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Vancouver BC to Portland OR or San Diego to Sacramento and all thr cities in between could be competitive though. Its a shame that High Speed Rail is not a prio

Vancouver BC to Portland OR or San Diego to Sacramento and all thr cities in between could be competitive though. Its a shame that High Speed Rail is not a priority.

rhino369 4y ago
The sweet spot for HSP in North America is pretty small. The vast majority of people who could a ride afford already have a vehicle. And the vast majority of people don't live particularly close to a central rail station. So even though there already is a sort of high speed rail between DC and Philly, I, as resident in the suburbs, would probably just drive unless work was paying for ubers on both ends. Even if Acela was a true HSP rail, that wouldn't really change my calculus. So while there is a goldilocks zone where cars take too long and its too short for airplanes to be faster, it's probably not very viable.
- kjkjadksj 4y ago
  Why not turn your commute into a 5 min drive to the station, then a book?
  - bmelton 4y ago
    I'm sure that works splendidly for some, but I used to commute into "the city" and while the commute itself wasn't particularly bad (thanks, Kindle!) it's still time spent commuting that isn't spent with my wife, my daughter, my dogs, or taking care of the neverending list of things that need to be done having bought an older home. If my circumstances were different, and that time was mostly recoverable as leisure then it's absolutely great advice, but it doesn't scale to every person.
    - burkaman 4y ago
      Why can't we build it then and have it work splendidly for some. There's a lot of people out there, it doesn't need to work for everybody. It would make your commute better too if half the drivers started taking a train instead.
      - rhino369 4y ago
        Because it costs hundreds of billions of dollars. Look how much California spent on a non-functional, slow, version to nowhere. You'd be much better off spending that money on local commuter rail, which is more or less a prerequisite for HSP to work anyway.
      - bmelton 4y ago
        Build / not build wasn't particularly what I was responding to. I think it's probably a good idea to build. Even if I didn't want to have it as part of my daily commute, there are still plenty of times it'd be useful to have more ways of getting places.
      - bbradley406 4y ago
        Because everybody is paying for it, when they (mostly) don't use it? I live in a city with decent buses, 3 street train lines and a commuter rail, and use the street lines frequently. Unless your departure and destination are right on the train line, you're still looking at a 1 hour - 2 hour commute with possible missed connections every step of the way. To canvas the city thoroughly you would need buses or trains running every 10 minutes, on every 3rd or 5th block. They would also need to be preferable to the alternative (a personal vehicle with no disruptive passengers, controlled climate, that is available when and where you need it). Do I love taking the train into the city center for a night on the town, or out to the airport to avoid parking? Absolutely. Will I sacrifice 3 hours out of my day just so that I can say I'm saving the planet? Probably not. The only way it would work would be some giant weave pattern of train lines where 1 car continues on, one departs left, and one departs right every stop. The budget and logistics of that would make it prohibitively expensive and prone to failure. There are also loads of reasons why people can't take transit (kids, cargo, late night / early morning schedules) and if they're not 80% solved, it will never catch on in the states.
        burkaman 4y ago
        I understand what you're saying, but that just isn't really how any society works. You pay for schools you don't use, libraries most people don't use, healthcare for the old and poor, faraway parks you'll probably never visit, community colleges you'll never attend, etc. etc. etc. In return, your community and life gets remarkably better as you reap the indirect benefits of everyone around you receiving these services. In addition, people without cars pay for your roads and snowplows and pothole fillers, anti-vaccine activists pay for the vaccines you take, and so on. It's all a beautiful mutually dependent circle that makes the world go round.
