Amtrak Unveils Vision of Expanded Rail Map Under Biden's Infrastructure Plan (amtrak.com) 253
Amtrak released a proposed map Wednesday of an expanded U.S. rail system that could be built with funding from President Biden's infrastructure plan. Axios reports: The expanded rail system -- funded with the $80 billion Biden's infrastructure plan allocates to rail specifically -- would "create jobs, improve the quality of life, reduce carbon emissions and generate economic growth," Amtrak said in a statement. The envisioned train network would create up to 30+ new routes in 15 more states, connecting 160 more communities and serving 20 million more passengers, according to Amtrak. The company also says the expanded map would lower carbon emissions, claiming that traveling on Amtrak is "up to 83% more energy efficient than driving and up to 73% more energy efficient than flying."
Passenger Trains Have to Run On Time (and fast) (Score:5, Informative)
I took a train from Springfield IL to Chicago one time that took more than 12 hours before I said fuck it and got off and took an offered ride in Joliet to get to Naperville my ultimate destination. It takes about 2.5 hours to drive. I got on about 12 or 1 p.m. in Springfield, and got off at Joliet around 1 or later, in the morning. We stopped about 5 times to wait for freight trains to pass, mostly for hours at a time. Here I thought it would be fun to fly into Springfield for some work and then take the train into Chicago. What a fucking nightmare.
Re:Passenger Trains Have to Run On Time (and fast) (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the Amtrak press release, you'll see they are asking congress for their trains to have priority over freight.
Unfathomable.... or sensible? (Score:3)
The US passenger rail experience is often derided, but the freight rail service is a huge asset that goes overlooked. Without good freight rail service, there would be A LOT more truck traffic on the roads, which would be worse for traffic, safety, the environment, and the roads themselves. Moving heavy things by rail is very efficient: 1 ton per 100 miles per gallon of diesel. That efficiency goes away if a freight train needs to stop for a passenger train. That freight has to get places, so slowing freigh
Re: Passenger Trains Have to Run On Time (and fast (Score:2)
Which one generates more money for the folks that own the rails? Freight does.
Amtrak paying more money, increasing costs, to give their partially filled passenger trains priority will only increase Amtrak's losses.
On the NE Corridor Amtrak trains are full, no where else does that happen.
I enjoy long-distance Amtrak but (Score:2)
Let's be realistic about fuel efficiency. The last time I looked, the differences between modes of transportation could be reversed depending on load factors. Airlines are very good at keeping planes full. There are usually plenty of spare seats and rooms when I take Amtrak.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot to mention that your taxes have paid billions to build those airports and subsidize all those airlines. You arent looking at the big picture, of who pays for what.
Your statement is like saying a visit to the doctor is free because the NHS pays for it. it snot free, money has to come from somewhere.
add more auto trains (Score:2)
add more auto trains
Re: add more auto trains (Score:2)
What the fuck for? Do know how long it takes to load and unload rivaled cars on and off a train?
Re: (Score:2)
What the fuck for? Do know how long it takes to load and unload rivaled cars on and off a train?
I just took an auto train from DC to Florida. It was fabulous! Unloading did take a bit of time (40 mins), but it can be improved by adding more unloading tracks.
Re: add more auto trains (Score:2)
Because they *suck* at doing that.
There is zero reason you couldn't do that as quickly as everyone just parking.
Make it so you just drive up a ramp, onto the back of the train, and then it should still be as nice to drive as a wide and level road. Just drive behind the parked cars in front of you, pull the handbrake, done. And everyone drives onto it at the same time, like ducks walking in a row.
Then, the sides of the traincars pull in until the rubber-protected railings touch the wheels on both sides and t
What exactly is the problem being solved here? (Score:2)
I thought the crisis that is requiring all this debt be taken on was that existing bridges, etc, are about to fall apart. WTF are they doing planning all routes for?
