4 ms·

If only the US would make major investments in regional rail like this, instead of either doing nothing or harrumphing that commuter rail should be run the way

If only the US would make major investments in regional rail like this, instead of either doing nothing or harrumphing that commuter rail should be run the way it has been run for the past 100 years.

asdff 4y ago
Infrastructure in the U.S. is broken in terms of how it is supposed to be delivered these days. The unfortunate side effect of the freeway revolts of the 1960s putting a nail in grade separated vehicular right of ways in urban areas is that these same legal arguments and protections are now leveled against grade separated transit ways in urban areas by moneyed groups that argue in bad faith. Transit agencies now spend time planning and developing alternative options that are suboptimal, knowing full well 5/6 of these will be wasted efforts and only one will be chosen, just to give these busybodies some semblance of control of large scale engineering projects they aren't qualified to understand. You should read up all of the drama surrounding the purple line and the eventual sepulveda transit line in la. The issue: subway tunnel boring under a rich neighborhood. Fireworks ensue along with broken understandings of physics and geology but in the end, people used nonscientific arguments to delay the purple line extension in LA for 20 years (1), and are trying to use these arguments to kill a subway line (2) that would bore under a mountain and in no way shape or form affect the complaining rich Bel Air community above it. Somehow you don't hear a peep from the people in the hollywood hills living above the redline subway tunnel, nor see any affect on their property values from having a train move several hundred feet below the parcel offered for sale. Everything takes more money and a lot more time than it should to do anything at all, compared in years previous when people would generally see infrastructure and progress as a good thing. 1. https://www.lamag.com/driver/beverly-hills-finally-loses-crazy-stupid-subway-battle/ https://www.lamag.com/driver/beverly-hills-finally-loses-cra... 2. https://www.curbed.com/2022/02/bel-air-subway-tunnel-los-angeles.html https://www.curbed.com/2022/02/bel-air-subway-tunnel-los-ang...
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Most Transport Agencies are basically just high way construction offices. That is basically why they were created, or at least when state level DoT became massive, to construct highway. They can build an mind glowingly insane 7 level loop clover with integrated rocket launcher and helipad but they couldn't design a safe and efficient pedestrian crossing if it smacked them in the face. They are still planning new highways right threw actual real existing cities as if they were Robert Moses. Its literal insanity.
- jsmith99 4y ago
  Crossrail involved tunneling under some of the most expensive property in the world, while passing within inches of existing underground tunnels. There are several fascinating documentaries.
  - cheesetoastie 4y ago
    Do you remember where to find those documentaries?
    - 86____ 4y ago
      Sadly it's no longer on iPlayer in the UK but if you use a bit of search wizardry I'm sure you could find it. The 15 Billon Pound Railway https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04b7h1w https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04b7h1w
- bluGill 4y ago
  This is only part of the problem, though it is a factor. See https://transitcosts.com/overview/ https://transitcosts.com/overview/ (which won't be online for a few more weeks - I was able to read a couple pages a few weeks ago before they took it offline, and it looks very detailed)
IIAOPSW 4y ago
In my collection of things I have a NYC Subway Map* from 2017. This one is special because it was commemorating the "opening of the second avenue subway". At the bottom corner in big fat font is the signature of then Governor Andrew Cuomo. For those unaware, the second avenue subway has been planned since the 1930s. In 2017 they opened phase 1, which consisted of 3 new stations stretching from 63rd St to 96th St. Maybe sometime this century phase 2 and 3 will open. I for one am not optimistic. Its not for lack of investment that this project has been delayed over 100 years. Plenty of money has gone down that pit. There is a cost disease afflicting infrastructure in the US (and health care, and education). *technically what I have is a transit diagram, not a map. The difference being it abstracts away the geography and angularizes all the lines.
- bombcar 4y ago
  When the US needs to build infrastructure, they can build it incredibly fast. The replacement I-35 bridge [34] and the fix to the Oroville Dam Spillway [6] are examples. Usually it gets tied up in years or decades of various fights like the St Croix Crossing which required federal action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_Crossing [34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Saint_Anthony_Falls_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Saint_Anthony_Falls_Brid... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUROM87vTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUROM87vTA
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  To clarify, when I say "investments", I mean the number of distinct improvements, not $ spent. I'm a big transit nerd and it's very disappointing. As what should be table stakes, there is no realistic plan to get to 100% accessibility in NYC.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    The ADA messed up by not specifying allowed existing buildings have to have a 30 year plan in place to become accessible, with a requirement that if they put this off they place into escrow that years part. (I'm not sure how to write this, but essentially either upgrade 1/30 of your buildings each year, or place in third partt escrow that money). If you own a building you need to do a major remodel every 30 years anyway just to keep it safe and in good shape so for landlords keeping their property up this isn't really much different than what they would do anyway)
rootusrootus 4y ago
I imagine that could only happen in a few areas of the East Coast, and maybe one on the West Coast. There aren't many regions of the US with density comparable to the UK (FWIW, UK is smaller than Oregon and has 16x the number of people).
- bluGill 4y ago
  The US from the east coast to a bit west of the Mississippi, and the west coast are plenty dense. The plains, Rocky mountains, and Alaska really bring down our population density, but if you take those large areas with few people away we have plenty or density.
- melling 4y ago
  Aren’t there a couple dozen countries in the world with high speed rail? How do we compare to Spain? Let me save you some time Because we’ve been over this 1000 times… There are plenty of places in the United States with similar population densities as Spain, for example

