Public Transport in the U.S

[Usige]

That works in a relatively small, overcrowded country. Not so much in NA.

True. I don’t think many people realize just how big the US and Canada are relative to their populations. For instance, the island of Honshu is 80% of the the land area of Colorado yet has 20x the population. It also has the advantage of being long and thin so most people are no more than maybe 30 to 40 miles from the line. Even California only has 1/3 the population of Honshu and is almost twice as large. There are places in the Central Plains, West Texas, and the Intermountain West that you might be 50 to 100 miles between large towns. Maybe people who only cross the US or Canada by plane don’t have any appreciation of how much distance you travel where there are more cows than people.

Which is a shame, because there is a distance range (between 300 and 1000 miles) where rail at 150 mph could easily compete with air. The slower speed would be countered by central depot locations and less burdensome security levels.

The problem is that with the low densities most trains have to stop for hours to wait for enough passengers at each major station. If you have a 3 90 minute stops (one every 120 miles), a 500 mile trip could still take 8.5 hours. It is the long stops that seem to kill you. I looked at the times to drive and take the California Zephyr from Denver to Chicago a few years back. The train was about 5 hours slower than driving. Even if they doubled the speed of the train I don’t think they could get enough people on them to run multiple trains each day. Even if you could do 500 miles in say 4.5 hours. Your would only get at most 2 trains each way on a given day. It might work if there were express trains that don’t stop over the 500 mile route, but then you still need a critical capacity on the route to cover the cost. I can’t imagine there would be enough people going between say Houston and Denver to warrant multiple daily services.

Given that Amtrak is about as expensive as Southwest Airlines I’d rather deal with security at the airport and save half the time traveling.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Rail is still slow compared to flying. Really slow.

Trains back in the day of heavy rail use didn’t go 150 miles/hour, but they were still pretty fast. It was common for passenger trains to go 70 mph. But I recall reading an ad for a luxury, straight-through train from Chicago to San Francisco. You got on the train on Friday evening and “presto” you arrived in S.F. on Sunday. So cut that in half and it’s still slow.

I agree that urban sprawl makes mass transit impractical. It wasn’t just a matter of subsidies. I have a photograph of men digging the utility lines along my grandparents’ house. There was an army of them with picks and shovels. Water lines go deep and sewer lines go even deeper. Now, you take a backhoe and dig out in a morning what it would have taken those guys days to dig.

And too, the water towers are massively larger and higher, and the pressure is much greater. Developers can reach a lot farther out, more cheaply, than they could 100 years ago. If you look at old sections of almost any town, and you see that the houses are very close together. That’s largely because putting in utilities was so daunting.

People obviously prefer larger lots if they can get them. Stores are much larger and farther apart. I think it would be extremely difficult to establish effective mass transit in a lot of places. My brother lives in the Kansas side of Kansas City, and that widening of spaces has taken on proportions that surprised even me. Commercial establishments are on gigantic, heavily landscaped “lots” that are bigger than city blocks; acres and acres. Stores are in a different section altogether, with lots of space. The residential areas are miles from places where people work. The design, I guess, is to give a “wide open spaces” look to it; a more “natural” kind of environment, and they sure achieved it. If cars become too expensive to operate, there are going to be a lot of people on motorbikes because you couldn’t possibly get around in that place without individual transportation.

One of the factors that contributes to lower density is that our real estate market is excessively regulated. Zoning laws often impose minimum lot sizes for no coherent reason. If people want houses on 3 acre lots people will buy them on their own, there is no reason for the government to mandate the minimum lot size.

 

[mikekle]

Ive always wondered what our transportation system will look like in 100 yrs, you figure every year, many new drivers are on the roads, this will continue to happen, eventually our roads and highways are going to congested 24/7, they can widen roads and make more lanes, but there is a limit to that too. Not to mention the increase in commercial traffic, I notice there are much more semi trucks on the roads today, this will likely get worse in the future too, unless a better way to move large amounts of freight is discovered.

 

[exnihilo]

One of the factors that contributes to lower density is that our real estate market is excessively regulated. Zoning laws often impose minimum lot sizes for no coherent reason. If people want houses on 3 acre lots people will buy them on their own, there is no reason for the government to mandate the minimum lot size.

Whether the regulation is excessive or not is a personal judgement. But what is not disputable is that the market is regulated. It isn’t just lot size but also zoning with regards to business. Where I live mixed use is not a popular zoning. The zoning requires business to be far enough from residential that you basically need a car to live in our society. Again, I live in an older southern town and if you look at the old neighborhoods there were stores on the corners. There was even a small mill town just outside of the city on a railroad stop. You didn’t need personal transportation back then. I don’t know what the market would chose in the US but since the market is not free the current situation is as much due to the government as any other cause.

 

[Sarcelle]

Ive always wondered what our transportation system will look like in 100 yrs, you figure every year, many new drivers are on the roads, this will continue to happen, eventually our roads and highways are going to congested 24/7, they can widen roads and make more lanes, but there is a limit to that too. Not to mention the increase in commercial traffic, I notice there are much more semi trucks on the roads today, this will likely get worse in the future too, unless a better way to move large amounts of freight is discovered.

There have been attempts to ameliorate the current congestion on our highways. One of these is called intermodal transportation. Trains can haul very, very, large amounts of freight but are limited to the tracks. Trucks cannot haul as much freight as trains but are less limited in movement. Intermodal is taking those trailers on trains and transporting long distances and the trucks move them to the specific destinations. Think of trains as the arteries and the trucks as capillaries.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

In the U.S. hardly anybody seems to use it nor do they have much of a choice, the services being so meagre. Why?

