European cities have sudden stops (no sprawl)
Shown: Veenendaal, Holland (near Arnhem)
Suppose I could take a train to Salt Lake City from St. George. That would be nice. But how would I get around once I got there? Salt Lake, like other US cities, has sprawled all over the place. The Wasatch front has a surface commuter train, but it covers a small part of the valley. It certainly went nowhere near where I needed to go last time I went to SLC.
This rings true for any city except New York City that I’ve visited last year – and I visited a LOT of cities.
So when Obama promises $8 billion for “high speed trains” in his State of the Union address, I don’t get all giddy. Instead, I wonder how unionized train building is. It always traces back to unions with this President. And I know General Electric has to be getting some of that action.
The GOP only WISHES they could be this corporately corrupt…
Anyway, back to trains. Won’t work. Most of our cities were designed and expanded well after the car. To live, work, and even tour them requires a car. Tulsa, and OK, OK – car. Niagra Falls – car. Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque – car. Only New York, Boston, and perhaps Washington D.C. come to mind as places you can avoid needing car.
Besides, I already have a fast, cheap, way to get from town to town, should I not want to drive. Ever hear of Southwest Airlines?
Far cheaper would be to deregulate air travel further and let Southwest and its competitors penetrate to more and more cities. I’d much rather fly over, than speed through, this country – especially in the age of terrorism.
January 30th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
If auto fuel cost $8 (inflation adjusted) a gallon here for many decades, we too would have more compact cities with better public transport. The bigger the city, the greater the need for good public transport because there is too little room for private autos. Getting around major developed world cities is a cinch in my experience in New York, London (the best), Tokyo,Paris, Vienna, Berlin, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Rome. Good but less developed in Stockholm, Oslo, Brussels, Madrid, Taipei, Seattle, Miami, Budapest, Munich, Copenhagen. All these cities have a private option – taxis – which cost a lot more per mile or hour.
Inter-city trains won’t compete in America because the cities are much farther apart than European country cities and the track maintenance for high speeds is really expensive while the planes use the maintenance-free air. Border to border in Germany takes only about seven hours by train. But remember that America got to be a world powerhouse by train before the plane and the auto were even invented.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
So Obama’s 8 billion dollar plan is a waste?
January 30th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
My impression, $8B is less than a joke. Obama is an idiot to even suggest he’s doing something for U.S. transportation using railroads. The NLRB has a bevy of cases involving railroad construction companies versus unions. Any idea how much it cost to tear up the useless track?
January 30th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
There are good reasons why fast trains don’t exist already outside the densely packed Bos-Wash corridor. Eight billion would be nothing but a small down payment on a permanent government subsidy that is continually undercut by building more and better highways between and around cities.The government would never have enough money to subsidize both roads and railroads to the satisfaction of both interests. I don’t think passenger railroads make a profit anywhere (but I haven’t looked at the figures which don’t mean much anyway where government is involved in the management of the systems).
February 1st, 2010 at 3:36 pm
New Orleans ends abruptly like European cities.