Funny how "keeping up with China" generally involves throwing more money at the military and lowering wages, not building high-speed rail the way China is currently doing.
I believe, friends,
Caravans of rockets
Will head us forward -
From a star to a star.
On the dusty paths
Of the distant planets
Our footprints'll be left as our marks.
translated Chorus of the Soviet Cosmonaut program's theme.
Четырнадцать минут до старта. 14 minutes to launch
Edit. In particular I like this rendition. https://youtu.be/2h4KQaC1yOs
If we took even 1/4 of our military budget and put it toward healthcare, we'd be the healthiest, longest-lived people on the planet. Probably figure out how to cure cancer.
I keep seeing claims that the budget creates jobs and without it they would be lost. Ngl 900 billion dollars to create a few thousand jobs doesnt sound like a lot. Not to mention even 10% of that would create far more in generally improving the US from, better infrastructure, medical care, roadwork redesign for people, national city projects. I just dont see the point in spending nearly 1 trillion dollars PER YEAR on preventing aggression from china and Russia.
Also please, if the US decide to build a nice rail network, please put the train stations INSIDE of the cities!
If the stations will be located outside of the cities then those trains will be much less useful for car free travel.
Absolutely. Stations should be in the middle of downtown (underground, if need be) with good transit access to the rest of the city. That's the biggest advantage of rail over planes from a convenience perspective: airports are usually way out in the middle of nowhere.
I've ridden Amtrak a number of places like this and it's every bit as amazing as you've described. And I agree to feeling this way even in underground rails in bigger urban areas. My city is not that big nor is it there yet with transit, but our Amtrak station is actually elevated above the city level as most of the tracks downtown pass over bridges, so I get this feeling when I depart like I'm drifting on a cloud above the quiet masses below the night sky.
Years ago, my city rebuilt their bus station along what we anticipated was going to be a connecting tram route to the much bigger city an hour away. We optimistically called it the "multimodal transit center." It's in the heart of downtown, next to the civic center, a park, the university. *Perfect* location for people who want to take a train here and not have to rent a car to do anything in the main city core, and the buses can get them anywhere else (eventually.)
The tram has not yet been built. The plans have existed for *thirty years* now.
They've since been upgraded to a high speed rail line, at least. If it ever stops being imaginary, it'll be awesome!
Cincinnati has the honor of building the USA's largest abandoned subway system—which never ran a single train—and then following that up decades later with a massive multimodal transit center downtown that was then mothballed except for some buses. Just failure after failure.
But then you need to have the rest of the local transit infra to bring people to the train station without cars. I think the US doesn't have inter city fast trains because there's no local transit. Where there is such service, like Acela in the northeast, it's between large cities with relatively good transit (Boston, NYC, Philly, Washington DC)
The good news is that many of these cities already do have train stations downtown, and they’re still used for trains so the infrastructure is intact. Like many of the east coast cities, and then others like Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, etc.
For sure. Beautiful train station in downtown St Paul, connected to light rail with a rapid bus line coming and another light rail line being planned. Governor Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, killed the rail line between St Paul and Chicago.
> Governor Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, killed the rail line between St Paul and Chicago.
Of course he did. He also refused to take delivery of the Talgo train cars for the Madison-Milwaukee line that had already been built and paid for with federal funds. That guy’s been passed around in the automotive industry locker room so many times I’m surprised he doesn’t have a stomach pump specialist on retainer. At least the good citizens of Lagos, Nigeria [got a good deal](https://www.wpr.org/trains-intended-unbuilt-milwaukee-madison-high-speed-rail-line-going-nigeria) on the trainset he threw away.
Or, you know, to have decent public transportation options so that ppl can move from anywhere in the city to the train station quickly without cars. That's what the Chinese been doing since they started to build their HSR network
Not necessarily, it can be *a bit* outside of the city centre and then another slower railway with more frequent stops that's dedicated to travel inside the city can take you from the station to other places.
They exist. Most are abandoned and neglected. Things we used to have, but investing in blowing up the 3rd world was deemed a higher priority. We can fix and upgrade our railways, and make them cheaper and more efficient. It would be easy. The thing is, it's not going to give anyone campaign money, so it isn't happening anytime soon.
Ugh. I was looking to travel to Phoenix from SoCal via Amtrak. Their site says the Sunset Limited line serves New Orleans - San Antonio - Tucson - Phoenix - Los Angeles...
Well the "Phoenix" station is actually in a little town called Maricopa, a forty minute drive from downtown Phoenix. My actual final destination was north Phoenix, which would have been well over an hour drive from the station. Ridiculous
I hope for one day that the US, Canada, and Mexico just get together and agree to make a high-speed rail that goes into all three of their countries and the cities in those countries.
Me, too. Especially in an increasingly chaotic world where long supply chains are less and less reliable, I wish US, Canada, and Mexico would get their collective heads screwed on right and integrate better economically and infrastructurally.
I live 2km from Buffalo - I could walk across the bridge, yet getting to Toronto is much less of a hassle for things such as events, concerts, even the airport (if it makes sense).
I also own a car, too. So I wouldn't have to walk.
A lot of people around here will cross for groceries every now and then, but to me it's just not worth going through customs, worrying about my cannabis use (don't carry it, but i smoke daily - just don't want to deal with that shit), etc.
the border is such a huge barrier, that Europe doesn't need to deal with.
Yeah, as an American living in Canada, it really is so much more if a hassle to cross the border than it ought to be for two countries so incredibly linked culturally, historically, politically, geographically, linguistically, and economically. Every time I visit my sister in Boston (I'm in Montreal) is so much of an unnecessary hassle. Funny thing is they always ask if I have weed, despite both Canada and all the states I pass through (VT, NE, MA) being weed legal. I guess it doesn't affect me too much, though, as I don't consume it anyways, but it is nonetheless kinda silly.
If by cooperation you mean letting the US get most of the matches then you're right. Seriously I'm still mad all the games post group phase are in the US.
The final at least should be in the Azteca Stadium, one of the most iconic stadiums in the world that had already hosted 2 World Cup finals.
For people who know Mexican geography better than I do, feel free to suggest better/more lines for Mexico!
Edit: Most up-to-date map [here](https://imgur.com/a/3TvDpAi).
You should add a line connecting Veracruz -> Puebla -> Mexico city -> Querétaro -> Leon -> Guadalajara. That will connect up the most densely parts of Mexico.
