Robust public transit is for sure the solution in highly dense population areas.
Unfortunately it is rarely implemented in the US. A lot of foreigners have trouble grasping just how big the US is, and just how far you have to travel to get anywhere. A few hours gets you from one side of a country to another in many european and latin american nations. In the US it takes many days to drive from one side to another. Some states take many hours to cross. Robust public transit isn’t feasible in the majority of the US, and there is immense negative reactions to imminent domain.
The US was built on rail. Almost every US city only exists because it used to be on a rail line. Most US cities used to have tram networks that were ripped out and paved over to make way for cars. LA, despite now being a sprawling car centric wasteland used to have the biggest tram network in the country. Rail is also just a far better solution to travelling vast distances than cars for many reasons, so I really don’t understand why that argument comes up again and again. Who the fuck wants to drive from New York to California? I don’t.
The reason for the dominance of cars in the US has way more to do with the power of the auto industry and the lack of political will than any real practical concerns.
The car argument is relevant because OK, you take a train from NYC to Seattle or some shit. It goes across thousands of miles. If you were to stop at a station to visit a relative along the way, you could get off the train and still be 3-5+ hours by car travel to that relative who lives in podunkville population 100.
We have an enormous amount of land that has very, very low population density. There are huge swathes that also practically have no to minimal population living there permanently.
Then we have places like Alaska that have absolutely insane supply chain (and thus costs for basic sundries) that really are only servicable by boat, plane or car unless you’re building a stretch of rail through canada.
Much of the nation doesn’t want to fund infrastructure for “city folk” and that’s just around half of the people who vote on a nationwide scale. Even with some of the super liberal areas with tons of uber left leaning wealthy people, the left leaning wealthy people still push back on policies that require changing zoning from single family (wealthy) houses to high density housing despite being on commuter rail lines. Same towns complain that education costs are way too high and that they don’t want to pay taxes for them because they just send their kids to private school anyway.
Wealthy NIMBYs rule policy for public transit, and the republican party also basically follows the philosophy of “fuck you, i’ve got mine” so although the technical solution is mass implementation of public transit, the problem is wealthy assholes controlling the media and politics, stopping any kind of major project from ever getting off the ground.
The car argument is relevant because OK, you take a train from NYC to Seattle or some shit. It goes across thousands of miles. If you were to stop at a station to visit a relative along the way, you could get off the train and still be 3-5+ hours by car travel to that relative who lives in podunkville population 100.
We have an enormous amount of land that has very, very low population density. There are huge swathes that also practically have no to minimal population living there permanently.
I’m confused. Is your argument that mass public transit isn’t realistic for students traveling to unis because a tiny % of the population lives in the middle of nowhere where it wouldn’t be feasible to access by rail alone? Places where there universities do not even exist? There are towns of less than 10K people in the US that used to be serviced by rail back when they were even smaller than that (and some that still are). Look up a picture of the US freight rail map. Even without the insane subsidies that cars receive, the most extensive freight rail network in the world has been built in the US.
To your other point, I agree that the political will for public transit is not strong enough. I think that’s a poor excuse to advocate for more car parking which will only make the situation worse.
This discussion got away from the education use case multiple comments ago.
I’m not advocating for more parking. Originally my point was to impress that you cannot just simply rip out parking today for absolutely everyone. Dorm learning and existing public transit options do not work for people with real needs, today who shouldn’t be alienated just because they do not fit into the dorm model. They are an extreme minority of students, so a very limited amount of parking is necessary for them. They often attend night classes as well, when parking lots are typically empty on college campuses. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fit into staff parking spaces in the majority of scenarios since most staff won’t be there for night classes.
Freight rail was overwhelmingly built before cars became prevalent on the household level, and then in the past 40 years or so cars went from a household level to individual ownership en masse for the majority of people of driving age who do not live in areas with extensive public transit.
