3 ms·

The question is, where? Most of the midwest is empty, same with other states. You have very dense areas in the east coast, which already leverage a large trai

The question is, where? Most of the midwest is empty, same with other states. You have very dense areas in the east coast, which already leverage a large train network. In the west coast, Oregon and WA already have trains connecting their largest cities (Portland/Seattle/Vancouver). California has caltrain, and internal city trains. In the USA, for passengers, it makes much more sense to fly than trains, the infrastructure costs and time costs of trains vs planes don't make sense.

ocschwar 2y ago
I'll put it this way: if it were easy and efficient to take a train from Chicago to Bloomington, Dubuque, Rockford, Ft. Wayne, every one of these places would make the effort to make it worthwhile to ride that train. Instead we just accept that all these places are effectively served by Chicago's OHare Airport, and there's no reason to travel among these places.
undersuit 2y ago
The density is a function of our travel system. Putting dedicated passenger train routes into the US to connect the biggest cities would lead to the smaller cities along the routes receiving increased immigration. Every city has a road through it to do the same thing. >In the USA, for passengers, it makes much more sense to fly than trains You don't live in the midwest I take it. It makes more sense to drive than to take a flight that passes you through one of the airline hubs for most every trip that is less than 400 miles.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  So, most trips.
itishappy 2y ago
"We have rail at home" Rail at home: > Boston to Buffalo: 11h32m
jcranmer 2y ago
> Most of the midwest is empty, same with other states. Most of the Midwest has the same functional density as Europe. Indeed, if you overlay a map of France on the Midwest, with Paris centered on Chicago, you'll find that there are cities of comparable sizes at comparable distances. The Great Empty largely exists only on the plains and the mountainous west, where all but the most ardent fantasists concede that no passenger system is viable. But most of the population in the US lives in or near a city that would have viable high-speed rail destinations!
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Now compare walkability. You're going to have to rent a car when you get there anyway, may as well just drive.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    One time I had a weekend of working in a small village about 30 minutes by train outside of Munich. I got off the plane, took a train into Munich Hbf, took another train to the village. The trains ran every 20 minutes. "You're going to have to rent a car" is a statement about historical US development patterns and political/economic decisions, not any sort of inevitable or immutable state of nature. As such, it is subject to change. It hasn't even been a century since flying around the country was an option (and for many, not even a half century), if you need a reminder that things can and do change ...
    - bongodongobob 2y ago
      Of course it's the state of affairs. Redistricting and changing the natural flow of a city isn't super reasonable in less than a couple generations at best. You're going to convince everyone they need to rebuild their city and way of life? This really pisses people off.
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        If you look up historical photos and maps from a hundred years ago, one of the thing that you notice is that even pretty small towns in the US had local streetcars. In modern days, these same towns would be equally well served with small bus routes (you don't need all the infrastructure costs of a streetcar system, after all). But also note that there's a strong directionality to trips--a lot of these are going to be "going from Podunk, Ohio to Chicago" not "Chicago to Podunk, Ohio", so the unsuitability of Podunk, Ohio to effective transit isn't that detrimental. There is a separate problem that bus transit in the US is almost invariably horribly laid out, but that has more to do with the US being culturally incapable of planning transit well, and especially the US being incurious about how transit works in places where it does work. Essentially, there's a blind spot (even among transit enthusiasts, annoyingly) that assumes that transit on anything less in scale than Manhattan is infeasible, so transit planning is equated with Manhattanization where it doesn't need to be.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
No, no and no. The rectangle defined by Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Des Moines is about as densely populated as most of Europe. Ditto for a triangle like that in TX, and another polygon with one vertex in Atlanta. The east coast train network is not "large" given the population size. It consists of a primary line (Amtrak), and very little else given the population living with (say) 200 miles of that line. Ditto Caltrain, which compared to European service for similarly populated areas is incredibly limited. The line between Portland and Vancouver may yet see the sort of service you'd expect on that route if you were European, but it does not have it yet. The trains are relatively infrequent, and not very fast. Let's not talk about the customs/border situation either.

ocschwar 2y ago

I'll put it this way: if it were easy and efficient to take a train from Chicago to Bloomington, Dubuque, Rockford, Ft. Wayne, every one of these places would make the effort to make it worthwhile to ride that train. Instead we just accept that all these places are effectively served by Chicago's OHare Airport, and there's no reason to travel among these places.

undersuit 2y ago

The density is a function of our travel system. Putting dedicated passenger train routes into the US to connect the biggest cities would lead to the smaller cities along the routes receiving increased immigration. Every city has a road through it to do the same thing. >In the USA, for passengers, it makes much more sense to fly than trains You don't live in the midwest I take it. It makes more sense to drive than to take a flight that passes you through one of the airline hubs for most every trip that is less than 400 miles.

bongodongobob 2y ago
So, most trips.

itishappy 2y ago

"We have rail at home" Rail at home: > Boston to Buffalo: 11h32m

jcranmer 2y ago

> Most of the midwest is empty, same with other states. Most of the Midwest has the same functional density as Europe. Indeed, if you overlay a map of France on the Midwest, with Paris centered on Chicago, you'll find that there are cities of comparable sizes at comparable distances. The Great Empty largely exists only on the plains and the mountainous west, where all but the most ardent fantasists concede that no passenger system is viable. But most of the population in the US lives in or near a city that would have viable high-speed rail destinations!

bongodongobob 2y ago
Now compare walkability. You're going to have to rent a car when you get there anyway, may as well just drive.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  One time I had a weekend of working in a small village about 30 minutes by train outside of Munich. I got off the plane, took a train into Munich Hbf, took another train to the village. The trains ran every 20 minutes. "You're going to have to rent a car" is a statement about historical US development patterns and political/economic decisions, not any sort of inevitable or immutable state of nature. As such, it is subject to change. It hasn't even been a century since flying around the country was an option (and for many, not even a half century), if you need a reminder that things can and do change ...
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    Of course it's the state of affairs. Redistricting and changing the natural flow of a city isn't super reasonable in less than a couple generations at best. You're going to convince everyone they need to rebuild their city and way of life? This really pisses people off.
    - jcranmer 2y ago
      If you look up historical photos and maps from a hundred years ago, one of the thing that you notice is that even pretty small towns in the US had local streetcars. In modern days, these same towns would be equally well served with small bus routes (you don't need all the infrastructure costs of a streetcar system, after all). But also note that there's a strong directionality to trips--a lot of these are going to be "going from Podunk, Ohio to Chicago" not "Chicago to Podunk, Ohio", so the unsuitability of Podunk, Ohio to effective transit isn't that detrimental. There is a separate problem that bus transit in the US is almost invariably horribly laid out, but that has more to do with the US being culturally incapable of planning transit well, and especially the US being incurious about how transit works in places where it does work. Essentially, there's a blind spot (even among transit enthusiasts, annoyingly) that assumes that transit on anything less in scale than Manhattan is infeasible, so transit planning is equated with Manhattanization where it doesn't need to be.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago

No, no and no. The rectangle defined by Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Des Moines is about as densely populated as most of Europe. Ditto for a triangle like that in TX, and another polygon with one vertex in Atlanta. The east coast train network is not "large" given the population size. It consists of a primary line (Amtrak), and very little else given the population living with (say) 200 miles of that line. Ditto Caltrain, which compared to European service for similarly populated areas is incredibly limited. The line between Portland and Vancouver may yet see the sort of service you'd expect on that route if you were European, but it does not have it yet. The trains are relatively infrequent, and not very fast. Let's not talk about the customs/border situation either.