I wonder if the early proliferation of rural cars / mega expressways kinda fucked us. When your transportation network grows around trains, upgrading the trains/rails makes good economic sense. We just kind of spread out everywhere quickly and made the train locations somewhat irrelevant.
I know enough that it wasn’t so much lobbying as it was advertising to the to the US citizens that made cars more popular. Ford figured out how to make it affordable then a bunch of companies that stood to make money on cars bought up streetcars and shut them down in favor of busses, but that doesn’t actually answer the demise of long distance rail.
If anything, shouldn’t that make it easier? The US has quite open and wide streets/roads. You have more space to build stations and rail tracks than for example Europe with much narrower streets/roads.
No the auto industry has lobbied against trains and similar projects. It’s not about the science but more about how our politicians have been selling their souls for centuries.
No, because cross-country trains and heavy use of them to move goods and people predates cars by quite a bit. Trains were a key component of the North winning the Civil War, for example.
Lots of existing train infrastructure needed to be torn out to make room for car infrastructure.
I definitely think this is the case. Something akin to tragedy of the commons (or maybe Braese’s paradox?) where small investments for short term gain trumps bigger investments for, comparatively, bigger gains.
Sweden, where I live, is in this situation too where the rail network is 50 years in reparation debt but it’s easier for politicians to budget for small road repairs and say that they make meaningful infrastructure work
I wonder if the early proliferation of rural cars / mega expressways kinda fucked us. When your transportation network grows around trains, upgrading the trains/rails makes good economic sense. We just kind of spread out everywhere quickly and made the train locations somewhat irrelevant.
Do you know any US history
I know enough that it wasn’t so much lobbying as it was advertising to the to the US citizens that made cars more popular. Ford figured out how to make it affordable then a bunch of companies that stood to make money on cars bought up streetcars and shut them down in favor of busses, but that doesn’t actually answer the demise of long distance rail.
The US was built on steam trains going literally everywhere
Its so naive to think that this was the cause lmao
If anything, shouldn’t that make it easier? The US has quite open and wide streets/roads. You have more space to build stations and rail tracks than for example Europe with much narrower streets/roads.
No the auto industry has lobbied against trains and similar projects. It’s not about the science but more about how our politicians have been selling their souls for centuries.
People choose those politicians, too sensitive for fear of even slightly bigger government. Paired with racism, nowadays.
Pretty much part of the plot from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
No, because cross-country trains and heavy use of them to move goods and people predates cars by quite a bit. Trains were a key component of the North winning the Civil War, for example.
Lots of existing train infrastructure needed to be torn out to make room for car infrastructure.
I definitely think this is the case. Something akin to tragedy of the commons (or maybe Braese’s paradox?) where small investments for short term gain trumps bigger investments for, comparatively, bigger gains.
Sweden, where I live, is in this situation too where the rail network is 50 years in reparation debt but it’s easier for politicians to budget for small road repairs and say that they make meaningful infrastructure work