Re:What exactly is the problem being solved here? (Score:5, Informative)
80 billion is earmarked to clear Amtrak's maintenance backlog. 115 billion goes to road repair include motor vehicle bridges. 25 billion will go into upgrading and modernizing airports. 20 billion goes to bike routes and pedestrian safety projects.
Re: (Score:3)
Bike routes AND pedestrian safety. They're lumped in together for some reason even though it makes no sense.
I see people biking to work all the time; bike lanes are heavily used during rush hour but then you see very few cyclists using them outside of that time. One thing you might factor into your thinking is the dramatic rise in the popularity of e-bikes. You can get a practical commuter ebike with a range of 25-50 miles for around $1200. I suspect it's possible to get a lot more butts onto one of tho
Re: (Score:2)
You can get a practical commuter ebike with a range of 25-50 miles for around $1200. I suspect it's possible to get a lot more butts onto one of those than regular bike.
I used to sit next to a coworker who regularly biked 20 miles to work. It was obvious when he did it because I could smell him.
chicken and the egg? (Score:2)
Not one of those "build it and they will come" types, are you? But that's kind of what this money is expected to do-- provide the infrastructure for something that may not be happening currently in a lot of places, but might really catch on if supported. There already is the momentum with millions of people riding bikes to commute, exercise, etc. everyday and these would be multipurpose, so those dumb electric scooters would be all over these
Re: What exactly is the problem being solved here? (Score:4, Informative)
20 billion for bike routes? What an insane waste of money. No one uses bike paths to commute
Yeah. Funny that when you don't have usable bike routes.
Here's a hint: I work with a lot of Americans expatted on a special projects program to our European assets. Nearly a cool 100% of them when they come over here buy a bike and bike to work. Then sell the thing before they go home. Why do you think that is? Hint: it's not because Northern Europe is known for its lovely weather.
When was the last time (outside a major city like NYC, SF, etc.) that you passed someone in a bike route going to work?
I assume you mean *on* a bike. One would suspect if you actually setup bike routes properly that you should never "pass" someone on a bike.
Airplane / Airline lobby will never let rail grow (Score:3)
The airplane and airline lobby will never, ever let rail flourish here to the level it was pre-WWII.
Once WWII made for all those long-range airplanes and land airstrips where to launch and recover from, rail was dead in this country.
I too would love a shinkansen here, but it ain't gonna happen.
And yes, I"m a rabid avnerd, bad eyesight took my wings away before I ever grew them out proper. But I've flown, enough to know it's the most beautiful thing I know, being up there alone.
I still resent the industry for holding back the train. I marveled at British Rail and at the rail in France. I loathe Amtrak. It's more expensive to take the SuperChief from Chicago to LA than it is to fly. That's just upside-down.
Oh. Sorry. Today that's the "Southwest Chief"
You know what? Fuck it. Gimmie 14A or E in some beat-up 35 year old Mad Dog. I'd trust my butt to that much faster than I'd trust it to Amtrak.
Re: (Score:2)
Japan has 10X the population density of the US.
Meaning each stop can serves 10X as many people who love within walking distance of the stop.
Re: (Score:2)
Japan also has toll roads instead of freeways, and is very active building public transportation.
Even so, once you leave the immediate metropolitan area (like Tokyo to Saitama), getting around using public transportation will mean a lot of walking, and wishing you had a car.
Re: (Score:2)
We did alright on public transport in Japan, even in the boonies, far from Tokyo.
There were clearly places that would be difficult to get to without a car, but visiting any village or town could be done pretty efficiently by bus or train.
There was something nice about being able to decode the timetables on the bus stop and have confidence that the bus would be there on time.
Re: (Score:2)
We did alright on public transport in Japan, even in the boonies, far from Tokyo.
Where did you go?
Re: (Score:2)
>Where did you go?
Sendai and places within a day's travel of Sendai. - High points were Geibikei Gorge and Matsushima bay where the yakisakana was fine.
Then some time in Tokyo which was the opposite of the boonies.