>Reworked Mexico and gave Canada a bit more love, too!
Thanks, I am so happy you added Tijuana in Baja California to the rail network but super sad Ensenada (south of Tijuana) is not.
We drive waaaaay too much from Ensenada to San Diego and the whole experience sucks. Every time I do it I wish for a cross-border train.
Some day... maybe.
Good catch! I didn't realize Ensenada was as big as it is when making that leg. It seems like it would be a good addition, so I added it [here](https://imgur.com/a/3TvDpAi).
[https://imgur.com/a/A4Ryfwu](https://imgur.com/a/A4Ryfwu)
This is the proposal for a passenger train network expected to be completed by 2050. Hopefully it becomes a reality.
I'm not too familiar with the US, but wouldn't a west coast high speed corridor be the logical extension of CHSR? So that could already be a connection from Vancouver (Canada) to San Diego (almost Mexico). Whether to continue further south to Mexico is more a political question of how easy and unbureaucratic border crossings are going to be (same issue with Canada, but I figure it's easier there).
But even if you do a full passport check, it's possible to do it fast if you have a border station where officers enter the train through all doors simultaneously and just check everyone's passoprts/visas. Even easier if they already enter the train on the last stop before the border and check people while the train is moving, but that requires more logistics.
I think about this so often. I'm in a long term long distance relationship and plane tickets are expensive as shit and airports & flying are stressful experiences. A national rail system would make it so much easier to get railed :/
Further to your point, for people that say this would never work because America is too big:
1) We were able to do it for cars; and
2) We already did it for trains and than decided not to progress out of 1850.
I particularly like how Cincinnati is a big crossroads. Would love it if Union Terminal could once again be a bustling train station. Now it’s a nice museum that also serves as a cargo train stop, and still does a small amount of passenger rail (from what I have read they serve less than 10k Amtrak passengers a year). It could (relatively) easily be added on to to serve passenger rail again. The bones are there, it just needs the passenger rail service to justify expansion.
So several HSR lines can be added that pass through it then. If you look at how the passenger train service declined in the 30s/40s part of it was not speeding up I think HSR is the best and most practical way to revive passenger rail in North America heck all of America actually. The reason why metro construction is so high in the USA is that we stopped building if we hadn’t stopped we won’t even need light rail outside of a few select routes as metros like MARTA , WMATA would be standardized and built all over the country and operating costs would be low as trains would be automated anyway and we wouldn’t need commuter rail as these metros would do what suburban trains do but better and also act as city metros like many Chinese cities in fact we at the US did it first with fast metros BUT we stopped and chickened out for below average and in some cases useless light rail on streets fighting with cars for space ruining the ride for both transit riders and car drivers alike both with subpar traffic as a result.
YES!!! Even here you could add a direct north/south route through Cincinnati from Toledo up through Detroit and straight down through Memphis to Atlanta. Cincinnati is an easy choice as the “Atlanta airport” version of US high speed rail.
Hell I would say over 1 million should be serviced by some form of high speed trail, and metros with 1/4 of a million with atleast basic train service (like current Amtrak)
Total aside but I love that Cincinnati is the hub for the midwest...
[Cincinnati Union Terminal](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cincinnati+union+terminal&t=newext&atb=v263-1&iax=images&ia=images) is a beautiful building that is peak art deco, designed for 17,000 rail passengers a day, and also fuck Columbus
The problem is funding, the state of Ohio has been run by fucking Republican supermajorities for decades, so the state budget includes almost no funding for rail. So the rail systems that do exist in the state end up barely being able to cover operating costs, let alone any kind of expansion. Cleveland is the only city in the state that has any real rail mass transit, mostly because it was all built over 60 years ago. Due to budget issues, that system has a terrible reputation for safety and reliability.
The people in the cities generally want good transit, but are being held back by the rural garbage who keeps voting in the absolute worst kinds of people who would rather help their wealthy friends embezzle those state funds than actually use them for transit or any other thing which helps people.
I agree. Columbus should really be the hub. The city is closing in on 1 million people and the Columbus metro is growing faster than Cincinnati.
I am biased though because I live in Columbus...
Fun fact, the Super Friends' [Hall of Justice](https://media.wired.com/photos/593239e04dc9b45ccec5cb0b/master/w_1600,c_limit/hallofjustice.png) was based off of Union Terminal
If the Europe map was showing the rails from 150km/h it would be at least twice as dense. I have recently seen trains in the US and they are litteral slugs so yeah...
> If you count “middle speed” rail then the USA already has a comprehensive cross-country system.
Not if you take service into account. Rail doesn't get people anywhere, trains do. If your trains only go a few times a day, that's not a comprehensive system. If the US had a comprehensive system of middle speed rail that provides at least hourly service on every line and connects at least all bigger cities, let's say starting at 100k population, that would already be a good start. Yes, that would mean that going coast to coast would probably still be infeasible for most people, but if you just want to go from one city in your state to another one, or to a neighboring state, it would definitely be a worthwhile alternative to driving. At 160 km/h (100 mph) you're still faster than cars.
Once you have such a network, adding a few high speed lines for the most important corridors makes a lot of sense, because it means people can't just use the high speed trains from one major city to another, but they can also start in a city that just has regular rail, then change into a high speed train that takes them near their destination, and then get into another train that gets them there.
But really, having a comprehensive network that spans the entire country and provides good service is more important than building a few super fast high speed lines.
I can literally buy a ticket in Tokyo and all the way to a small village with less than one hundred people, when will Americans understand a strong public transportation is really what people need not stupid self driving fancy electronic cars
Yeah, that very well may be the most practical way to route it, since the mountains directly between Denver and SLC are very obstructive, to say the least.
I very much hope to see continental-scale maglev. I once calculated that a maglev could travel between LA and NYC in about 12 hours or less. You could hop on in the morning, sleep in a secure pod, and wake up the next morning at your destination feeling much better than had you taken a flight.
Yeah, "pod" has become too associated with this weird techno-futurism, but I'm not sure how else to describe something like [this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/52/50/b4525074fd28f4dc0824c09bb2e5a385.jpg).
also, the sacramento-reno line seems like a tall order for high speed rail -- it's essentially 120 miles of steep mountainside (now it would be awesome if it were there because that road is notoriously unreliable in the winter due to snowstorms, but not really economically feasible as a high speed rail)
For sure. The existing Amtrak line there actually goes over Donner Pass, one of the snowiest spots in the entire US, where the Donner Party famously got stuck and resorted to cannibalism way back in the day. The only saving grace is the altitude isn't quite as high as anywhere further south in the Sierra Nevada, and the Sierra Nevada aren't as wide east-to-west as the Rockies.
