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> 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 o

> 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
      > You're going to convince everyone they need to rebuild their city and way of life? We already did this at least twice during the 20th century, first with invention and production of automobiles, and then again with the combined hit of the interstates and aviation.
vidarh 2y ago
Even Montana, which is a favourite example of mine when the discussion of US density comes up, because it has no passenger service connecting the towns in the South, and is very low density, has a density along the old Southern rail corridor that operated until the 70's that is similar to existing viable passenger train lines in Norway. There certainly are stretches in the US that aren't worth covering by train, but as you say most people don't live there, and the proportion who do live there is really tiny. A lot of the time people seem to think the end to end travel need to be viable, and ignore that if the service is regular enough, plenty of pairs of towns along the route will contribute to demand.

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
    > You're going to convince everyone they need to rebuild their city and way of life? We already did this at least twice during the 20th century, first with invention and production of automobiles, and then again with the combined hit of the interstates and aviation.

vidarh 2y ago

Even Montana, which is a favourite example of mine when the discussion of US density comes up, because it has no passenger service connecting the towns in the South, and is very low density, has a density along the old Southern rail corridor that operated until the 70's that is similar to existing viable passenger train lines in Norway. There certainly are stretches in the US that aren't worth covering by train, but as you say most people don't live there, and the proportion who do live there is really tiny. A lot of the time people seem to think the end to end travel need to be viable, and ignore that if the service is regular enough, plenty of pairs of towns along the route will contribute to demand.