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It is often cheaper in the US to fly than to take the train. If it is the same in Spain, it might have been price conscious consumers.
by novia 3y ago
It is often cheaper in the US to fly than to take the train. If it is the same in Spain, it might have been price conscious consumers.
- jncfhnb 3y agoIt’s not like the US passenger trains have the capacity to absorb those fliers though. I’m guessing Spain is the same…
- vidarh 3y ago> I’m guessing Spain is the same… Spain has massively expanded a high-speed rail network in recent years, and now has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe, and second longest in the world after China. A lot of that has been built separately to the pre-existing rail network, and so has added a lot of additional capacity.
- Manuel_D 3y agoThe US often has cities spaced too far apart to make trains effective. The one exception is the Northeast corridor, which consequently does have a passenger rail line.
- vidarh 3y agoVery few rail corridors in the US are so sparsely populated that they can't be as cost-effective as in Europe, with the caveat that this doesn't mean cheap - a whole lot of European routes are heavily subsidised. E.g. even the old closed Amtrak corridor through Southern Montana would today serve more people than some perfectly viable routes in Norway, over a similar stretch (and there is work underway to try to resurrect it). But flights are often cheaper in Europe too despite subsidies for rail. Outside of the busiest corridors trains works best in those places where it's competing with cars or buses, not planes.
- theluketaylor 3y ago> But flights are often cheaper in Europe too despite subsidies for rail That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. Decades ago the EU punted on the complex topic of charging taxes on avgas and that is a key contributor to the existence of cheap airlines like ryanair.
- redeeman 3y ago> That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. okay, so by not taking money from them, we are... giving them money?
- novia 3y agoWhy not just remove the subsidies for domestic flights that are 2.5 hours away by train instead of banning them?
- acdha 3y agoIt’s not fast enough any more. The fossil fuel companies were successful at preventing action for decades and in the intervening half century multiple generations of people have grown accustomed to cheap air travel. Making it more expensive will gradually reduce usage but that’s a slow process and there are a number of companies which didn’t even exist back when the science denial campaign started who would be trying their hardest to slow it down.
- theluketaylor 3y agoThe CityNerd youtube channel recently did a list of city pairs ideally suited for high speed rail based on Spain's own network. spoiler alert: the northeast corridor plays a pretty heavy part, but it's not the only place in the US high speed rail makes a ton of sense. Highly recommended. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4
- Cheer2171 3y agoNope. City distance in the continental US excluding the Northeast is similar to China. Distance is just the excuse.
- Manuel_D 3y agoThis is not even remotely true. China has 4x the population in roughly the same landmass. And most of that is concentrated in the eastern part of the country (Tibet and inner Mongolia are sparsely populated, but very large). I'd be very, very interested in where you found this claim that China's cities have the same average distance between them as US cities. Wouldn't be surprised if they used totally different criteria for a Chinese city and a US city. I would be astounded if the median distance between cities of >500k people is the same in China as in the USA.
- vidarh 3y agoI have no idea about how reasonable or not their claim is, but I'd note that most of the US population is, while not concentrated only in the East, concentrated heavily. Even in most the lower population density states, most of the population is within tiny part of the area of those states, often in corridors where most of the larger towns are still relatively close to at least a few other large towns. So whether or not they're right, distance largely is an excuse. Trains will not work between every pair of cities in the US, but it doesn't need to - very few US cities are so isolated that train will not work to several nearby cities. The average distance isn't very important, as long as the cities are clustered enough to create viable lines.
- Manuel_D 3y agoMeasuring average distance between cities is incredibly naive, that's my whole point. If countries A and B both have 100 cities in the sam land area, except country A has 50 cities over 1 million people and country B only has 10 cities over 1 million then one of these is still much more viable even if average distance between cities is the same. You're right that if all 10 of those larg cities in country A are really close then it may be viable. But that's not the case in America, save for the Northeast corridor which is already served by passenger rail.
- beretguy 3y agoI’m from US. I didn’t know we have passenger trains.
- mandeepj 3y ago> I didn’t know we have passenger trains. Amtrak
- kjkjadksj 3y agoAnd much faster. It takes almost a full day to take amtrak from the west coast to denver. Not much has changed since the transcontinental railroad opened I guess.