Then Kyoto and places within a day's travel of Kyoto. Unexpected good thing in the city - the museum of education, a bit South of the city center and introducing my wife to Kobe beef in Kobe.
It was 50/50 boonies and city. Three weeks total in Japan, but we circumnavigated the globe and went to
Re: (Score:2)
Make sure you visit the Nagasaki biopark
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you. I'll add that to the list.
We're planning to get to Okinawa and have rough plans around visiting maybe Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Hiroshima, Kokushima and whatever else we find. We always find a load of places before we go and trim the list so we can spend quality time in the places we go.
Fan service (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than the east coast, in most of the United States, train service is for people who really are train fanboys. It's not a practical alternative to busses, driving, or taking an aircraft. Don't get me wrong: I love trains, and I lived in China, and I know how awesome 300 km/h trains are in really dense areas where trains ARE a viable and cost-effective (although highly subsidized) alternative means of travel and have their own tracks (in the USA, Amtrak has to beg for clearance on other owners' tracks). But we already subsidize Amtrak, and people simply don't use Amtrak because they have to, but because the like trains. Why use public money to support what someone likes when we have alternatives using less subsidies? American trains suck, and this won't make them less sucky on existing routes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Fan service (Score:2)
Lived there two years. Iâ(TM)m taking about the USA. Different size. I mentioned China. Same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
US is 3.8m square miles, Europe is 4m...
Re: Fan service (Score:2)
Density where thereâ(TM)s service?
Re: Fan service (Score:2)
I didn't know AMTRAC services Europe? (Score:2)
This is about trains in America, the USA, not that area across the pond or across the big sea.
Distribution of cities is drastically different
Re: (Score:2)
I'm hearing "Other than the places where we do trains right, people don't like trains".
This is your chance to get the trains done right.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Still more efficient than ... (Score:2)
Even after I drive to the airport, take a plane then a cab/bus/subway to get to the nearest train station and the reverse at the destination?
Re: Still more efficient than ... (Score:2)
The part they leave out, like the Underpants Gnomes [cc.com], is getting people to CHOOSE to ride the train.
1) Invest $80 Billion in Amtrak
2)
3) Reduce greenhouse gasses by up to 83%!
Re: (Score:2)
Nice interiors on the trains would be a start.
It seems to work well when countries view a good rail system to be an item of national pride.
I've lived in the US for over 20 years now and I've never been on a long distance train. Not because I couldn't, but because I watched the youtube videos of people taking the sleepers and I learned from their mistake.
I enjoyed (and will once more when covid's over) visiting other countries where the trains worked and I could use them.
Unless it's high speed... (Score:2)
Re: Unless it's high speed... (Score:2)
Between where and where?
Seriously, what two cities are so frequently travelled between to justify such an investment?
For example, a high-speed or "bullet" train between Houston, Austin, and Dallas would be a good candidate, except when you arrive at any of the three cities you'll need a car to get where you want to be. When you respond to tell me how fast the train could be, be sure and factor in parking at the train station, the TSA security check, the wait for the train to depart, possibly waiting at Aust
Re: (Score:2)
The main culprit is the required stops along the way - there's about a half-dozen locations where the train stops.
That's why you have express trains that don't stop at every stop.
Trains are popular to walkable cities, like NYC (Score:3)
Between where and where?
Seriously, what two cities are so frequently travelled between to justify such an investment?
For example, a high-speed or "bullet" train between Houston, Austin, and Dallas would be a good candidate...
The Acela is quite popular for people traveling from Boston to DC or NYC. The MBTA commuter rail and subway lines are quite popular too. Boston, Chicago, and NYC really love their public transportation systems...as do most major cities I've visited or lived in. If you reasoning is "I don't know any cities that want trains but 3 in Texas"...you really need to get out more.
In the Northeast, people travel to DC and NYC all the time for business or pleasure. Once you're there, there's lots of public tran
Re: (Score:2)
Up and down the West coast, from Seattle to Sand Diego would be rather popular. The airports and puddle jumper planes suck enough that I'd take the train and get work done on the trip.
