4 ms·

I think the problem few people talk about is the small, in-city rail lines that used to exist that don't anymore. 100 years ago the city I live in had dedicated

I think the problem few people talk about is the small, in-city rail lines that used to exist that don't anymore. 100 years ago the city I live in had dedicated rail lines going to every major factory in the city - there was little need for last-mile trucking. AFAIK there are no western cities that are organized like this anymore, so the best you can do is deliver goods to a rail station and truck it from there - this requires a bunch of temporary storage space to transfer cargo and delays everything. Here's another example - look at all the little rail branch lines servicing parts of 1944 Boston: https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/img4/ht_icons/overlay/MA/MA_Boston%20South_350033_1944_24000_geo.jpg https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/img4/ht_icons/overlay/MA/MA_Boston%20... I don't know how you bring that back after decades of building for cars.

ThunderSizzle 3y ago
Same way you have excessive oversized lots/parking for 5 side-by-side fast food restaurants - zoning. Just require distribution centers or warehouses to require a rail connection to the state's rail infrastructure to be approved for construction. If no rail connection exists, then the state will negotiate who pays for what to extend the network to it.
- ericmay 3y ago
  Zoning is a problem, but it's not the only problem there. I think there are at least two more good ones we could discuss: 1. We actually do not have a market mechanic that exists in the United States that allows people to choose properly dense homes or neighborhoods because of a number of reasons. Search tools and things like that focus on metrics like square footage or number of bathrooms, and so people select for that "bigger is better" "more is better". 2. State departments of highways (they don't do anything besides that in most states) consist of individuals and contractor companies who have become adept and normal with building highways, and so all of the organizational inertia is on building anything that looks like a highway for the safety of drivers, to the detriment of everyone else. Since only highways get funded and built in most of the country, we end up having other companies like fast-food restaurants build in ways that cater to the driving demographic.
  - chockablock 3y ago
    Sorry 1 does not make sense. It's not like I bid on a house based on its square footage, and then only find out the address when I win. Even in the US, walkability scores, satellite photos, maps of transit and bike lanes, commute estimates, are all common enough on real estate sites. I think you just be seeing may be observing people's expressed preferences.
    - ericmay 3y ago
      When you go online to use a search tool like Zillow, the main categories and features used to search are price, square footage, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms. There are no filters or options for things like proximity to a park or coffee shop, neighborhood demographics, whether the neighborhood has events or a civic organization, or other relevant information. There is no scorecard for whether or not a home is architecturally sound (I.e. symmetrical, built with proper materials for the environment, etc.) either. You actually have to look through dozens or hundreds of homes yourself. Items like walkability scores which are displayed on websites like Zillow are good, but they don’t really tell you much about how actually walkable an area is. They’re also not a primary feature in the search utilities.
ChainOfFools 3y ago
I live in a city that has some of these going through it, and I can say that my opinions changed dramatically after moving here, with respect to this idea. Our real estate agent, in hindsight, had employed numerous subtle tactics to discourage us from taking serious interest in homes that were within a quarter mile or so of these lines, although I was completely oblivious to what they were doing at the time. What I did not appreciate, but they did, is that these rails can bring an absolutely astonishing amount of noise into a town, and behind that a long trail of associated social ills. There is a gradual sifting of residents within a certain distance of these trains, based on who is either loud themselves and thus doesn't mind, or else must tolerate the amount of noise these things make. Our town is old enough that some of the 'nicer' neighborhoods predate the introduction of the rails, so there isn't a strong confounding signal of 'bad' neighborhood correlation at work here. In at least one case there was a house we pushed past our agent's scheduling machinations to see for ourselves, and would likely have closed on had we not happened to visit at just the right time, when a multi-engined repositioning train (which we had no idea was a very common guest on what we thought was a mild mannered commuter rail line) came through. Though unseen and multiple blocks away, it still shook the floorboards as it passed.
- Varriount 3y ago
  What kinds of noise do the trains produce? Do you think there are any ways to lessen it, and/or have any been implemented? (I'm thinking something like sound barriers).
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    Not a rail expert, not even a casual spectator. But my unstudied impression is that the noise that penetrates the most is the ultra-low frequency rumble that comes from the diesel side of the drivetrain, with a secondary source being steel on steel squealing of bogeys around bends at the minimal range of their tolerance. But the latter doesn't have the penetrating power of the former, not by a long shot, so to eliminate that I'm not sure if barrier would really have much of an effect. A lot of these in-town runs actually do have some sort of barrier already. Instead powertrain would have to somehow switch entirely to battery while moving through sound propagating areas, and I'm assuming (maybe generously) that this is not already being done for some thorny technical reason and not just due to systemic inertia and complacency.
calamari4065 3y ago
The Toyota plant in Georgetown, KY is built on a freight railway. It's a fairly new plant and still expanding.
berniedurfee 3y ago
There’s a local lumber yard near us with an operational rail line on site. They’ve survived the onslaught of big box stores and are thriving. I imagine that rail line makes a big difference in being able to keep up with the logistics advantages of 6 big box stores within 30 minutes.

