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Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes

citylab.com

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

#41

Post by shereadsthenews »

philwelch wrote: post #36
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…

I'm curious how long Europe's famous rail infrastructure will continue to be cost-effective in the era of Ryanair.

Very. Spain’s high-speed service killed the Barcelona-Madrid air route, which had been the world’s busiest.

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

#42

Post by philwelch »

perfmode wrote: post #9
AstralStorm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, such as roads, which can be replaced or built over with rail almost always. (Including light rail like trams.) The problem shared between both is lack of walkability. Not insoluble but requires more tunnels or overpasses.

Never thought of that. Just replace the roads with rails. Remove redundant links in the highway network. Sounds like a job for a graph algorithm straight out of CS 261.

I'm not sure you can just replace highways with railroads. Changing modes isn't completely free--you have to have enough parking for passengers, freight handling equipment for freight, and in some cases, you might have to load entire vehicles onto railcars. This cancels out a lot of the benefits of rail.

But, you can definitely reuse or expand the same right-of-way you had for some of the trunk highways and run rail alongside it.

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

#43

Post by seattle_spring »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #17
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual independence and convenience were a goal in American culture the middle of the 20th century, until the externalities of that were understand. There's some famous interview - can't remember with who - about how at the time getting a car gave incredible freedom nobody had experienced before. It was a big part of how people saw the American dream in the last century, before the impact was understood.

And now, having a car is seen as impending your freedom, funnily enough.

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).

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

#44

Post by fopen64 »

philwelch wrote: post #36
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…

I'm curious how long Europe's famous rail infrastructure will continue to be cost-effective in the era of Ryanair.

Yeah, I don't know. I thought about going from Barcelona to Malaga by train because I love trains, but it was 10x more expensive than one of these low-cost flights.

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

#46

Post by philwelch »

luckydata wrote: post #22
gamblor956 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the best rail system in the world...and uses it to transport cargo. The US also has the biggest single-country economy in the world.

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".

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

#47

Post by fopen64 »

anarchop wrote: post #24

Deisel freight trains are huge poluters with regard to particulate matter (PM). This actually causes cancer as opposed to CO2. Reducing PM without impacting fuel efficiency significantly is possible but requires investment. https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/-/media/epa/corporate-site/resour... Same goes for diesel trucks / busses. This type of change throughout the world would really improve people’s lives immediately.

The question is, how much pollution per tku (tons x kms)? Even if it exhausted nuclear waste, it would be worthwile if it was 1 gram per trillion tku.

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

#48

Post by munk-a »

wongarsu wrote: post #27
manigandham wrote: post #2

This is rather obvious and has always been a major advantage of rail. The problem is the capital costs and real estate requirements of building the rail lines, especially when locations are far apart and there's already existing infrastructure that needs attention.

> especially when locations are far apart I don't think distance is a relevant factor: train tracks cost about the same as a two-lane highway while having higher capacity. Stations are fairly expensive, but when locations are far apart that's not a significant factor. The bigger problem is that you can't profitably service low-demand routes with trains. Trains excel on high-demand routes but when you only want to mov…

I think this is also a big issue in state optimization of where to build trains. It is impossible[1] to build a speculative train route to try and gauge possibility so expansion tends to be quite conservative and slow, which is well warranted - additionally there are some compounding usage factors that make line placement hard even for buses.

If a new bus line is made available users are likely going to slowly convert to using it - and an area with good bus service is going to encourage residents[1] that want to take advantage of that service.

[1] In the history of the US, for example, train stations literally grew their own demand in many cases, causing non-existent or tiny towns to grow due to the availability of service.

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

#49

Post by mrtweetyhack »

melling wrote: post #11

No mention of China. They built 16,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years. They’ll be at 24,000 miles by 2025. The low/medium speed maglevs also seem interesting: https://gbtimes.com/china-tests-new-generation-of-maglev-tra... A 70-100 mph maglev would be useful in a few large cities.

They also don't care about people or homes that get in the way of their rails.

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

#50

Post by paxy »

gruez wrote: post #28
melling wrote: post #11

No mention of China. They built 16,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years. They’ll be at 24,000 miles by 2025. The low/medium speed maglevs also seem interesting: https://gbtimes.com/china-tests-new-generation-of-maglev-tra... A 70-100 mph maglev would be useful in a few large cities.

I think it's relevant to mention [1] and [2]. A lot of things can get done if you aren't constrained by economic and political considerations. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19549466 [2] https://www.ft.com/content/ca28f58a-955d-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee...

Everyone is constrained by economic considerations. It's not like China has unlimited money. They are just choosing sectors and making bets on what to prioritize and what to ignore, same as everyone else.
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