Republicans waste no time in killing passenger rail

[ottermax]

Since we're talking about rail vs. air travel, I do believe that if we do spend all the money on high-speed rail it will either be expensive and unaffordable, or less spacious and comfortable so that the rail can make better profit. If we want rail to really work it needs to be more efficient, faster, and it may have to give up some perks that currently exist. Nonetheless it is a lot easier to just make a train longer than to fit more people on an airplane.

[Хahar 🤔]

And the reason why you and I can have the privilege of complaining about the airlines is because of the deregulation of air travel.  Back in the uberregulated days, a flight might have been 500 or 600 dollars inflation-adjusted, and it was only for the very rich.  My father never flew on an airplane until he was 27 years old, and he grew up solidly upper-middle class.  Now the middle class can afford to fly with some degree of regularity.

Airline regulation was corporatist. Nobody advocates that.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What part of the road system makes money?

The toll roads, bridges and tunnels that are scattered throughout the US.
[/quote]

Not all of them make money.  The Southern Connector (the part of I-185 south of I-85 in Greenville) filed for bankruptcy this year.

That said, high-speed rail isn't really suited for taking traffic off the roads, but for relieving congested airports and air space by providing an alternative to short flights that is often faster.  That's one reason Acela does well.

[King]

High speed rail could definitely take traffic off the roads.  The cost of running airlines is not only inefficient for the skies, but it also creates these horrible little foreign oil chugging, carbon produce, and traffic congesting monsters known as tourists on road trips.  If the rail could be built and travel expenses made a cheap enough, we could do a ton more to save energy than electric cars ever could.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The problem with high-speed rail is that everyone agrees it would be a wonderful idea if someone else used it to unclog the highways.  With both rail and air travel the person has made the decision to undergo the hassle of having to get to the station/airport and then leave the station/airport at the other end.  Automobile travel has no such hassle, so rail is a tough sell for people who will be doing a road trip that takes less than a day anyway unless their trip is already going to be city center to city center.

[fezzyfestoon]

The problem with high-speed rail is that everyone agrees it would be a wonderful idea if someone else used it to unclog the highways.  With both rail and air travel the person has made the decision to undergo the hassle of having to get to the station/airport and then leave the station/airport at the other end.  Automobile travel has no such hassle, so rail is a tough sell for people who will be doing a road trip that takes less than a day anyway unless their trip is already going to be city center to city center.

God, not here.  It's impossible to find a seat going to and from the city on the train.  It's bizarre that Christie canceled the tunnel however painful the price.  There are certain things that we should be spending extra on.  One of those is drawing down our addiction to the automobile.  New Jersey is the perfect place to kick that off.  I'm not sure about the other programs being canceled, but I'm inclined to believe they would have been beneficial.  Automobile travel has no hassle because we've invested such astronomical amounts of money into it for so long.  The interstate system was a horrendous concept and should be heavily de-emphasized.  It's fine that we have it in its insanely overdone state as it is, now we should start thinking more reasonably.  States is right in that it may not be completely viable to start trying to force train travel in places it just wouldn't be viable, which unfortunately is most of the country.  But heavily investing in metro train systems could be hugely successful.  The Northeast and to an extent the Midwest could really make it something huge.  Automobile travel shouldn't be the norm, public transportation should be.  It's nothing like its reputation and it needs an image overhaul.  It's cheap, easy, safe, reliable, responsible, and largely much more pleasant.

The real issue is that we've allowed our obsession with cars to dictate our entire societal structure.  We've spread out and disconnected.  Our entire culture now is isolation.  We drive our cars to and from our garages and stay in our houses that are getting further and further from each other and centers of population.  There is no concept of a downtown anymore or a city center that an area is located around.  It's just a mess of independently placed globs of suburbs connected by a giant road that shuttles people from those mass-produced houses to their mass-produced offices down the street from where they get their mass-produced meals.  Everything is disjointed and it's the fault of the interstate.  Thanks a lot, Eisenhower.  There is now no sense of community or identity in massive amounts of this country.  The suburbs are choking us.

[anvi]

Don't know the details about the comparative cost or profitability of high speed rail vs. highways.  Can only say that I've ridden high speed rail a lot in Japan and China, and it's awesome.  In Japan, it cuts 5 hour minimum highway trips down to two and a half hours, and in China cuts three hour road trips down to half an hour.  It's also reasonably comfortable and quiet and definitely doesn't cost anywhere near what airline tickets do.  

[??????????]

