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This was a great read. As an American who is currently living in France, I'm always blown away by how easy it is for me to get just about anywhere via train.
by kylegalbraith 2y ago
This was a great read. As an American who is currently living in France, I'm always blown away by how easy it is for me to get just about anywhere via train.
- Nesco 2y agoAmerica is way less dense than France and Europe at large. Only in BoWash such an high density network would make sense
- jltsiren 2y agoAlmost 2/3 of Americans live in states with population density comparable to Europe. The real issue is that the density is too uniform to make rail a viable form of transportation. If you take a major American city and the surrounding suburbs and drop it in Europe, it will likely cover several cities, their suburbs, and rural land between the cities.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoAs @jltsiren noted, this is a false equivalence. You need to compare the population densities where most people actually live, not overall density. When you do that, a very different picture emerges.
- mikepurvis 2y agoI don't think this argument really holds up in a world where China built twenty-eight thousand miles of HSR in two decades, a lot of it connecting disparate urban areas much like what the US has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin...
- Nesco 2y agoThose lines generate insane losses just to operate and maintain them