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Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 22 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,091,524 times
Reputation: 15538
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78
Yes, as a country, I don't think we care about our infrastructure anymore. The fact that you wish to blame infrastructure short comings on "hipsters/urban types" is a great example about how Americans don't care about our infrastructure anymore.
The solution is to go buy a car and sit in traffic with everyone else....great solution.
And yes, we are clearly not like other countries, our transportation decisions have been built around the car and we will have to live with that decision as we watch other countries surpass us. Which I am sure you are fine with that.
You are not reading what was written...
My example is about a group here that feels millions upon million should be spend for a light rail system that would allow them to travel a dozen miles out to a shopping area, but maybe you are of the same group.
Our business cores are de-centralized and even if you get to a city odds are that you will need to travel to your ultimate destination, every city is not NYC. Cars are our preferred method of travel and it will take a significant event for that to change. I am fine with that for now because without the car I would be forced to live within walking/biking distance to my employment and that is something I would not want, traffic is not an issue.
If all these countries are so poised to surpass us then why do they all come here because we offer the most opportunities...
China is expanding their infrastructure....something Americans stopped carrying about for some reason.
The private sector no longer has any interest in expanding our infrastructure because they know it will be de facto confiscated by Leftist politicians and their mouth-breathing clientele. This goes as much for the freight railroads (who are operating near capacity in much of the nation) as anybody else.
Until and unless property rights are protected, there will be little expansion, and most of what there is will be boondoggles such as Boston's notorious "big dig".
There is also almost no passenger exclusive rails in this country.
Because the demand is so low that developing exclusive rails is a waste of money.
Even the local Caltrain, that travels between San Francisco and San Jose and has exclusive tracks, which is the only public transportation between these two large cities where traffic is horrible, in one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas of the country; can only collect enough fairs for a little over half of its costs.
Why again would passenger based rail make sense in other parts of the country where the implementation is not ideal?
Tolls + gasoline tax + government admin costs with owning cars exceeds the federal subsidy to auto travel on federal highways.
What? If this were true, there would be no taxes required to fund roads, since gas taxes and tolls generally get allocated 100% to transport expenses. This sounds like some kind of state vs federal shell game accounting.
A point of information regarding speeds from Wikipedia;
For other uses, see TGV (disambiguation).
TGV Three TGV trains at ParisGare de l'Est
Locale France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain Dates of operation 1980– Track gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) Website tgv.com The TGV (French: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train") is France's high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the national rail operator.
It was developed during the 1970s by GEC-Alsthom (now Alstom) and SNCF. Originally designed as turbotrains to be powered by gas turbines, the prototypes evolved into electric trains with the 1973 oil crisis. Following the inaugural service between Paris and Lyon in 1981 on the LGV Sud-Est (LGV (French: Ligne à Grande Vitesse, high-speed line)), the network, centred on Paris, has expanded to connect many cities across France and in adjacent countries on combinations of high-speed and conventional lines.
A TGV test train set the record for the fastest wheeled train, reaching 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on 3 April 2007.[1] In mid-2011, scheduled TGV trains operated at the highest speeds in conventional train service in the world,[citation needed] regularly reaching 320 km/h (200 mph) on the LGV Est, LGV Rhin-Rhône and the LGV Méditerranée.
So while overaall, passenger train speeds (measured on a start-to-stop basis) have increased by about 70% since 1964 (173 MPH vs 104 MPH) the public perception of the advantage is distorted by a failure to recognize the difference between top speeds vs. average (start-to-stop) speeds.
Much of the perceived gains in advantage for rail vs. air transportation over intermediate distances is due to the problems of getting to the airport, and getting through the security obstacles.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 01-14-2015 at 04:16 PM..
My example is about a group here that feels millions upon million should be spend for a light rail system that would allow them to travel a dozen miles out to a shopping area, but maybe you are of the same group.
Our business cores are de-centralized and even if you get to a city odds are that you will need to travel to your ultimate destination, every city is not NYC. Cars are our preferred method of travel and it will take a significant event for that to change. I am fine with that for now because without the car I would be forced to live within walking/biking distance to my employment and that is something I would not want, traffic is not an issue.
If all these countries are so poised to surpass us then why do they all come here because we offer the most opportunities...
I read what you wrote, and you continue to confirm my point with this post as well. So you thing light rail is so people can travel outward to shopping areas? Or is that what you call a downtown?
The private sector no longer has any interest in expanding our infrastructure because they know it will be de facto confiscated by Leftist politicians and their mouth-breathing clientele. This goes as much for the freight railroads (who are operating near capacity in much of the nation) as anybody else.
Until and unless property rights are protected, there will be little expansion, and most of what there is will be boondoggles such as Boston's notorious "big dig".
So Leftist politicians are trying to take over the airlines? Or freight rail?
You are right, there probable will be little expansion because Americans don't care about their infrastructure. Not sure what the Big Dig has to do with this other than being complicated underground project through an old and dense city.
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 22 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,091,524 times
Reputation: 15538
Quote:
Originally Posted by shooting4life
Because the demand is so low that developing exclusive rails is a waste of money.
Even the local Caltrain, that travels between San Francisco and San Jose and has exclusive tracks, which is the only public transportation between these two large cities where traffic is horrible, in one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas of the country; can only collect enough fairs for a little over half of its costs.
Why again would passenger based rail make sense in other parts of the country where the implementation is not ideal?
Because the demand is so low that developing exclusive rails is a waste of money.
Even the local Caltrain, that travels between San Francisco and San Jose and has exclusive tracks, which is the only public transportation between these two large cities where traffic is horrible, in one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas of the country; can only collect enough fairs for a little over half of its costs.
Why again would passenger based rail make sense in other parts of the country where the implementation is not ideal?
Actually, the Caltrain does share trackage with a handful of local freights, operated by host railroad Union Pacific (former Southern Pacific) which manage to stay out of the way of the commuter service. But there is no "through" (high-volume) freight traffic since heavy industry is rare on the Peninsula, and containers are offloaded on the east side of the Bay, and local delivery is by tractor-trailer.
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