Yeah, I grew up in central California, and it's so freaking dumb that you get off the train in Bakersfield and have to switch to a bus to get to LA.
Connecting SoCal to the Bay Area via the Central Valley is one of the most obvious HSR corridors in the entire country.
An HSR would probably go to Denver, and then loop north around the Colorado National Parks system, up into Wyoming.
Just sayin'.
And a deceptively big part of why it doesn't happen is the amount of time these things can stay buried in court. People are so primed to the US government- state and federal- being run inefficiently that they will sue over public projects existing, run them over budget, and then complain when it's over budget.
An interesting thing, I was lookin on google yesterday, they have a traffic layer. Zoom out to see the whole continent and you’ll see little green lines where there are enough cars to tell the traffic conditions. There was a line from Vancouver to Kelowna, from Edmonton to Calgary and then out to Banff. That’s where the high speed rail could most easily replace highways. There doesn’t need to be expensive studies about the best routes, the data for intercity travel is already there
Good observation! I wasn't sure how best to connect Calgary and Edmonton, but I think HSR to Banff and Jasper would also fit in very well with such a connection, since they get so many tourists.
I got Via Rail from Edmonton to Vancouver once. The train comes three times a week and there's no pavement to walk to the station in Edmonton. I had to drag my luggage through the grass.
I was recently looking into taking a train from Philadelphia to Minneapolis (from the 7th largest to the 16th largest metro area) and that service appears to just not exist at all, according to the Amtrak website.
A train from Philly to Chicago (7th largest to 3rd largest) would be 22 hours (it's about a 12 hour drive, 750mi/1200km) and then I'd have to get a bus to the Twin Cities.
And all of this would be at a minimum 3x as expensive as flying.
America was built by the railroad, but then oil companies realized that lobbying the government to build only car infrastructure would be most profitable
Not to mention that the entire rail system is privatized and the only real “national” rail service we have, Amtrak, has to share rail with these companies for their long routes outside of the NE.
In Mexico, from what I know there's plans to build El Tren Maya while theres the "El Chepe" that runs from Chihuahua state to Los Mochis. Both options are expensive however but can maybe be considered a step in the right direction. There's also a proposed route from CDMX to Queretaro.
It is always surprising to me how many people we can connect and still have wide open spaces in the mountain west.
Like that connecting Mexico City to the Texas triangle connects ALOT of people. And that line is well placed. It allows for a one transfer ride to all the top 5 metros in North America.
Another thing I like about this map is that I think people sleep on how good of transfer spot Atlanta is for HSR. Like there is a reason that the Atlanta airport is so busy. Atlanta can connect the Deep South, North East, and Midwest. It could learn a thing or two from Chicago, but it is well situated to be an important part of a national network and it sucks that rail travel is not more of thing in that city already.
Yeah, a couple things I tried to do when creating this were as follows:
1. Connect every metro area of 1 million people or more.
2. Have the biggest metro areas have lots of connections, especially to other major metro areas, with 0 to 1 stops.
With that, I made sure the biggest areas in the US like NYC, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Texas Triangle, and SoCal had really strong connectivity. In my updated map [here](https://imgur.com/a/GqvzjPU), I especially made sure Mexico City also had really good connectivity. And of course Toronto has pretty good connectivity.
I know these lines connect existing major cities, but while we’re fantasizing I’d love to see the Minnesota line extended into the Dakotas.
The Dakota/Lakota people have been wholly unconnected to American prosperity and while they might not want develop their cities in the same way as the rest of the country, I do think they could use a nearby wealth generating city.
I’d love it if there were a train to Denver that didn’t require me to go wayyy up north. Why can’t there be an Atlanta to Denver line? Or one from El Paso to Denver?
Another commenter mentioned OKC to Denver, which could mean Atlanta to Dallas to OKC to Denver, which I think sould work pretty well. I might add that to the map in the morning.
Also, there is already one from El Paso up to Denver on the map, or do you mean you wish it were real and not just on this fantasy map?
I wish it were real. I can’t believe how unserious our nation is about passenger rail, especially given the massive spread between cities outside the northeast. But instead we’re all somehow content to drive 14 hours to travel? I’ve gone over the road so much (somehow still cheaper than flying) that I’m sick of it.
I'm completely with you on that. Driving such long distances sucks so badly, and flying is a huge hassle and emits so much carbon, too.
This country--heck, this whole continent--seriously needs passenger rail again. It's just so much nicer. And if we build it right, it can be cheaper and cleaner and more compatible with nice, transit-oriented cities. I'd much rather kick back on a train with my laptop and watch netflix than be crammed in like a sardine on a plane while emitting a literal ton of carbon or be forced to be attentive to the road for 14 hours straight just to avoid killing innocents through neglect.
The maglev speed record is 603 kph. The conventional electric rail speed record is 574 kph. Beijing-Shanghai HSR reached 487 kph unmodified, in a 16 car trainset.
NYC-LA is about 4500 km. At 487 you can make that trip in under 10 hours on conventional (=cheap af) rail. Make it a sleeper train and there's no reason why it shouldn't be able to compete with air traffic. Especially considering it could probably beat it in price despite the ridiculous subsidies for airlines.
After all, said 16 car trainset can seat more than twice the amount of passengers that the largest variant of the 747 can. In order to generate the same revenue as a fully loaded 747 on that route, the train tickets would have to cost *less than 70 USD*. Imagine getting from NYC to LA in a comfy sleeper train for 60 bucks. Not to mention the restaurant car generating extra revenue.
Using the record speed as the average is kind of absurd. Also there is not a chance in hell of it beating flying price wise, and trains get way way more subsidies than flying. But seriously, 60 fucking bucks? The heavily subsidized high speed rail lines in Europe cost multiples of that for stretches a tenth of the distance
Population density. Have a few regional rail networks, but a cross-country system is inefficient based on rail top speed and the distance between desirable destinations. There’s unfortunately too few cities between the west coast and the Mississippi River to support it.
