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As someone who recently moved to the Texas triangle, I’m baffled by the lack of good transportation options between the three cities. It’s a 3-4 hour drive and
by matthewfcarlson 3y ago
As someone who recently moved to the Texas triangle, I’m baffled by the lack of good transportation options between the three cities. It’s a 3-4 hour drive and while there is a train, freight gets priority. So the train takes anywhere from 3-7 hours. You can fly but with security any sort of delay and it would faster to drive.
- laweijfmvo 3y agoother than maybe parts of the Northeast Corridor, do any of the othe "megaregions" solve that problem?
- ddoolin 3y agoPerhaps Central FL - Miami on the Brightline?
- basil-rash 3y agoLA/OxnardVentura/SanDiego is an easy train. As is Portland/Seattle.
- mulmen 3y agoDoes the Portland/Seattle train get priority over freight?
- NewJazz 3y agoProbably not, but light rail will get you around the Puget Sound pretty easy. https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/maps https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/maps
- mulmen 3y agoPuget Sound is an enormous geographic region. Light rail doesn’t even serve most of Seattle’s needs (yet). There’s currently one line to the airport. The largest residential neighborhoods in the city aren’t even close. It’s not viable for “getting around” outside of very narrow cases. It’s a backbone for a system that is still being built.
- basil-rash 3y agoProbably not, but then why should it? Freight is a massive industry for port cities, not to mention the huge amount of downstream folks across the country that depend on them. A few folks being a bit later on their already-long journey is hardly too steep a price to pay for the continued efficiency of the rail network.
- mulmen 3y agoI think you lost track of the context. You claimed Portland/Seattle is an easy train in response to someone asking if it solves the problem of freight priorities. I’m not here to debate transit philosophy.
- basil-rash 3y agoTrain scheduling is not a simple binary “freight gets priority = problem, passengers get priority = no problem” matter. The GP referred to a specific implementation of a priority system in which passengers could be delayed for more than the base length of their trip, which presumably makes planning around taking the train quite difficult. This is the “problem” with it. Someone else asked if the other areas experience that problem. I said the Portland/Seattle and LA/SanDiego trains do not. That doesn’t mean they don’t have some variety of a prioritization scheme whereby freight often goes in front of passengers, it means they don’t experience the specific problem GP referred to whereby passengers can experience massive delays more than doubling the length of their trip. This in turn makes commenting via train in these areas comparatively “easy”.
- seadan83 3y agoNo. Was on one while we were waiting for a freight train. Conductor even had a funny comment about how we were waiting for a priority <cough> Amazon prime packages </cough> train.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- NewJazz 3y agoTrain tracks to SD get washed away every year it seems.
- bombcar 3y agoThe San Diego - LA basin is moderately well covered, but the train is still slower than driving - most of the time. Unless you have exceptionally fast and direct rail, the train is almost always slower than driving, even in Europe, when counted door to door.
- tensor 3y agoThis is definitely not true. Europes high speed trains are far far faster than driving. For example, Rome to Milan via italo is 3h - 3h 40min while driving is 6h. Even the "normal high speed" train is only ~5h. Similarly Marseille to Paris is only 3.5h by train while driving is almost 8h. It entirely depends on your source and destination. Between major economic hubs train is usually faster than driving, and as you can see by a significant amount. For other routes the train is similar or slightly slower. In North America, on the other hand, the train is almost always MUCH MUCH slower than driving, if you can take it at all. Not to mention far more expensive.
- sarchertech 3y agoThe OP said “unless you have exceptionally fast rail” and was talking door to door. When you add in getting to the station, waiting on a train to arrive, and getting from the station to your destination, the average speed of the train does need to be a good deal faster.
- tensor 3y agoThe context of this thread is travel between major economic hubs. So if you are in say Rome, it does not take 30 min to get to the station. Also, the OPs wording made it sound rare, especially given his claim that it is rare, but the examples I gave are typical, not rare.
- NewJazz 3y agoBut it could take an hour to get from where you want to go in Houston to/from the station. Houston is not Rome!
