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But that's again because these trains are run for profit, cutting every corner they can, and underpaying their employees. I'd prefer to see trains nationalised

by mcv 4y ago

But that's again because these trains are run for profit, cutting every corner they can, and underpaying their employees. I'd prefer to see trains nationalised and run as national infrastructure with the goal of luring more commuters into mass transit. Because that will mean enormous savings in pollution, traffic jams, noise, and road maintenance.

robertlagrant 4y ago
Even when they were nationalised they were terrible. The biggest problem isn't whether it's for profit or not. The biggest problem is the relatively vast value for money, and value in general, of cars, even with extremely large fuel taxes imposed. People don't want to pay a lot of money for transport because they've seen how much value a car gives, and so having the cost and large numbers of people required to operate a really high quality train would require more than anything raising ticket prices significantly.
- Retric 4y ago
  Car travel is only “cheap” per trip because people have already sunk the costs into owning, insuring, and parking their car and paying for roads. Fuel taxes don’t even come close to paying for our road networks while rail is lumping all these costs together on a per trip basis.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    It's still cheap compared to that. If you want an emergency services vehicles to get to your house you need a road anyway. If you want buses and coaches to function, you need roads. If you want to transport a bootload of stuff more than three times a year you're financially better off paying for a car than renting. If yor kids have school anywhere that isn't walking/cycling distance from your house, then you need a car, or two. If you have a job, and don't want to be beholden to a very local employer, you likely need a car. Except if you live close to a train station and your job is close to another one. And except in the last five years, when some jobs can now be remote. If you want to go anywhere that a train doesn't go, you need a car, probably. Which is everywhere outside of extremely high density urban areas that can afford an underground rail system. You need any of those things to be true for a road to be needed. You likely need a car for all but the first two. Cars and roads are valuable. I don't see how that's debatable. Trains are now location-specific optimisations where we know we have hotspots of usefulness, where it's worth laying track and having massive investment as enough people will use that route. Just as a circuit-switched phone call is a better connection, but packet-switched is better overall, and cheaper, so are trains and cars.
    - Retric 4y ago
      A public road network for cars needs a great deal of infrastructure that a public network for busses and ambulances would. Literally every single street in NYC could be single lane, one way, without any street level parking if you’re not building for cars. Further, the demands of traffic directly relate to the kinds of roads, bridges etc you can get away with building and their cost to maintain. You also have several objectively false statements here such as: “If yor kids have school anywhere that isn't walking/cycling distance from your house, then you need a car, or two.” Except 100’s of millions of people currently live further than “cycling distance” from their kids school and don’t own a car. Frankly cars didn’t exist until very recently and society was fine without them.

by mcv 4y ago

robertlagrant 4y ago

Even when they were nationalised they were terrible. The biggest problem isn't whether it's for profit or not. The biggest problem is the relatively vast value for money, and value in general, of cars, even with extremely large fuel taxes imposed. People don't want to pay a lot of money for transport because they've seen how much value a car gives, and so having the cost and large numbers of people required to operate a really high quality train would require more than anything raising ticket prices significantly.

Retric 4y ago
Car travel is only “cheap” per trip because people have already sunk the costs into owning, insuring, and parking their car and paying for roads. Fuel taxes don’t even come close to paying for our road networks while rail is lumping all these costs together on a per trip basis.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  It's still cheap compared to that. If you want an emergency services vehicles to get to your house you need a road anyway. If you want buses and coaches to function, you need roads. If you want to transport a bootload of stuff more than three times a year you're financially better off paying for a car than renting. If yor kids have school anywhere that isn't walking/cycling distance from your house, then you need a car, or two. If you have a job, and don't want to be beholden to a very local employer, you likely need a car. Except if you live close to a train station and your job is close to another one. And except in the last five years, when some jobs can now be remote. If you want to go anywhere that a train doesn't go, you need a car, probably. Which is everywhere outside of extremely high density urban areas that can afford an underground rail system. You need any of those things to be true for a road to be needed. You likely need a car for all but the first two. Cars and roads are valuable. I don't see how that's debatable. Trains are now location-specific optimisations where we know we have hotspots of usefulness, where it's worth laying track and having massive investment as enough people will use that route. Just as a circuit-switched phone call is a better connection, but packet-switched is better overall, and cheaper, so are trains and cars.
  - Retric 4y ago
    A public road network for cars needs a great deal of infrastructure that a public network for busses and ambulances would. Literally every single street in NYC could be single lane, one way, without any street level parking if you’re not building for cars. Further, the demands of traffic directly relate to the kinds of roads, bridges etc you can get away with building and their cost to maintain. You also have several objectively false statements here such as: “If yor kids have school anywhere that isn't walking/cycling distance from your house, then you need a car, or two.” Except 100’s of millions of people currently live further than “cycling distance” from their kids school and don’t own a car. Frankly cars didn’t exist until very recently and society was fine without them.