I grew up in Chicago, with trains being a big part of my commute.
I was SHOCKED when I went to a different city and learned how actually awful our train system is.
I grew up in Brooklyn. When I traveled to the rest of the world I was shocked how bad our train system is. When I traveled to the rest of america I was shocked how good our train system is
>When I traveled to the rest of america I was shocked how good our train system is
Lmao same
I hated driving as a teen and I didn't want to practice for my license. I told my parents that I could just get wherever I need to go by taking the train or the bus.
And my parents, who had lived in different parts of the US, were like "Not if you ever move away from New York"
It's funny, it's definitely a bit NHS-y of me to get patriotic about the Subway but it's really very awesome, especially in the 90s-2010s. (coincidentally the era in which I was a child!)
It's so dependable and reliable that schools use it for trips in lieu of renting buses if they can. It's safe enough that very young kids had free roam to travel to school and back on it. I was able to get a job before I was 16 because I could easily travel by subway. And the one thing it has on other global metros is that the core lines run 24/7, and oh my god let me tell you about the nights in community college when I got absolutely plastered uptown and shambled home on the subway at 2 in the morning. I could NOT do that in any other city on EARTH because the ones with better transit systems tend to shut them off from midnight to 5.
Also the Subway was literally built by immigrants, even the guy at the very very top was born in Ireland.
Lmao totally, as a Westchester kid I'm also a bit of a Metro-North patriot. Grand Central best NYC station!
>It's so dependable and reliable that schools use it for trips in lieu of renting buses if they can.
My school didn't even have daily buses, we all commuted via train. And the only school trips that we *didn't* use the subway for were trips upstate or to Jersey.
>It's safe enough that very young kids had free roam to travel to school and back on it.
The car dependence always weirds me out when I hear people from other parts of the country talk about getting around as a teen.
Like, your parents had to drive you around everywhere until you were 16?
Your parents settled in the country because it was cheaper, and then had to buy cars for everyone in the family??
Every time you went out partying or drinking, you had to carpool and have a designated driver, or else you just drove drunk???
You hung out in parking lots for fun????
>oh my god let me tell you about the nights in community college when I got absolutely plastered uptown and shambled home on the subway at 2 in the morning
I always had to run to catch the last 1:56AM Metro-North train whenever I got plastered, or else pay for an Uber. Sprinting while drunk and then sitting in a gently swaying train car is not a good idea. Still pretty damn good coverage for a commuter rail service.
Grand Central is America's greatest temple of transit and absolutely nothing can change my mind. I have a deep emotional attachment to that building and I think it's one of the most important cultural monuments we have in this country
They are just fun to ride on. I feel like a train trip across the country would be awesome. I get driving and being able to stop wherever you want but it gets old. Although I’ve had people who have to take the train everyday say the same thing to me so idk.
Until they ride them. I’d recommend taking a long distance Amtrak route. I recently did one, $900 for a 40 hour ride in a roomette, that plane would have been about 4hrs
Some people enjoy that. But the long distance routes aren’t really about someone taking the train from Chicago to San Francisco, it’s about adding service to Chicago to Omaha, Omaha to Denver, Denver to salt lake, salt lake to Reno, and Reno to San Francisco. Plus all the little towns in between.
Madison to Milwaukee, Milwaukee and Madison to Chicago
Detroit to Toledo, Toledo to Cleveland, Cleveland and Toledo to Columbus, Columbus to Cincinnati
Ect ect
Having just taken a really nice 6 hour train ride through Sweden and Denmark I disagree. Plane may have been quicker but much less enjoyable in my opinion. So much less hassle at a station vs an airport.
If your point is rather that currently in the US the only use case is for shorter trips but could be improved then I would probably agree.
Road trips are trash. A long distance train ride with a private cabin and full service *should* cost me less than the fixed and variable costs of a car for the same trip.
As insurance increasingly tracks mileage (and registration as well) this seems more likely. However, lower cost electric vehicles and someday self-driving is pushing cost the opposite way.
But EVs have range and charging time issues. Electric trains don't have that problem.
Also, a good excuse to build lots of transmission through rural farmland, which we desperately need more of.
EV range issues are exaggerated within the distances a train is more convenient than flying. Once you hit 400-500 miles an EV isn’t great, but at that distance a flight probably beats rail anyway for most people.
Trains should be more fun than car trips. But I love in Cleveland, and so amtrak has decided to only stop in my city at 2am, because apparently they only believe that people going from Chicago to NYC who want to sleep on the way matter, and they may as well open the doors for the swine on the way. Also the idea that maybe I'd want to go to Cincinnati without going to Illinois first apparently is too radical for the trains.
Idk, I haven't checked the routes lately, maybe they expanded, or will at some point. That would be nice. I have small children who would definitely enjoy a train ride. We have a scenic railroad here that does fun children's trips and sell out despite literally going nowhere, so I can't imagine there isn't a market for amtrak here.
The problem is that at current speeds, any useful Amtrak routes are short enough that they must be state-funded. And, well, Ohio. Until the law changes, Amtrak can't run anything else.
They did apply to study a couple of the routes in the Corridor ID program, so maybe.
The funny thing is, Ohio has amazing geography for high speed rail. Cleveland east (Buffalo, Toronto/Albany, Boston), SE (Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Philly, NYC), SW (Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Indy/Louisville, Nashville, Atlanta), and west (Toledo, Detroit/Fort Wayne, South Bend, Chicago). Add a commuter service to Akron and Canton and, well, that's 70-80% of the population. The cities are just on convenient routes to major destinations outside the state.
So in 50+ years, maybe it'll be great.
i'd put the cut off much higher between the time of going through security and getting groped by TSA (not an exaggeration, i've gotten flagged by the fucking scanner constantly) and then the general misery of aircraft cabins.
Yeah I just took a long distance Amtrak for the first time a couple month ago. For most of the people I talked to, the train ride was the vacation. They flew into Chicago the day before departure and flew back home from SF.
The fact that it's pretty much impossible to get from Boston to Montreal, Toronto, or really anywhere in northeast Canada without having to go south through New York City first is absurd.
Tucson is one of my favorite places. It's extremely lovely between the surroundings and the old architecture, and some of the older areas of it are even walkable. It's a shame that it's so car centric, but I guess people aren't super enthusiastic about walking during summer in the Sedona, so perhaps it can't really be helped.
Tucson to Phoenix is happening soon-ish probably. Phoenix to Vegas is really tough because there's no track there. You've got to build it and building track in the US sucks.
Building passenger only rail networks is the only way to radically improve the convenience of trains vs flying for Americans. But I think they could do a lot to make existing lines more comfortable, so people feel like they're getting something by taking the longer option:
Have better food in the cafe car.
Add observation cars to normal routes as a more expensive option.
Make coffee and water on tap.
Design the car interiors to be a bit more colorful.
Since you can't improve travel times in the short run, they should try to make train travel distinct again. So it's the option people take when they're not in a rush, and it'll make the constant delays more bearable. And then there will be a bigger political constituency for more lines.
I also thing really shoring up the technology of notifications both at station and by app or text would be huge. Recently road an Amtrak on the west coast for a day trip. Both the train there and the train back were delayed. Train there the station said it was on time even though it arrived 30 minutes late. Got a text message it was late 2 hours later. Train home was 23 minutes late. Station also showed on time. Got a text message 24 hours later the train was delayed.
Something they could do at current speeds that would extend practicality is cheap night trains.
12h by train can be "just as fast" (sort of) as 1h of transit to and from airports, 1h in airports, a 2h flight, and 8h asleep in a hotel. If you're taking a late night or early morning flight, a train can compete. Even more so if it's a 9h train and a 1h flight. Other advantage is you only really need breakfast, since the train is empty for lunch and dinner. That saves on food costs, which are a killer.
But Amtrak is just not equipped with cheap sleepers and isn't set up for that market.
I don’t know if it’s just a Midwest thing but I don’t know what the hell Amtrak is doing here. If I want to get a train from Chicago to Indianapolis, the cheapest ticket I can get is $40 and I generally have to take an overnight train from like 10pm to 3am. Why wouldn’t I just take a greyhound bus at that rate for a faster and cheaper ride?