I’m guessing it has something to do with rampant individualism and preferring to travel alone

Speaking only for my general area when elections for spreading public transportation cam up I remember being discouraged to vote in favour of it be several entities stating the same reason. Even my local church was against it. They stated it would give “the element of crime” a way to get around.

With demographic shifts and wealth moving from the suburbs back into the city over decades the vote was finally able to pass to allow bus service.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

A long time ago, I took a bus from Lawrence, Kansas to Kansas City Kansas, a distance of 30 miles. The trip took an hour and a half.

My commute of 20 miles is about 35 minutes by car or 2.5+ hours to take the bus to the rail, the rail to another bus transfer spot, then the second bus to work. Not wanting to spend 5 hours a day commuting I drive.

 

[Sarcelle]

My commute of 20 miles is about 35 minutes by car or 2.5+ hours to take the bus to the rail, the rail to another bus transfer spot, then the second bus to work. Not wanting to spend 5 hours a day commuting I drive.

There is public transportation where I live but what takes me 15 minutes by car takes 45 minutes by bus.

 

[Exiled_Child]

The U.S. is really spread out, so public transportation doesn’t work as well. People in suburbs have cars because there isn’t much choice - there’s no real infrastructure. If you’re extremely fortunate then maybe Amtrak will stop within bus distance of your house, but it’s not as though we have the rail infrastructure that Europe has. It’s why we’re addicted to oil. Some of the great cities on the East Coast have terrific infrastructure, but if you live in L.A. you have to have a car. And you’re unfortunately going to spend an awful lot of time sitting inside it in gridlock.

If there ever is an EMP attack, cyber attack or some other calamity of that sort, America will just shut down. We’re in a terrible position as far as that goes. Europeans would be a thousand times better off were something similar ever to happen to them. I don’t think it’s really anyone’s fault or any sort of short-sightedness - it’s simply geography.

 

[GEddie]

The U.S. is really spread out, so public transportation doesn’t work as well. People in suburbs have cars because there isn’t much choice - there’s no real infrastructure. If you’re extremely fortunate then maybe Amtrak will stop within bus distance of your house, but it’s not as though we have the rail infrastructure that Europe has. It’s why we’re addicted to oil. Some of the great cities on the East Coast have terrific infrastructure, but if you live in L.A. you have to have a car. And you’re unfortunately going to spend an awful lot of time sitting inside it in gridlock.

If there ever is an EMP attack, cyber attack or some other calamity of that sort, America will just shut down. We’re in a terrible position as far as that goes. Europeans would be a thousand times better off were something similar ever to happen to them. I don’t think it’s really anyone’s fault or any sort of short-sightedness - it’s simply geography.

In such an attack, the vaunted European rail lines would be stopped, as well. So would urban metro, as the generators are above ground.

While it is true that the central portions of Medieval cities were designed in comparable conditions, the cities themselves are far more populous now.

ICXC NIKA

 

[jilly4ski]

Speaking only for my general area when elections for spreading public transportation cam up I remember being discouraged to vote in favour of it be several entities stating the same reason. Even my local church was against it. They stated it would give “the element of crime” a way to get around.

With demographic shifts and wealth moving from the suburbs back into the city over decades the vote was finally able to pass to allow bus service.

I recently started taking the bus to work. My particular metro area has recently had a demographic and corporate shift away from suburbs and suburban corporate parks of the 80s and 90s to downtown buildings and locations. This has allowed the bus service to run what we call “express routes” they only run towards downtown and only during “rush hour” times. So I drive to a nearby park and ride and get one the bus. But since I work and live close to the bus stops and there is not much traffic at that time of day, the commute time is almost the same. However, he nature of my work hours makes the bus both very convenient and not. I work very early hours (6:30am to 3pm), so I am catching one of the earliest buses out and back, which makes for a quick bus ride, but if my work ends early, which it often does at the end of projects, I would be stuck downtown until 2:45pm. These commuter routes are very nice, with mostly professionals riding to and from work.

The downside is, what if in 20 years there is another shift back to the suburbs and corporate office parks. Especially as families have to move into the suburbs as the urban core becomes gentrified for yuppies and wealthy retirees.

There is also a traditional rail that runs from one of the northern “cities” to bring people into downtown on what would otherwise be a 40 mile drive one way.

We also recently got a light rail between the two cities in our metropolitan area. (It also connects the airport and the big mall to the cities). It seems to work ok, though again rather limited. I used to work right off the light rail and many of my coworkers found it really convenient. However, we just changed buildings (end of the commercial lease) and we are now about 5 blocks off the light rail stations. My coworkers who are still young and fit still take the light rail, but some of my older and more infirm coworkers now have to drive, because they can’t walk the 5 blocks to the light rail station. (We even have a skyway system so one can avoid weather and walk inside, to make such foot travel more convenient during our harsh weather (ie winter). And it does attract a certain “criminal element.” People use the light rail to stake out targets and for quick getways (buses too). Just this past week a lady was followed off the light rail into her apartment building, choked until she passed out, and then had her computer stolen. (It certainly give the transportation police plenty of work to do, between these sorts of crimes and fail jumpers).

Right now, our cities are spending a lot of money making themselves bicycle friendly. Which is pretty funny in Minneapolis, since we had two weeks straight of below zero temperatures. But, you see a lot of people using bicycles during the short summer months to commute and get around.