Amtrak operates at a loss ALMOST EVERYWHERE (Score:2)
Take a look at an Amtrak report on losses per route, averaging as much as losing $120 PER PASSENGER.
The shining star of Amtrak, it operates at a profit.
The report: https://www.amtrak.com/content... [amtrak.com]
The idea we need "More Amtrak" is just as laughable as the famous "More Cowbell" skit on SNL. [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:3)
So tell me, how much profit does each road make per car?
Fix the TSA (Score:2)
Amtrak would not look so appealing if the TSA didn't make air travel such a misery. Are the TSA all undercover Amrak employees I wonder ?
How about working to better integrate rail, road and air travel, for sure foster competition but cooperation too. Amtrak self-driving shuttle to train or airport and no security delays. Get more light rail out to the areas surrounding cities and get affordable housing going.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, how about either getting rid of the TSA security theater, or just plain getting rid of the TSA and going back to airport security run by the airport, who have an actual incentive to be efficient about it?
Amtrak with Starlink (Score:4)
Amtrak with Fibre (Score:2)
train tracks are perfect places to lay fibre mostly straight with very few kink's
WHY OH WHY are they not laying fibre next to every train track EVERYWHERE ?
all the repeaters could have private 5G transmitters along the way and the backhual would pay for itself...
this is basic
Re: (Score:2)
US Railroads severely misunderstood (Score:3)
The railroads in the USA are optimized for freight and are arguably the best in the world [ttnews.com] at that. There are over 28000 locomotives on US rails [up.com], most doing their work so reliably that most Americans never even need to hear about or think about them. The USA is also the nation that embraced the car as a tool of individual freedom (the USA is a nation built on the idea of the individual) and invented heavier-than-air aviation. As a result, in the USA people travel shorter distances by car, which is very individual and allows the maximization of efficiency (in schedule terms) for the INDIVIDUAL and they travel by air on longer trips which is more efficient (in schedule terms) for the INDIVIDUAL.
Americans used to be able to own private rail cars (sort of like RVs) and pay any railroad operator to hook them onto any train and pull them anywhere - and many wealthy Americans did this very thing. Unfortunately, when the government empowered Amtrak, it also gave them total regulatory authority over this, so it's now just a thing for the super-rich who fear flying, and the cars are generally required to be approved by and pulled by Amtrak. Those few Americans who want a slow train ride without owning a train car, and complete with $14 cheeseburgers (plus the occasional interruption to get off and board a bus for a few hours, or a day or night, between rail segments) are free to ride the worst train service in the NATO alliance: Amtrak.
As long as Amtrak is a completely free-from-competition, quasi-government, government-guaranteed-monopoly entity with no incentives to ever improve in any way, and as long as it thinks "high speed" means "faster than a moped", it would be insanity to give it more money and make more demands of it; Amtrak already imposes inefficiencies into our rail system that the freight trains, as good as they are, must work around.
Re:And still slow as crap (Score:5, Informative)
Existing infrastructure sucks (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. And without making (for instance) the E-W highline rail double tracked, that route will continue to suffer huge siding-wait delays. Single tracking a major rail corridor is like shooting yourself in the foot. With a nuclear missile.
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:3, Funny)
The key problem preventing good publoc transport in the US, is that there is nobody is willing to make the investement to start building and operating such a network for 10-30 years until usage actually adapts.
Even though the returns would be much bigger than the costs, in the ling run.
It's simply the making-a-quick-buck attitude and selfishness.
Because people don't think if they give anyone anything for free, they'd ever get it back. Because they wouldn't. "Because" of that.
It's stuck in a self-fulfilling
Re: (Score:3)
Which is why throwing billions at Amtrak is a waste of billions. They either need to figure out how to offer competitive rail service or get the fuck out of the way. I'd even be fine with giving them money to build out higher speed, more efficient trains but they never do that - they always want to trot out some upgraded crossings and such that allow them to get up to maybe 90mph. Maybe. On the straightest sections of track, when there isn't a freight train in the way going 40.