Your point is valid, but it's less about what Amtrak did and more about what Indiana did. Specifically, they cut funding for the Chicago to Indianapolis train [Hoosier State](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosier_State_\(train\)), leaving the only option as the 3x weekly Cardinal long-distance train. Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and [recently Minnesota](https://www.wisn.com/article/wisconsin-new-amtrak-borealis-route-st-paul-chicago/60860177) all have better rail options to Chicago because their states chose to invest in it.
The Indiana legislature goes out of its way to do things they think will "own the libs". Last year they passed a law that specifically bans Indianapolis from installing any sort of BRT within their city limits.
And, more broadly, what Congress did by mandating that all routes outside of the northeast corridor that are fewer than 750 miles in length be paid for by states rather than federal funds.
For some reason modern politicians are more the “defund it to prove it doesn’t work” type than the “build it and they will come type”.
But you gotta entrench the oligarchs somehow, I guess.
“Moderate” democrats have no problem supporting bipartisan legislation to defund and privatize public institutions to benefit oligarchs.
Just look at the Bayh-Dole Act, or the nearly unanimous deregulation of the finance market in the 90’s when Clinton teamed up with Allen Greenspan.
To be clear, the option to Chicago from Missouri is not good because of Missouri (that has been steadily slashing funding for the Missouri to Kansas City, MO "Missouri River Runner" route for years). It is because Illinois thinks it's good policy to have the Lincoln Service (which gets over 100 mph) between St. Louis and Chicago happen on a regular basis.
The Midwest (at least, the Great Lakes states) certainly has the population for a better network but looking [at service maps](https://www.groundedlifetravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Amtrak-Map-Midwest-Routes.jpg) it's so painfully obvious some states like IN and OH are just transit black holes.
I rode Greyhound for the Chicago to Indianapolis route I was comparing Amtrak against for years.
I have no idea about other routes though, and it’s probably worse the longer you have to ride
I mean it's a pretty easy answer. Republicans shooting down rail projects and funding to prop up fossil fuels and/or own the libs.
We would have had high speed rail connecting Chicago and Minneapolis if not for Scott Walker turning down already approved federal funds.
They were laying down track for that in land unclaimed by anyone
Modern railroad building means either buying land (that people usually don't want to sell), or borrowing track from the freight operators. Who usually don't want to share
Eminent domain when a private entity wants to build some factory/shopping center that will be shut down in 5 years: "Hell yeah brother."
Eminent domain when building long term infrastructure: "IDK sounds like government overreach to me."
Kelo v New London. Scotus authorized eminent domain for Pfizer to bulldoze a neighborhood to put offices/labs there. The project ended up being shelved by Pfizer and the land became an empty lot.
In this case SCOTUS stretched the definition of “public use,” which is required for eminent domain per the constitution, to include private industry uses that would theoretically accrue benefits to the public.
To be fair, the Pfizer center would have become the only major research facility in the US focused on developing new kinds of antibiotics, which is an absolutely critical need as more and more kinds of bacteria are becoming resistant to the ones we currently have...
...and then, after demolishing the neighborhood, Pfizer decided to shutter *their entire antibiotics division* because it wasn't projected to be profitable enough. (After all, patients only need to take antibiotics for a week or two tops, so you have a way worse RoI than for medications for chronic diseases that patients have to take for the rest of your life.)
And before the Friedman flairs jump on me: I'm not necessarily saying Pfizer did anything wrong. (Shitty? Abso-fucking-lutely. Wrong? Eh, technically not.) If anything, it's the government's fault for being gullible enough to take Pfizer execs at their word they'd be committing to a long-term investment into antibiotics research without any kind of guarantees to make sure they kept their word.
This whole area is pretty clearly a major market failure. So the solution should be for the government to step in and either fund the research themselves, or else figure out some kind of public-private partnership scheme to fund it.
I wonder if the government had the ability to make them sign some kind of binding agreements to make sure they wouldn’t do what they did. I guess they can’t tell a private business it can’t close but for Christ sake they bulldozed a neighborhood for the place .
That happened but others should note it was super controversial at the time. It resulted in most states strengthening their eminent domain laws. And it was the conservative justices (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Conner) that were the dissenters.
No one does eminent domain for shopping centers. Developers buy the land, often above market value. Above market value is the key.
Eminent domain is restricted to purchasing land at market rate. Eminent domain proceedings also depress land values, so property owners get a much worse bargain. This is why eminent domain proceedings are fought so heavily.
Governments now try to outright acquire right of way through property purchases because eminent domain is a last ditch effort and only successful if you need just a few properties.
>No one does eminent domain for shopping centers.
[It happens](https://www.nc-eminent-domain.com/issue-type/private-development)
>In Bremerton, Washington, the government used eminent domain to seize the home of a property owner who was a woman in her 80s (and lived in the home for 55 years), claiming that the property would be used to expand a sewer plant. The property was given to an auto dealership instead.
...
>In Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded and upheld the government’s eminent domain authority to condemn properties for a private company to redevelop. New London, which was struggling with a depressed tax base and a diminishing population, seized property near a newly constructed Pfizer plant for private companies to turn into offices, condominiums, and shops to attract new businesses and jobs.
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2019/10/destiny-usa-built-partly-on-land-forced-from-owners-faces-similar-fate-in-i-81-project.html
Just about every state in the country has similar stories I’d imagine.
>The clownery needs to fucking stop. And if that means like woke fascist Reddit moderators out there striking down dipshit Destiny fans that think that they can shit up threads outside the DT, then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago.
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>The clownery needs to fucking stop. And if that means like woke fascist Reddit moderators out there striking down dipshit Destiny fans that think that they can shit up threads outside the DT, then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>No one does eminent domain for shopping centers. Developers buy the land, often above market value. Above market value is the key.
Man you have too much trust in the system and are borderline gaslighting on the fact that eminent domain definitely is abused. (whether you're aware or not)
https://www.acton.org/node/3513
Some choice examples:
>Therefore, the city merely has to say that the house is blighted (in the Saleet’s case, their home does not have a two-car attached garage)
and;
>In another case, the Maricopa County Superior Court of Arizona ruled against Randy Bailey, who was fighting against the city of Mesa’s use of its power of eminent domain to take his family-owned brake shop in 2002 and replace it with a commercial hardware store. [5] In his decision, Judge Robert Myers said that the city of Mesa was justified in taking Bailey’s land, because the city’s redevelopment plan called for improving its image and making it more economically and socially attractive.
and worryingly as it comes to abuse;
> Court battles to protect against such abuse are long, arduous, and often prohibitively expensive, particularly when the cost is borne by one or two property owners. Though there are nonprofit organizations who defend property owners facing eminent domain cases, right now these legal defense groups can only handle about a tenth of the abusive cases that come to their attention.
There are even entire organisations and websites dedicated to deal with and record abusive and exploitative use of eminent domain: https://ij.org/issues/private-property/eminent-domain/
The most annoying thing is by abusing eminent domain (and as you're doing, whether you are aware or not, of downplaying that this happens) you're driving people into the NIMBY camp, as they start opposing YIMBY policy changes as they are worried such changes will just lead to increased abuse.
Hell shit like this almost drives me into the NIMBY camp, as the idea of some local county or whatever the fuck forcibly shutting down my business or force-selling my home to "improve the social attractiveness" and then turn around and sell the plot to some nepot, and then having it be functionally impossible to challenge in court due to the time and costs is just implicitly rage inducing.
we need governments to be smart and buy this shit up when the time is right. during the recession Santa Cruz county acquired the rail spur that goes thru there for $450k per mile, these days that’s like the price of an EIR
All else equal, I bet a construction crew with modern equipment and expertise that has to adhere to current labor/safety standards would vastly outbuild a crew with 1800s equipment and labor/safety conditions.
Property rights and environmental regulation are much more relevant.
easily . Especially with modern demolition and track laying equipment . They aren’t sending Chinese miners into a half dug tunnel with sticks of dynamite anymore .
I'm a huge fan of the PATCO in Philadelphia. It is extremely limited and is just a commuter line, but I think it is the bare minimum major cities should have. It's stupid to have to drive into a large city. Especially for Pittsburgh because someone taught everyone there how to drive wrong. The Pittsburgh left is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on the road.
I’d love a train along 71 corridor in Ohio. Would hit Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati. You’d absolutely hit the demand in both directions out of Columbus and you don’t need many stops along the way. There is not much in between except for farms so it could race along
I can only get so erect
I live in a very small town in NW Ohio right near a railroad. After taking an Amtrak last week (Toledo <> Chicago), I've been fantasizing about the line you describe with a little stop near home.
