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Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

thetransitguy.substack.com

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Re: Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

#141

Post by const_cast »

dylan604 wrote: post #54
hinkley wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We condensed redundancies in the 80’s to improve profit margins for rail. Those lines could have supported more cargo and passenger trains but they’re gone now. It’s difficult to add rail through populated areas. And some population centers are big enough that going around them is not feasible. Like you could go around Portland Oregon to add new west coast routes without much high profile eminent domain, but can you…

You can't do that through Texas which is why the plan for a high speed rail making the triangle between DFW, Houston, Austin/San Antonio never succeeds. There's so much wide open space in Texas, but it's privately owned so eminent domain is a huge issue.

When we built the interstates in the 50s and 60s nobody really gave a flying fuck about that. We destroyed a lot of towns and eminent domain'd a lot of property.

Naturally the regulatory and political landscape of now is quite different, and in a lot of ways for the better. But it is unfortunate that we've more or less forgotten how to do things.

Re: Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

#142

Post by const_cast »

bpt3 wrote: post #76
jandrese wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not because American government doesn’t invest in public transit. It’s because Americans, even poor Americans, overwhelmingly choose personal transportation. If there is no usable public transit then people have to use cars. But if they have cars then there isn't the will for the public transit. A vicious circle. Public transit does need to be built somewhat on a "if you build it they will come" philosophy, wh…

It is built in major metro areas, and requires endless subsidies to stay afloat in all but one of those areas. Public transit cannot compete with private transit outside of cost unless you have a very, very high population density, which makes it unpopular with people who can afford alternatives (i.e. almost all Americans).

It absolutely can compete with cost, we just have to not cheat.

Often when we compare transit to automobiles we don't take into account the cost of roads (???). Interstates have cost us over 25 trillion by now. That's just the interstates.

Re: Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

#143

Post by dylan604 »

const_cast wrote: post #141
dylan604 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't do that through Texas which is why the plan for a high speed rail making the triangle between DFW, Houston, Austin/San Antonio never succeeds. There's so much wide open space in Texas, but it's privately owned so eminent domain is a huge issue.

When we built the interstates in the 50s and 60s nobody really gave a flying fuck about that. We destroyed a lot of towns and eminent domain'd a lot of property. Naturally the regulatory and political landscape of now is quite different, and in a lot of ways for the better. But it is unfortunate that we've more or less forgotten how to do things.

In the 50s and 60s, the population was smaller. Towns/cities were smaller and not as developed as now. It would have be so much easier to build that infrastructure than it would be today. As it is now, to add rail cities are having to lose some streets to replace with rail or have some mixed use rail/car type of use. It makes no sense to compare today to the 50s/60s

Re: Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

#145

Post by cjj_swe »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #86
cjj_swe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the music note emoji were stripped out. The first line is a quote from one of her songs.

In the same way that "hold me closer Tony Danza" is a quote from one of my favorite Elton John songs. You're looking for "Life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh ": https://genius.com/Dolly-parton-my-tennessee-mountain-home-l...

Yikes! I wish I could edit

Re: Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

#148

Post by deltarholamda »

lukas099 wrote: post #133
creaturemachine wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We thought Hillary and Kamala were shoo-ins too. This rot runs deep throughout the electorate, something the media and parties know and are all too willing to exploit.

I never thought either of them was a shoo-in, especially Harris. Was that really a consensus?

It was if you only listened to corporate media outlets.

Re: Dolly Parton's Dollywood Express

#150

Post by tomcam »

shortformblog wrote: post #39

The irony being, of course, that it is surrounded by an area where it is basically impossible to get by without a car. My wife and I once left Gatlinburg after a week there and our tire blew out on the way out of town. It was a Sunday morning. Literally our only option to get it replaced that day was a Walmart location 15 miles away. So we had to wait for AAA for an hour and a half to tell us we were stuck using a do…

It's a blessing that you were able to find help so easily.
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