Seriously, they want $90/s
Re:Super spreaders (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, the Shinkansen is the model of what long distance rail service should look like. When my wife and I are in Japan we don't even think about an airport unless we're leaving Japan - we'd rather get on a train that is only in the station for a max of about 5 minutes, sit in a nice comfortable seat and relax. The train stations are like walking through a nice mall instead of a dirty shitty old beaten up building in the middle of an industrial area. The trains are very clean, comfortable, fast, and quiet. And the prices are very reasonable for a service that gets you right into the middle of a city faster than you can do it yourself in a car.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
With all the pro-guns people in the USA, you'd think bullet trains would be commonplace over there.
Re:And still slow as crap (Score:4, Funny)
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2)
Only if it's a massive piece of shit that everybody hates and makes them and only them a massive fuckton of money anyway...
Oh, wait!
Re: (Score:2)
Slow doesn't matter if it's comfortable, roomy, and has good Internet. I used to take Amtrak from Boston down to Lynchburg VA for business, which I consider the outer limit for practical business rail travel in the current system.
In fact, it was almost the perfect length. I'd prepare for the visit on the way down, do my write-up on the way back and step off the train at Boston South Station with my bill ready to send. If I'd flown I'd have flown to Charlotte and have to drive or wait to catch a puddle ju
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2)
And link the trains to hubs with airport stations.
I had a flight to california that was billed as philadelphia 30th street station to my destination through EWR.
It was a huge savings vs using PHL and about the same length (no direct flights were available). Amtrak even let me ride an extra stop on my way home and get dropped off $7 cab from my house in Wilmington.
I see a lot of potential in their new routes to Atlanta if they make an airport station for similar things in that region.
Also, the triangle conne
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2)
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2, Insightful)
Few, if any, Amtrak routes even cover their own operating expenses, let alone turn a profit outside of the Northeast Corridor line which connects Boston, NYC, PHL, Delaware, and DC.
Pretending that there are a great number of people that want to park their car in one city, ride it to another city, then work within walking distance from the train station is pure fantasy. Add to that the new "work from home" phenomenon that is seriously reducing commuting miles across the country, and you have a waste of money
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:5, Insightful)
What if I told you the goal of public transport isn’t about profits?
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What if I told you that profits were the best measurement of economic efficiency and people's actual preferences we have?
Amtrak generally fails on both counts.
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:5, Insightful)
You would be dead wrong. Profits in late-stage capitalism are no longer a measurement of "economic efficiency". They are a measure of rent-seeking, regulatory capture, tax avoidance and monopsony/monopoly.
The sad part is that all this was predicted by economists going back to Adam Smith.
Re: (Score:2)
What if I told you that profits were the best measurement of economic efficiency and people's actual preferences we have?
No it's not. GDP is, and it is perfectly reasonable to that a publicly provided service which *costs* money rather than turns a profit can lead to increased economic efficiency.
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Few, if any, Amtrak routes even cover their own operating expenses, let alone turn a profit outside of the Northeast Corridor line which connects Boston, NYC, PHL, Delaware, and DC.
Yes, the best developed and maintained part of the rail system is very heavily used. The inferior parts of the system are not.
This green fantasy imagines millions of Americans will drive to a train station, park, ride the train, then get on a bus or subway/light rail system to get within walking distance of their job, then reverse the process to get home at the end of their shift.
In NYC alone you've got well over a million people a day commuting into the city by train. The existing train lines are already running at max capacity. We've been trying for decades to get more train tunnels built because there's plenty of demand for more trains. The improvements are even more necessary now after the existing tunnels got damaged during hurricane Sandy. If we don't do this, those tunnels need to close, and a huge part of our economy takes a giant hit. You do the project and it grows.