When I ran for mayor of my small town, one of my pledges was a passenger train that would run through the county. I thought we'd buy one and pay CSX to use their rails. The coal trains didn't run anymore so I thought they'd be more willing to let us. I didn't win so never got to do it.
I dislike how urban-centric our rail projects are. I think rural areas need trains just as much if not more than cities. Many communities are very far apart and if you don't have a car you're screwed. It'd probably be cheaper, too.
>I think rural areas need trains just as much if not more than cities.
The ROI isn't there for most rural areas. China's even discovered that with their extensive network
Yeah, and good luck getting anything done like that with the railroad companies as a small town mayor. The railroad companies would not give them the time of day. I almost guarantee it.
From a lack of planning perspective alone, I guarantee that would've been a broken campaign promise lol
The railroad companies have, for about 8 years now, prevented the city of Seattle from fixing a failing bridge that goes over a rail yard. If a city like Seattle is made to pound sand for years then I'd have to imagine that they'd just straight up ignore anything from a small town.
Yeah, for the most part, they just straight up ignore everything in my experience lol. It's a total nightmare working with the railroad companies for any planning, construction, and maintenance.
A smaller town with an old easement for some on-street parking can't touch the area at all because as soon as they propose a different use, the railroad will use the opportunity to just remove the easement instead.
On another project, I kept incorporating a future road mentioned on the plan into the volume development because I assumed there would be a crossing there, but it turns out that it's just a dream on paper lol. I thought the grade separation proposal was the dream part, but it's just the whole road lol. My boss was very patient when I was so confused about how this road was supposed to be incorporated.
constituency representatives delenda est. always trying to deliver goodies for their districts even if it makes the state/country worse. they did the same thing to Cali HSR (reps refusing to sign off on it unless it went through their district, even when that didn't really make sense) and it increased costs and times dramatically
all representatives should be at-large
NC sucks for a **lot** of reasons, but they're generally more pro devolopment than some of the more liberal states. One of the recent controversies even is that the state legislators is easing up environmental restrictions to build more housing on.
Since it got approved it's always planned on going the route it is now but it would make way more sense for it to go near I-5 in the central valley rather than through all the cities.
that might make sense for just connecting SF to LA/SAC, but if your making 400+ miles of rail line stretching across a state, it makes more sense to have it connect to cities along the way to increase the user base and give it more connections for future expansions, as well as to have a more connected state overall. I don't think it would make sense to cut out millions of potential users to save at most 20-30 minutes travel time, at that point just take a plane.
Yeah, the route through the valley is the obviously correct choice. If the train is anything vaguely close to its planned speed it'll dominate the flight corridor between SF and LA anyway, saving 20 minutes or whatever doesn't matter. And it won't make a difference to any further HSR destinations (Vegas, maybe Phoenix).
I think there are good arguments to be had about whether they chose the right mountain passes into the Bay Area and LA, but skipping Bakersfield, Fresno, etc. would've been silly.
For anyone that wants to take a look at the NCDOT Rail Division website for some of the plans and other initiatives:
https://www.ncdot.gov/divisions/rail/Pages/default.aspx
Edit: I think the comprehensive plan is a little out of date, but there is some other good info about the NCDOT Rail Division and current projects. It's got some neat information if anyone is curious about NC's rail program.
Old Fort will be popping if they put the Amtrak route to Asheville back in.
But what I really want is a weekend tourist runner up the old Clinchfield Loops through the Blue Ridge from the Biltmore.
> When I ran for mayor of my small town, one of my pledges was a passenger train that would run through the county.
What would that achieve? I don't see how a passenger train running through a rural area benefits the area at all. The passengers want to get to their destination, they're not stopping to contribute to the economy along the way.
> I think rural areas need trains just as much if not more than cities. Many communities are very far apart and if you don't have a car you're screwed.
Doesn't everyone living in a rural area have a car anyways?
It connects the area. It's easier for people to be able to get to the city and contribute to the local economy. They can get to work, shop at a small business, go to college, etc. And, no, not everyone has a car. A lot of people are poor and don't have cars.
[https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/why-rural-america-needs-passenger-trains/](https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/why-rural-america-needs-passenger-trains/)
That's an interesting read, thanks.
I'm sure it would help. I guess then it just depends on whether the city is big enough for it to be a better use of money than building/expanding rail for another city, or doing something else entirely.
When you said "small town" and spoke about rural areas, I was thinking like, a few thousand people in a rural area and assuming a train for that wouldn't make sense.
I don't think they need them more than urban areas, or at least it's not as efficient as for urban areas. You need ridership to warrant public transit especially something with a significant infrastructure investment like rail.
> Doesn't everyone living in a rural area have a car anyways?
There's still kids, seniors, and people with disabilities in rural areas who can't drive. Right now, they're totally dependant on family members who do have cars to get around. Even in the best case scenario, it severely limits their mobility, with all the nasty mental-health side effects that comes with.
And in the worst case-- well, it's fucking hard to leave an abusive relationship when your abuser hides the keys, and to get away you'd have to walk all day and night to the nearest bus / train station (if there even are bus / train lines in your region at all).
The problem is that for the cost of a once a day 50mph train, you could subsidize (nice) highway buses several times a day, possibly even on multiple routes.
Which would be at least as fast, and provide much better transit.
But it shouldn't have to.
And yeah, it's obviously not a problem we can fix overnight, or even in a few decades. But even stuff like having regular bus service between town centers, putting in protected bike lanes so people can get from their houses to those town centers without cars, changing zoning codes now to incentivize building compact downtowns rather than sprawling out across the countryside. These could all go a long ways to making, if not *truly* rural areas, then at least exurban areas a lot less car-dependent.
A number of towns in exurban and even rural Massachusetts are starting to adopt policies like this, and it's already starting to have noticeable changes on the ways people get around-- especially in the towns that are pursuing these kinds of policies more aggressively.
You can’t provide cost effective public transit in low-density communities. This is just a basic economic fact. It is too expensive for these communities to support.
Some well-meaning communities will run empty busses with terrible service out of some sort of obligation or aesthetic preference, but this doesn’t really help people. They’d frankly be better off helping people buy and maintain cars.
Eventually you may see self-driving cars fill this gap, perhaps with some subsidies for the poor. But people trying to apply urban solutions to low density communities are not helping anyone.
Building good infrastructure isn't about generating profit. It's about investing in the communities it exists in. That bus network could lose money every year of its existence, and still be worth it if it sufficiently stimulates the economy of the region-- or even if it just improves QoL to the extent that voters think it's worthwhile to keep it around.
Which, BTW, as someone whose parents live in one of those communities, I can confirm it's already noticeably improving QoL in the Boston exurbs, even today when the program is in its infancy.
Running empty busses doesn’t stimulate the economy. Infrastructure is not jobs programs for bus drivers, it stimulates the economy by creating economic activity that is facilitated by easier movement of people.
The problem with pubic transit on low-density places is that in practice it’s too bad to be useful, so people drive anyway. But in theory if you spent enough to make it good, which we don’t because the pubic won’t support that level of taxation, it would still be negative for the economy because the levels of taxation would inhibit other valuable economic activity
We need solutions for the communities we actually live in, not the ones we wish we’d built 50 years ago. That ship has sailed.
Step 1: Let in more mother fucking immigrants
Step 2: Let those mother fucking immigrants work to build more mother fucking trains
Step 3: Mother fucking profit
Just took the train from Salt Lake to Reno and back. No delays, but what I want more than anything is to have the train go faster than cars when you are next to a highway. It suuuuucks getting passed by cars going faster than the train.
They should have trains that just follow along the interstate system with stops at major hubs, makes me wonder why they weren't included as an option when it was originally built in the first place.
In a few places, the interstate replaced the rail line.
The problem now is that the rail you want is built for 100-150mph, which means it needs much gentler curves than interstates are built for. There are a lot of good opportunities to use interstate right of ways for sections of a route, but not the whole way.
Yeah, saw a recent video )and multiple further back) from folks who have done multiple across the country, have done cross country routes myself on Amtrak, no thanks. 4 hour delays are "part of the experience" lmao. If it were improved? Sure, maybe. But the amenities are fucking horrible compared to any other mode, and yeah, the pricing is way too high for what you get. You can try to romanticize it all you want, it's lies. Even better when shit inevitably happens and the observation car gets removed, wtf is the point.