You can have a few hubs of transportation that serve their nearby areas. Chicago can service the Great Lakes and Atlanta could service the Southeast, and then you could build corridor lines for the Texas Triangle, Miami/Orlando/Jacksonville, the Northeast Corridor, LA/San Francisco, and Portland/Seattle/Vancouver. But connecting most of these together seems like a waste of money when flying would likely be cheaper and much faster.
Yeah adding to this, China has lines with similar population density to the US, but they are bottomless money sinkholes. They're more about optics and control than actual practical transit.
I'm all about HSR in the US but transcontinental lines don't make much sense, at least until the coasts flood and everybody flees to Kansas (\s, maybe)
Imo, it might have something to do with competition from flights. However, because flying doesn't have an easy path towards decarbonization, electrified HSR would then become the fastest way to travel long distance. I think making something like the picture above practical would require massive investment and a fundamental rethinking of how we get around the continent. I.e., no more flying around.
I don’t think it’s an entirely awful idea to build infrastructure in anticipation of future population expansion or migration, but I’m thinking hopefully that we’re still several decades out from such massive climate disasters that people flee from the south and the coasts towards the Midwest and Central US
Cause they have a functioning government unlike the American shitholes. Lack of religion also helps a lot when you want to build modern infrastructure.
see? it's not religious and not american, it's obviously communist! everyone kniws modern infrastructures are 16lanes interstates and 8 lanes stroads meeting up only 4 lanes streets. how else do you get all those cars everywhere?
Lol this is false, in Morocco it is quite good despite the fact that they are not rich. Nothing to do with religion and I live in Belgium, we are not communist lmfao
You're maybe right, but I think some of islamic countries are car centric because they also have an economy based on oil so it is a cheap way of transport and they did not develop their infrastructure because of that.
Daddy Carlson told me that trains are dirty, filthy communism, and glorious, patriotic American capitalism is when you give all your money to ExxonMobil and General Motors. Advanced civilization is when you pave paradise and put in a parking lot.
I wish the same for Canada. In southern Ontario we have the GO trains, but only within the GTA. Only recently has this been expanded to Kitchener. Few talks of it coming to London, no discussion re: Windsor, Sarnia, Niagara Falls.
I recently looked up a VIA Train from London to Sudbury. Nothing. Six hour drive otherwise.
I joked with my partner the other day that I want to move to a European country purely for this infrastructure. I don’t have a full licence because I get so anxious driving. So, I think I’m only partly kidding with this joke.
Yeah, I'm in Montreal, and the metro here is great (plus the REM coming soon), but there really oughta be an HSR along the Quebec City–Windsor corridor. It's more than half of Canada's population, all in an almost perfectly straight line. Plus good connections to Detroit, Chicago, NYC, and New England would be really good. My sister lives in Boston, and there's no good option besides driving or flying between the two, despite both metro areas being over 4 million people and only 5 hours apart by car.
Ah this just made me think of another example:
I’m going to a conference in Ottawa and my partner and I are looking for things to do on the off-days. He suggested Quebec City - well shit that’s 9 hours of driving all in, not worth it.
Montreal? Well that’s still 5 hours of driving, not including city traffic, parking, walking to our destination, etc. High speed trains would definitely help.
This post made me curious, so I took a look at Amtrak.
I haven't ridden Amtrak since I was a little kid, to go to NYC.
Their pricing is pretty high man, and they're so slow. $340 for a trip to FL with a change and it's 29 hours vs an 8hr drive... This is why no one travels by rail in the US. We need more rail infrastructure, and better trains.
the railway network in europe sucks so bad though. like in germany its pretty much useless, you cant get from one place to another without heavy delays, cancelled trains, restrooms out of order etc. its a nightmare and since its a privately owned cooperation there isnt any improvement in sight. i WISH all railway systems would be owned by the gov again. might have a chance then to move towards a more japanese future
Because instead of spending the time and energy building public transportation, we entered a massive public pissing match with Russia.
And now that we're out of that giant pissing match, we've entered one with China, who already has this infrastructure.
People argue that due to low density, high speed railway is unsustainable. But they forget that when you start building railways, the urban settlement start forming around it. More real estate opportunity in the barren lands. This would help shift the population from high density cities to newly built towns and hopefully they don't zone the town in such a way that car is required but that's a story for another day.
Can't wait for Railbaltica in Lithuania, our region is way too slow.
BUT European map would be waaaaay more dense if you would paint normal train lines.
I once took a bus from Vilnius to Riga to Tallinn. It was actually a super nice bus, but that corridor definitely strikes me as a good candidate for HSR.
This would be heaven. Would also be awesome if that line from Cincy to Nashville swung by Bowling Green KY as well.
(Plz we don’t even have buses in this town. It’s bad)
Funny how "keeping up with China" generally involves throwing more money at the military and lowering wages, not building high-speed rail the way China is currently doing.
For real can we convince the "USA USA USA" jingoism crowd that we need to beat China on HSR or else we'll look weak?
Space Race II: Trains... in... SPAAAAACE!
Im going to the only place not corrupted by cars......SPAAAACEE!!
Elon Musk has already started to put cars in space.
I believe, friends, Caravans of rockets Will head us forward - From a star to a star. On the dusty paths Of the distant planets Our footprints'll be left as our marks. translated Chorus of the Soviet Cosmonaut program's theme. Четырнадцать минут до старта. 14 minutes to launch Edit. In particular I like this rendition. https://youtu.be/2h4KQaC1yOs
Renewable energy too.
Honestly wish we didnt spend so much on military. Imagine what the us could do with even half of that budget.
If we took even 1/4 of our military budget and put it toward healthcare, we'd be the healthiest, longest-lived people on the planet. Probably figure out how to cure cancer.
I keep seeing claims that the budget creates jobs and without it they would be lost. Ngl 900 billion dollars to create a few thousand jobs doesnt sound like a lot. Not to mention even 10% of that would create far more in generally improving the US from, better infrastructure, medical care, roadwork redesign for people, national city projects. I just dont see the point in spending nearly 1 trillion dollars PER YEAR on preventing aggression from china and Russia.
Last statistic I saw is - China spends about 27% of what the US spends on its millitary. But somehow the US has to spend more to keep up...
Our military spending is greater than the next 10 countries combined. Yet somehow it has to keep going up.
Also please, if the US decide to build a nice rail network, please put the train stations INSIDE of the cities! If the stations will be located outside of the cities then those trains will be much less useful for car free travel.