Other buildouts have been way too modest. Most of the stuff that seems big is just revamping existing lines. The closest thing to a major rail project I know of coming out right now is Brightline West, a passenger line from LA to Vegas.
Robust public transit is for sure the solution in highly dense population areas.
Unfortunately it is rarely implemented in the US. A lot of foreigners have trouble grasping just how big the US is, and just how far you have to travel to get anywhere. A few hours gets you from one side of a country to another in many european and latin american nations. In the US it takes many days to drive from one side to another. Some states take many hours to cross. Robust public transit isn’t feasible in the majority of the US, and there is immense negative reactions to imminent domain.
I think you should watch this video: https://youtu.be/REni8Oi1QJQ
The US was built on rail. Almost every US city only exists because it used to be on a rail line. Most US cities used to have tram networks that were ripped out and paved over to make way for cars. LA, despite now being a sprawling car centric wasteland used to have the biggest tram network in the country. Rail is also just a far better solution to travelling vast distances than cars for many reasons, so I really don’t understand why that argument comes up again and again. Who the fuck wants to drive from New York to California? I don’t.
The reason for the dominance of cars in the US has way more to do with the power of the auto industry and the lack of political will than any real practical concerns.
The car argument is relevant because OK, you take a train from NYC to Seattle or some shit. It goes across thousands of miles. If you were to stop at a station to visit a relative along the way, you could get off the train and still be 3-5+ hours by car travel to that relative who lives in podunkville population 100.
We have an enormous amount of land that has very, very low population density. There are huge swathes that also practically have no to minimal population living there permanently.
Then we have places like Alaska that have absolutely insane supply chain (and thus costs for basic sundries) that really are only servicable by boat, plane or car unless you’re building a stretch of rail through canada.
Much of the nation doesn’t want to fund infrastructure for “city folk” and that’s just around half of the people who vote on a nationwide scale. Even with some of the super liberal areas with tons of uber left leaning wealthy people, the left leaning wealthy people still push back on policies that require changing zoning from single family (wealthy) houses to high density housing despite being on commuter rail lines. Same towns complain that education costs are way too high and that they don’t want to pay taxes for them because they just send their kids to private school anyway.
Wealthy NIMBYs rule policy for public transit, and the republican party also basically follows the philosophy of “fuck you, i’ve got mine” so although the technical solution is mass implementation of public transit, the problem is wealthy assholes controlling the media and politics, stopping any kind of major project from ever getting off the ground.
I’m confused. Is your argument that mass public transit isn’t realistic for students traveling to unis because a tiny % of the population lives in the middle of nowhere where it wouldn’t be feasible to access by rail alone? Places where there universities do not even exist? There are towns of less than 10K people in the US that used to be serviced by rail back when they were even smaller than that (and some that still are). Look up a picture of the US freight rail map. Even without the insane subsidies that cars receive, the most extensive freight rail network in the world has been built in the US.
To your other point, I agree that the political will for public transit is not strong enough. I think that’s a poor excuse to advocate for more car parking which will only make the situation worse.
This discussion got away from the education use case multiple comments ago.
I’m not advocating for more parking. Originally my point was to impress that you cannot just simply rip out parking today for absolutely everyone. Dorm learning and existing public transit options do not work for people with real needs, today who shouldn’t be alienated just because they do not fit into the dorm model. They are an extreme minority of students, so a very limited amount of parking is necessary for them. They often attend night classes as well, when parking lots are typically empty on college campuses. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fit into staff parking spaces in the majority of scenarios since most staff won’t be there for night classes.
Freight rail was overwhelmingly built before cars became prevalent on the household level, and then in the past 40 years or so cars went from a household level to individual ownership en masse for the majority of people of driving age who do not live in areas with extensive public transit.
Other buildouts have been way too modest. Most of the stuff that seems big is just revamping existing lines. The closest thing to a major rail project I know of coming out right now is Brightline West, a passenger line from LA to Vegas.