Posted on 05/09/2014 9:49:39 PM PDT by Cronos
AMERICA has by far the largest rail network in the world, with more than twice as much track as China. But it lags far behind other first-world countries in ridership. Instead of passengers, most of America's massive rail network is used to carry freight. Why don't Americans ride trains?
..the Japanese, the Swiss, the French, the Danes, the Russians, the Austrians, the Ukrainians, the Belarussians and the Belgians all accounted for more than 1,000 passenger-kilometres by rail in 2011; Americans accounted for 80. Amtrak carries 31m passengers per year. Mozambique's railways carried 108m passengers in 2011.
There are many reasons why Americans don't ride the rails as often as their European cousins. Most obviously, America is bigger than most European countries. Outside the northeast corridor, the central Texas megalopolis, California and the eastern Midwest, density is sometimes too low to support intercity train travel. Underinvestment, and a preference for shiny new visions over boring upgrades, has not helped. Most American passenger trains travel on tracks that are owned by freight companies. That means most trains have to defer to freight services, leading to lengthy delays that scare off passengers who want to arrive on time.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
What country is this?
You do know that the automobile wasn’t invented in the USA, right?
No, don't think so. He was always pushing passenger rail here and got the ZOT. No one could rationalize with him, but he was our "pet" to bat around like a cat does a mouse just before they kill it.
In city of Chicago itself, public transport system works ok.
There are lot of bus routes not far from each other.
However as you go further out into the suburbs, they fan out.
25 miles from city center, there are almost no bus routes or trains along the circumference. They all converge towards downtown Chicago.
For example if you wish to go from Downers Grove to Oak Lawn, there is absolutely nothing. You will need minimum 3 transfers to get there and 2+ hours.
The crux of the problem is Chicago area is a 40-45 mile radius circle from city center, 1/4 of which is of course Lake Michigan.
Good observations.
I would only add my part about horrendous charges $$ for food on the train.
Willie Green was a FReeper who was a huge train aficionado, almost go the point of a fetish
Trains and buses are not political issues per se,although the left might try to do that, but mass tranist is a necessity for those who cannot afford a car, period. Anyone who tries to use them for political advantage is oppressing the poor.
I am fortunate to have had a car most of my life, and usually a relatively new one. The rest of the country has not been so fortunate, especially teenagers. The ones who need transportation for a job the most are the ones who get nothing worth using. So if you want them off of entitlement programs, then give them a way to get around and to go to work. You can’t put gas in a car and pay insurance without a job, and repair cost for autos have skyrocketed.
Underinvestment = not viable = needs government subsidies.
We don’t need more government involvement in transportation. I’d like to see the FAA and air ports sold off. Use the money to pay down the debt.
How about VAT taxes and government taxes and regs that make gasoline nearly double the price in the US?
Europeans don’t drive because they’ve been socially engineered and funneled to the state’s preferred travel method. They don’t want to drive clown cars.
Europeans are poor compared to Americans. They live in homes that American poor would find too small.
Nonsense.
Those countries are more crowded, so likely land is expensive and homes smaller. I wouldn't necessarily say that the Swiss, for example, are poorer than American. They may just have their wealth in another form.
Nonsense. There were plenty of central planners in America back then, but luckily for us the Soviets had more. Trains and trolleys are not good investments. They’re not dynamic or flexible enough. The best is a bus system for public transportation.
Get the government out of public transit and you’d see clean, low cost bus service, so effective that for many people owning a car wouldn’t be worth it.
Fact.
Of course, one can dismiss it as mere coincidence that societal mores declined as it developed. Which it may be.
But notwithstanding, the fact that the federal government instituted it as a public works project still gave it a real boost as to the growth of big government. Why would they push the private sector out of the ownership and funding part of it, when the private sector could have developed it as easily?—after all, private sector firms were contracted to design and build them, so private capital could have funded them too with the federal government completely out of the way.
We have GPS.
More crowded? Have you ever driven the European countryside? It’s as empty as America, but it’s got quadruple the socialism and government control.
That’s not private sector. Bus companies do not own their own roads and never have. Railroads do own their own infrastructure and pay for it completely out of pocket. Even trolley companies owned the tracks on the streets and maintained them out of pocket. That is, before federal, state and even municipal governments stuck their noses in. It was people like Fiorello LaGuardia—hardly a conservative (a RINO in fact)—that was one of the people who led the way towards switching city street mass transit from streetcar to bus, at great cost to the taxpayer in fact (along with his other public spending that he did with “feddy-bucks”).
Nobody is insisting on having to be forced into one or the other mode, though. Except liberals. Nobody wants to ban automobiles or buses, but the effective federal ban on passenger rail transportation has to go too.
Another government program.
Of course, focus now has switched away from that towards “Muslim outreach”.
Ah, I see your point. The IHS helped grow America, but I agree with you. It didn’t need all that government to succeed.
Do you know of James J. Hill and his Great Northern Railway? It was built with private money and was very efficient, unlike the UP and the CP which ate up taxpayer money with waste.
But my point and the reason I posted had to do with wealth. Switzerland's per capita GNP is something like $81,323, and the US's is something like $53,101 according to one set of statistics. Even though their houses or apartments may be smaller, they aren't necessarily poorer.
Obviously you did not read my posts, period.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.