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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Rail is not cheap. It's feasible when we have population density. It would make sense along the DC-Boston megalopolis and perhaps SF-San Diego, maybe some stretch of Texas. It makes little sense in the rest of the country.

That said, where it would make sense, like DC-Boston, we definitely should build it out. Build up the cities as the countryside is absorbed (as seen in Japan, and elsewhere in Asia) and let it become viable. Its deployment would definitely affect how cities and other communities grow and also depopulate, so we'd need to anticipate that and prepare for it.

Three things China has going for is vis a vis the US:

-Pop density

-Command economy (gov't can just move things through with little debate, displace 1MM people, if necessary.)

-Costs (in labor, materials, regulation, etc.)

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What I don't understand -- how is road cheaper? I don't get it -- in Austin TX they are spending years to add a single lane to one of the main highways, along with high walls of thick concrete on either side to help with noise in neighborhood, etc. For all the talk of railway's cost and requiring disrupting existing buildings, we have paved roads criss-crossing all of our residential and commercial districts already. It certainly feels like the same way the government is promoting cars, spread out cities, and suburbia, they could be promoting more densely populated, rail-backed cities.

Road is more expensive but a lot more people want to use roads then want to use railroads so it doesn't matter what the price is.

It doesn't matter if something is cheaper or more efficient if people don't want to use it.

This is like asking why doesn't everyone use Linux?

It's not all about what people want either. Even with a rail system, you still need all the roads. Maybe not as many lanes, but American cities are pretty spread out. You will need a ton of last mile transportation.

> in Austin TX they are spending years to add a single lane to one of the main highways

We gotcha beat in Seattle, where it took 30 years to build the north I5-I405 interchange. It took only 20 years to build the 8th Street I405 overpass. 25 years are projected for the light rail.

The freeways were built in a time when you could realistically eminent-domain and bulldoze your way across the country. We no longer live in that time. Any project involving new rights of way is infeasible because property rights (especially property rights over land you don't own, but sits adjacent to your home) are so much stronger now.

Government is promoting cars, spread-out cities, and suburbia because they work so well and people love them so much.

Think about how much housing supply would go away if not for the road network.

Think about the bare-minimum transportation appliance car. With a private, enclosed space, air conditioning, a comfortable seat, and a radio, it's worlds better as a subjective experience than being inside even a relatively luxurious urban train during the commute rush. Now consider how many tens of thousands of dollars people happily spend on a level of comfort and quality far beyond the bare-minimum Craigslist special.

Democratic governments promote and invest in what their citizens like.

That's already a busy rail corridor. But guess what? It's falling apart.

Millions of people pass through the NYC rail terminals every year, and the big inter-city one is crippled by infrastructure failures and damaged tunnels that connect to NJ. It seems that the NJ government spent Federal $$ provided to fix it on something else.

We're living in an age of incompetence.

Well yes, if you build infrastructure and then fail to increase maintenance funding as it ages and usage increases, it's going to get crippled.

Acela is not really high-speed rail. They should build out bona-fide high-speed rail ala Shinkansen. New track, new rolling stock, new propulsion systems, and affordable fares. NYC-Boston should be half of what it is now and they should eliminate all the "classes". It should be simply utilitarian transport.

Corruption is probably a thing too

"We're living in an age of incompetence."

I'm not American, but I doubt it very much. It seems to me, from the outside, so take it with a grain of salt, that the crippled infrastructure thing is politically motivated and working as planned.

The SF to San Diego or D.C.-Boston corridors alone generate enough economic output to power most countries. It's mind-boggling people append "just" when talking about them like they afterthoughts in the grand scheme of things.

> Rail is not cheap. It's feasible when we have population density. It would make sense along the DC-Boston megalopolis and perhaps SF-San Diego, maybe some stretch of Texas. It makes little sense in the rest of the country.

As part of its HSR strategic plan, back in '09 the Obama admin identified over half a dozen regions well within HSR densities and distances (the existing north-east corridor, nothern new england linking to canada, southeast along the coast, the chicago area, the gulf coast, south-east central though Texas, the californian coast and the pacific northwest).

Trains less than 300mph are useless in the US.

Either go big (maglev/hyperloop) and meaningfully compete with airlines or forget about it.

I'd be ok with investing in 200mph rail if we went ahead and bought enough ROW to add faster adjacent rail when the funds/will is there.

> Trains less than 300mph are useless in the US.

That's complete nonsense. HSR is comfortably competitive with plane up to ~750 miles and can probably be stretched to ~900mi. That gives you a lot of interesting regions in the US.

No, high-speed train is not useful for linking NYC and LA, but nobody ever suggested that.

What does Spain have going for it? They have more HSR than the US (2000 miles).

No one said we should blanket the country with HSR, but shouldn't the US have a need for at least 2000 miles? We have basically zero.

You're doing that thing where you try to explain why it won't work in the US by saying that it won't work everywhere.

So it makes sense for "only" a third of the population, yeah, better to not talk about it.

I wouldn't call a command economy anything like an advantage.

EDIT: Also, lower labor costs are, to some degree, a function of having a command economy (China missed out on a ton of economic growth in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, that would have had it be much wealthier now, for example, and this command economy of theirs can command lower wages too, in part through financial repression, for example).

It's deployment would definitely affect how cities and other communities grow and also depopulate, so we'd need to anticipate that and prepare for it.

According to rail advocates, it's a good idea to hardwire your city's transportation infrastructure to fixed locations and routes that may or may not serve the population effectively and economically for decades to come.

But only if you're building rail. Roads are right out.

Here in Silicon Valley there's a lot of building going on near Caltrain stations. And we have no room to run another highway.

But the Valley isn't where the "generational failure" referred to in the article is taking place.

Your reply didn't look like it was restricted to discussing only inter-city travel.

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