  - b112 4y ago
    Why not turn your commute into a 5 min drive to the station, then a book? Such a disconnect. If it was a 5 minute drive, in city, you could just walk there in 10. Parent effectively said "not close". So you suggest a 1 hour drive, a 2 hour train, instead of a 90 minute drive? (You also have to wait for the train to leave, wait for its stops along the way, and be there precisely on time (hence the wait at the start)). I find so many of the comments boil down to "I live deep in a city, never drive, and am in an entirely different geopolitical environment, but I know what makes sense for you!
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Public transit does not make sense outside of super dense areas. Having a system that takes people only from where they live to where they work is much more inconvenient when individual cars allow people to go from work to the kids’ sports game to Costco to a relatives house and then home. But that model of public transit is not tenable outside of places with density like Manhattan. Even in New York City, all the public transit is mostly focused on getting people into and out of Manhattan, so people in outer boroughs like to have cars. This is what a public transit map that would compete with the convenience of individual cars would look like: https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/ https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/ Contrast with the best that the USA can do: https://new.mta.info/map/5256 https://new.mta.info/map/5256 Not that Tokyo is perfect, but it still has a far greater radius that link with each other without going to the central district.
  - rhino369 4y ago
    The station that is 5 min near me is like a 30 minute subway ride (plus 0-20 minute wait) to Union Station in DC. Then I'd have to switch to Acela (with some wait time probably 30 minutes for a safety buffer). And my house is too expensive because I'm only 5 minute from the subway. The vast majority of people have to live further. If I was going to downtown Philly, might be worth it. But if I wasn't, then driving would absolutely be a lot fast. Since I'd have to navigate the last miles there adding more time. The ability to just leave whenever I want without having to connect a bunch of train rides is pretty valuable even if it took longer. EDIT: and to make it clear, I'm not a suburanite who is allergic to public transport. Until a year ago, I lived in the city and didn't have a personal car. And even now, I'd take Acela to NYC rather than fly or drive. It just doesn't make sense for other stops on the way like Philly, Wilmington, Baltimore. And Boston would take too long on Acela, and I'd fly instead.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I usually take the train from where I am in the western suburbs of Boston to NYC. But... doing so requires driving an hour in basically the wrong direction to the suburban Amtrak station. And then it takes longer than driving directly would. The only reason I do it is that I hate driving into Manhattan and parking there. Whereas when I arrive by train I can just walk to my hotel. And, yeah, for Boston to DC I'll typically fly. The train is viable and I've done it but it's a full day trip vs. a short flight. And one of the airports is right on the metro vs. the NYC airports which are not.
      - jdmichal 4y ago
        > And one of the [DC] airports is right on the metro As of November 2022, the DC silver metro line now includes Dulles International (IAD). So both of the major airports are now directly connected. https://www.wmata.com/rider-guide/silver-line-extension/Washington-Dulles-International-Airport.cfm https://www.wmata.com/rider-guide/silver-line-extension/Wash...
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Does the regional stop any closer to you?
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  The neat thing about trains is that they can stop multiple times in a metropolitan area. In Tokyo your options to Osaka are Tokyo station, Shinagawa and Yokohama; in Berlin they usually stop at Ostkreuz, Hbf and Spandau. This is enabled by the fact that train stations have much more limited footprints, and that multiple train stations in a city do not get in each other’s way.
com2kid 4y ago
Portland OR and San Diego are both tiny cities compared to the cities Japan has connected with hsr. Heck in China many of the "small" cities on HSR lines are larger then Portland OR.

