BREAKING: America Missing Basic Public Service Works

Sidetracked by social issues and foreign policy, rip

its because of the car industry and its influence in politics

i'd use it

But you live in Croatia……..

Fun fact: Trains in America run slower today than they did in the 1920s. One reason for this is because of government weight regulations on train cars that make them slower.

That being said, China is in an infrastructure bubble right now. That's why there are vacant cities*. Debt spending on infrastructure like railroads and entire cities makes up a larger part of the Chinese economy than the American economy.

Europe's far higher population density than America might explain why there are more transport railroads there. Europe has around 111.739 people per square kilometer, whereas the US has around 33.27 people per square kilometer.

Despite its history and lack of high speed rail, I think the system in America right now is pretty decent. America has the most miles of railroad out of any country in the world*. There are lots of railroads in use in America today, just not high speed ones. Railroad companies here simply make more money by shipping hundreds of transport containers on one train at a slow speed, than by shipping a small amount of passenger carriages at a high speed.

* https://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-chinese-ghost-cities-2010-12?slop=1#heres-chinas-biggest-ghost-city-zhengzhou-new-district-4
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size#cite_note-3

Maybe if we had less cars and more public transportation options, maybe we'd have a greater use of high speed rail and buses!

Based and Trainpilled

You can both ship transport containers and have quality high-speed rail for passengers. They're not mutually exclusive

here is some high speed rail i found

but how else am i and other members of the environmentally ignorant middle class going to flex our totally sick rides

https://imgur.com/a/ZlSEkgh

they'd rather spend their money bombing poor people in caves than spending money on their own people

Within the current infrastructure in America, they are mutually exclusive.
1. There are no passing lanes on long stretches of railway.
2. High speed rail cars wouldn't even be able to function on the current railroad tracks in America, because they use special tracks.
3. Therefore, a whole new rail infrastructure would need to be built to support high speed rail.

There are some conclusions that can be drawn from this.

The reason big-shipment railroading is so cheap is because it goes through the middle of nowhere, where land is cheap. High speed rail attempts to bring people to dense areas, where land can become 10x, 100x, or 1000x more expensive.

To build one mile of high speed rail in America costs about 87 million dollars. To build one high speed rail track from NYC to LA would cost over 243 billion dollars. That's an extreme example, but you can see how the cost balloons and why no entrepreneur has attempted to do this, especially since America is more "spread out" in general than other countries.

what exactly is your point with these comments? Just because America is "spread out" doesn't mean there's a fundamental need for public high speed rail. In fact, it's probably better if we spent those billions or trillions on high speed rail, or just even to build out more rail specifically for the trains that we run today, to get off the freight rails that Amtrak has to lease when running their trains in the majority of the lines.

#14
1. Did you know you can build those?
2. That's not how it works. HSR cars will work on any track of the right gauge. The quality of the track only determines the maximum safe speed. And you can replace those, since tracks need to be replace regularly anyway. There's machines that can that in-place and even change the track ballast. They come on rails.
3. Did you know that is exactly how most countries did it?

The northeastern US is slightly smaller than Spain, with slightly higher population, and accounts for about 20% of the USA's GDP, which is a hell of a lot more than Spain got in its entirety.
Spain even decided to use the same gauge as the rest of Europe for their HSR network, which is different from their standard (Iberian) gauge, so they really had to built it entirely new from the ground up. They now have the largest HSR network in Europe, used to be the largest in the world until China overtook them.

How did they do it? Probably black magic, catholicism, communism, The Spanish Inquisition, or all of them.

if only ya'll-qaeda didnt spend over 2 trillion dollars on afghanistan

first mention of nationalization in this thread

the personal automobile and its consequences have been a disaster for urban development

the american public has a relatively small effect on the environment. the ratio of emissions by the american public to top corporations is 543:48000. the public uses slightly more than a percent of what those corporations use. it's disingenuous to blame the middle classes driving habits for a world wide problem.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/5-charts-show-how-your-household-drives-up-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions

Of all the speculation and zingers on American budgetary preferences, this is probably closest to the truth. Foreign policy does not prevent the creation of infrastructure, in fact, military preparedness under Dwight Eisenhower for a theoretical Third World War was a major factor in getting funds for our interstate system in the first place.

A major hypothesis for why the United States does not care about its public transportation system is that America is ultimately a "car country." If you are interested in reading about the topic (you won't be), I read an interesting book on the development just last semester. It's Car Country: An Environmental History by Christopher W. Wells. Long story short, car companies and lobbyists slowly beat advocates for public transportation leading up to WWII. Post WWII the system was solidified further. There is too much money to be had in producing/maintaining cars and along roads; rest stops, burger joints, gas stations, and the like. The federal gas tax had perhaps the easiest path from concept to legislation in American history. Now no politician is going to be the one to advocate for HSR and thereby kill off parts of the automotive industry, it would basically be political suicide.

Then there are a lot of tertiary points here that criss-cross with other topics. Suburbia moving away from the polluted city centers, they can afford cars so why not. Infrastructure continues to be built with that in mind. The car industry is a pillar of the American economy and has a lot of influence in government. Etc. etc. etc.

87 million dollars per mile! That's too expensive! But of course we can pay for the war in Afghanistan ($300 million per day).

I hate the United States government. Who are you arguing with?

What I’m saying is that the cost isn’t as bad as many other government projects. Other countries have bitten the bullet and put up high speed rail, and we have the money to as well

I have no intention of ever boarding a train, so I shouldn't have to pay for it. I'm all for removing the regulations on trains, but that doesn't mean I want my money to go to something I'll never ever use. If high speed rail were so good, and those pesky regulations were removed, then it would stand or fall on the free market. People forget that the NYC subway system was created by a private company. Maybe, just maybe, there's a reason that Amtrack is billions in the hole.

Public projects are not about success or failure (see: the longest American war). Do we really want to see more of the same, but with railroads? America once had massive, transcontinental, government-funded railways. They were terribly unprofitable on the net (although the elites walked away with quite a bit of taxpayer money), and most of the railway companies behind them went bankrupt even with their massive government support.

The cool thing about private companies is that if I don't want or use what they're selling, then I don't have to pay for it. If high speed rails are so great and truly would improve the lives of millions of people, then let those people vote with their own dollars, and not mine.

this is american education at its peak

The American governments push for the concept of the American Dream and promotion of a more individualistic instead of a communal way of thinking has really poisoned the minds of the American people to the point where we can never truly advance as a society because people are stuck in this mentality of "Okay but how does it benefit me personally?".

The worst part is when most of these potential fixes have long term benefits for all of society, but because it is not a short term gain, people won't be willing to invest a little or give any sort of small sacrifice to help others or create more beneficial systems that could then be extended back to them.

if anyone's actually curious and likes EU transit / why US sucks for public transportation, there's a fantastic channel that goes over public transportation that I suggest if you're interested.

I don't want to drive 30 minutes to get to my job, and I certainly don't want to drive 5 minutes to grab some bread from my big box store. I just want to get to point A to point B as fast as I can without needing to drive everywhere.

what?

what happened?

are you okay?

selfish mentality