I have. I got around Europe faster in my car and had the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted to.
I’ve come around to torbee’s way of thinking on trains
- Thread starter Tenacious E
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I have. I got around Europe faster in my car and had the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted to.
I know a bullet train would never happen but I'd just settle for decent Amtrak service in these cities
The 380 Bus goes back and forth EMPTY. You guys want trains? Hell, even the Hawkeye Express bit it. Give it a break. If big states with actual population density can't make bullet trains work, hicksville Iowa ain't making it work. Fill the damn bus first.
People in the US don't like public transport. That's a freaking fact. Otherwise, the rest of your pithy statement is dumb.
I find it interesting how people who have never experienced an efficient and functional train trip are OPPOSED to trains. Not that they don't have an opinion, they are actually opposed to something they know absolutely nothing about.
More lol, that's because the US doesn't have good public transport. Give people shitty options and they don't like it, who would have guessed. Greyhound? Amtrak? Brightline just opened from Orlando to Miami last year and they can't add coaches fast enough to keep up with demand
Will do, obviously Brightline went from Florida to breaking ground in Vegas to LA because nobody in the US likes public transport.
California has blabbed about high speed rail since the 70's. Even LA had a subway, once and now a metro that is meh at best. Americans love cars or planes. It's part of the DNA. It ain't Europe and it never will be. But you guys go for it. I'm still wait for the CRANDIC to light up again. Please tell me you weren't alive when CRANDIC was a thing, @jamesvanderwulf
That’s because public transportation in the US is woefully underfunded. If it were funded appropriately, people would use it.
In Floriduh, of all places, the murder train aka Brightline was very heavily utilized until the government subsidy ran out recently and they massively jacked up the prices to feed their investors.
That's my point. It's a vicious circle. Otherwise, it would have worked. I am a proponent of public transport. Let this sober people up. India will have a functioning bullet train before the US. India. Haha, that should say something.
GTFO with your facts and reasoning. I’m busy yelling at a cloud.
Either of us will be alive by the time a bullet train goes between las vegas and LA.
They already have most of the funding and like 90% of the track will be in the median of I-15 so land acquisition isn't really an issue. Since it's a private company doing it, they don't have the red tape and bureaucratic BS that California HSR has. Every major infrastructure project seems to have delays, but unless something crazy happens like a pandemic or something, I don't see how this won't get finished in an acceptable time period
I bet Iowa could support a Lincoln/Omaha/Des Moines/Grinnell/IC/QCA route
It's not that America and Americans have some natural disdain for public transport, it's that it has a disdain for the density required to make it feasible.
The thing that never gets brought up is that we had high speed rail, we had intracity streetcars, we had suburban connections, etc. We tore it all up and converted the intercity rail to support larger and heavier freight trains. Jet airplanes vs. rail was the right decision for intercity transport, we've just made a complete mess of it and made it cumbersome.
The thing that never gets brought up is that we had high speed rail, we had intracity streetcars, we had suburban connections, etc. We tore it all up and converted the intercity rail to support larger and heavier freight trains. Jet airplanes vs. rail was the right decision for intercity transport, we've just made a complete mess of it and made it cumbersome.
^^^ This is not how business works.
Funding (aka taxpayer subsidies) is not what brings people.
The train needs to add value to users. Value then generates demand.
A train works today on your mom or when you have a dense population within 1-2 miles of a station (point A) with a need for quick access to point B. We have an online economy and teleconference capabilities so business can be conducted less in-person. The leisure travel business is cutthroat and is a race to the bottom. This why you see new attempts at servicing Vegas/LA and SoFla beaches/Orlando attractions - enough demand exists to get from Point A to Point B without much need for venturing far from the station (or in Disney’s case an infrastructure to leverage to get from station to park). That type of leisure demand is extremely limited and does not exist in the US outside of the DC-Boston corridor where a train already exists (living on subsidies nonetheless).
Long distance train travel in this country is not feasible today.
W
Is that why federal tax dollars fund road and airport projects?
Apples & Oranges
You are talking infrastructure. A train is a service.
We may bail out airlines and car manufactures in this country but we don’t do direct subsidies.
No, I was talking a train on separated (owned) track and was told by old dog it would be too expensive. Not the service of running the train
We just signed up for solar panels to be installed at Lucas Manor. Projected to be about $14, 000, but Uncle Sugar should cover about $4000. It isn’t a shock that Iowa let its tax credit program die.
That is already done with Amtrak (not 100% dedicated lines) and it has been a financial boondoggle for decades.
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