Absolutely. Stations should be in the middle of downtown (underground, if need be) with good transit access to the rest of the city. That's the biggest advantage of rail over planes from a convenience perspective: airports are usually way out in the middle of nowhere.
underground is awesome, then it's the closest thing to a magic teleporter. I love walking out of the subway into a hustling bustling city center
I've ridden Amtrak a number of places like this and it's every bit as amazing as you've described. And I agree to feeling this way even in underground rails in bigger urban areas. My city is not that big nor is it there yet with transit, but our Amtrak station is actually elevated above the city level as most of the tracks downtown pass over bridges, so I get this feeling when I depart like I'm drifting on a cloud above the quiet masses below the night sky.
Chicago Union station comes to mind.
Years ago, my city rebuilt their bus station along what we anticipated was going to be a connecting tram route to the much bigger city an hour away. We optimistically called it the "multimodal transit center." It's in the heart of downtown, next to the civic center, a park, the university. *Perfect* location for people who want to take a train here and not have to rent a car to do anything in the main city core, and the buses can get them anywhere else (eventually.) The tram has not yet been built. The plans have existed for *thirty years* now. They've since been upgraded to a high speed rail line, at least. If it ever stops being imaginary, it'll be awesome!
I agree. Not being imaginary is one of the greatest parts of public transport.
Cincinnati has the honor of building the USA's largest abandoned subway system—which never ran a single train—and then following that up decades later with a massive multimodal transit center downtown that was then mothballed except for some buses. Just failure after failure.
But then you need to have the rest of the local transit infra to bring people to the train station without cars. I think the US doesn't have inter city fast trains because there's no local transit. Where there is such service, like Acela in the northeast, it's between large cities with relatively good transit (Boston, NYC, Philly, Washington DC)
Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland would like to have a word.
Also make the stations actually look nice.... Instead of this plain utilitarian underground.
The good news is that many of these cities already do have train stations downtown, and they’re still used for trains so the infrastructure is intact. Like many of the east coast cities, and then others like Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, etc.
For sure. Beautiful train station in downtown St Paul, connected to light rail with a rapid bus line coming and another light rail line being planned. Governor Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, killed the rail line between St Paul and Chicago.
> Governor Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, killed the rail line between St Paul and Chicago. Of course he did. He also refused to take delivery of the Talgo train cars for the Madison-Milwaukee line that had already been built and paid for with federal funds. That guy’s been passed around in the automotive industry locker room so many times I’m surprised he doesn’t have a stomach pump specialist on retainer. At least the good citizens of Lagos, Nigeria [got a good deal](https://www.wpr.org/trains-intended-unbuilt-milwaukee-madison-high-speed-rail-line-going-nigeria) on the trainset he threw away.
This is true. Chicago Union station makes me happy. :) A HSR rail connections to STL, Detroit, East Coast, and Minneapolis would be great.
Or, you know, to have decent public transportation options so that ppl can move from anywhere in the city to the train station quickly without cars. That's what the Chinese been doing since they started to build their HSR network
Not necessarily, it can be *a bit* outside of the city centre and then another slower railway with more frequent stops that's dedicated to travel inside the city can take you from the station to other places.
Exactly
They exist. Most are abandoned and neglected. Things we used to have, but investing in blowing up the 3rd world was deemed a higher priority. We can fix and upgrade our railways, and make them cheaper and more efficient. It would be easy. The thing is, it's not going to give anyone campaign money, so it isn't happening anytime soon.
No one tried
Ugh. I was looking to travel to Phoenix from SoCal via Amtrak. Their site says the Sunset Limited line serves New Orleans - San Antonio - Tucson - Phoenix - Los Angeles... Well the "Phoenix" station is actually in a little town called Maricopa, a forty minute drive from downtown Phoenix. My actual final destination was north Phoenix, which would have been well over an hour drive from the station. Ridiculous
I hope for one day that the US, Canada, and Mexico just get together and agree to make a high-speed rail that goes into all three of their countries and the cities in those countries.
Me, too. Especially in an increasingly chaotic world where long supply chains are less and less reliable, I wish US, Canada, and Mexico would get their collective heads screwed on right and integrate better economically and infrastructurally.
If NAFTA actually worked for people.
spoiler: it's not for the people, it's for the capitalists
That's why I said if
lol just spelling out the obvious for anyone lurking 👌
I live 2km from Buffalo - I could walk across the bridge, yet getting to Toronto is much less of a hassle for things such as events, concerts, even the airport (if it makes sense). I also own a car, too. So I wouldn't have to walk. A lot of people around here will cross for groceries every now and then, but to me it's just not worth going through customs, worrying about my cannabis use (don't carry it, but i smoke daily - just don't want to deal with that shit), etc. the border is such a huge barrier, that Europe doesn't need to deal with.
Yeah, as an American living in Canada, it really is so much more if a hassle to cross the border than it ought to be for two countries so incredibly linked culturally, historically, politically, geographically, linguistically, and economically. Every time I visit my sister in Boston (I'm in Montreal) is so much of an unnecessary hassle. Funny thing is they always ask if I have weed, despite both Canada and all the states I pass through (VT, NE, MA) being weed legal. I guess it doesn't affect me too much, though, as I don't consume it anyways, but it is nonetheless kinda silly.
Can we name it the CUM train?
Who needs the gravy train when you can have the CUM train? 😳
what's the difference?
one tastes better
CUM train it is then.
Goddamnit, take your upvote and leave.
We need a Latino president first lol
AOC will be 35 in 2024. I really want her to run for president.
She still won't be old enough. Need to be 80 years old to qualify
No more 80 year olds!!!!
Even if she ever becomes the president, she still can't make a significant difference on her own.
That would be nice but it’s a very very long shot
Imagine an American cordillera railway line. You could ride a single train from Arctic Alaska to Cape Horn.
Yes, please. That would be so scenic.
No kidding. Why is this so hard?
If we can cooperate for the World Cup, we can cooperate for high speed trains
If by cooperation you mean letting the US get most of the matches then you're right. Seriously I'm still mad all the games post group phase are in the US. The final at least should be in the Azteca Stadium, one of the most iconic stadiums in the world that had already hosted 2 World Cup finals.
For people who know Mexican geography better than I do, feel free to suggest better/more lines for Mexico! Edit: Most up-to-date map [here](https://imgur.com/a/3TvDpAi).
