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Are you arguing that trains are infeasible (due to cost or duration) for certain trips? I'm curious how this changes (in your mind) if "trains" can be expanded

Are you arguing that trains are infeasible (due to cost or duration) for certain trips? I'm curious how this changes (in your mind) if "trains" can be expanded to "trains, buses, bicycle", or if you consider that to be a separate discussion.

echelon 1y ago
I live in Atlanta. The Atlanta Metro has 6.5 million people across TWENTY THOUSAND square kilometers. Trains just don't make sense for this. Everything is too spread out. And that's okay. Cites are allowed to have different models of transportation and living. I like how much road infra we have. That I can visit forests, rivers, mountains, and dense city all within a relatively short amount of time with complete flexibility. Autonomous driving is going to make this paradise. Cars will be superior to trains when they drive themselves. Trains lack privacy and personal space.
- kataklasm 1y ago
  The German metro area "Rheinland" has a population of 8.7 million people across 12 thousand square kilometers. ~700/sqkm vs the 240/sqkm population density of Atlanta metro. Train and metro travel in this metrk area is extremely convenient and fast. It's not that Atlanta (or anywhere else in the United States for that matter) couldn't do it because of vastness, there's just no political and societal will behind this idea. In a society that glamorizes everyone driving the biggest trucks and carrying the largest rifles, of course convenient train systems are "not feasible".
  - emmelaich 1y ago
    And it loses money. And doesn't it have time reliability issues?
    - irowe 1y ago
      The exact same comment could be made of Atlanta's roads. How did we get here from the post about uv?
      - echelon 1y ago
        This did veer very far from uv! I'm so stoked for what uv is doing for the Python ecosystem. requirements.txt and the madness around it has been a hell for over a decade. It's been so pointlessly hard to replicate what the authors of Python projects want the state of your software to be in. uv has been much needed. It's solving the single biggest pain point for Python.
    - jodrellblank 1y ago
      Is your car a profitable investment? Public transport is to move people around, not to make money.
    - qwertytyyuu 1y ago
      roads also lose a lot of money, and that's fine. Public infrasturcture doesn't need to make money
  - schrodinger 1y ago
    I'm not following your logic. Having nearly triple the population density in Rheinland makes trains way _more_ feasible, not _less_. That means on average you have a train 1/3 the distance away from you. That's a big difference. I live in NYC which has 29,000/sqkm in Manhattan and 11,300/sqkm overall. Public transportation is great here and you don't need a car. but at 240/sqkm, that's really not much public trans per person!
    - schrodinger 1y ago
      Rule 35 of the internet? Every discussion will eventually devolve into the United State's horrible usage (or lack thereof) of public transportation.
  - schrodinger 1y ago
    Having replied in good faith already, I also want to call out that your jab about trucks and rifles adds nothing to the conversation and is merely culture-war fuel. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
    - h33t-l4x0r 1y ago
      It seems like a fair point to me. You can't bring your rifle on the train but you can bring it in your truck. Whether or not that shapes Atlanteans choice of transport I can't say though.
      - schrodinger 1y ago
        Fair point perhaps, but was clearly intended as sarcasm: > a society that glamorizes everyone driving the biggest trucks and carrying the largest rifles
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > The German metro area "Rheinland" has a population of 8.7 million people across 12 thousand square kilometers. ~700/sqkm vs the 240/sqkm population density of Atlanta metro. Train and metro travel in this metrk area is extremely convenient and fast. It's not that Atlanta (or anywhere else in the United States for that matter) couldn't do it because of vastness Did you forget to support yourself? You're saying Rheinland has three times the population density of Atlanta, with convenient passenger rail, and that demonstrates that low population density isn't an obstacle to passenger rail in Atlanta?
- gessha 1y ago
  Yep, driving in Atlanta is so great, historians write whole books about how bad the traffic is and what caused it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traf...

echelon 1y ago

I live in Atlanta. The Atlanta Metro has 6.5 million people across TWENTY THOUSAND square kilometers. Trains just don't make sense for this. Everything is too spread out. And that's okay. Cites are allowed to have different models of transportation and living. I like how much road infra we have. That I can visit forests, rivers, mountains, and dense city all within a relatively short amount of time with complete flexibility. Autonomous driving is going to make this paradise. Cars will be superior to trains when they drive themselves. Trains lack privacy and personal space.

kataklasm 1y ago
The German metro area "Rheinland" has a population of 8.7 million people across 12 thousand square kilometers. ~700/sqkm vs the 240/sqkm population density of Atlanta metro. Train and metro travel in this metrk area is extremely convenient and fast. It's not that Atlanta (or anywhere else in the United States for that matter) couldn't do it because of vastness, there's just no political and societal will behind this idea. In a society that glamorizes everyone driving the biggest trucks and carrying the largest rifles, of course convenient train systems are "not feasible".
- emmelaich 1y ago
  And it loses money. And doesn't it have time reliability issues?
  - irowe 1y ago
    The exact same comment could be made of Atlanta's roads. How did we get here from the post about uv?
    - echelon 1y ago
      This did veer very far from uv! I'm so stoked for what uv is doing for the Python ecosystem. requirements.txt and the madness around it has been a hell for over a decade. It's been so pointlessly hard to replicate what the authors of Python projects want the state of your software to be in. uv has been much needed. It's solving the single biggest pain point for Python.
  - jodrellblank 1y ago
    Is your car a profitable investment? Public transport is to move people around, not to make money.
  - qwertytyyuu 1y ago
    roads also lose a lot of money, and that's fine. Public infrasturcture doesn't need to make money
- schrodinger 1y ago
  I'm not following your logic. Having nearly triple the population density in Rheinland makes trains way _more_ feasible, not _less_. That means on average you have a train 1/3 the distance away from you. That's a big difference. I live in NYC which has 29,000/sqkm in Manhattan and 11,300/sqkm overall. Public transportation is great here and you don't need a car. but at 240/sqkm, that's really not much public trans per person!
  - schrodinger 1y ago
    Rule 35 of the internet? Every discussion will eventually devolve into the United State's horrible usage (or lack thereof) of public transportation.
- schrodinger 1y ago
  Having replied in good faith already, I also want to call out that your jab about trucks and rifles adds nothing to the conversation and is merely culture-war fuel. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
  - h33t-l4x0r 1y ago
    It seems like a fair point to me. You can't bring your rifle on the train but you can bring it in your truck. Whether or not that shapes Atlanteans choice of transport I can't say though.
    - schrodinger 1y ago
      Fair point perhaps, but was clearly intended as sarcasm: > a society that glamorizes everyone driving the biggest trucks and carrying the largest rifles
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > The German metro area "Rheinland" has a population of 8.7 million people across 12 thousand square kilometers. ~700/sqkm vs the 240/sqkm population density of Atlanta metro. Train and metro travel in this metrk area is extremely convenient and fast. It's not that Atlanta (or anywhere else in the United States for that matter) couldn't do it because of vastness Did you forget to support yourself? You're saying Rheinland has three times the population density of Atlanta, with convenient passenger rail, and that demonstrates that low population density isn't an obstacle to passenger rail in Atlanta?
gessha 1y ago
Yep, driving in Atlanta is so great, historians write whole books about how bad the traffic is and what caused it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traffic-atlanta-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/traf...