As an American living in a region with halfway decent (by American standards) public transit, I feel like I hear more comments aligned with the European side than the American side. If public transit has literally any downsides, that’s justification enough to drive for so many people.
Although the US and Europe are nearly identical in area, Europe’s population centers are far more uniformly distributed. Big cities in America are mostly around the edges, with a vast, sparsely populated area in the middle. Most intercity train service in America is in that fringe, where the spacing between cities is more like in Europe.
Sure, intercity will never work in the US. Except on both coasts. And upper Midwest. And in a couple mountain and high desert areas. Dammit, that’s like 70% of the population
True, but the post is about trains being on schedule (or showing up at all), not about speed. I wasn’t saying US trains service is as good as European.
As an American living in a region with halfway decent (by American standards) public transit, I feel like I hear more comments aligned with the European side than the American side. If public transit has literally any downsides, that’s justification enough to drive for so many people.
if public transit isn’t very good at eating me out, I need to buy a ford T1000 P!E!D!E!S!T!R!I!A!N!M!U!T!I!L!A!T!O!R! and roll coal.
Baby, people call me a 2-8-0 Locomotive. I can take you places that you never thought of.
Although the US and Europe are nearly identical in area, Europe’s population centers are far more uniformly distributed. Big cities in America are mostly around the edges, with a vast, sparsely populated area in the middle. Most intercity train service in America is in that fringe, where the spacing between cities is more like in Europe.
Sure, intercity will never work in the US. Except on both coasts. And upper Midwest. And in a couple mountain and high desert areas. Dammit, that’s like 70% of the population
And yet we don’t have true hsr in the northeast, where the big cities are…
or california. for… some reason.
True, but the post is about trains being on schedule (or showing up at all), not about speed. I wasn’t saying US trains service is as good as European.
Is this a “glass half full” thing? Can a non-existent train never be late or never be in time?
Yeah, I just see that said a lot and think its a bad excuse for having bad service.
Especially when we had much better service 100 years ago, with a fraction of the modern day population.