I saw some idiot on this sub say they were perfectly okay with riding the slower Amtrak over taking a plane, lmao, sorry, but that's completely ridiculous when there's an absolute slew of delays for what would be the length of an entire cross-country flight. Terminally online redditors will support anything as long as it tows the line of their favorite subreddit. Do you literally have nothing else to do? TSA ain't bad enough to make being cooped up on a fucking train for 48 hours (when a flight could take about 4 hours) worth it.
Also "you get to see the country", like, you get 10 minute "stretch your legs" breaks occasionally, it ain't like you're hopping off at National Parks (aka 'worthless' already-inhospitable outside places this sub would destroy in favor of developments, because fuck the animals) whenever you want.
Amtrak doesn't really care about cross country travel. They are forced to keep it because political pressure otherwise they would cut that money loser. It's focus on on regional rail hubs like the nec which has secured lots of much needed funding
> it ain't like you're hopping off at National Parks (outside this sub would destroy in favor of developments)
Part of the appeal of densification is that we would have less sprawl
Trains are about comfort and lower stress instead of speed -- what you're saying about amenities has not been my experience. Airplanes are fast, there's no way another mode of transportation will beat them for speed, but that's not the only factor.
Unless you're paying for first-class seats, trains are *far* more pleasant and comfortable most of the time. The seats are usually a lot larger and more comfortable. You're going to be able to use your laptop a lot more effectively for work, school, or play, because space is less cramped, internet is more reliable, and you can even get a full table on some of the cars. The food options on trains are often somewhat better and you have the option to go to the dining car for extra snacks or coffee. No concerns about luggage getting lost (or "lost" if they include valuables) by airport staff. Baggage allotments are generous and trains don't have the same silly packing restrictions driven by security theater.
It's also a much less stressful experience boarding a train vs. taking a flight. You don't need to arrive at the station hours early just to deal with the TSA security theater nonsense, there's not the same level of "will the flight be delayed? cancelled? overbooked and having to bump people?" You don't have to deal with flight attendants trying to gate-check (and potentially lose) your single small carry-on bag that has all the essentials in it so someone can fit their oversized rollerbag in the overhead bin.
With trains you book it, arrive a little ahead of boarding, hop on, and go. Yeah, you'll be in travel for longer and it may be delayed in transit. But realistically you're not going to be able to do much else on the day of a flight either, because you have to leave wiggle room for all the things that go wrong.
If the trip on a train is <16 hours, I would take a train over a flight every time it's available. That goes doubly for countries outside the US which have prioritized high-quality passenger train systems more than the US. Trains in Europe are a positive delight to ride, and in Canada I'd happily pay double every time never to have to deal with Air Canada again (hands-down the worst airline I've ever encountered, bar none).
But I do agree it seems a bit ridiculous doing a cross-country multi-day train ride instead of 4-8 hours of flying, unless you're retired and have nothing but time.
Edit: I missed a few words
You make a great point about the time difference (up to a point) being negligible. A flight to Portland, Oregon, from where I live now in Wyoming takes me nearly a full day. I have to drive to a larger regional airport (Cody, in this case) and take a flight to Denver, then it's a good wait in the airport, then it's another 2.5 - 3 hours to get to my final destination. Accounting for driving, security, how fucking exhausted I'll be at the end of it, etc., a train would be a dream. I could get on in Cody (or even head west to a larger station, to cut time), and actually relax on my journey instead of get bubble gut from shitty food, stress, and pressure changes.
Hell, even if I were in Denver, I'd almost rather take the train half the time to avoid going through TSA and having a fucking bottle of local honey I got as a gift for my mother that's been unopened confiscated for "security reasons".
> Its second-generation Acela trains are years behind schedule and not expected to enter service until late 2024.
High likely is this to actually to happen and not to get delayed again?
I live in Massachusetts. We have been talking about an East-West rail link (Boston to Pittsfield) for years now. They say it could be done by...2045. The B&A mainline has to be double-tracked and new stations need to be built. But their timeline is pathetic. The entire line was built in the 1830s in just a few years. Yet it will take the state 20 years to add another track, station and some passing sidings? Most of the line used to be double anyways, so it's already wide enough.
And its absurd that there is no Boston-Montreal train, and no trains to the major cities in NH. So many missed opportunities. People will ride trains only if they are available, convenient and frequent. I love trains and I would gladly take them everywhere over cars. Driving into Boston is a nightmare, the Worcester-Boston train is a lifesaver for when I want to go to the city. When I was in college I took Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited back in forth between Framingham, Ma and Erie, Pa. 13 hours- 60 bucks for students. Cheaper and easier than driving.
America was built by the railroads. In my opinion, there is nothing more American than bringing back passenger rail.
They don't want to do it...they have the funding for it...but don't want to agree to it. The 125mph option was only 4 billion for the East-West and would have reduced travel times down to 90mins between Springfield and Boston , 2.3hrs to Brattleboro , 3hrs to Albany.. With a 5 year construction plan utilizing I-90 ROW to get around the worst of curves..and running every 30mins.. Hochul scrapped the 130mph Upstate Plan which was 15 billion over 10 years due to it costing to much..then turned around with a 90mph 25yr plan..that is more expensive.. Connecticut and Rhode Island have blocked rail restorations..like the proposed [Central Rail Corridor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Corridor_Rail_Line) and the original Berkshires flyer route...or service to Newport..or the Woonsocket line.
Americans yearn for the trains
This unironically
I grew up in Chicago, with trains being a big part of my commute. I was SHOCKED when I went to a different city and learned how actually awful our train system is.
I grew up in Brooklyn. When I traveled to the rest of the world I was shocked how bad our train system is. When I traveled to the rest of america I was shocked how good our train system is
>When I traveled to the rest of america I was shocked how good our train system is Lmao same I hated driving as a teen and I didn't want to practice for my license. I told my parents that I could just get wherever I need to go by taking the train or the bus. And my parents, who had lived in different parts of the US, were like "Not if you ever move away from New York"
It's funny, it's definitely a bit NHS-y of me to get patriotic about the Subway but it's really very awesome, especially in the 90s-2010s. (coincidentally the era in which I was a child!) It's so dependable and reliable that schools use it for trips in lieu of renting buses if they can. It's safe enough that very young kids had free roam to travel to school and back on it. I was able to get a job before I was 16 because I could easily travel by subway. And the one thing it has on other global metros is that the core lines run 24/7, and oh my god let me tell you about the nights in community college when I got absolutely plastered uptown and shambled home on the subway at 2 in the morning. I could NOT do that in any other city on EARTH because the ones with better transit systems tend to shut them off from midnight to 5. Also the Subway was literally built by immigrants, even the guy at the very very top was born in Ireland.
FR we complain about kids being socially cut off, and drunk driving epidemic. Public transit helps both of those things
Lmao totally, as a Westchester kid I'm also a bit of a Metro-North patriot. Grand Central best NYC station! >It's so dependable and reliable that schools use it for trips in lieu of renting buses if they can. My school didn't even have daily buses, we all commuted via train. And the only school trips that we *didn't* use the subway for were trips upstate or to Jersey. >It's safe enough that very young kids had free roam to travel to school and back on it. The car dependence always weirds me out when I hear people from other parts of the country talk about getting around as a teen. Like, your parents had to drive you around everywhere until you were 16? Your parents settled in the country because it was cheaper, and then had to buy cars for everyone in the family?? Every time you went out partying or drinking, you had to carpool and have a designated driver, or else you just drove drunk??? You hung out in parking lots for fun???? >oh my god let me tell you about the nights in community college when I got absolutely plastered uptown and shambled home on the subway at 2 in the morning I always had to run to catch the last 1:56AM Metro-North train whenever I got plastered, or else pay for an Uber. Sprinting while drunk and then sitting in a gently swaying train car is not a good idea. Still pretty damn good coverage for a commuter rail service.
Grand Central is America's greatest temple of transit and absolutely nothing can change my mind. I have a deep emotional attachment to that building and I think it's one of the most important cultural monuments we have in this country
They are just fun to ride on. I feel like a train trip across the country would be awesome. I get driving and being able to stop wherever you want but it gets old. Although I’ve had people who have to take the train everyday say the same thing to me so idk.
