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Sorry for the apoplexy. It might be helpful to read my other posts on the matter first -
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The UNITED STATES is nowhere as dense as EUROPE. That is what the article is comparing. The United States and Europe.
So you try to shift the discussion to NYC as representing the UNITED STATES.
And then argue that since there are some cities in the country of the UNITED STATES that are dense, that the country of the UNITED STATES should pursue the same policies as the countries of EUROPE.
Just because an opinion is in print doesn't mean we should accept the premise at face value.
So . . . no, I'm not trying to use NYC as a stand-in for the US. The comparison has been between the largest city in the US and the largest city in continental Europe. If one is to compare two cities at all then there's nothing inherently unfair about that comparison.
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Once again, Public Transit becomes a national issue when national density reaches a certain point. Until that point is reached, public transit is a local issue or a regional issue. European countries are more densely populated than the United States, and their urban populations represent enough of the countries' total populations to make transit a national issue. The United States has not reached that point, and is unlikely to do so in the immediate future.
Yeah, sorry dude, "Public Transit" is not a national issue. No one takes a city bus or light rail from Barcelona to Madrid or NYC to Boston. They fly or they take a fast train. National governments might fund local transit but with the exception of an EIS it remains very much a local issue nearly everywhere. Having made both trips before I can tell you that there are a lot more people between NYC and Boston than between Barcelona and Valencia.
High speed rail doesn't connect "countries" it connects cities and is a good alternative to air travel for trips of 400 miles or less. How dense Iowa or Montana are is wholly irrelevant to whether or not high speed rail is a good fit for connecting Philadelphia and Washington, DC or Philadelphia and Pittsburgh or LA and San Francisco or Chicago and Detroit.
The population of the Northeast Megalopolis is around 50 million people at a density of 930ppm - that's a larger population than the entirety of Spain and almost 4x as dense. It's 3x as dense as France and only slightly less dense than the Netherlands.
The US does have some amazing, wide open spaces but the fact remains that around 70% of Americans live in 11 megapolitan regions where high speed rail, or something close to it, would be perfectly viable if it existed.
And public transit does not require subsidies if they don't have to compete with subsidized highways. Basically all transit in the US was private up until we started subsidizing highways in the 1940s. Over seas most transit is still privately run. Stock in Hong Kong's subway system is particularly profitable right now.
Also, you are comparing a continent to a country. Just thought you should be aware.
To be fair, the title of thread is " 9 reasons why the USA ended up so much more car dependent than Europe." So as long as he/she is comparing the US to Europe, then he is within the bounds defined by the OP. Whether or not that is a fair comparison is a different question.
To be fair, the title of thread is " 9 reasons why the USA ended up so much more car dependent than Europe." So as long as he/she is comparing the US to Europe, then he is within the bounds defined by the OP. Whether or not that is a fair comparison is a different question.
I don't think rail will ever be big in the South (and most of the U.S.). That's simply not realistic. The few urbanists who dream about high speed rail service between Atlanta and Jacksonville will be excited about it, but most people will simply drive it. Rail works well on the East Coast because you don't need a car once you arrive in South Station or Penn Station. That's not the case when you arrive in Downtown Charlotte or Birmingham.
A business traveler from Charlotte to Atlanta is going to do the same thing a business traveler arriving at DC Union Station does - they're going to walk outside to the taxi rank.
A college kid going home to Charlotte from Atlanta is going to do the same thing as a kid going from UPenn to New Haven - they're going to get picked up by mom & dad.
Everyone else can do the same thing they do when the land at an airport - rent a car. The basement of 30th St. Station is full of rental cars. All the major companies are represented there. Zipcar has a whole row of spaces just outside the door and the entire station is ringed with taxis.
The Charlotte to Atlanta corridor or Charlotte to Richmond corridor doesn't need to be full on HSR to be successful. The second alternative - the "Hybrid High Performance" with speeds up to 130mph is going to be 40% faster than driving and still competitive with flying.
A list of busy rail corridors with daily ridership/route length/average number of miles between stations/average speed/# of trains per day
^all of these trains share a lot of important stops. It should also be noted that 15-20 minute layovers in Philadelphia or NY Penn have a significant negative impact on average speeds.
Pacific Surfliner (San Diego - San Luis Obispo) - 8,758/350mi/13mps/42mph/22tpd
Capitol Corridor (San Jose - Auburn, CA) 4,533/168mi/10mps/52mph/30tpd
Any of these could be viable sort-of-HSR routes. Some routes saw up to 9% growth last year. A few short routes (Hiawatha for instance) lost 2% and that's on the routes where Megabus is killing them with hourly departures.
It's not that the travel demand isn't there. People want speed, comfort and frequent departures. Reliability is also a big problem in the midwest. These train routes don't need to top out at 220mph to be successful. They don't even need the average speeds of Acela - the 62mph average of the Empire Corridor is more than enough. Fix the bottlenecks, fix the ancient tracks and buy some more/better rolling stock and people will ride it.
OK, that's helpful for being able to do the math - now we have a reliable number for Paris. But we still have no idea what area that encompasses and we have no idea what the actual population of the NYC urban area that was presented earlier is.
I presented the boundaries, not sure what you're looking for. I got the population numbers from wikipedia:
VRE from Alexandria to DC - If you watch the Part I video from 32:00 you get a good sense of just how neglected the infrastructure is - there's no flying junction so the train has to sit and wait for a full two minutes for an Amtrak train to pass in the opposite direction.
A much better comparison to the RER, metro north new haven line. If this sort of stuff proves anything it's that we don't hate trees and that rail lines often followed the path of least resistance.
You presented the boundaries you were using for the NYC urban area, which I appreciate, but you gave an incorrect number for the population so the density can't be correct.
The numbers you gave for Paris appear to be solid but I never saw a map of the urban area that those numbers are supposed to cover (or more specifically, which suburbs they exclude).
You presented the boundaries you were using for the NYC urban area, which I appreciate, but you gave an incorrect number for the population so the density can't be correct.
The population number is correct, it's from the census bureau.
The population number is correct, it's from the census bureau.
It's not correct. You gave us the population of the MSA not the population of the urban area in the map you presented.
You gave the population in the shaded area on that map as 18.3 million but the land area you presented should only have around 17 million people. I don't know what the exact number I just know that it's not 18.3 million that's why I've been asking what the correct number is.
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