People use trains when you've got a quality train system in place. People don't like them when you've got a half assed system.
Re: (Score:3)
I kind
Re: (Score:3)
You keep making these claims that commercial flight and private automobile traffic have obsoleted long-haul rail (and you keep using 'commuter' and 'long-haul' interchangeably, but they are not the same thing). How then do you explain the success of long-haul rail in most other developed countries on Earth? They also have commercial flights and private automobiles, and yet, it is extremely common (and convenient) to use trains for both short and long-distance trips.
Re: (Score:3)
You have clearly never had a ride on a decent high speed rail service. And yes, that means something outside North America, because the train services here are garbage.
The TGV lines in western Europe, and the Shinkansen rail service in Japan show you what it can be like - cheaper than air travel, still much faster than a car, a quiet smooth ride, usually larger seats with table space and overhead storage, limited stops that have you in the station for 5 minutes or less, far less "security theater" - there'
Re: (Score:2)
>Few, if any, Amtrak routes even cover their own operating expenses, let alone turn a profit outside of the Northeast Corridor line which connects Boston, NYC, PHL, Delaware, and DC.
The military fails to cover their operating costs either and to a far greater degree.
The only difference is that you call one a loss and one a cost. But it's the same thing really,
Re: (Score:2)
Train tracks are built as level as possible while roads are built as cheaply as possible meaning they are more inclined to follow the contours of the earth's surface and delegate the expense to the users for pulling mass up hil
SIngle-tracking (Score:3)
And on sidings. Where they not only lose energy, but also time. Single-tracked routes are black holes for both.
Re: (Score:2)
"Trains loaded with coal" refers to hopper cars carrying coal to places like electric power plants.
There are still coal-powered steam engines ferrying tourists up Mount Washington.
Re: (Score:2)
California is building a bullet train, let's see how that turns out before proposing others, OK?
No they are not. They gave up and canceled the program.
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2)
Isn't that instructive?
The travel between SF snd LA justifies countless airline flights per day - aside from being longer, more expensive, and less convenient that the flights, why'd they cancel the project?
Costs.
Re: (Score:3)
Whoosh! of the train passing over your head.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically Newsom didn't "cancel" HSR. He just "deferred" construction of the hard/expensive parts while construction is continuing on the easy, but pretty useless, segment of less than 200 miles in the Central Valley from Merced to Bakersfield.
IIRC, there are only five stations (including the endpoints) on this segment. I doubt very many people that will want to use this limited service. For one thing, tickets are likely to be quite expensive due to the low ridership and the need to pretend to cover at le
Re: (Score:2)
>Newsom should have cancelled the entire thing
The way to get difficult infrastructure projects done is to start them and underestimate the costs so the initial funding is achievable.
This happens all the time.
Once you've built a segment of track, the cost is sunk and you can add to it later.
There will always be naysayers naysaying until it's done and everyone likes it. But unless you live somewhere with it's transport priorities straight - Japan, China, France, Korea etc, you won't get high speed rail dep
Re: (Score:2)
Re: And still slow as crap (Score:2)
No, but we could tell them we do, and it makes us so much greater.
Then Putin would *have* to build one. Because muhpowerpenismustbebigger!
And of course he would brag about it and tell us he is better.
And tadaa, now we must build one too, because #muricapowerpenismustbenumberone! :D
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Missing Stats (Score:2)
What the fuck are you smoking? Even if we assume that boeing is subsidized by military contracts, that doesn't at all explain how airbus is competitive. The airlines don't need any kind of subsidy to be profitable, you're so full of shit.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget the train is almost always 200% slower than driving and 2000% slower than flying. My wife and I looked at taking a train to Chicago from Denver once, it was a 24 hour journey by train and cost twice as much as the 2 hour flight on Southwest Airlines did.
I looked at train travel to Florida from New Jersey. It costs a fortune and takes forever. I would still need a car to get to the train, and another car when I arrive in Florida. Meanwhile I can get there by plane in no time, and the round trip price is very low.
