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The irony being, of course, that it is surrounded by an area where it is basically impossible to get by without a car. My wife and I once left Gatlinburg after

The irony being, of course, that it is surrounded by an area where it is basically impossible to get by without a car. My wife and I once left Gatlinburg after a week there and our tire blew out on the way out of town. It was a Sunday morning. Literally our only option to get it replaced that day was a Walmart location 15 miles away. So we had to wait for AAA for an hour and a half to tell us we were stuck using a donut to get there. There is a trolley system but it is anemic.

pizzathyme 1y ago
Exactly, more rails would not be useful because there is lower density in the US. Denmark is 141 persons/km^2, whereas the U.S. is about 36 persons/km^2 (census data). Even if you built train lines everywhere outside urban areas, any stop you step off at would still require a 20 minute drive to get to where you are going. (Or in your case 15!)
- BiteCode_dev 1y ago
  With that logic airportd should not have been built everywhere and useless, yet they were and are not.
  - esseph 1y ago
    Most airports are privately owned.
  - stevage 1y ago
    By that logic, airports should only have been built in cities...which is exactly where they are.
  - esseph 1y ago
    "There are approximately 14,400 private-use and 5,000 public-use airports, heliports, and seaplane bases in the US." Works out to about 288 private airports per state on average, and 100 public per state (on average).
- shortformblog 1y ago
  There are plenty of places where it would make sense, actually, but Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are very much not on that list. They are towns surrounded by mountains where once you get off the strip, you may not even run into a gas station or grocery store for a while. Also, that was 15 miles, not 15 minutes. I think it took us more than an hour to get there with all the traffic. Excellent example of a tourist trap. A related quirk of the area is its onetime attitude towards free alcohol samples, which I wrote about last year: https://tedium.co/2024/11/10/free-sample-history/ https://tedium.co/2024/11/10/free-sample-history/
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    It’s not just surrounded by mountains, it’s just outside the border of Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It’s essentially a dead end for rail because to continue on you need to either go up a mile in elevation in a very short span or tunnel mountains inside a national park. One of the worst places for rail east of the Mississippi.
- xeromal 1y ago
  I'm sure that density is even lower in most of the US south
  - freedomben 1y ago
    Yeah, and in the mountain west probably much lower still. I think to be useful, the numbers need to be regional
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    Most of the land area of almost every state is below that number, but there are 23 states below that number overall and only 3 are Southern. Nearly all of the low population density states are out West.
- xorcist 1y ago
  Is there a reason Denmark was chosen for comparison, rather than neighboring Norway (15 persons/km^2) or Sweden (25 persons/km^2)?
  - stevage 1y ago
    The article mentions Denmark's economy is about the same size as Tennessee's. Parent should have compared Denmark's population density with TN's (65/km^2).
- Spooky23 1y ago
  You could make the same argument about highways if you didn’t have the massive federal funding. Maintenance of an interstate averages around $15,000 per lane/mile. Bridges are 7-12x. We had a viable rail network all over the country as recently as the early 1950s. Federal policy blew it up because dispersing the population was seen as a civil defense priority for an atomic war, and cars and airplanes provided an economic engine to keep workers and returning soldiers employed. Later, the shift to rural industry and trucking was a way to break unions. Meatpacking transformed from a good union gig back to an oppressive industry fueled by undocumented labor. If the workers acted up, the owners would realize they knew where a bunch of undocumented people lived and call in INS/ICE.
  - GJim 1y ago
    > dispersing the population was seen as a civil defense priority for an atomic war Do you have a citation for this? (I'm not necessarily doubting, it's just a claim I have not heard before).
    - Spooky23 1y ago
      It’s a fascinating area. Here’s one focused on evacuation: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/civildef.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/civildef.cfm Also google the “Clay report”, there’s a bunch of books and sources from there. At this point, (1955) bombers and fission bombs were the threat. That’s why we had AT&T invest in hardened long lines facilities, shelters and duck and cover. The reality of hydrogen bombs and ICBMs kind of took the wind out of sails of civil defense. You’re not going to drive out of Manhattan with 20 minutes notice and get to a place where you’ll survive. This really affected the people associated with this — the think tank guys at RAND and other places assumed they’d all be dead by the mid 1970s, and I can’t help to think that it didn’t affect their points of view.
- bluGill 1y ago