Don't know the details about the comparative cost or profitability of high speed rail vs. highways.  Can only say that I've ridden high speed rail a lot in Japan and China, and it's awesome.  In Japan, it cuts 5 hour minimum highway trips down to two and a half hours, and in China cuts three hour road trips down to half an hour.  It's also reasonably comfortable and quiet and definitely doesn't cost anywhere near what airline tickets do. 

For me to get from where I live to Baltimore, MD would be over 21 hours. The trip is less then 980 miles by car. If I make good time I can do that trip in 13-14 hours, why should I spend so much money to sit for so long?

The last time I took the train I believe we had something like 21 stops and God help you if a CSX train needs to get by (they have priority). We have to separate our freight lines from passenger trains. I think after all that my trip took over 26 hours and was seriously late from what was expected.

[Holmes]

fwiw, Gillibrand is asking LaHood for New Jersey's rail funds to go towards a Long Island corridor. I hope California gets Ohio or Wisconsin's funds, too. More jobs and efficiency to the people who want it.

[Brittain33]

What bothers me in these discussions is there is no discussion of how many people can't drive or really shouldn't be driving, and how there's no provision for them in strict car vs. public transit/train discussions. If you've spent any time in South Florida or grew up in exurbia where the driving age is 17, you'd understand how important it is.

[??????????]

What bothers me in these discussions is there is no discussion of how many people can't drive or really shouldn't be driving, and how there's no provision for them in strict car vs. public transit/train discussions. If you've spent any time in South Florida or grew up in exurbia where the driving age is 17, you'd understand how important it is.

Bad drivers exist everywhere really, you're not going to stop them.

[Brittain33]

What bothers me in these discussions is there is no discussion of how many people can't drive or really shouldn't be driving, and how there's no provision for them in strict car vs. public transit/train discussions. If you've spent any time in South Florida or grew up in exurbia where the driving age is 17, you'd understand how important it is.

Bad drivers exist everywhere really, you're not going to stop them.

That's true, but for some senior citizens, giving up their driver's licenses means giving up all independence. They're stuck in their homes unless they can bug relatives to drive them, which causes tension. So they keep driving and then go out and smash their cars and kill people. Similarly, as a kid, I drove my mother crazy needing rides to get anywhere because everything was too far to walk and too unsafe for bicycling and the driving age in NJ was 17. The choice isn't always between public transit and taking a car; it's often public transit vs. no trip at all.

[??????????]

What bothers me in these discussions is there is no discussion of how many people can't drive or really shouldn't be driving, and how there's no provision for them in strict car vs. public transit/train discussions. If you've spent any time in South Florida or grew up in exurbia where the driving age is 17, you'd understand how important it is.

Bad drivers exist everywhere really, you're not going to stop them.

That's true, but for some senior citizens, giving up their driver's licenses means giving up all independence. They're stuck in their homes unless they can bug relatives to drive them, which causes tension. So they keep driving and then go out and smash their cars and kill people. Similarly, as a kid, I drove my mother crazy needing rides to get anywhere because everything was too far to walk and too unsafe for bicycling and the driving age in NJ was 17. The choice isn't always between public transit and taking a car; it's often public transit vs. no trip at all.

Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I come from and married into a family of non-drivers. My grandmother never drove for 60 years, my wife doesn't drive and her great-grandmother never drove.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wouldn't it make more sense to try to do rail on a regional basis, if you're starting from such a low point? Link up all the major towns and cities (and have stations at any town of note in between) in a particular area, do it everywhere and worry about the national network after you have people actually using the things.

Of course I don't know much about the situation in the U.S, so I might be talking rubbish.

[??????????]

Wouldn't it make more sense to try to do rail on a regional basis, if you're starting from such a low point? Link up all the major towns and cities (and have stations at any town of note in between) in a particular area, do it everywhere and worry about the national network after you have people actually using the things.

Of course I don't know much about the situation in the U.S, so I might be talking rubbish.

That's what they've been trying to do here but it has been strongly opposed by the citizens.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I love how wormyguy is touting airline de-regulation so much. Yes it's true airlines used to be over-regulated in a corporatist way (though memphis's points are also correct), but what President was it who was responsible for that de-regulation? Yeah not one libertarians are usually crazy about...

[Storebought]

The US no longer has the engineering capability of producing high-speed anything. Technicians, rolling stock, spare parts, and engineers would have to be imported from Germany or Japan. Or we can do things on the cheap and take the ride of our lives on a Chinese bullet train.

The fact is that large engineering projects in the US take ever longer to be built, with spiraling costs, projects that are billions over-budget even before the first environmental impact study is undertaken. This goes for bridges and tunnels, dams (when was the last dam built in the US?), power plants, what have you.

