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Intercity passenger rail basically becomes important only when we properly tax airline fuel. Intracity (or realy intra-metropolitan region) rail however is ext

Intercity passenger rail basically becomes important only when we properly tax airline fuel. Intracity (or realy intra-metropolitan region) rail however is extremely important and we should do far more of it in all major cities, depopulating the surburbs except where they are made dense around stations. There are far more commutes than inter-city trips, and the increased density that this rails allows makes for further growth that cars could never achieve. Do cut and cover subways for cost. The disruption also incentives hurrying up and getting the damn thing done. Even your autonoumous buses are far less good than rail (though better than electric cars). The lack of grade separation means everything is sluggish and prune to delays. Streets are for public life, rails are for public transport. ----- Honestly it's a shame Europe is so nativist, because with tons of immigration and alternative urban cores not stunted to preserve historical buildings (so lots more La Défense), they would easily whoop our asses with much better infrastructure foundation for prosperity. Instead it's just Asia that's doing the big buildings and big trains among developed countries, but just having all the good growth in such a hot political situation doesn't seem to bode well...

jillesvangurp 6y ago
Buses can compete quite effectively with trains. Germany ironically allows very little competition on its rail network so buses have become quite popular as an alternative. They are a lot cheaper to use than trains (the tickets tend to be less than half the price of a train ticket to the same destination). Autonomous, electrical buses would be cheaper still. Less fuel cost. No driver cost. Basically a very long train would have maybe around 1500 people in them. A big bus can transport about 60-80 people and you could feasibly make even larger capacity buses. So, it only takes about 15-20 or so buses to replace most trains. Trains are expensive. You can easily build 15 buses for the money it takes to even buy a single carriage. Road congestion is indeed a thing. But buses are a lot more efficient than suvs when it comes to using them. The reason that Asia is building so much rail is that it is growing so fast. China has literally been designing and building cities from scratch and moving millions of people in to them. E.g. Shenzen grew from less than a million people to 12 million people in roughly the time it took Germany to figure out a rail connection between Berlin and Munich. China has built more sub way lines for new cities in recent decades than exist outside of China. Building rail is a lot easier and cheaper when you have a green field approach to city building like that and a state that can just tell people to shut up and move somewhere else because they need to build a railway where their house is. Much of European and American rail was built when the world population was a lot smaller than it is today. Having about 7x more people complicates things. Ironically, the US used a lot of Chinese labor for this at the time.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Buses are cheaper because they don't pay for the infrastructure.
  - foobiekr 6y ago
    The infrastructure is also amortized across both users and uses.
- orwin 6y ago
  Buses use the road at the same rate as semi truck. And the capacity makes it impractical in all metropolitan area. When a train line is down and replaced by buses during peak hour in paris, fun begins.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  > Germany ironically allows very little competition on its rail network so buses have become quite popular as an alternative. Nothing ironic about this. Rails is as natural an economy as they come. All networks are, but non-packet-based (cars, today's computer networks) ones all the more so. (And comparing the faux-fluid dynamics and encapsulation overhead explains why computer network packets are mostly good, while cars are atrocious).
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  > E.g. Shenzen grew from less than a million people to 12 million people in roughly the time it took Germany to figure out a rail connection between Berlin and Munich. China has built more sub way lines for new cities in recent decades than exist outside of China. You said it yourself. If Germany was down with waves of Syrians and Turks or whoever, just as China promotes urbanization from the hinterland, they would see the growth too. Then there is Korea which isn't growing but is still building out Seoul, because intensive urbanization is still the form of development that makes the most sense.

jillesvangurp 6y ago

Buses can compete quite effectively with trains. Germany ironically allows very little competition on its rail network so buses have become quite popular as an alternative. They are a lot cheaper to use than trains (the tickets tend to be less than half the price of a train ticket to the same destination). Autonomous, electrical buses would be cheaper still. Less fuel cost. No driver cost. Basically a very long train would have maybe around 1500 people in them. A big bus can transport about 60-80 people and you could feasibly make even larger capacity buses. So, it only takes about 15-20 or so buses to replace most trains. Trains are expensive. You can easily build 15 buses for the money it takes to even buy a single carriage. Road congestion is indeed a thing. But buses are a lot more efficient than suvs when it comes to using them. The reason that Asia is building so much rail is that it is growing so fast. China has literally been designing and building cities from scratch and moving millions of people in to them. E.g. Shenzen grew from less than a million people to 12 million people in roughly the time it took Germany to figure out a rail connection between Berlin and Munich. China has built more sub way lines for new cities in recent decades than exist outside of China. Building rail is a lot easier and cheaper when you have a green field approach to city building like that and a state that can just tell people to shut up and move somewhere else because they need to build a railway where their house is. Much of European and American rail was built when the world population was a lot smaller than it is today. Having about 7x more people complicates things. Ironically, the US used a lot of Chinese labor for this at the time.

adrianN 6y ago
Buses are cheaper because they don't pay for the infrastructure.
- foobiekr 6y ago
  The infrastructure is also amortized across both users and uses.
orwin 6y ago
Buses use the road at the same rate as semi truck. And the capacity makes it impractical in all metropolitan area. When a train line is down and replaced by buses during peak hour in paris, fun begins.
Ericson2314 6y ago
> Germany ironically allows very little competition on its rail network so buses have become quite popular as an alternative. Nothing ironic about this. Rails is as natural an economy as they come. All networks are, but non-packet-based (cars, today's computer networks) ones all the more so. (And comparing the faux-fluid dynamics and encapsulation overhead explains why computer network packets are mostly good, while cars are atrocious).
Ericson2314 6y ago
> E.g. Shenzen grew from less than a million people to 12 million people in roughly the time it took Germany to figure out a rail connection between Berlin and Munich. China has built more sub way lines for new cities in recent decades than exist outside of China. You said it yourself. If Germany was down with waves of Syrians and Turks or whoever, just as China promotes urbanization from the hinterland, they would see the growth too. Then there is Korea which isn't growing but is still building out Seoul, because intensive urbanization is still the form of development that makes the most sense.