  The US is a very large country. If you limited your population density numbers east of the Mississippi and the fast west coast from California to Washington you will discover population densities very similar to parts of Europe that have great transit.
- whoisyc 1y ago
  It is funny the author chose Denmark as an example because Greenland is technically a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, and with Greenland included the Kingdom of Denmark has a population density of 2.68 per km^2. Does this mean it is not worthwhile to build public transit in the European part of Denmark? If not, then why does the population density of the entire US matter in a discussion about Tennessee, a state 80% denser than the American average? By the way, Finland has both a smaller economy and a way lower population density (18.4 per km^2) than Denmark and the US. Would railways be not useful in Finland because of that?
- Retric 1y ago
  It’s really not that simple. If Denmark population 6 million people and 141 people per/km^2 has zero issue with trains then Florida a flat state population 22 million population density 163/km^2 should be full of them. And it’s not alone. MD has 6 million people and 246/km^2, Massachusetts 7 million 347/km^2, New Jersey 9.3 million and 488 people / km^2. Further, if you consider the road network the overwhelming majority of roads are in high populations density areas. NYC alone has ~1/6 as many road miles as the entire interstate highway system which criss cross the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System It’s a classic edge to surface area problem, 10,000 acre farms need 1/100 the roads per acre as 1 acre suburban homes. The same kind of scaling applies to rail networks.
hollywood_court 1y ago
Isn't that standard though? If I get a flat, I hop out and replace it with a spare. Then I drive to a shop to have that flat tire either patched or replaced entirely. I know some new models don't include spares, but they often have run flats and temp sealant kits included. What are the other options?
- shortformblog 1y ago
  The problem was less that we had to replace it and more that it was a fairly significant distance away. (A distance made longer because we weren’t on the freeway but heavily trafficked roads in a tourist-heavy area.) We were near downtown Gatlinburg, and there were places that were closer, but they were all closed because it was a Sunday. We also would have had a better shot at not having our tire blow out if the closest gas station wasn’t 10 miles away.
  - hollywood_court 1y ago
    15 miles is nothing on a spare tire. I'm not sure how many poor people you've spent time around, but I regularly see Nissan sedans driving around with multiple spare donuts on them. For some reason, it's always a Nissan.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      Nissan's been making minimum cost models for awhile*, that are just reliable enough to stay rolling. Ergo, if you want the cheapest car you can get, it'll probably be a Nissan. * Before the late-10s Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi insanity
      - hollywood_court 1y ago
        Oh I know. Carlos Ghosn got them to focus more on the fleet market. I'll always be a Toyota/Lexus man, but I owned a Datsun wagon for a while and I followed the industry closely when I ran an import repair shop (which was never open on a Saturday or Sunday). It's wild how that one man managed to change the entire path of a once great brand.
ethbr1 1y ago
Minor observation: you were in east TN, so chances are if you'd stood by your car with your thumb out, the next car would have stopped and happily offered you a ride to Walmart. (Said as someone who's hauled more than a few random people where they needed to get to in east TN) Part of Tennessee's charm is how far you can get with a smile and "Gosh, I hate to bother you, but could you..."
tomcam 1y ago
It's a blessing that you were able to find help so easily.
susiecambria 1y ago
Oh, AAA. My husband and I were driving a camouflaged CUCV (military bronco) from VA to WV around Thanksgiving. Towing a trailer full of stuff and had four large dogs. The truck died. In Virginia, one mile from the WV line. Someone picked me up and dropped me off at the first gas station so I could call AAA. I had to talk with several CSRs; the last one told me the closest tow truck was in Charlottesville, hours away from where we were on I64. I was beet red, smoking like a chimney, and making up curse words. Once we kinda agreed that there was likely a closer alternative, the young woman asked how the tow truck driver would identify the truck since it was camo. I told the men, they chuckled, and I told her it was CAMO, it was not covered by a cloaking device. I hung up. The young man at the gas station/coffee shop called a local tow truck and we were dropped at Gate 3 of fair grounds in Fairlee, WV. Ended up that the camo/cloaking device paled in comparison to the later challenge: It was the first day of hunting season and most garages were closed during the week of Thanksgiving. I hate AAA.

pizzathyme 1y ago

Exactly, more rails would not be useful because there is lower density in the US. Denmark is 141 persons/km^2, whereas the U.S. is about 36 persons/km^2 (census data). Even if you built train lines everywhere outside urban areas, any stop you step off at would still require a 20 minute drive to get to where you are going. (Or in your case 15!)

