Climate Change

[Jaybar]

Imagine if LA had a proper master plan and a mass transit system as a strong backbone for transportation. If only. Viva le Sprawl.

[archibaldcrane]

Imagine if LA had a proper master plan and a mass transit system as a strong backbone for transportation. If only. Viva le Sprawl.

Eh, I mean we are building a ton of new rail lines.

[Jaybar]

Are those under construction or in the pipeworks? I remember having a shitty experience on their rail-line, but I'm so used to the Chicago El and Metra that I'm a bit spoiled.

[archibaldcrane]

Are those under construction or in the pipeworks? I remember having a shitty experience on their rail-line, but I'm so used to the Chicago El and Metra that I'm a bit spoiled.

Most are in the pipe, but Measure M (sales tax increase) is providing funding for all of it. They want it all done by the LA Olympics.

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[Draygon]

Eh, I mean we are building a ton of new rail lines.

Shit like this was eye opening for me personally after visiting Berlin / Paris last summer. Amsterdam was cool too even with the trolleys. I live in Tampa, so we can't build underground of course, but damn does our public transportation suck ass.

[Fiye]

Forever wishing America would build high speed trains.

[TsingTao]

I gave up that dream a couple decades ago.

[Zealot]

I'm on it fam, get me into office.

[TsingTao]

I'm on it fam, get me into office.

Don't worry, I will vote so many times it will make your head spin.

[Zealot]

With high speed trains you'll be able to vote in Florida and New York before the polls close.

[Zetanio]

Forever wishing America would build high speed trains.

I'm a huge train enthusiast and I've already given up on this dream. It will never ever happen.

[archibaldcrane]

Even the California "high speed" train in development is slow expensive garbage.

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[dasva]

Even the California "high speed" train in development is slow expensive garbage.

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That ends up being the problem I see almost every time it's purposed. You see proposals for trains that are anywhere from 1/10 to 1/3 the speed that the rest of the world calls highspeed while also costing much more than the rest of the world spends for their much faster trains. Which makes so many DOA. Fuck even China is getting in on this

iirc SMART train (thing only goes like 60 mph or something) mostly got passed because they promised a foot/bike path along it's length... and after being overbudget and behind schedule for having the whole thing done when they did a limited opening (the last several stops on both ends still aren't open) they seem to be trying to weasel out of that. And wtf does it not connect to BART. You telling me you got 2 bay area train systems that get within like a dozen miles of each other and if you want to grab a bus then try to find the other train

[Zealot]

Sounds awful, get me into office, I'll fix it.

[Zetanio]

The problem is the government refuses to the use eminent domain to seize the land and build on it. That drives the construction costs into the stratosphere because they have to purchase all the land. Even running between the LA/San Diego area and Texas would be so incredibly expensive because the land value would go up 100x as soon as they announced the plan.

[Zealot]

I've seen, no exaggeration, the government use eminent domain to make sure a Wal-Mart gets built.

[Zetanio]

I've seen, no exaggeration, the government use eminent domain to make sure a Wal-Mart gets built.

That's a few square miles. This is hundreds and hundreds of square miles from some of the richest people in their respective areas.

[Melena]

Forever wishing America would build high speed trains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genera...car_conspiracy

[Andalusian girls]

century old conspiracy theories aside, it is true America's unusually strong property rights make acquiring the land necessary for the development of high-speed rail prohibitively expensive (as opposed to say China where the state owns most of the land) but the fundamental issue is geographic. America is simply not as densely populated as Europe and Asia, even in our densest areas in Coastal California, the Great Lakes region, and the Northeastern seaboard. California is the size of Japan but has 29% of the population, Michigan is the size of the UK but has 15% of the population, New Jersey is our densest state but would not rank in the top 10 most densely populated Chinese provinces, etc. given the way to make transportation lines profitable is through a webbing network, rather than a straight dot-to-dot, and you see how increasingly uneconomical it becomes if you want to web out to population centers like Las Vegas, Portland, and Salt Lake City from say the Californian line. a line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas would be as long as the line between London and Paris, and would not shall we say have quite the same volume.

toss in tertiary factors, the US being a uniquely pro-car anti-everythingelsebutplanes culture, that our existing railways are designed for freight not passengers, the urban sprawl of many of our major cities which often makes car rental easier than any other form of transport for visitors, and you quickly see how high-speed rail is uniquely unsituated for the the United States. though, not entirely so. Canada and Australia share most of these issues and have the notoriety of being the only two advanced economies on earth with no extant high-speed rail.

[archibaldcrane]

^

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