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Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

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Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#151

Post by throwawayjava »

jcranmer wrote: post #87
shereadsthenews wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think of an American state with a growing population you can take the existing infrastructure as a given and plan for rail for your new capacity. Unless you are willing to say we're just not going to add transportation capacity for our new citizens, you face a choice of road, rail, or air. Rail is often a good choice. As for "far apart" this seems irrelevant. Ohio has a greater population density than does S…

Where HSR excels is in being able to service several city pairs on a single line. The Northeast Corridor is a great example: you can have a single train service all pairs of {Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston} at negligible extra expense in time and money. Thus you can add in stops like Providence, which don't generate all that many trips on their own, simply because it is literally on the way to where…

> Who wants to go between Columbus and Indianapolis--the highway between the two cities is pretty empty.

This strikes me as the main problem with the mindset around HSR. Consider e.g., Madison, Wisconsin.

Milwaukee would have a much more vibrant and dynamic ecosystem if undergrads/PhD students/professors could get to/from meetings with investors in MLK/CHI and be back for afternoon classes. Or continue internships/meetings during the school year.

There are enormous inefficiencies (and corresponding brain drain) caused by the fact that the region's center of innovation is 1+ hours by car away from the region's center of finance.

An MLK CHI Madison rail line would change the dynamics of the entire state's economy. Simply counting cars on the roads between those cities in the present ignores how HSR changes the entire dynamic in a very qualitative way.

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#152

Post by LaGrange »

bronco21016 wrote: post #62

I’ve visited Europe many times and I do like how the region is so easily accessible without a car, largely because of trains, but there are many more factors outside of just having trains. European cities are far more walkable and accessible without a car. For decades the US has just not been built up in this way so just dropping trains in doesn’t suddenly make them preferred and thus viable. The reason people drive…

> European cities are far more walkable and accessible without a car.

A really weird experience I had while visiting CA (SSF specifically) was seeing a fast food place - I think it was Wendy's? - that wasn't reachable by foot in any clear way. Similarly there wasn't any obvious sidewalks or bike lanes on the highway between Brisbane and SSF, and while that _is_ as 2km walk, I'd still expect it to be _possible_.

I mean, I've been there for a week, and I'm sure it's possible to work things like that out if you live there longer. Maybe there's an entrance to the county park I didn't notice, or I don't know, a tunnel. But where I live, walking is far more intuitive than that. A tram might help, but it won't solve it.

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#153

Post by rhizome »

usaphp wrote: post #137
mabbo wrote: post #112

My wife and I took a trip to the middle of nowhere in Wales last fall. Train to Cardiff from London, then from Cardiff to our little cottage in the Pembrokeshire coast, I drove for 2+ hours in a rental car, learning to drive on the left. The day after we arrived, we learned we could have caught a train to Fishguard, a tiny village nearby, and then the local bus would have gotten us within a ten minute walk from our r…

> learning to drive on the left I guess it depends on a person, but I did not have any issue driving in Thailand, it felt natural after 10 minutes.

I've driven left-hand automatic and manual in England and I was fine in such locations as Trafalgar Square (within ULEZ now) and BFE Worcestershire. Once I learned the pedals aren't switched it became 300% easier.

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#154

Post by luckydata »

philwelch wrote: post #46
luckydata wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from Europe and stealing a large swath of largely unexploited land has done great things for the American economy. Unfortunately the majority of my fellow americans insist in believing it's all due to hard work and superior moral fiber, because everywhere else people are just lazy and corrupt :)

There are dozens of countries in the Western Hemisphere that were built on "a large swath of largely unexploited land".

In the last three centuries? Let me know which ones once you figure it out.

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#155

Post by Gibbon1 »

narag wrote: post #89
kposehn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. Until they have a good reason, the major freight railroads (BNSF/UP/CSX/NS/CN/CP/KCS) will continue to be all-diesel. Also, as emissions requirements have gotten more stringent they've moved to rebuilding older power (which gets around the current Tier-4 requirements instead of buying as much newer motive power. In fact, a number of the most recent-gen units have been stored as they're often 15% less effici…

Excuse if this is an absurd idea, I really don't know. But... Wouldn't it be possible to use (giant) batteries? It sounds terribly dangerous, but possible?

Totally possible, locomotives tend to work out to around 20-25 hp per ton and that's just the locomotive. So you need proportionally smaller batteries than you would with a car.

And when you start digging up the capital cost of locomotives you find they can easily absorb the cost of batteries.

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#156

Post by baroffoos »

natch wrote: post #127

For now, yes. Electric vehicles backed by sustainable power, when we reach that distant but ever-nearing goal, will be pretty good. Not as fast as flying but maybe we’ll get practical commercial passenger electric aircraft at some point. On the delivery of goods side of things, the Tesla Semi should also be a game changer. Efficient and door to door. For trains, I’d love to see how much could be done with, say, a ded…

Electric cars are still not good enough because they weigh so much more per passenger than electric trains

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#157

Post by jakecopp »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #128
rtpg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>both employers and residents want to minimize rents which drives sprawl and transportation webs, as opposed to hub and spoke models. I don't think this holds up empirically? The US is home to some of the highest rents in the world. Mid-sized US cities have way higher rents than major cities like Tokyo or Paris. Or maybe this is the idea, but if so it has failed miserably at letting people on the lower end of the spe…

I don't know where you're getting your information, but US real estate rents and prices are low by developed economy standards. Here is a link: http://www.newgeography.com/content/006201-15th-annual-demog... "The most affordable major housing markets are in the United States, with a moderately unaffordable Median Multiple of 3.9, followed by Canada (4.3) and Singapore (4.6). Ireland and the United Kingdom both have M…

Heads up, Sydney's median multiple was 13 at the end of 2017! I think it's come down a bit but not that much.

We do have a pretty awesome train network though, I don't own a car and it's wonderful.

Have a look at this graph for different world cities: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-22/australian-housing-un...

[Edit: fixed link]

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#159

Post by stevejb »

ceejayoz wrote: post #91
seattle_spring wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sure don't see it that way. Let me know when we invent something that can affordably and reliably take me to the base of mountains for hikes (real hikes, not shitty crowded garbage like Lake 22 or Mount Tam).

> Let me know when we invent something that can affordably and reliably take me to the base of mountains for hikes (real hikes, not shitty crowded garbage like Lake 22 or Mount Tam). If you visit Switzerland, you'll find this is an extremely solved problem.

http://www.travelersdigest.com/7381-how-big-is-switzerland-i...

Getting to a particular mountain is solved. This isn't a comparison of some tourist experience in a country the size of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Its about the freedom to explore our great national parks, etc.

Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

#160

Post by chungleong »

bronco21016 wrote: post #62

I’ve visited Europe many times and I do like how the region is so easily accessible without a car, largely because of trains, but there are many more factors outside of just having trains. European cities are far more walkable and accessible without a car. For decades the US has just not been built up in this way so just dropping trains in doesn’t suddenly make them preferred and thus viable. The reason people drive…

I normally live in Europe. At the moment I'm in Baltimore. The city's downtown area (around the inner harbor) is perfectly walkable. Nearby DC is also perfectly walkable, while driving is a nightmare. These two cities should be well connected by rail but they're not. People would drive to a parking lot beside a metro station and get into the city that way.

Two cities can only be linked effectively by rail when there aren't stops between them. That's impossible in America, where suburban areas are the political battlegrounds while cities are single-party fiefdoms.

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