BiteCode_dev 1y ago
With that logic airportd should not have been built everywhere and useless, yet they were and are not.
- esseph 1y ago
  Most airports are privately owned.
- stevage 1y ago
  By that logic, airports should only have been built in cities...which is exactly where they are.
- esseph 1y ago
  "There are approximately 14,400 private-use and 5,000 public-use airports, heliports, and seaplane bases in the US." Works out to about 288 private airports per state on average, and 100 public per state (on average).
shortformblog 1y ago
There are plenty of places where it would make sense, actually, but Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are very much not on that list. They are towns surrounded by mountains where once you get off the strip, you may not even run into a gas station or grocery store for a while. Also, that was 15 miles, not 15 minutes. I think it took us more than an hour to get there with all the traffic. Excellent example of a tourist trap. A related quirk of the area is its onetime attitude towards free alcohol samples, which I wrote about last year: https://tedium.co/2024/11/10/free-sample-history/ https://tedium.co/2024/11/10/free-sample-history/
- sarchertech 1y ago
  It’s not just surrounded by mountains, it’s just outside the border of Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It’s essentially a dead end for rail because to continue on you need to either go up a mile in elevation in a very short span or tunnel mountains inside a national park. One of the worst places for rail east of the Mississippi.
xeromal 1y ago
I'm sure that density is even lower in most of the US south
- freedomben 1y ago
  Yeah, and in the mountain west probably much lower still. I think to be useful, the numbers need to be regional
- sarchertech 1y ago
  Most of the land area of almost every state is below that number, but there are 23 states below that number overall and only 3 are Southern. Nearly all of the low population density states are out West.
xorcist 1y ago
Is there a reason Denmark was chosen for comparison, rather than neighboring Norway (15 persons/km^2) or Sweden (25 persons/km^2)?
- stevage 1y ago
  The article mentions Denmark's economy is about the same size as Tennessee's. Parent should have compared Denmark's population density with TN's (65/km^2).
Spooky23 1y ago
You could make the same argument about highways if you didn’t have the massive federal funding. Maintenance of an interstate averages around $15,000 per lane/mile. Bridges are 7-12x. We had a viable rail network all over the country as recently as the early 1950s. Federal policy blew it up because dispersing the population was seen as a civil defense priority for an atomic war, and cars and airplanes provided an economic engine to keep workers and returning soldiers employed. Later, the shift to rural industry and trucking was a way to break unions. Meatpacking transformed from a good union gig back to an oppressive industry fueled by undocumented labor. If the workers acted up, the owners would realize they knew where a bunch of undocumented people lived and call in INS/ICE.
- GJim 1y ago
  > dispersing the population was seen as a civil defense priority for an atomic war Do you have a citation for this? (I'm not necessarily doubting, it's just a claim I have not heard before).
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    It’s a fascinating area. Here’s one focused on evacuation: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/civildef.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/civildef.cfm Also google the “Clay report”, there’s a bunch of books and sources from there. At this point, (1955) bombers and fission bombs were the threat. That’s why we had AT&T invest in hardened long lines facilities, shelters and duck and cover. The reality of hydrogen bombs and ICBMs kind of took the wind out of sails of civil defense. You’re not going to drive out of Manhattan with 20 minutes notice and get to a place where you’ll survive. This really affected the people associated with this — the think tank guys at RAND and other places assumed they’d all be dead by the mid 1970s, and I can’t help to think that it didn’t affect their points of view.
bluGill 1y ago
The US is a very large country. If you limited your population density numbers east of the Mississippi and the fast west coast from California to Washington you will discover population densities very similar to parts of Europe that have great transit.
whoisyc 1y ago
It is funny the author chose Denmark as an example because Greenland is technically a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, and with Greenland included the Kingdom of Denmark has a population density of 2.68 per km^2. Does this mean it is not worthwhile to build public transit in the European part of Denmark? If not, then why does the population density of the entire US matter in a discussion about Tennessee, a state 80% denser than the American average? By the way, Finland has both a smaller economy and a way lower population density (18.4 per km^2) than Denmark and the US. Would railways be not useful in Finland because of that?
Retric 1y ago
It’s really not that simple. If Denmark population 6 million people and 141 people per/km^2 has zero issue with trains then Florida a flat state population 22 million population density 163/km^2 should be full of them. And it’s not alone. MD has 6 million people and 246/km^2, Massachusetts 7 million 347/km^2, New Jersey 9.3 million and 488 people / km^2. Further, if you consider the road network the overwhelming majority of roads are in high populations density areas. NYC alone has ~1/6 as many road miles as the entire interstate highway system which criss cross the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System It’s a classic edge to surface area problem, 10,000 acre farms need 1/100 the roads per acre as 1 acre suburban homes. The same kind of scaling applies to rail networks.