Vancouver BC to Portland OR or San Diego to Sacramento and all thr cities in between could be competitive though. Its a shame that High Speed Rail is not a priority.

rhino369 4y ago

The sweet spot for HSP in North America is pretty small. The vast majority of people who could a ride afford already have a vehicle. And the vast majority of people don't live particularly close to a central rail station. So even though there already is a sort of high speed rail between DC and Philly, I, as resident in the suburbs, would probably just drive unless work was paying for ubers on both ends. Even if Acela was a true HSP rail, that wouldn't really change my calculus. So while there is a goldilocks zone where cars take too long and its too short for airplanes to be faster, it's probably not very viable.

kjkjadksj 4y ago
Why not turn your commute into a 5 min drive to the station, then a book?
- bmelton 4y ago
  I'm sure that works splendidly for some, but I used to commute into "the city" and while the commute itself wasn't particularly bad (thanks, Kindle!) it's still time spent commuting that isn't spent with my wife, my daughter, my dogs, or taking care of the neverending list of things that need to be done having bought an older home. If my circumstances were different, and that time was mostly recoverable as leisure then it's absolutely great advice, but it doesn't scale to every person.
  - burkaman 4y ago
    Why can't we build it then and have it work splendidly for some. There's a lot of people out there, it doesn't need to work for everybody. It would make your commute better too if half the drivers started taking a train instead.
    - rhino369 4y ago
      Because it costs hundreds of billions of dollars. Look how much California spent on a non-functional, slow, version to nowhere. You'd be much better off spending that money on local commuter rail, which is more or less a prerequisite for HSP to work anyway.
    - bmelton 4y ago
      Build / not build wasn't particularly what I was responding to. I think it's probably a good idea to build. Even if I didn't want to have it as part of my daily commute, there are still plenty of times it'd be useful to have more ways of getting places.
    - bbradley406 4y ago
      Because everybody is paying for it, when they (mostly) don't use it? I live in a city with decent buses, 3 street train lines and a commuter rail, and use the street lines frequently. Unless your departure and destination are right on the train line, you're still looking at a 1 hour - 2 hour commute with possible missed connections every step of the way. To canvas the city thoroughly you would need buses or trains running every 10 minutes, on every 3rd or 5th block. They would also need to be preferable to the alternative (a personal vehicle with no disruptive passengers, controlled climate, that is available when and where you need it). Do I love taking the train into the city center for a night on the town, or out to the airport to avoid parking? Absolutely. Will I sacrifice 3 hours out of my day just so that I can say I'm saving the planet? Probably not. The only way it would work would be some giant weave pattern of train lines where 1 car continues on, one departs left, and one departs right every stop. The budget and logistics of that would make it prohibitively expensive and prone to failure. There are also loads of reasons why people can't take transit (kids, cargo, late night / early morning schedules) and if they're not 80% solved, it will never catch on in the states.
      - burkaman 4y ago
        I understand what you're saying, but that just isn't really how any society works. You pay for schools you don't use, libraries most people don't use, healthcare for the old and poor, faraway parks you'll probably never visit, community colleges you'll never attend, etc. etc. etc. In return, your community and life gets remarkably better as you reap the indirect benefits of everyone around you receiving these services. In addition, people without cars pay for your roads and snowplows and pothole fillers, anti-vaccine activists pay for the vaccines you take, and so on. It's all a beautiful mutually dependent circle that makes the world go round.
- b112 4y ago
  Why not turn your commute into a 5 min drive to the station, then a book? Such a disconnect. If it was a 5 minute drive, in city, you could just walk there in 10. Parent effectively said "not close". So you suggest a 1 hour drive, a 2 hour train, instead of a 90 minute drive? (You also have to wait for the train to leave, wait for its stops along the way, and be there precisely on time (hence the wait at the start)). I find so many of the comments boil down to "I live deep in a city, never drive, and am in an entirely different geopolitical environment, but I know what makes sense for you!
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Public transit does not make sense outside of super dense areas. Having a system that takes people only from where they live to where they work is much more inconvenient when individual cars allow people to go from work to the kids’ sports game to Costco to a relatives house and then home. But that model of public transit is not tenable outside of places with density like Manhattan. Even in New York City, all the public transit is mostly focused on getting people into and out of Manhattan, so people in outer boroughs like to have cars. This is what a public transit map that would compete with the convenience of individual cars would look like: https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/ https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/ Contrast with the best that the USA can do: https://new.mta.info/map/5256 https://new.mta.info/map/5256 Not that Tokyo is perfect, but it still has a far greater radius that link with each other without going to the central district.
- rhino369 4y ago
  The station that is 5 min near me is like a 30 minute subway ride (plus 0-20 minute wait) to Union Station in DC. Then I'd have to switch to Acela (with some wait time probably 30 minutes for a safety buffer). And my house is too expensive because I'm only 5 minute from the subway. The vast majority of people have to live further. If I was going to downtown Philly, might be worth it. But if I wasn't, then driving would absolutely be a lot fast. Since I'd have to navigate the last miles there adding more time. The ability to just leave whenever I want without having to connect a bunch of train rides is pretty valuable even if it took longer. EDIT: and to make it clear, I'm not a suburanite who is allergic to public transport. Until a year ago, I lived in the city and didn't have a personal car. And even now, I'd take Acela to NYC rather than fly or drive. It just doesn't make sense for other stops on the way like Philly, Wilmington, Baltimore. And Boston would take too long on Acela, and I'd fly instead.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I usually take the train from where I am in the western suburbs of Boston to NYC. But... doing so requires driving an hour in basically the wrong direction to the suburban Amtrak station. And then it takes longer than driving directly would. The only reason I do it is that I hate driving into Manhattan and parking there. Whereas when I arrive by train I can just walk to my hotel. And, yeah, for Boston to DC I'll typically fly. The train is viable and I've done it but it's a full day trip vs. a short flight. And one of the airports is right on the metro vs. the NYC airports which are not.
    - jdmichal 4y ago
      > And one of the [DC] airports is right on the metro As of November 2022, the DC silver metro line now includes Dulles International (IAD). So both of the major airports are now directly connected. https://www.wmata.com/rider-guide/silver-line-extension/Washington-Dulles-International-Airport.cfm https://www.wmata.com/rider-guide/silver-line-extension/Wash...
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Does the regional stop any closer to you?
bobthepanda 4y ago
The neat thing about trains is that they can stop multiple times in a metropolitan area. In Tokyo your options to Osaka are Tokyo station, Shinagawa and Yokohama; in Berlin they usually stop at Ostkreuz, Hbf and Spandau. This is enabled by the fact that train stations have much more limited footprints, and that multiple train stations in a city do not get in each other’s way.

com2kid 4y ago

Portland OR and San Diego are both tiny cities compared to the cities Japan has connected with hsr. Heck in China many of the "small" cities on HSR lines are larger then Portland OR.