I have a sister in Maryland who catches Amtrack to visit. She drives an hour to the train, then rides to Trenton, where she needs to be picked up.
And it costs over $220 round trip just for her. Now imagine if you were traveling with kids, the c
Re: (Score:2)
>Don't forget the train is almost always 200% slower than driving and 2000% slower than flying.
That depends on where the train is. I've been on trains that were way faster than flying when the airport time is taken into account. Specifically in Japan, Korea and Spain.
Re:Amtrak has never made a profit, only destroys (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So public services aren't supposed to be worthwhile? Yup- -- that's how it works.
Did you unironically post that on your internet connection paid for by government funds and subsidies which helped lay the network. I presume you spread this shit on the internet because you don't have a functional sewage system in your own house given how much you hate public services.
Re:Amtrak has never made a profit, only destroys (Score:4, Insightful)
Name one road anywhere in the country that pays for itself in gas taxes and other user fees. [archive.org]
Or, name one airport that never received public funding, and pays the same property tax rate as everyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Texas it large, no doubt about it. In fact you could put 1.4 Texases in Ontario, where I live. It can take 22 hours to drive to Manitoba, the next province to the west. But...
The north border of Texas to the most southerly town in Texas is a 13 hour dri
Re: (Score:2)
The moment people realize they can save time and money over flying is the moment it becomes economical to build these new lines.
When people really care about taking the cheapest fare, they take the bus.
Re: (Score:2)
There's another thing though. Americans love to whitter about population density as an excuse, but it's quite silly. Sure hardly anyone lives in Alaska, but that doesn't mean other parts of America aren't in fact very densely populated.
Even Texas. I stayed in Dallas for a few weeks on business a while back. I mostly drove around Carrollton. I did take the train to get to Deep Ellum though and that worked pretty well. The train wasn't deserted either.
Re: (Score:2)
> Not to mention you would have to have a SEPARATE PASSENGER rail line
This is basically the goal of the hyperloop people. Amtrak hasn't worked in 50 years, it's not going to work now. Time to try something different.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
> Building trains when we're on the verge of self-driving cars is a bold choice
How does building self-driving cars make us look more European? Don't we all want to be like our European betters, or is that just the "coastal elites"?
Re: (Score:2)
> Building trains when we're on the verge of self-driving cars is a bold choice
How does building self-driving cars make us look more European? Don't we all want to be like our European betters, or is that just the "coastal elites"?
Us coastal elites won't feel like coastal elites until we have spanking good high speed rail to get between the cities like Europeans.
...or you've never been to NYC (Score:3)
Trains are only good for people who really like to travel by train / are scared of flying. They are slower and almost always more expensive because it costs more to keep a train staffed , fueled, and running for 3 days and nights straight than it does for an airplane for 5.5 hours. Expanding the train network without improving the speed of the trains to match Japan or China is like expanding the telephone system so you can support more landlines instead of building more cell phone towers. This smells like rail lobbyists -- or Biden is really stuck in a 1950's mindset.
Get out more, buddy. Bostoners LOVE hopping on the Acela to NYC or DC. Driving there sucks. Flying sucks. The train is simple, relaxed, and quite pleasant. It takes you right where you want to be, unlike all airports, which are far off somewhere. It's very much the opposite of flying. If you have no idea why people like trains, you've never been to a real city. Try driving in New York, London, or Paris.
You gave the analogy of landline vs cell...A better analogy is wired vs wireless internet...lik
Re: For routes to work... (Score:2)
*laughs in European*
Actually, they won out because you literally built your infrastructure to favor cars.
You used to have a better train system. You had just as much public transport as we did, back in the days before cars.
You could have progressed the same way.
If it hadn't been for car industry lobbying.
( You can also thank them for the term "jaywalking". [youtube.com] It was a csr industry Pr campaign term, which was as offensive als "whorewalking" back then, used to shift the discussion away from "Cars kill sooo many p