hollywood_court 1y ago

Isn't that standard though? If I get a flat, I hop out and replace it with a spare. Then I drive to a shop to have that flat tire either patched or replaced entirely. I know some new models don't include spares, but they often have run flats and temp sealant kits included. What are the other options?

shortformblog 1y ago
The problem was less that we had to replace it and more that it was a fairly significant distance away. (A distance made longer because we weren’t on the freeway but heavily trafficked roads in a tourist-heavy area.) We were near downtown Gatlinburg, and there were places that were closer, but they were all closed because it was a Sunday. We also would have had a better shot at not having our tire blow out if the closest gas station wasn’t 10 miles away.
- hollywood_court 1y ago
  15 miles is nothing on a spare tire. I'm not sure how many poor people you've spent time around, but I regularly see Nissan sedans driving around with multiple spare donuts on them. For some reason, it's always a Nissan.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    Nissan's been making minimum cost models for awhile*, that are just reliable enough to stay rolling. Ergo, if you want the cheapest car you can get, it'll probably be a Nissan. * Before the late-10s Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi insanity
    - hollywood_court 1y ago
      Oh I know. Carlos Ghosn got them to focus more on the fleet market. I'll always be a Toyota/Lexus man, but I owned a Datsun wagon for a while and I followed the industry closely when I ran an import repair shop (which was never open on a Saturday or Sunday). It's wild how that one man managed to change the entire path of a once great brand.

ethbr1 1y ago

Minor observation: you were in east TN, so chances are if you'd stood by your car with your thumb out, the next car would have stopped and happily offered you a ride to Walmart. (Said as someone who's hauled more than a few random people where they needed to get to in east TN) Part of Tennessee's charm is how far you can get with a smile and "Gosh, I hate to bother you, but could you..."

tomcam 1y ago

It's a blessing that you were able to find help so easily.

susiecambria 1y ago

Oh, AAA. My husband and I were driving a camouflaged CUCV (military bronco) from VA to WV around Thanksgiving. Towing a trailer full of stuff and had four large dogs. The truck died. In Virginia, one mile from the WV line. Someone picked me up and dropped me off at the first gas station so I could call AAA. I had to talk with several CSRs; the last one told me the closest tow truck was in Charlottesville, hours away from where we were on I64. I was beet red, smoking like a chimney, and making up curse words. Once we kinda agreed that there was likely a closer alternative, the young woman asked how the tow truck driver would identify the truck since it was camo. I told the men, they chuckled, and I told her it was CAMO, it was not covered by a cloaking device. I hung up. The young man at the gas station/coffee shop called a local tow truck and we were dropped at Gate 3 of fair grounds in Fairlee, WV. Ended up that the camo/cloaking device paled in comparison to the later challenge: It was the first day of hunting season and most garages were closed during the week of Thanksgiving. I hate AAA.