more difficult.