4 ms·
I'm curious what you intend by your comparison to the Russian train system -- Russia has more distance to cover/is more spread out, but the U.S. has over twice
by gcanyon 2y ago
I'm curious what you intend by your comparison to the Russian train system -- Russia has more distance to cover/is more spread out, but the U.S. has over twice as many miles of track. I'm pretty confident that that comparison doesn't hold if we compare passenger rail miles, but I think the point is that the track is there in the U.S., it's just that few people here find passenger rail compelling as an alternative to car/plane transportation.
- cenamus 2y agoThe US also has over 2x as many people and wayyyy more wealth
- rcbdev 2y agoThe quality of life, in times of peace, does seem comparable to that of rural U.S.. Adding to that, U.S. households are orders of magnitude more personally indebted than Russia. I don't buy the "wealth" argument. A nation's wealth says little about how wealthy, in practice, its residents are.
- aziaziazi 2y agoI share most of your view. There's no physic problem in the US against more train usage. I'm not a politician but it seems there's so many more public incentives in favor of cars and planes that it's a more sensible choice for Americans to use them. Trains are not intrinsically worse in the US, they just aren't helped the same way roads, fuel and airports are.