this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Fast trains so that you can be restricted in exactly when you can visit and still pay for it. And then have to walk the rest of the distance from the train station to her house. There is so many flaws people just ~~fail~~ refuse to see.
Cars are even more restricted in travel time. Unlike trains, which typically come multiple times an hour, car travel has to be planned around rush hour and gridlock.
Honestly, I don’t even know how we can be debating this. Car dependence is a dead end. Cars don’t scale because a linear increase in drivers requires a non-linear increase in surface area. Car dependence makes it impossible to meet our climate goals. These catastrophic failures are so much worse than needing to walk a few blocks. There are so many flaws that car people just ~~fail~~ refuse to see.
Trains go from nowhere near where I live, to nowhere near anywhere I want to go, then cost just as much as a car (Yes I did the sums).
To use trains not only do I have to use my car I also have to pay for parking. May as well drive wherever I want to go.
Of course traffic jams are real. That's why wherever possible I either go on the motorbike or shop on Amazon instead.
That's a problem with the infrastructure and transit policy, not the technology. I can't afford a car, where I'm at I'm able to take a train to cities nearby, I can take a free shuttle to the train station or bike because it's not very far. In the past in the US at least there were more train and tram routes, when cars because more prevalent cities stopped developing the infrastructure, but if done properly it can be superior to driving.
Even the Netherlands or Japan have many places where only travel by car makes sense. We will always need some cars. Maybe your situation is like that. But your personal situation doesn’t dictate whether or not it makes sense for society to build a lot more trains, which is what we’re talking about.
Also, describing how much less convenient trains are for you presently than driving is kind of missing the point. Everyone already agrees that train lines don’t exist to service many places. We’re not talking about what exists now, but how things should change.
I see them it's just I don't really care since they are so very minor as opposed to any other type of large-scale transportation, especially trains.
The fact that cars mathematically cannot scale with population is “so very minor”? Or that cars are the most expensive form of transportation? Or that cars require tons of parking and wide roads that lead to inefficient use of land, contributing to a housing crisis and ugly sprawl?
So what is a “major” problem? Ah right, walking a few blocks.
Cars scale with the population very well. Rural and small cities have smaller roads and better infrastructure for traveling short distances while still being able to be used for long distance. The housing crisis goes a lot deeper than people think, if cars are contributing, then not much.
Ah right because America is a few blocks long. And here I thought the American would be bad at geography (I don't know a single thing about geography).
No urban designer or transportation expert thinks that cars scale with population. Talking about rural and small cities is the opposite of scaling with population. Car dependent big cities like LA or Houston have hellish traffic.
At least have a cursory look at the link I posted in my last comment. Cars play a huge role in bad land use. This is why they have an enormous effect on housing supply.
You seem to be lost. You made the point that walking from a train station to your final destination was some major problem. I’m not even sure what point you think your last paragraph is responding to. Yes America is bigger than a few blocks. So is Europe and China. So what?
So I'm not walking that far...