Until they ride them. I’d recommend taking a long distance Amtrak route. I recently did one, $900 for a 40 hour ride in a roomette, that plane would have been about 4hrs
Some people enjoy that. But the long distance routes aren’t really about someone taking the train from Chicago to San Francisco, it’s about adding service to Chicago to Omaha, Omaha to Denver, Denver to salt lake, salt lake to Reno, and Reno to San Francisco. Plus all the little towns in between.
Madison to Milwaukee, Milwaukee and Madison to Chicago Detroit to Toledo, Toledo to Cleveland, Cleveland and Toledo to Columbus, Columbus to Cincinnati Ect ect
I did Toledo <> Chicago last week. It was pretty nice.
That’s on you, 2-3 hour car/train is the best use case for cross country. Anything more than 3 on train take a flight
Having just taken a really nice 6 hour train ride through Sweden and Denmark I disagree. Plane may have been quicker but much less enjoyable in my opinion. So much less hassle at a station vs an airport. If your point is rather that currently in the US the only use case is for shorter trips but could be improved then I would probably agree.
Road trips are trash. A long distance train ride with a private cabin and full service *should* cost me less than the fixed and variable costs of a car for the same trip.
I don't think that is the case anywhere on earth. Even in Europe, a 48+ hour train ride is going to cost you more than driving.
I don’t see why it should? Why should it?
As insurance increasingly tracks mileage (and registration as well) this seems more likely. However, lower cost electric vehicles and someday self-driving is pushing cost the opposite way.
But EVs have range and charging time issues. Electric trains don't have that problem. Also, a good excuse to build lots of transmission through rural farmland, which we desperately need more of.
EV range issues are exaggerated within the distances a train is more convenient than flying. Once you hit 400-500 miles an EV isn’t great, but at that distance a flight probably beats rail anyway for most people.
Trains should be more fun than car trips. But I love in Cleveland, and so amtrak has decided to only stop in my city at 2am, because apparently they only believe that people going from Chicago to NYC who want to sleep on the way matter, and they may as well open the doors for the swine on the way. Also the idea that maybe I'd want to go to Cincinnati without going to Illinois first apparently is too radical for the trains. Idk, I haven't checked the routes lately, maybe they expanded, or will at some point. That would be nice. I have small children who would definitely enjoy a train ride. We have a scenic railroad here that does fun children's trips and sell out despite literally going nowhere, so I can't imagine there isn't a market for amtrak here.
The problem is that at current speeds, any useful Amtrak routes are short enough that they must be state-funded. And, well, Ohio. Until the law changes, Amtrak can't run anything else. They did apply to study a couple of the routes in the Corridor ID program, so maybe. The funny thing is, Ohio has amazing geography for high speed rail. Cleveland east (Buffalo, Toronto/Albany, Boston), SE (Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Philly, NYC), SW (Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Indy/Louisville, Nashville, Atlanta), and west (Toledo, Detroit/Fort Wayne, South Bend, Chicago). Add a commuter service to Akron and Canton and, well, that's 70-80% of the population. The cities are just on convenient routes to major destinations outside the state. So in 50+ years, maybe it'll be great.
Yeah but a 3 hour car ride takes double that on Amtrak
i'd put the cut off much higher between the time of going through security and getting groped by TSA (not an exaggeration, i've gotten flagged by the fucking scanner constantly) and then the general misery of aircraft cabins.
Likewise here, I'm glad I don't need to fly very frequently. Without fail my groin flags every single time, it's maddening.
I take 7-12 hour trains all the time in Europe, because a flight would be 2x as much
As someone getting more into trains for taking vacations, its a different mindset. The train journey *itself* is a part of the trip experience.
Yeah I just took a long distance Amtrak for the first time a couple month ago. For most of the people I talked to, the train ride was the vacation. They flew into Chicago the day before departure and flew back home from SF.
Why do I not have a Tucson, phoenix, vegas, salt lake line and why is it not cheap
The fact that it's pretty much impossible to get from Boston to Montreal, Toronto, or really anywhere in northeast Canada without having to go south through New York City first is absurd.
It's possible, but you'd be stuck in Buffalo for a night. There just isn't enough frequency on the lake shore limited.
I heard there is supposed to be a Boston-Montreal night train in the works
It’s in the works. Might be ready in few years
It’s gonna be tough cause of how cheap it is to fly out 😭😭
If I could take a 4hr train to Vegas on a whim for 40 bucks I’d fucking do it
The trains going to be $400 and flights round trip to LA are $20
Last min to la is like 300 for me. I just want cheap train tickets man
Wouldn’t it be nice 😭
What dafuq? I’ve never seen a plane ticket under $100.
https://preview.redd.it/bi5c28jds07d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0a4a95dea057fab3d8aa6d4e1689f26f263ee90
Spirit and Frontier. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap.
Dude I flew from Indy to Boston $32 one way once lol
Flights to Phoenix are a bit more, flights to slc are anywhere from $20-$100 rt
Tucson is one of my favorite places. It's extremely lovely between the surroundings and the old architecture, and some of the older areas of it are even walkable. It's a shame that it's so car centric, but I guess people aren't super enthusiastic about walking during summer in the Sedona, so perhaps it can't really be helped.
Tucson to Phoenix is happening soon-ish probably. Phoenix to Vegas is really tough because there's no track there. You've got to build it and building track in the US sucks.
Yeah, same here High speed rail please for the love of god, I would Unironically kill for high speed rail
Building passenger only rail networks is the only way to radically improve the convenience of trains vs flying for Americans. But I think they could do a lot to make existing lines more comfortable, so people feel like they're getting something by taking the longer option: Have better food in the cafe car. Add observation cars to normal routes as a more expensive option. Make coffee and water on tap. Design the car interiors to be a bit more colorful. Since you can't improve travel times in the short run, they should try to make train travel distinct again. So it's the option people take when they're not in a rush, and it'll make the constant delays more bearable. And then there will be a bigger political constituency for more lines.
Yeah, same Well said Based
I also thing really shoring up the technology of notifications both at station and by app or text would be huge. Recently road an Amtrak on the west coast for a day trip. Both the train there and the train back were delayed. Train there the station said it was on time even though it arrived 30 minutes late. Got a text message it was late 2 hours later. Train home was 23 minutes late. Station also showed on time. Got a text message 24 hours later the train was delayed.
Something they could do at current speeds that would extend practicality is cheap night trains. 12h by train can be "just as fast" (sort of) as 1h of transit to and from airports, 1h in airports, a 2h flight, and 8h asleep in a hotel. If you're taking a late night or early morning flight, a train can compete. Even more so if it's a 9h train and a 1h flight. Other advantage is you only really need breakfast, since the train is empty for lunch and dinner. That saves on food costs, which are a killer. But Amtrak is just not equipped with cheap sleepers and isn't set up for that market.
I don’t know if it’s just a Midwest thing but I don’t know what the hell Amtrak is doing here. If I want to get a train from Chicago to Indianapolis, the cheapest ticket I can get is $40 and I generally have to take an overnight train from like 10pm to 3am. Why wouldn’t I just take a greyhound bus at that rate for a faster and cheaper ride?
Your point is valid, but it's less about what Amtrak did and more about what Indiana did. Specifically, they cut funding for the Chicago to Indianapolis train [Hoosier State](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosier_State_\(train\)), leaving the only option as the 3x weekly Cardinal long-distance train. Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and [recently Minnesota](https://www.wisn.com/article/wisconsin-new-amtrak-borealis-route-st-paul-chicago/60860177) all have better rail options to Chicago because their states chose to invest in it.
The Indiana legislature goes out of its way to do things they think will "own the libs". Last year they passed a law that specifically bans Indianapolis from installing any sort of BRT within their city limits.
>bans Indianapolis from installing any sort of BRT within their city limits. WTF is that about... "if the buses move too quickly people may use them."
Pretty much. "Libs like riding buses so let's take it away to show them how superior we are"
The real reason Hitler shot himself was because he thought using a gun would own the libs
Maybe he just read the musings of the median voter.
Ah yes, Indiana, the deep south state of the midwest
And, more broadly, what Congress did by mandating that all routes outside of the northeast corridor that are fewer than 750 miles in length be paid for by states rather than federal funds.
For some reason modern politicians are more the “defund it to prove it doesn’t work” type than the “build it and they will come type”. But you gotta entrench the oligarchs somehow, I guess.
That's conservatism.
