If the US had bullet trains, would you take them? (Miami, dollar)
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There's a bias against train travel in the US, especially of the high speed variety, for certain reasons.
If they existed in the US, would you take the high speed trains for trips under 500 miles (if they operated as advertised, meaning like how they run in Asia and Europe) or would you still prefer to fly/drive?
For trips like Boston to DC, Atlanta to Miami, LA to LV/SD/SF, I would much prefer train than flying. No TSA to deal with, more cabin/seat/leg space.
There's no bias against train travel. You can't have a bias against something that only exists for practical use in a few areas. That's like the bus stigma bull, there is no "bus stigma" buses are just a lot easier than trains to drop to stupid headways and run all over the place taking hours to go a few miles. If buses ran frequently and quickly, people would use them. The average person doesn't give a rats backside about what kind of wheels are spinning between their seat and the ground. The overall point being, if you build a transportation system that gets people where they need to go, when they need to get there, they'll use it, it doesn't matter the technology used.
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Originally Posted by bluesclues5
I would much prefer train than flying. No TSA to deal with,
The brightline idiots in Florida would beg to differ, they have the same tsa-style garbage as an airport. That stupid system can't go bankrupt soon enough.
The US is a huge country, with huge cities spread out over thousands of miles. We're not a small Euro country where most of our population is concentrated and thus easier to build bullet trains to connect dense population centers. Also, in America, once you get to a city, there's nothing really concentrated in that city center. Most of the activity is elsewhere. (LA union station for example).
There are few places where bullet trains make sense in the US. The Northeast Corridor for sure, and maybe some small spurs in a few other select areas. The problem with CAHSR is the time and the price of the ticket to get from LA to SF. Also, once you get to LA, you're going to have to get an Uber, to get anywhere else in the MASSIVE metro. LA should be focusing on local rain/commuter rail with train frequencies at 3-5 minutes. We waste so much money building multi billion dollar train systems, that are slow and come at 20 minute frequencies. Nobody wants to ride that.
Sure ! Especially if they had a car that would be able to transport my truck and trailer. I'd much rather spend 45 minutes being transported to our rural cottage in Northern MI, than 4 hours in the truck.
There's no "bias," we're just rich enough to travel by air or our own personal cars.
Most countries in the world don't have that kind of luxury, therefore they have to pack together in public transportation like sardines and claim they "like it."
If the trains travel to where I want to go, and if there's adequate local transportation on the other end, sure.
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Originally Posted by bluesclues5
There's a bias against train travel in the US, especially of the high speed variety, for certain reasons.
What reasons are those?
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Originally Posted by paracord
There's no "bias," we're just rich enough to travel by air or our own personal cars.
Have you priced Amtrak lately?
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Most countries in the world don't have that kind of luxury, therefore they have to pack together in public transportation like sardines and claim they "like it."
There's no "bias," we're just rich enough to travel by air or our own personal cars.
Most countries in the world don't have that kind of luxury, therefore they have to pack together in public transportation like sardines and claim they "like it."
I don’t know that air travel has any more elbow room than a train.
I never fly. Too expensive, and never quite goes from where I am to where I want to go.
Trains don’t either, but if they’re cheaper than flying and little faster than driving, I’d take them when feasible.
America has always been hard to develop. First it was the vast distances, now it’s mostly NIMBYism and red tape. Lots of red tape, making things nearly impossible anymore.
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