As an American living in a region with halfway decent (by American standards) public transit, I feel like I hear more comments aligned with the European side than the American side. If public transit has literally any downsides, that’s justification enough to drive for so many people.
Although the US and Europe are nearly identical in area, Europe’s population centers are far more uniformly distributed. Big cities in America are mostly around the edges, with a vast, sparsely populated area in the middle. Most intercity train service in America is in that fringe, where the spacing between cities is more like in Europe.
True, but the post is about trains being on schedule (or showing up at all), not about speed. I wasn’t saying US trains service is as good as European.
No, it’s not a value judgement of any kind. Imagine that - just making an observation with no implications or underlying opinion to swipe left/right on. What a concept.
Sure, intercity will never work in the US. Except on both coasts. And upper Midwest. And in a couple mountain and high desert areas. Dammit, that’s like 70% of the population
As an American living in a region with halfway decent (by American standards) public transit, I feel like I hear more comments aligned with the European side than the American side. If public transit has literally any downsides, that’s justification enough to drive for so many people.
Although the US and Europe are nearly identical in area, Europe’s population centers are far more uniformly distributed. Big cities in America are mostly around the edges, with a vast, sparsely populated area in the middle. Most intercity train service in America is in that fringe, where the spacing between cities is more like in Europe.
And yet we don’t have true hsr in the northeast, where the big cities are…
True, but the post is about trains being on schedule (or showing up at all), not about speed. I wasn’t saying US trains service is as good as European.
Yeah, I just see that said a lot and think its a bad excuse for having bad service.
Especially when we had much better service 100 years ago, with a fraction of the modern day population.
100 years ago was also before the era of profit hyper-optimization, which it turns out de-optimizes every other aspect of a thing.
Is this a “glass half full” thing? Can a non-existent train never be late or never be in time?
No, it’s not a value judgement of any kind. Imagine that - just making an observation with no implications or underlying opinion to swipe left/right on. What a concept.
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Sure, intercity will never work in the US. Except on both coasts. And upper Midwest. And in a couple mountain and high desert areas. Dammit, that’s like 70% of the population
Removed by mod