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Incorrect. The US is made up of a huge swath of towns and cities that wouldn’t even exist without railways. https://vividmaps.com/railroads-in-america/ https:/
by dangus 3y ago
Incorrect. The US is made up of a huge swath of towns and cities that wouldn’t even exist without railways.
https://vividmaps.com/railroads-in-america/ https://vividmaps.com/railroads-in-america/
You say that every other method of travel is more expensive…but that doesn’t really pass the sniff test, does it?
The Big Dig in Boston adjusted for inflation cost more than New York City’s “world’s most expensive stretch of subway.” The California high speed rail project, also notoriously expensive, is in the same ballpark.
We just assume trains cost more money because we put the blindfolds on for highways. Voters salivate over highway expansions because they loathe being stuck in traffic, while the reality is that this style of building induces demand while more transit options make driving better.
I often think about how thousands of American businesses pay for short-hop commercial flights between destinations like New York and Pittsburgh where a proper high speed train could cover that distance in about 2 hours including stops. How much money are we paying employees to show up at the airport 90 minutes early and put their laptops away for takeoff and landing when they could spend the whole train ride productive?
I know my company will pay for a checked bag as a travel expense. How much money is wasted on putting bags in airplane holds? It must be billions!
Car ownership has huge personal costs (car purchase, operation, depreciation, maintenance), collective costs paid by taxes (maintenance of roads, etc), and societal costs that nobody really pays for (excess deaths from crashes, pollution, opportunity costs).
I’d like to know which method of travel besides cars costs an average of $5,000 per person per year on a personal spending basis before even starting to put tax money toward road maintenance. That number balloons to $10,000 if you buy cars new.
Which country’s train system kills 30,000 people annually? Which train system emits more pollution per passenger mile than a car?
If cars are the cheapest way to get around, explain why the poorest countries have the lowest car ownership. Shouldn’t they all be jumping on cars and highways if it’s so cost efficient? Maybe all those people getting on trains in Mumbai should head down to their local Tri-County Ford dealer!
- fallingknife 3y agoIn the poorest countries the most common substitutes for driving are either just not traveling long distances or busses, not trains. Working train networks are very rare in third world countries. So, yeah, they are jumping on cars and highways, just not cars they own personally.
- Moldoteck 3y agoImo it's matter of political will. They could just redirect money spent on roads& highways to build a good rail infra between major cities for 5 years and ppl would use them. Govs on the other hand prefer to spend money on car infra an subsidize it(pretty minimal costs of owning a car despite of big infra costs, free parking, not accounting for environment damage, etc...
- dangus 3y agoThe African continent already has more “true” high speed rail miles than the USA in Morocco and is planning a continent-wide network. https://northeastmaglev.com/2023/04/06/the-status-of-high-speed-rail-africa/ https://northeastmaglev.com/2023/04/06/the-status-of-high-sp... We can be cynical and say this project is falling behind but it’s embarrassing that the richest country in the world has no such infrastructure plan and no presently operating high speed train that exceeds 150 mph. You’d think that some of the larger metro areas would be connected with such a service in the world’s wealthiest nation. America’s largest metro area is in a concentrated urban area that is continuously developed from Massachusetts to Washington DC with no rural area in between. But the best you get there is a train service that sometimes reaches 150 mph and only saves a sliver of time compared to a conventional train. The second most wealthy nation has more high speed rail miles than the rest of the world combined. You’d think that the wealthiest country would at least be in the top 10 list.
- AniseAbyss 3y ago[dead]
- joecool1029 3y ago> Which country’s train system kills 30,000 people annually? India's getting close: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/every-hour-two-die-by-falling-off-train-or-getting-run-over-in-india-up-clocks-six-deaths-every-day/articleshow/77896799.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/every-hour-...
- dangus 3y agoNow look at India’s traffic deaths. Over 200,000 per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...