ThunderSizzle 3y ago

Same way you have excessive oversized lots/parking for 5 side-by-side fast food restaurants - zoning. Just require distribution centers or warehouses to require a rail connection to the state's rail infrastructure to be approved for construction. If no rail connection exists, then the state will negotiate who pays for what to extend the network to it.

ericmay 3y ago
Zoning is a problem, but it's not the only problem there. I think there are at least two more good ones we could discuss: 1. We actually do not have a market mechanic that exists in the United States that allows people to choose properly dense homes or neighborhoods because of a number of reasons. Search tools and things like that focus on metrics like square footage or number of bathrooms, and so people select for that "bigger is better" "more is better". 2. State departments of highways (they don't do anything besides that in most states) consist of individuals and contractor companies who have become adept and normal with building highways, and so all of the organizational inertia is on building anything that looks like a highway for the safety of drivers, to the detriment of everyone else. Since only highways get funded and built in most of the country, we end up having other companies like fast-food restaurants build in ways that cater to the driving demographic.
- chockablock 3y ago
  Sorry 1 does not make sense. It's not like I bid on a house based on its square footage, and then only find out the address when I win. Even in the US, walkability scores, satellite photos, maps of transit and bike lanes, commute estimates, are all common enough on real estate sites. I think you just be seeing may be observing people's expressed preferences.
  - ericmay 3y ago
    When you go online to use a search tool like Zillow, the main categories and features used to search are price, square footage, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms. There are no filters or options for things like proximity to a park or coffee shop, neighborhood demographics, whether the neighborhood has events or a civic organization, or other relevant information. There is no scorecard for whether or not a home is architecturally sound (I.e. symmetrical, built with proper materials for the environment, etc.) either. You actually have to look through dozens or hundreds of homes yourself. Items like walkability scores which are displayed on websites like Zillow are good, but they don’t really tell you much about how actually walkable an area is. They’re also not a primary feature in the search utilities.

ChainOfFools 3y ago

I live in a city that has some of these going through it, and I can say that my opinions changed dramatically after moving here, with respect to this idea. Our real estate agent, in hindsight, had employed numerous subtle tactics to discourage us from taking serious interest in homes that were within a quarter mile or so of these lines, although I was completely oblivious to what they were doing at the time. What I did not appreciate, but they did, is that these rails can bring an absolutely astonishing amount of noise into a town, and behind that a long trail of associated social ills. There is a gradual sifting of residents within a certain distance of these trains, based on who is either loud themselves and thus doesn't mind, or else must tolerate the amount of noise these things make. Our town is old enough that some of the 'nicer' neighborhoods predate the introduction of the rails, so there isn't a strong confounding signal of 'bad' neighborhood correlation at work here. In at least one case there was a house we pushed past our agent's scheduling machinations to see for ourselves, and would likely have closed on had we not happened to visit at just the right time, when a multi-engined repositioning train (which we had no idea was a very common guest on what we thought was a mild mannered commuter rail line) came through. Though unseen and multiple blocks away, it still shook the floorboards as it passed.

Varriount 3y ago
What kinds of noise do the trains produce? Do you think there are any ways to lessen it, and/or have any been implemented? (I'm thinking something like sound barriers).
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  Not a rail expert, not even a casual spectator. But my unstudied impression is that the noise that penetrates the most is the ultra-low frequency rumble that comes from the diesel side of the drivetrain, with a secondary source being steel on steel squealing of bogeys around bends at the minimal range of their tolerance. But the latter doesn't have the penetrating power of the former, not by a long shot, so to eliminate that I'm not sure if barrier would really have much of an effect. A lot of these in-town runs actually do have some sort of barrier already. Instead powertrain would have to somehow switch entirely to battery while moving through sound propagating areas, and I'm assuming (maybe generously) that this is not already being done for some thorny technical reason and not just due to systemic inertia and complacency.

calamari4065 3y ago

The Toyota plant in Georgetown, KY is built on a freight railway. It's a fairly new plant and still expanding.

berniedurfee 3y ago

There’s a local lumber yard near us with an operational rail line on site. They’ve survived the onslaught of big box stores and are thriving. I imagine that rail line makes a big difference in being able to keep up with the logistics advantages of 6 big box stores within 30 minutes.