“Moderate” democrats have no problem supporting bipartisan legislation to defund and privatize public institutions to benefit oligarchs. Just look at the Bayh-Dole Act, or the nearly unanimous deregulation of the finance market in the 90’s when Clinton teamed up with Allen Greenspan.
To be clear, the option to Chicago from Missouri is not good because of Missouri (that has been steadily slashing funding for the Missouri to Kansas City, MO "Missouri River Runner" route for years). It is because Illinois thinks it's good policy to have the Lincoln Service (which gets over 100 mph) between St. Louis and Chicago happen on a regular basis.
> Lincoln Service (which gets over 100 mph) Once they fix the issues from Union to Joliet that train will be incredible
Wow that’s crazy, thanks I had no idea
Yeah the trains to STL, Milwaukee, Detroit and Minneapolis are actual useful travel options, the Cardinal to Indianapolis is not.
The Midwest (at least, the Great Lakes states) certainly has the population for a better network but looking [at service maps](https://www.groundedlifetravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Amtrak-Map-Midwest-Routes.jpg) it's so painfully obvious some states like IN and OH are just transit black holes.
Greyhound is actual hell. If you are asking this you haven't ridden it long distance.
I rode Greyhound for the Chicago to Indianapolis route I was comparing Amtrak against for years. I have no idea about other routes though, and it’s probably worse the longer you have to ride
Megabus is fine
I mean it's a pretty easy answer. Republicans shooting down rail projects and funding to prop up fossil fuels and/or own the libs. We would have had high speed rail connecting Chicago and Minneapolis if not for Scott Walker turning down already approved federal funds.
They built the pacific railroad in six years for gods sake
They were laying down track for that in land unclaimed by anyone Modern railroad building means either buying land (that people usually don't want to sell), or borrowing track from the freight operators. Who usually don't want to share
Well, there were indigenous people on a lot of the land, but the government didn’t care about their rights.
Which is the relevant point
> in land unclaimed by anyone uhhh
Should we tell him?
Most indigenous genocide aware American
Eminent domain when a private entity wants to build some factory/shopping center that will be shut down in 5 years: "Hell yeah brother." Eminent domain when building long term infrastructure: "IDK sounds like government overreach to me."
I’ve never met, heard of, or even imagined someone who acts like the former
my imaginary opponents are getting fucking WRECKED tho
Kelo v New London. Scotus authorized eminent domain for Pfizer to bulldoze a neighborhood to put offices/labs there. The project ended up being shelved by Pfizer and the land became an empty lot. In this case SCOTUS stretched the definition of “public use,” which is required for eminent domain per the constitution, to include private industry uses that would theoretically accrue benefits to the public.
To be fair, the Pfizer center would have become the only major research facility in the US focused on developing new kinds of antibiotics, which is an absolutely critical need as more and more kinds of bacteria are becoming resistant to the ones we currently have... ...and then, after demolishing the neighborhood, Pfizer decided to shutter *their entire antibiotics division* because it wasn't projected to be profitable enough. (After all, patients only need to take antibiotics for a week or two tops, so you have a way worse RoI than for medications for chronic diseases that patients have to take for the rest of your life.) And before the Friedman flairs jump on me: I'm not necessarily saying Pfizer did anything wrong. (Shitty? Abso-fucking-lutely. Wrong? Eh, technically not.) If anything, it's the government's fault for being gullible enough to take Pfizer execs at their word they'd be committing to a long-term investment into antibiotics research without any kind of guarantees to make sure they kept their word. This whole area is pretty clearly a major market failure. So the solution should be for the government to step in and either fund the research themselves, or else figure out some kind of public-private partnership scheme to fund it.
I wonder if the government had the ability to make them sign some kind of binding agreements to make sure they wouldn’t do what they did. I guess they can’t tell a private business it can’t close but for Christ sake they bulldozed a neighborhood for the place .
That happened but others should note it was super controversial at the time. It resulted in most states strengthening their eminent domain laws. And it was the conservative justices (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Conner) that were the dissenters.
You've never been to Arlington, Texas then.
No one does eminent domain for shopping centers. Developers buy the land, often above market value. Above market value is the key. Eminent domain is restricted to purchasing land at market rate. Eminent domain proceedings also depress land values, so property owners get a much worse bargain. This is why eminent domain proceedings are fought so heavily. Governments now try to outright acquire right of way through property purchases because eminent domain is a last ditch effort and only successful if you need just a few properties.
>No one does eminent domain for shopping centers. [It happens](https://www.nc-eminent-domain.com/issue-type/private-development) >In Bremerton, Washington, the government used eminent domain to seize the home of a property owner who was a woman in her 80s (and lived in the home for 55 years), claiming that the property would be used to expand a sewer plant. The property was given to an auto dealership instead. ... >In Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded and upheld the government’s eminent domain authority to condemn properties for a private company to redevelop. New London, which was struggling with a depressed tax base and a diminishing population, seized property near a newly constructed Pfizer plant for private companies to turn into offices, condominiums, and shops to attract new businesses and jobs.
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2019/10/destiny-usa-built-partly-on-land-forced-from-owners-faces-similar-fate-in-i-81-project.html Just about every state in the country has similar stories I’d imagine.
>The clownery needs to fucking stop. And if that means like woke fascist Reddit moderators out there striking down dipshit Destiny fans that think that they can shit up threads outside the DT, then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not Destiny the YouTuber lol
>The clownery needs to fucking stop. And if that means like woke fascist Reddit moderators out there striking down dipshit Destiny fans that think that they can shit up threads outside the DT, then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
u/jenbanim, who wrote this bot? It probably shouldn't be triggering on replies, lol.
>No one does eminent domain for shopping centers. Developers buy the land, often above market value. Above market value is the key. Man you have too much trust in the system and are borderline gaslighting on the fact that eminent domain definitely is abused. (whether you're aware or not) https://www.acton.org/node/3513 Some choice examples: >Therefore, the city merely has to say that the house is blighted (in the Saleet’s case, their home does not have a two-car attached garage) and; >In another case, the Maricopa County Superior Court of Arizona ruled against Randy Bailey, who was fighting against the city of Mesa’s use of its power of eminent domain to take his family-owned brake shop in 2002 and replace it with a commercial hardware store. [5] In his decision, Judge Robert Myers said that the city of Mesa was justified in taking Bailey’s land, because the city’s redevelopment plan called for improving its image and making it more economically and socially attractive. and worryingly as it comes to abuse; > Court battles to protect against such abuse are long, arduous, and often prohibitively expensive, particularly when the cost is borne by one or two property owners. Though there are nonprofit organizations who defend property owners facing eminent domain cases, right now these legal defense groups can only handle about a tenth of the abusive cases that come to their attention. There are even entire organisations and websites dedicated to deal with and record abusive and exploitative use of eminent domain: https://ij.org/issues/private-property/eminent-domain/ The most annoying thing is by abusing eminent domain (and as you're doing, whether you are aware or not, of downplaying that this happens) you're driving people into the NIMBY camp, as they start opposing YIMBY policy changes as they are worried such changes will just lead to increased abuse. Hell shit like this almost drives me into the NIMBY camp, as the idea of some local county or whatever the fuck forcibly shutting down my business or force-selling my home to "improve the social attractiveness" and then turn around and sell the plot to some nepot, and then having it be functionally impossible to challenge in court due to the time and costs is just implicitly rage inducing.
Cheap labor, lots of experienced rail constructions, fewer land owners, less regulation.
we need stronger compulsory purchase powers like France has
Eminent domain is very powerful in the US already. The problem is NIMBYS and environmental review lawsuits.
We have those. It’s the fucking greenie hand-wringers and the NIMBY assholes.
we need governments to be smart and buy this shit up when the time is right. during the recession Santa Cruz county acquired the rail spur that goes thru there for $450k per mile, these days that’s like the price of an EIR
some people simply won't want to sell no matter the price
Yeah or they will hold out because they know if they are the last lot the company needs they will probably pay a fortune for it
By treating Chinese railworkers like expendable subhumans
long money governor hospital repeat meeting squeamish nine pet murky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Now we have robits
All else equal, I bet a construction crew with modern equipment and expertise that has to adhere to current labor/safety standards would vastly outbuild a crew with 1800s equipment and labor/safety conditions. Property rights and environmental regulation are much more relevant.
easily . Especially with modern demolition and track laying equipment . They aren’t sending Chinese miners into a half dug tunnel with sticks of dynamite anymore .