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoBasically every city near Chicago has a decent train line to get there.
- goodmattg 3y agoIt's true, lack of highly available public transportation between the cities puts us behind other regions (not to mention other countries). I've been doing the ATX -> HTX drive for years. Best private alternative I've found is Vonlane (https://vonlane.com/ https://vonlane.com/) - takes longer than flying but it's a business class bus so you can get work done.
- albrewer 3y agoA plan to connect Houston to Dallas with a bullet train has been grinding its way along for years now[0]. Since Texas is loath to use eminent domain, the planning phase has been stalled for a loooong time. [0]: https://www.texascentral.com/project/ https://www.texascentral.com/project/ Edit: Whoops, wrong project. Still, the plans are there, we just need willing politicians.
- basil-rash 3y agoRephrased, Texans think the rights of private land owners matter more than the latest politician’s talking points. The people downvoting this have clearly never had government agents steal anything from them. Or believe that when they do, it’s always “for the greater good”.
- nickpp 3y agoIt's interesting that the government can't convince owners to sell. I mean - we're talking about politicians. They manage to negotiate everything and compromise even in the middle of wars. See prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine right now. Or Israel and Hamas. Worst enemies and they can still find a compromise. It can't be just about money - governments successfully negotiate with unions that hold the whole country over a barrel with strikes of essential services. But eminent domain to build vital infrastructure? No - forced confiscation is the only solution. Strange.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoImagine that you had to negotiate with a homeowner. You could find a price where you could buy their property. Now imagine that you had to negotiate with 10,000 homeowners. At least one of them is going to insist that their place is worth one billion dollars and count on you caving because they can hold up the entire project. That's why forced confiscation - because people try to hold the project hostage for ransom.
- nickpp 3y ago
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- _sys49152 3y agothe top down purview is that texas is an oil state.
- chasd00 3y agoThat triangle is why Southwest Airlines exists. I think the original brainstorming napkin drawing of the triangle routes is on display at Dallas Lovefield airport.
- NewJazz 3y agoOK but was that before or after 2001?
- gregw2 3y ago1967 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Southwest_Airlines#:~:text=Southwest%20Airlines%20began%20with%20the,King's%2C%20Kelleher%20was%20his%20lawyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Southwest_Airlines#.... also https://southwest50.com/our-stories/when-herb-met-rollin-the-birth-of-southwest-airlines/#:~:text=Less%20than%20a%20year%20after,name%20to%20Southwest%20Airlines%20Co https://southwest50.com/our-stories/when-herb-met-rollin-the....
- leetharris 3y agoCheck out Vonlane. They are deluxe buses that cover the Texas triangle. We use them for work to move our guys between Houston / Austin regularly and people seem to love it. It's pretty cheap, comfortable, and has wifi.
- bradstewart 3y agoCame here to say this. Great service.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoWill second (third?) Vonlane. After using them, I don't understand why anyone would prefer a flight between Austin and Houston compared to Vonlane. The time is about the same when you factor in the hassle of airport security, and Vonlane goes downtown-to-downtown. The bus is super comfortable with big seats (comparable to domestic first class on an airline) and the service when I've gone has been fantastic. I can also get a ton of work done on the trip if so desired. Once I went and there was an accident on the route that made the trip from Austin to Houston about 45 mins longer, but I didn't care at all as the bus was so nice to work in.
- dbspin 3y agoCheap? I just checked there and Austin to Dallas return is 270 dollars... On a bus. That's just incomprehensibly expensive to me (as a European).
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoThey're priced that way because they compete with shuttle flights, and most importantly, they are far from a normal "bus" experience - the images shown at https://vonlane.com/ https://vonlane.com/ are accurate IMO.
- dbspin 3y agoSure, I think the price is reasonable for the service. Calling it 'cheap' is a stretch however.
- joshuaheard 3y agoDriving from Houston to Austin, there is not even a freeway. It's highway with traffic lights and small town speed reductions.