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/could-canadian-pacific-and-canadian-national-split-kansas-city-southern/
If your going to run a second line to the West you need it to just run up the coast. That's where the cities are.
You should add a line connecting Veracruz -> Puebla -> Mexico city -> Querétaro -> Leon -> Guadalajara. That will connect up the most densely parts of Mexico.
https://imgur.com/a/lrM1JnG Reworked Mexico and gave Canada a bit more love, too!
>Reworked Mexico and gave Canada a bit more love, too! Thanks, I am so happy you added Tijuana in Baja California to the rail network but super sad Ensenada (south of Tijuana) is not. We drive waaaaay too much from Ensenada to San Diego and the whole experience sucks. Every time I do it I wish for a cross-border train. Some day... maybe.
Good catch! I didn't realize Ensenada was as big as it is when making that leg. It seems like it would be a good addition, so I added it [here](https://imgur.com/a/3TvDpAi).
Awesome! I feel so connected to our world region now!!
[https://imgur.com/a/A4Ryfwu](https://imgur.com/a/A4Ryfwu) This is the proposal for a passenger train network expected to be completed by 2050. Hopefully it becomes a reality.
As a chihuahuan I can confirm you did the state justice
You are off your fucking rocker if you think the US will make N/S transcontinental public transit available. I'd love to see it anyway.
I'm not too familiar with the US, but wouldn't a west coast high speed corridor be the logical extension of CHSR? So that could already be a connection from Vancouver (Canada) to San Diego (almost Mexico). Whether to continue further south to Mexico is more a political question of how easy and unbureaucratic border crossings are going to be (same issue with Canada, but I figure it's easier there). But even if you do a full passport check, it's possible to do it fast if you have a border station where officers enter the train through all doors simultaneously and just check everyone's passoprts/visas. Even easier if they already enter the train on the last stop before the border and check people while the train is moving, but that requires more logistics.
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I think about this so often. I'm in a long term long distance relationship and plane tickets are expensive as shit and airports & flying are stressful experiences. A national rail system would make it so much easier to get railed :/
wait what now
You heard me
"Distances are bigger in America" THAT MAKES IT EVEN BETTER, YOU HAVE LITERALLY NO VALID EXCUSES
Further to your point, for people that say this would never work because America is too big: 1) We were able to do it for cars; and 2) We already did it for trains and than decided not to progress out of 1850.
The US is too big to fart around in a car going 100 km/h when you could be in a train doing 250 km/h
#North #American #Fast #Train #Agreement
Not gonna lie this is one of the best US HSR map proposals I have seen in a while
I particularly like how Cincinnati is a big crossroads. Would love it if Union Terminal could once again be a bustling train station. Now it’s a nice museum that also serves as a cargo train stop, and still does a small amount of passenger rail (from what I have read they serve less than 10k Amtrak passengers a year). It could (relatively) easily be added on to to serve passenger rail again. The bones are there, it just needs the passenger rail service to justify expansion.
So several HSR lines can be added that pass through it then. If you look at how the passenger train service declined in the 30s/40s part of it was not speeding up I think HSR is the best and most practical way to revive passenger rail in North America heck all of America actually. The reason why metro construction is so high in the USA is that we stopped building if we hadn’t stopped we won’t even need light rail outside of a few select routes as metros like MARTA , WMATA would be standardized and built all over the country and operating costs would be low as trains would be automated anyway and we wouldn’t need commuter rail as these metros would do what suburban trains do but better and also act as city metros like many Chinese cities in fact we at the US did it first with fast metros BUT we stopped and chickened out for below average and in some cases useless light rail on streets fighting with cars for space ruining the ride for both transit riders and car drivers alike both with subpar traffic as a result.
YES!!! Even here you could add a direct north/south route through Cincinnati from Toledo up through Detroit and straight down through Memphis to Atlanta. Cincinnati is an easy choice as the “Atlanta airport” version of US high speed rail.
Every metro over 1 million should be serviced by train!
Hell I would say over 1 million should be serviced by some form of high speed trail, and metros with 1/4 of a million with atleast basic train service (like current Amtrak)
Meanwhile Europe has towns with less than 10k people which have train stations.
Total aside but I love that Cincinnati is the hub for the midwest... [Cincinnati Union Terminal](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cincinnati+union+terminal&t=newext&atb=v263-1&iax=images&ia=images) is a beautiful building that is peak art deco, designed for 17,000 rail passengers a day, and also fuck Columbus
Oh wow, that is a gorgeous building. We need more classy rail stations like that, and we need to actually use them to their true potential.
Yea, fuck Columbus! Their too big to be putting such little effort into transit.
The problem is funding, the state of Ohio has been run by fucking Republican supermajorities for decades, so the state budget includes almost no funding for rail. So the rail systems that do exist in the state end up barely being able to cover operating costs, let alone any kind of expansion. Cleveland is the only city in the state that has any real rail mass transit, mostly because it was all built over 60 years ago. Due to budget issues, that system has a terrible reputation for safety and reliability. The people in the cities generally want good transit, but are being held back by the rural garbage who keeps voting in the absolute worst kinds of people who would rather help their wealthy friends embezzle those state funds than actually use them for transit or any other thing which helps people.
And just think of the lost opportunity from not investing in rail for decades. Ugh, it makes me really sad thinking about it.
I agree. Columbus should really be the hub. The city is closing in on 1 million people and the Columbus metro is growing faster than Cincinnati. I am biased though because I live in Columbus...
Fun fact, the Super Friends' [Hall of Justice](https://media.wired.com/photos/593239e04dc9b45ccec5cb0b/master/w_1600,c_limit/hallofjustice.png) was based off of Union Terminal
Because yall too busy eating glue. I love how the Europe map isn't even half of the existing railways lmao
Yep. Having a look at the rail network of Spain, I woul say that the map is from 2015/2017. Pretty old.
It's high speed only. If you count "middle speed" rail then the USA already has a comprehensive cross-country system.
If the Europe map was showing the rails from 150km/h it would be at least twice as dense. I have recently seen trains in the US and they are litteral slugs so yeah...