If only the US would make major investments in regional rail like this, instead of either doing nothing or harrumphing that commuter rail should be run the way it has been run for the past 100 years.

asdff 4y ago

Infrastructure in the U.S. is broken in terms of how it is supposed to be delivered these days. The unfortunate side effect of the freeway revolts of the 1960s putting a nail in grade separated vehicular right of ways in urban areas is that these same legal arguments and protections are now leveled against grade separated transit ways in urban areas by moneyed groups that argue in bad faith. Transit agencies now spend time planning and developing alternative options that are suboptimal, knowing full well 5/6 of these will be wasted efforts and only one will be chosen, just to give these busybodies some semblance of control of large scale engineering projects they aren't qualified to understand. You should read up all of the drama surrounding the purple line and the eventual sepulveda transit line in la. The issue: subway tunnel boring under a rich neighborhood. Fireworks ensue along with broken understandings of physics and geology but in the end, people used nonscientific arguments to delay the purple line extension in LA for 20 years (1), and are trying to use these arguments to kill a subway line (2) that would bore under a mountain and in no way shape or form affect the complaining rich Bel Air community above it. Somehow you don't hear a peep from the people in the hollywood hills living above the redline subway tunnel, nor see any affect on their property values from having a train move several hundred feet below the parcel offered for sale. Everything takes more money and a lot more time than it should to do anything at all, compared in years previous when people would generally see infrastructure and progress as a good thing. 1. https://www.lamag.com/driver/beverly-hills-finally-loses-crazy-stupid-subway-battle/ https://www.lamag.com/driver/beverly-hills-finally-loses-cra... 2. https://www.curbed.com/2022/02/bel-air-subway-tunnel-los-angeles.html https://www.curbed.com/2022/02/bel-air-subway-tunnel-los-ang...

panick21_ 4y ago
Most Transport Agencies are basically just high way construction offices. That is basically why they were created, or at least when state level DoT became massive, to construct highway. They can build an mind glowingly insane 7 level loop clover with integrated rocket launcher and helipad but they couldn't design a safe and efficient pedestrian crossing if it smacked them in the face. They are still planning new highways right threw actual real existing cities as if they were Robert Moses. Its literal insanity.
jsmith99 4y ago
Crossrail involved tunneling under some of the most expensive property in the world, while passing within inches of existing underground tunnels. There are several fascinating documentaries.
- cheesetoastie 4y ago
  Do you remember where to find those documentaries?
  - 86____ 4y ago
    Sadly it's no longer on iPlayer in the UK but if you use a bit of search wizardry I'm sure you could find it. The 15 Billon Pound Railway https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04b7h1w https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04b7h1w
bluGill 4y ago
This is only part of the problem, though it is a factor. See https://transitcosts.com/overview/ https://transitcosts.com/overview/ (which won't be online for a few more weeks - I was able to read a couple pages a few weeks ago before they took it offline, and it looks very detailed)

IIAOPSW 4y ago

In my collection of things I have a NYC Subway Map* from 2017. This one is special because it was commemorating the "opening of the second avenue subway". At the bottom corner in big fat font is the signature of then Governor Andrew Cuomo. For those unaware, the second avenue subway has been planned since the 1930s. In 2017 they opened phase 1, which consisted of 3 new stations stretching from 63rd St to 96th St. Maybe sometime this century phase 2 and 3 will open. I for one am not optimistic. Its not for lack of investment that this project has been delayed over 100 years. Plenty of money has gone down that pit. There is a cost disease afflicting infrastructure in the US (and health care, and education). *technically what I have is a transit diagram, not a map. The difference being it abstracts away the geography and angularizes all the lines.

bombcar 4y ago
When the US needs to build infrastructure, they can build it incredibly fast. The replacement I-35 bridge [34] and the fix to the Oroville Dam Spillway [6] are examples. Usually it gets tied up in years or decades of various fights like the St Croix Crossing which required federal action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Croix_Crossing [34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Saint_Anthony_Falls_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Saint_Anthony_Falls_Brid... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUROM87vTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUROM87vTA
bobthepanda 4y ago
To clarify, when I say "investments", I mean the number of distinct improvements, not $ spent. I'm a big transit nerd and it's very disappointing. As what should be table stakes, there is no realistic plan to get to 100% accessibility in NYC.
- bluGill 4y ago
  The ADA messed up by not specifying allowed existing buildings have to have a 30 year plan in place to become accessible, with a requirement that if they put this off they place into escrow that years part. (I'm not sure how to write this, but essentially either upgrade 1/30 of your buildings each year, or place in third partt escrow that money). If you own a building you need to do a major remodel every 30 years anyway just to keep it safe and in good shape so for landlords keeping their property up this isn't really much different than what they would do anyway)

rootusrootus 4y ago

I imagine that could only happen in a few areas of the East Coast, and maybe one on the West Coast. There aren't many regions of the US with density comparable to the UK (FWIW, UK is smaller than Oregon and has 16x the number of people).

bluGill 4y ago
The US from the east coast to a bit west of the Mississippi, and the west coast are plenty dense. The plains, Rocky mountains, and Alaska really bring down our population density, but if you take those large areas with few people away we have plenty or density.
melling 4y ago
Aren’t there a couple dozen countries in the world with high speed rail? How do we compare to Spain? Let me save you some time Because we’ve been over this 1000 times… There are plenty of places in the United States with similar population densities as Spain, for example