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Why is this an issue? People can take a taxi to/from the railway station at either end of the journey as it is done in other countries.

lumost 6y ago
It's not a great assumption that there is a viable taxi network in most American suburbs with less than 50-70k people. Even with uber, you might be waiting for an hour if it's available. Even if there is a good network you might be out ~20-30 bucks each way and need a taxi between every destination. Given that a brand new car costs around 500/month in the US it wouldn't take many such excursions to make the car worth it. Once you've purchased a car and incur it's fixed monthly costs you're incentivised to use it for everything rather than incur further incremental transit expenses.
burlesona 6y ago
I don’t think you have a good intuition for how vast and underdeveloped most of the US is. Just for sake of imagination, let’s take Raleigh, NC, a mid-sized city I lived in for some time. There are about 500,000 people in Raleigh, which makes it sound like a great stop for a train, and in fact it has an Amtrak station. However, these people are spread over 380 square kilometers, for a population density of 1250 per sq km. It’s about a 30 minute drive from the center to the northern edge of the “city,” and similar on the other directions (though not symmetrical). Even with Uber, which is much cheaper than a taxi, this ride costs $30-50. And this is a US state capitol with high rise buildings, a major university, a professional sports team, etc. Most American “cities” are spread over similar land areas but with a fraction the population density - hence most rural Americans would consider Raleigh to be somewhat “dense” and even “crowded,” although from a world perspective that is comically false. Just being realistic, an average train ride between US cities - outside of the Northeast - would include something like a $35 Uber ride on each end. Oh, plus another $10-20 and a 15-30 minute wait for every other trip you take while visiting (like to go out to dinner or get groceries) while you’re there. By comparison, a reliable car can be had for somewhere on the order of $250-500/mo all-in (amortized purchase price, plus taxes, insurance, license, and fuel). A motorcycle or scooter is even cheaper. While that is a lot to spend on transportation, and a horrible burden on America’s poor, the fact is that it is the cost of participation in the economy. Depending on Uber or Transit (where it even exists) crushes you with extraordinary travel times for basic needs (again outside of the urban centers of a few large or sufficiently old cities). This is frustrating and I would very much like to see it change, but it took two generations of bad investment patterns for us to make it like this, so my guess is it would take two generations of concerted effort to correct. But first we have to actually start trying.

lumost 6y ago

It's not a great assumption that there is a viable taxi network in most American suburbs with less than 50-70k people. Even with uber, you might be waiting for an hour if it's available. Even if there is a good network you might be out ~20-30 bucks each way and need a taxi between every destination. Given that a brand new car costs around 500/month in the US it wouldn't take many such excursions to make the car worth it. Once you've purchased a car and incur it's fixed monthly costs you're incentivised to use it for everything rather than incur further incremental transit expenses.

burlesona 6y ago

I don’t think you have a good intuition for how vast and underdeveloped most of the US is. Just for sake of imagination, let’s take Raleigh, NC, a mid-sized city I lived in for some time. There are about 500,000 people in Raleigh, which makes it sound like a great stop for a train, and in fact it has an Amtrak station. However, these people are spread over 380 square kilometers, for a population density of 1250 per sq km. It’s about a 30 minute drive from the center to the northern edge of the “city,” and similar on the other directions (though not symmetrical). Even with Uber, which is much cheaper than a taxi, this ride costs $30-50. And this is a US state capitol with high rise buildings, a major university, a professional sports team, etc. Most American “cities” are spread over similar land areas but with a fraction the population density - hence most rural Americans would consider Raleigh to be somewhat “dense” and even “crowded,” although from a world perspective that is comically false. Just being realistic, an average train ride between US cities - outside of the Northeast - would include something like a $35 Uber ride on each end. Oh, plus another $10-20 and a 15-30 minute wait for every other trip you take while visiting (like to go out to dinner or get groceries) while you’re there. By comparison, a reliable car can be had for somewhere on the order of $250-500/mo all-in (amortized purchase price, plus taxes, insurance, license, and fuel). A motorcycle or scooter is even cheaper. While that is a lot to spend on transportation, and a horrible burden on America’s poor, the fact is that it is the cost of participation in the economy. Depending on Uber or Transit (where it even exists) crushes you with extraordinary travel times for basic needs (again outside of the urban centers of a few large or sufficiently old cities). This is frustrating and I would very much like to see it change, but it took two generations of bad investment patterns for us to make it like this, so my guess is it would take two generations of concerted effort to correct. But first we have to actually start trying.