Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aperocky | Hacker News Reader

Interstate is marvelous.

US is too big and too sparsely populated both on a large scale and small scale for trains like Europe, Japan and China.

There's a part where no one talk about, and that's the infrastructure within the city are not conducive to trains. People get to a train station and they need to get around and unless you're talking about New York they really just need another car.

This in comparison to European and Asian cities where your friend can just post you an address and you can use public transit all the way to the last block.

View on HN

US is big is a silly way to reject trains. So are China and India. Both have extensive train networks that allow people to take a train instead of long road trips. The trains are packed. Mobility is super high and abundantly available. Quality may differ but it's improving because people want it. Either way, it keeps cars off the road leading to less pollution, less metal junk and less inflation.

US land is amazingly well suited for HSR and cities are well suited for subways. We also have the money. The only problem is political.

Then again, at least the comparison with India doesn't work given the massive gulf in costs, safety standards and historical context (India's railway network being inherited from when it was a colony and there were less ethical 'restraints' on how to control costs).

The US has a massive setup cost problem, any significant infrastructure project takes years of regulatory hurdles and then legal challenges as competitors and NIMBYs try everything they can to slow things down.

Thus ending up being way more expensive than countries where they still have slums to ruthlessly tear down or land to seize from small-time farmers to make room for new infrastructure (not to imply that the way it works in the US is much better).

> The US has a massive setup cost problem, any significant infrastructure project takes years of regulatory hurdles and then legal challenges as competitors and NIMBYs try everything they can to slow things down.

This is exactly what I meant by political problems.

> Thus ending up being way more expensive than countries where they still have slums to ruthlessly tear down or land to seize from small-time farmers to make room for new infrastructure (not to imply that the way it works in the US is much better).

India razed slums and farms for trains, the US razed forests and farms for interstates. It's the same thing. Slums in India have a land value to them. The government doesn't get that land for free. Just pay out property owners market value+20% for infrastructure and build the thing that is so direly needed.

Why would I want me and my family on a packed train with our luggage and gear rather than in our comfortable, climate controlled, and spacious vehicle? Who would seriously vote for that?

I’m grateful to live in a country where having a vehicle is normal and not just for the wealthy class. I’m happy to not be packed onto public transit if I want to take the family to the beach or go hiking or something.

> Why would I want me and my family on a packed train with our luggage and gear rather than in our comfortable, climate controlled, and spacious vehicle? Who would seriously vote for that?

You don't need to. It's not like those countries with extensive train networks don't have cars and interstate highways. They do and people use them. The point is that in those countries, cheap options exist for all income brackets and all use cases.

In America, it's a car or bust.

Poor people in America have cars generally speaking. In the USA our idea of poor is very far from what those countries consider poor to be. Our poor are solidly middle class by their standards.

> Poor people in America have cars generally speaking.

And are you saying poor people in America wouldn't want a cheaper mode of transportation as an option?

I think the poor people are generally happy with the situation except for gas prices. Poor people would like cheaper gas prices.

I'm afraid my experience with poor people has been very different. You should go visit some poor people in a suburb and hear their conversations - "I need to do an oil change but I can't spare the $100. I wish I had a ride to the grocery store"

In most other countries you don't need "a ride to the grocery store", that's also a very American-centric problem.

It's a catch 22. The excuse for not building proper transit is sprawl and the excuse for sprawl is not having proper transit. Sprawl always wins in the US.

It's a very short sighted excuse to use for not building transit. Sure if you don't have a land-use plan, but then why build the transit in the first place. These things always go hand-in-hand; many towns started as a train station.

There are parts of the US, namely the parts where a majority of people live, that are densely-populated enough for trains.

You didn't read the local scale problem did you? New England is as populated as Europe but that's moot because you still need a car when you get to the station because suburbia.

In European cities you have bus service in trackless suburbia. Tracks are always better but need bus service in addition as practically you won't be building tracks everywhere.

The Yamanote Line doesn't run through the countryside. You could just build it around LA, and then build dense housing near stations once people don't need cars...

> build dense housing near stations once people don't need cars

Ship has sailed, it usually works in the reverse. People aren't coming back from suburbia because there's stations where they don't need cars.

I live in the burbs currently (3 minutes from a train station and convenience store). This station has a decently sized parking lot and people who want to have yards can always find parking there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com