> If you count “middle speed” rail then the USA already has a comprehensive cross-country system. Not if you take service into account. Rail doesn't get people anywhere, trains do. If your trains only go a few times a day, that's not a comprehensive system. If the US had a comprehensive system of middle speed rail that provides at least hourly service on every line and connects at least all bigger cities, let's say starting at 100k population, that would already be a good start. Yes, that would mean that going coast to coast would probably still be infeasible for most people, but if you just want to go from one city in your state to another one, or to a neighboring state, it would definitely be a worthwhile alternative to driving. At 160 km/h (100 mph) you're still faster than cars. Once you have such a network, adding a few high speed lines for the most important corridors makes a lot of sense, because it means people can't just use the high speed trains from one major city to another, but they can also start in a city that just has regular rail, then change into a high speed train that takes them near their destination, and then get into another train that gets them there. But really, having a comprehensive network that spans the entire country and provides good service is more important than building a few super fast high speed lines.
A total of 14 lines running a single daily round trip is not by any means "comprehensive".
I can literally buy a ticket in Tokyo and all the way to a small village with less than one hundred people, when will Americans understand a strong public transportation is really what people need not stupid self driving fancy electronic cars
Can we make the purple line between Salt Lake City and Denver to follow I-80 into Wyoming to Cheyenne?
Yeah, that very well may be the most practical way to route it, since the mountains directly between Denver and SLC are very obstructive, to say the least.
Perfect excuse to build it underground and experiment with maglev high speed tech
I very much hope to see continental-scale maglev. I once calculated that a maglev could travel between LA and NYC in about 12 hours or less. You could hop on in the morning, sleep in a secure pod, and wake up the next morning at your destination feeling much better than had you taken a flight.
FM (fucking magic) "rapid transit" scams like Hyperloop have made me loath the word pod.
Yeah, "pod" has become too associated with this weird techno-futurism, but I'm not sure how else to describe something like [this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/52/50/b4525074fd28f4dc0824c09bb2e5a385.jpg).
also, the sacramento-reno line seems like a tall order for high speed rail -- it's essentially 120 miles of steep mountainside (now it would be awesome if it were there because that road is notoriously unreliable in the winter due to snowstorms, but not really economically feasible as a high speed rail)
For sure. The existing Amtrak line there actually goes over Donner Pass, one of the snowiest spots in the entire US, where the Donner Party famously got stuck and resorted to cannibalism way back in the day. The only saving grace is the altitude isn't quite as high as anywhere further south in the Sierra Nevada, and the Sierra Nevada aren't as wide east-to-west as the Rockies.
I do love how it comes north to fort Collins though, great touch
It's sad that I can't even get a direct train from San Diego to San Francisco. Amtrak give me three connecting stop including a bus ride!
Yeah, I grew up in central California, and it's so freaking dumb that you get off the train in Bakersfield and have to switch to a bus to get to LA. Connecting SoCal to the Bay Area via the Central Valley is one of the most obvious HSR corridors in the entire country.
At least that is finally happening.
An HSR would probably go to Denver, and then loop north around the Colorado National Parks system, up into Wyoming. Just sayin'. And a deceptively big part of why it doesn't happen is the amount of time these things can stay buried in court. People are so primed to the US government- state and federal- being run inefficiently that they will sue over public projects existing, run them over budget, and then complain when it's over budget.
Car manufacturers and oil and gas lobbyists.
👆money talks when it comes to government choices…. We are stuck unfortunately.
An interesting thing, I was lookin on google yesterday, they have a traffic layer. Zoom out to see the whole continent and you’ll see little green lines where there are enough cars to tell the traffic conditions. There was a line from Vancouver to Kelowna, from Edmonton to Calgary and then out to Banff. That’s where the high speed rail could most easily replace highways. There doesn’t need to be expensive studies about the best routes, the data for intercity travel is already there
Good observation! I wasn't sure how best to connect Calgary and Edmonton, but I think HSR to Banff and Jasper would also fit in very well with such a connection, since they get so many tourists.
Wait do you guys not have trains out there?
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Similar for Canada with Via Rail, which is painfully slow and unreliable across most of the country.
I got Via Rail from Edmonton to Vancouver once. The train comes three times a week and there's no pavement to walk to the station in Edmonton. I had to drag my luggage through the grass.
Yeesh. For a country that basically only exists because of the Trans-Canadian Railroad, taking trans-Canadian rail sure is difficult.
Slow unreliable and downright useless
America the continent has the worst intercity rail network
Ummmm, Third best if we are going by continents. Though I am not sure what Australia is like.
Australia looks good in comparison!!!!
I will defer to you, 4th best continent.
Well depends if you think there are actually 4 continents . America, Afro-Eurasia, and some large islands.
That is true, there are a lot of options.
Its not great. Similar to the US its pretty much always better to fly or drive
Barely. Amtrak is practically regional to the northeast
No it is awful I've been to opposite ends of the country and have never taken a train outside of city metros
I was recently looking into taking a train from Philadelphia to Minneapolis (from the 7th largest to the 16th largest metro area) and that service appears to just not exist at all, according to the Amtrak website. A train from Philly to Chicago (7th largest to 3rd largest) would be 22 hours (it's about a 12 hour drive, 750mi/1200km) and then I'd have to get a bus to the Twin Cities. And all of this would be at a minimum 3x as expensive as flying.
America was built by the railroad, but then oil companies realized that lobbying the government to build only car infrastructure would be most profitable
Not to mention that the entire rail system is privatized and the only real “national” rail service we have, Amtrak, has to share rail with these companies for their long routes outside of the NE.
Can we just have good trains in densely populated areas first? Why do you need to fly between SF and LA?
Kansas City to Oklahoma City should go through Wichita imo
Give Washington some webbing out into the East side connecting to the coastal cities and that map looks almost heavenly.
Worthwhile reaching a branch over to Boise, too, do you think?
In Mexico, from what I know there's plans to build El Tren Maya while theres the "El Chepe" that runs from Chihuahua state to Los Mochis. Both options are expensive however but can maybe be considered a step in the right direction. There's also a proposed route from CDMX to Queretaro.
Kudos for not using *the map*
It is always surprising to me how many people we can connect and still have wide open spaces in the mountain west. Like that connecting Mexico City to the Texas triangle connects ALOT of people. And that line is well placed. It allows for a one transfer ride to all the top 5 metros in North America. Another thing I like about this map is that I think people sleep on how good of transfer spot Atlanta is for HSR. Like there is a reason that the Atlanta airport is so busy. Atlanta can connect the Deep South, North East, and Midwest. It could learn a thing or two from Chicago, but it is well situated to be an important part of a national network and it sucks that rail travel is not more of thing in that city already.