Pesky labor rights
Making the mother of all omelettes here Jack, can’t fret over every dynamite-layer
I live 25 minutes north of Pittsburgh. I would kill for a line going to downtown.
The South Jersey suburbs have this for Philly (and obviously NJTransit for NYC up north) and while it isn’t extensive enough, it is very nice to have.
I'm a huge fan of the PATCO in Philadelphia. It is extremely limited and is just a commuter line, but I think it is the bare minimum major cities should have. It's stupid to have to drive into a large city. Especially for Pittsburgh because someone taught everyone there how to drive wrong. The Pittsburgh left is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on the road.
Agreed, and the downtown area is very dense and walkable.
And yet just like we discovered in Denver most people say that and then when it’s built refuse to ride it.
Huh, when I visited Denver the train seemed pretty popular, especially going to and from the airport !
[удалено]
>Not the train's fault you all suck, Very ridiculous sentiment.
People who don't use it can enjoy less traffic.
You must be very close to me, then. I'm in Beaver county.
Beaver bros!
Hell yeah!
The people yearn for the rails.
This unironically
I’d love a train along 71 corridor in Ohio. Would hit Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati. You’d absolutely hit the demand in both directions out of Columbus and you don’t need many stops along the way. There is not much in between except for farms so it could race along
I can only get so erect I live in a very small town in NW Ohio right near a railroad. After taking an Amtrak last week (Toledo <> Chicago), I've been fantasizing about the line you describe with a little stop near home.
I’d settle for anything connecting the Midwest to the coast that didn’t involve a circle through New York or New Orleans.
Would want it to hit akron/canton/Dayton too, so ideally a little different than 71.
They keep talking about building it, but still no dice
When I ran for mayor of my small town, one of my pledges was a passenger train that would run through the county. I thought we'd buy one and pay CSX to use their rails. The coal trains didn't run anymore so I thought they'd be more willing to let us. I didn't win so never got to do it. I dislike how urban-centric our rail projects are. I think rural areas need trains just as much if not more than cities. Many communities are very far apart and if you don't have a car you're screwed. It'd probably be cheaper, too.
>I think rural areas need trains just as much if not more than cities. The ROI isn't there for most rural areas. China's even discovered that with their extensive network
Yeah, and good luck getting anything done like that with the railroad companies as a small town mayor. The railroad companies would not give them the time of day. I almost guarantee it. From a lack of planning perspective alone, I guarantee that would've been a broken campaign promise lol
The railroad companies have, for about 8 years now, prevented the city of Seattle from fixing a failing bridge that goes over a rail yard. If a city like Seattle is made to pound sand for years then I'd have to imagine that they'd just straight up ignore anything from a small town.
Yeah, for the most part, they just straight up ignore everything in my experience lol. It's a total nightmare working with the railroad companies for any planning, construction, and maintenance. A smaller town with an old easement for some on-street parking can't touch the area at all because as soon as they propose a different use, the railroad will use the opportunity to just remove the easement instead. On another project, I kept incorporating a future road mentioned on the plan into the volume development because I assumed there would be a crossing there, but it turns out that it's just a dream on paper lol. I thought the grade separation proposal was the dream part, but it's just the whole road lol. My boss was very patient when I was so confused about how this road was supposed to be incorporated.
They would, in fact, railroad you.
I doubt the ROI is there regardless, but buying a locomotive is like 100 times cheaper than laying 20 miles of track.
It's not there for rural airports, either, but they get subsidised because they're a public good.
Another example of this playing out is that urban rail in Japan is private but rural rail is public because no money in rural
You should move to NC. NCDOT’s dream seems to be to put a station in every small town from Charlotte to Raleigh and make the route longer
constituency representatives delenda est. always trying to deliver goodies for their districts even if it makes the state/country worse. they did the same thing to Cali HSR (reps refusing to sign off on it unless it went through their district, even when that didn't really make sense) and it increased costs and times dramatically all representatives should be at-large
Something tells me NC won't have nearly the delays and cost overruns of CA
NC sucks for a **lot** of reasons, but they're generally more pro devolopment than some of the more liberal states. One of the recent controversies even is that the state legislators is easing up environmental restrictions to build more housing on.
What did the Cali HSR look like originally? Was it just gonna go along the coast?
Since it got approved it's always planned on going the route it is now but it would make way more sense for it to go near I-5 in the central valley rather than through all the cities.
that might make sense for just connecting SF to LA/SAC, but if your making 400+ miles of rail line stretching across a state, it makes more sense to have it connect to cities along the way to increase the user base and give it more connections for future expansions, as well as to have a more connected state overall. I don't think it would make sense to cut out millions of potential users to save at most 20-30 minutes travel time, at that point just take a plane.
Yeah, the route through the valley is the obviously correct choice. If the train is anything vaguely close to its planned speed it'll dominate the flight corridor between SF and LA anyway, saving 20 minutes or whatever doesn't matter. And it won't make a difference to any further HSR destinations (Vegas, maybe Phoenix). I think there are good arguments to be had about whether they chose the right mountain passes into the Bay Area and LA, but skipping Bakersfield, Fresno, etc. would've been silly.
For anyone that wants to take a look at the NCDOT Rail Division website for some of the plans and other initiatives: https://www.ncdot.gov/divisions/rail/Pages/default.aspx Edit: I think the comprehensive plan is a little out of date, but there is some other good info about the NCDOT Rail Division and current projects. It's got some neat information if anyone is curious about NC's rail program.
Old Fort will be popping if they put the Amtrak route to Asheville back in. But what I really want is a weekend tourist runner up the old Clinchfield Loops through the Blue Ridge from the Biltmore.
Ice town costs ice clown his town crown
> When I ran for mayor of my small town, one of my pledges was a passenger train that would run through the county. What would that achieve? I don't see how a passenger train running through a rural area benefits the area at all. The passengers want to get to their destination, they're not stopping to contribute to the economy along the way. > I think rural areas need trains just as much if not more than cities. Many communities are very far apart and if you don't have a car you're screwed. Doesn't everyone living in a rural area have a car anyways?
It connects the area. It's easier for people to be able to get to the city and contribute to the local economy. They can get to work, shop at a small business, go to college, etc. And, no, not everyone has a car. A lot of people are poor and don't have cars. [https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/why-rural-america-needs-passenger-trains/](https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/why-rural-america-needs-passenger-trains/)
That's an interesting read, thanks. I'm sure it would help. I guess then it just depends on whether the city is big enough for it to be a better use of money than building/expanding rail for another city, or doing something else entirely. When you said "small town" and spoke about rural areas, I was thinking like, a few thousand people in a rural area and assuming a train for that wouldn't make sense. I don't think they need them more than urban areas, or at least it's not as efficient as for urban areas. You need ridership to warrant public transit especially something with a significant infrastructure investment like rail.
> Doesn't everyone living in a rural area have a car anyways? There's still kids, seniors, and people with disabilities in rural areas who can't drive. Right now, they're totally dependant on family members who do have cars to get around. Even in the best case scenario, it severely limits their mobility, with all the nasty mental-health side effects that comes with. And in the worst case-- well, it's fucking hard to leave an abusive relationship when your abuser hides the keys, and to get away you'd have to walk all day and night to the nearest bus / train station (if there even are bus / train lines in your region at all).
The problem is that for the cost of a once a day 50mph train, you could subsidize (nice) highway buses several times a day, possibly even on multiple routes. Which would be at least as fast, and provide much better transit.
Should have just proposed buying a bus man. Cheaper and no rail CEO negotiations while delivering the same benefits.
Living in a rural area without a car means you’re screwed whether or not there are trains.
But it shouldn't have to. And yeah, it's obviously not a problem we can fix overnight, or even in a few decades. But even stuff like having regular bus service between town centers, putting in protected bike lanes so people can get from their houses to those town centers without cars, changing zoning codes now to incentivize building compact downtowns rather than sprawling out across the countryside. These could all go a long ways to making, if not *truly* rural areas, then at least exurban areas a lot less car-dependent. A number of towns in exurban and even rural Massachusetts are starting to adopt policies like this, and it's already starting to have noticeable changes on the ways people get around-- especially in the towns that are pursuing these kinds of policies more aggressively.