Honestly, I find the thought of smoothed, straightened track capable of bearing a 300+ km/hr train being built in NJ or CT to be completely absurd.

[Storebought]

Admittedly this is facetious, but high-speed rail would have a greater public approval if there were a way to convey the passengers' cars on the train at the same time, or on a freight line that reaches its destination a day or so later. Or skip the passengers altogether and build high(er)-speed freight rail.

[fezzyfestoon]

Wouldn't it make more sense to try to do rail on a regional basis, if you're starting from such a low point? Link up all the major towns and cities (and have stations at any town of note in between) in a particular area, do it everywhere and worry about the national network after you have people actually using the things.

Of course I don't know much about the situation in the U.S, so I might be talking rubbish.

Absolutely, but the problem, as I pointed out, is that our development was so centered around the automobile that things are just a mess.  In most of the country the major population centers are scattered around or just so spread out that they can't be logically connected very well.  The Northeast is relatively easy, but the rest of the country is all over the place.

What has been great in New Jersey is the re-emphasis on rail.  Commuter communities are popping up centered on the train, incorporating stations into towns and making them more viable and integrated.  A perfect comparison is my exurban town where the train station is just sitting there in the woods with a parking lot and a platform and Morristown where the station is a few blocks from downtown with a new transit village.

Morristown is a national leader in smart growth, something a lot of places are too far gone to implement.  I think if the Northeast were to really implement rail even more effectively, they could set a great example.

[Mercenary]

Unfortunate, I want to see a large increase in these.

[Vepres]

Local rail has been very successful. Denver's light rail system is very good and only expanding outward.

Of course, rail over longer distances creates problems out west due to mountains, so I really don't know if it would be worth it in that case.

[Torie]

I got from Suburban Philly to NYC Grand Central station in about 2 hours by train. Not bad at all. Getting there any other way would have been hell. Trains are good, for short to medium intercity hauls. And on the east coast, we are running out of air space to boot. One big storm around there, in some spot, and the whole air flight system can be put into chaos as a domino effect ensues, as one sector of the air space closes down, bumping planes into the air lanes of other flights, who then need to wait for the intruding planes to get through, and so no.

We are just going to have to suck it up on this one.

[Vepres]

The real issue is that we've allowed our obsession with cars to dictate our entire societal structure.  We've spread out and disconnected.  Our entire culture now is isolation.  We drive our cars to and from our garages and stay in our houses that are getting further and further from each other and centers of population.  There is no concept of a downtown anymore or a city center that an area is located around.  It's just a mess of independently placed globs of suburbs connected by a giant road that shuttles people from those mass-produced houses to their mass-produced offices down the street from where they get their mass-produced meals.  Everything is disjointed and it's the fault of the interstate.  Thanks a lot, Eisenhower.  There is now no sense of community or identity in massive amounts of this country.  The suburbs are choking us.

Except for some boom towns in the sun belt, I don't see that as the case.

Besides, suburbs can and often do have community and culture.

[Mint]

I love how wormyguy is touting airline de-regulation so much. Yes it's true airlines used to be over-regulated in a corporatist way (though memphis's points are also correct), but what President was it who was responsible for that de-regulation? Yeah not one libertarians are usually crazy about...

Actually there's a decent amount that like him now or at least view him as less bad than average. It's sort the same thing that started in the 60s-70s with the neo-cons and Truman. Google Ivan Eland for an example.

[fezzyfestoon]

The real issue is that we've allowed our obsession with cars to dictate our entire societal structure.  We've spread out and disconnected.  Our entire culture now is isolation.  We drive our cars to and from our garages and stay in our houses that are getting further and further from each other and centers of population.  There is no concept of a downtown anymore or a city center that an area is located around.  It's just a mess of independently placed globs of suburbs connected by a giant road that shuttles people from those mass-produced houses to their mass-produced offices down the street from where they get their mass-produced meals.  Everything is disjointed and it's the fault of the interstate.  Thanks a lot, Eisenhower.  There is now no sense of community or identity in massive amounts of this country.  The suburbs are choking us.

Except for some boom towns in the sun belt, I don't see that as the case.

Besides, suburbs can and often do have community and culture.

I don't see how it's at all possible to arrive at that conclusion.  People get in their cars, drive to a strip mall, shop, and drive back home to their secluded houses.  There is little to no social interaction from day to day.  There are fewer and fewer social gathering places, declining social involvement, more spread out development.  Just being around other people is almost impossible in our suburban culture.  I don't see how that's arguable.