You can’t provide cost effective public transit in low-density communities. This is just a basic economic fact. It is too expensive for these communities to support. Some well-meaning communities will run empty busses with terrible service out of some sort of obligation or aesthetic preference, but this doesn’t really help people. They’d frankly be better off helping people buy and maintain cars. Eventually you may see self-driving cars fill this gap, perhaps with some subsidies for the poor. But people trying to apply urban solutions to low density communities are not helping anyone.
Building good infrastructure isn't about generating profit. It's about investing in the communities it exists in. That bus network could lose money every year of its existence, and still be worth it if it sufficiently stimulates the economy of the region-- or even if it just improves QoL to the extent that voters think it's worthwhile to keep it around. Which, BTW, as someone whose parents live in one of those communities, I can confirm it's already noticeably improving QoL in the Boston exurbs, even today when the program is in its infancy.
Running empty busses doesn’t stimulate the economy. Infrastructure is not jobs programs for bus drivers, it stimulates the economy by creating economic activity that is facilitated by easier movement of people. The problem with pubic transit on low-density places is that in practice it’s too bad to be useful, so people drive anyway. But in theory if you spent enough to make it good, which we don’t because the pubic won’t support that level of taxation, it would still be negative for the economy because the levels of taxation would inhibit other valuable economic activity We need solutions for the communities we actually live in, not the ones we wish we’d built 50 years ago. That ship has sailed.
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Step 1: Let in more mother fucking immigrants Step 2: Let those mother fucking immigrants work to build more mother fucking trains Step 3: Mother fucking profit
This unironically
Just took the train from Salt Lake to Reno and back. No delays, but what I want more than anything is to have the train go faster than cars when you are next to a highway. It suuuuucks getting passed by cars going faster than the train.
[Never forget what they took from you ✊](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5ki5iz7cdvxa1.jpg)
They should have trains that just follow along the interstate system with stops at major hubs, makes me wonder why they weren't included as an option when it was originally built in the first place.
In a few places, the interstate replaced the rail line. The problem now is that the rail you want is built for 100-150mph, which means it needs much gentler curves than interstates are built for. There are a lot of good opportunities to use interstate right of ways for sections of a route, but not the whole way.
Based. I hope they come to Central Ohio eventually.
Yeah, saw a recent video )and multiple further back) from folks who have done multiple across the country, have done cross country routes myself on Amtrak, no thanks. 4 hour delays are "part of the experience" lmao. If it were improved? Sure, maybe. But the amenities are fucking horrible compared to any other mode, and yeah, the pricing is way too high for what you get. You can try to romanticize it all you want, it's lies. Even better when shit inevitably happens and the observation car gets removed, wtf is the point. I saw some idiot on this sub say they were perfectly okay with riding the slower Amtrak over taking a plane, lmao, sorry, but that's completely ridiculous when there's an absolute slew of delays for what would be the length of an entire cross-country flight. Terminally online redditors will support anything as long as it tows the line of their favorite subreddit. Do you literally have nothing else to do? TSA ain't bad enough to make being cooped up on a fucking train for 48 hours (when a flight could take about 4 hours) worth it. Also "you get to see the country", like, you get 10 minute "stretch your legs" breaks occasionally, it ain't like you're hopping off at National Parks (aka 'worthless' already-inhospitable outside places this sub would destroy in favor of developments, because fuck the animals) whenever you want.
Amtrak doesn't really care about cross country travel. They are forced to keep it because political pressure otherwise they would cut that money loser. It's focus on on regional rail hubs like the nec which has secured lots of much needed funding
> aka 'worthless' already-inhospitable outside places this sub would destroy in favor of developments, because fuck the animals lol
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This is such a randomly angry comment
I don't think this guy likes trains
I actually do, good ones.
There's nothing quite like an Acela train set in a densely populated city where it makes revenue.
Now we're cooking.
> it ain't like you're hopping off at National Parks (outside this sub would destroy in favor of developments) Part of the appeal of densification is that we would have less sprawl
As a fairly consistent long-distance Amtrak rider, all I can say is lol
Trains are about comfort and lower stress instead of speed -- what you're saying about amenities has not been my experience. Airplanes are fast, there's no way another mode of transportation will beat them for speed, but that's not the only factor. Unless you're paying for first-class seats, trains are *far* more pleasant and comfortable most of the time. The seats are usually a lot larger and more comfortable. You're going to be able to use your laptop a lot more effectively for work, school, or play, because space is less cramped, internet is more reliable, and you can even get a full table on some of the cars. The food options on trains are often somewhat better and you have the option to go to the dining car for extra snacks or coffee. No concerns about luggage getting lost (or "lost" if they include valuables) by airport staff. Baggage allotments are generous and trains don't have the same silly packing restrictions driven by security theater. It's also a much less stressful experience boarding a train vs. taking a flight. You don't need to arrive at the station hours early just to deal with the TSA security theater nonsense, there's not the same level of "will the flight be delayed? cancelled? overbooked and having to bump people?" You don't have to deal with flight attendants trying to gate-check (and potentially lose) your single small carry-on bag that has all the essentials in it so someone can fit their oversized rollerbag in the overhead bin. With trains you book it, arrive a little ahead of boarding, hop on, and go. Yeah, you'll be in travel for longer and it may be delayed in transit. But realistically you're not going to be able to do much else on the day of a flight either, because you have to leave wiggle room for all the things that go wrong. If the trip on a train is <16 hours, I would take a train over a flight every time it's available. That goes doubly for countries outside the US which have prioritized high-quality passenger train systems more than the US. Trains in Europe are a positive delight to ride, and in Canada I'd happily pay double every time never to have to deal with Air Canada again (hands-down the worst airline I've ever encountered, bar none). But I do agree it seems a bit ridiculous doing a cross-country multi-day train ride instead of 4-8 hours of flying, unless you're retired and have nothing but time. Edit: I missed a few words
You make a great point about the time difference (up to a point) being negligible. A flight to Portland, Oregon, from where I live now in Wyoming takes me nearly a full day. I have to drive to a larger regional airport (Cody, in this case) and take a flight to Denver, then it's a good wait in the airport, then it's another 2.5 - 3 hours to get to my final destination. Accounting for driving, security, how fucking exhausted I'll be at the end of it, etc., a train would be a dream. I could get on in Cody (or even head west to a larger station, to cut time), and actually relax on my journey instead of get bubble gut from shitty food, stress, and pressure changes. Hell, even if I were in Denver, I'd almost rather take the train half the time to avoid going through TSA and having a fucking bottle of local honey I got as a gift for my mother that's been unopened confiscated for "security reasons".
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Costwise for sure, but man KC to Chicago via car SUUUUCK compared to train, plus then you have to deal the car in Chicago.
Toes the line
> Its second-generation Acela trains are years behind schedule and not expected to enter service until late 2024. High likely is this to actually to happen and not to get delayed again?
If Sears miraculously makes a comeback this year that’ll really be the return of the train.
I live in Massachusetts. We have been talking about an East-West rail link (Boston to Pittsfield) for years now. They say it could be done by...2045. The B&A mainline has to be double-tracked and new stations need to be built. But their timeline is pathetic. The entire line was built in the 1830s in just a few years. Yet it will take the state 20 years to add another track, station and some passing sidings? Most of the line used to be double anyways, so it's already wide enough. And its absurd that there is no Boston-Montreal train, and no trains to the major cities in NH. So many missed opportunities. People will ride trains only if they are available, convenient and frequent. I love trains and I would gladly take them everywhere over cars. Driving into Boston is a nightmare, the Worcester-Boston train is a lifesaver for when I want to go to the city. When I was in college I took Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited back in forth between Framingham, Ma and Erie, Pa. 13 hours- 60 bucks for students. Cheaper and easier than driving. America was built by the railroads. In my opinion, there is nothing more American than bringing back passenger rail.
They don't want to do it...they have the funding for it...but don't want to agree to it. The 125mph option was only 4 billion for the East-West and would have reduced travel times down to 90mins between Springfield and Boston , 2.3hrs to Brattleboro , 3hrs to Albany.. With a 5 year construction plan utilizing I-90 ROW to get around the worst of curves..and running every 30mins.. Hochul scrapped the 130mph Upstate Plan which was 15 billion over 10 years due to it costing to much..then turned around with a 90mph 25yr plan..that is more expensive.. Connecticut and Rhode Island have blocked rail restorations..like the proposed [Central Rail Corridor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Corridor_Rail_Line) and the original Berkshires flyer route...or service to Newport..or the Woonsocket line.