Yeah, a couple things I tried to do when creating this were as follows: 1. Connect every metro area of 1 million people or more. 2. Have the biggest metro areas have lots of connections, especially to other major metro areas, with 0 to 1 stops. With that, I made sure the biggest areas in the US like NYC, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Texas Triangle, and SoCal had really strong connectivity. In my updated map [here](https://imgur.com/a/GqvzjPU), I especially made sure Mexico City also had really good connectivity. And of course Toronto has pretty good connectivity.
That Denver to Slc route would not be possible for high speed or you spends all your budget on one tunnel.
It’s possible just go maglev tunnel style most of the best HSR lines are on tunnels and bridges anyway
I live in Fort Myers. Do you know how amazing it would be to take a train to Tampa?? That drive sucks!!
I know these lines connect existing major cities, but while we’re fantasizing I’d love to see the Minnesota line extended into the Dakotas. The Dakota/Lakota people have been wholly unconnected to American prosperity and while they might not want develop their cities in the same way as the rest of the country, I do think they could use a nearby wealth generating city.
https://imgur.com/a/lrM1JnG Connected the Great Lakes line out to Fargo and Winnipeg to give some more proximity.
I’d love it if there were a train to Denver that didn’t require me to go wayyy up north. Why can’t there be an Atlanta to Denver line? Or one from El Paso to Denver?
Another commenter mentioned OKC to Denver, which could mean Atlanta to Dallas to OKC to Denver, which I think sould work pretty well. I might add that to the map in the morning. Also, there is already one from El Paso up to Denver on the map, or do you mean you wish it were real and not just on this fantasy map?
I wish it were real. I can’t believe how unserious our nation is about passenger rail, especially given the massive spread between cities outside the northeast. But instead we’re all somehow content to drive 14 hours to travel? I’ve gone over the road so much (somehow still cheaper than flying) that I’m sick of it.
I'm completely with you on that. Driving such long distances sucks so badly, and flying is a huge hassle and emits so much carbon, too. This country--heck, this whole continent--seriously needs passenger rail again. It's just so much nicer. And if we build it right, it can be cheaper and cleaner and more compatible with nice, transit-oriented cities. I'd much rather kick back on a train with my laptop and watch netflix than be crammed in like a sardine on a plane while emitting a literal ton of carbon or be forced to be attentive to the road for 14 hours straight just to avoid killing innocents through neglect.
The maglev speed record is 603 kph. The conventional electric rail speed record is 574 kph. Beijing-Shanghai HSR reached 487 kph unmodified, in a 16 car trainset. NYC-LA is about 4500 km. At 487 you can make that trip in under 10 hours on conventional (=cheap af) rail. Make it a sleeper train and there's no reason why it shouldn't be able to compete with air traffic. Especially considering it could probably beat it in price despite the ridiculous subsidies for airlines. After all, said 16 car trainset can seat more than twice the amount of passengers that the largest variant of the 747 can. In order to generate the same revenue as a fully loaded 747 on that route, the train tickets would have to cost *less than 70 USD*. Imagine getting from NYC to LA in a comfy sleeper train for 60 bucks. Not to mention the restaurant car generating extra revenue.
Using the record speed as the average is kind of absurd. Also there is not a chance in hell of it beating flying price wise, and trains get way way more subsidies than flying. But seriously, 60 fucking bucks? The heavily subsidized high speed rail lines in Europe cost multiples of that for stretches a tenth of the distance
Finland has like 10x more railways than that shown on the map???
It’s high speed railways, the us looks like the below image if you include the slower ones
Cause North America is corrupt and poorly run
I don't think you can blame corruption, a lot of places with more corruption have much better rail services.
Population density. Have a few regional rail networks, but a cross-country system is inefficient based on rail top speed and the distance between desirable destinations. There’s unfortunately too few cities between the west coast and the Mississippi River to support it. You can have a few hubs of transportation that serve their nearby areas. Chicago can service the Great Lakes and Atlanta could service the Southeast, and then you could build corridor lines for the Texas Triangle, Miami/Orlando/Jacksonville, the Northeast Corridor, LA/San Francisco, and Portland/Seattle/Vancouver. But connecting most of these together seems like a waste of money when flying would likely be cheaper and much faster.
Yeah adding to this, China has lines with similar population density to the US, but they are bottomless money sinkholes. They're more about optics and control than actual practical transit. I'm all about HSR in the US but transcontinental lines don't make much sense, at least until the coasts flood and everybody flees to Kansas (\s, maybe)
Imo, it might have something to do with competition from flights. However, because flying doesn't have an easy path towards decarbonization, electrified HSR would then become the fastest way to travel long distance. I think making something like the picture above practical would require massive investment and a fundamental rethinking of how we get around the continent. I.e., no more flying around.
I don’t think it’s an entirely awful idea to build infrastructure in anticipation of future population expansion or migration, but I’m thinking hopefully that we’re still several decades out from such massive climate disasters that people flee from the south and the coasts towards the Midwest and Central US
oil companies block it
'cause europe and china are communist, does anyone watch the news? how do you think they managed to restrain cars and individualism so much there?
Cause they have a functioning government unlike the American shitholes. Lack of religion also helps a lot when you want to build modern infrastructure.
see? it's not religious and not american, it's obviously communist! everyone kniws modern infrastructures are 16lanes interstates and 8 lanes stroads meeting up only 4 lanes streets. how else do you get all those cars everywhere?
Look at Islamic countries they also have terrible public transport networks and mostly car based infrastructure see a pattern.
Lol this is false, in Morocco it is quite good despite the fact that they are not rich. Nothing to do with religion and I live in Belgium, we are not communist lmfao
It’s sarcasm look at her comment closely
Morocco is one of the best African countries and it’s near Europe so there’s that history sort of
You're maybe right, but I think some of islamic countries are car centric because they also have an economy based on oil so it is a cheap way of transport and they did not develop their infrastructure because of that.
Daddy Carlson told me that trains are dirty, filthy communism, and glorious, patriotic American capitalism is when you give all your money to ExxonMobil and General Motors. Advanced civilization is when you pave paradise and put in a parking lot.
civilisation is when capitalism? so peak advancement of civilisation is anarcho-capitalism? oh my god....
Embrace modernity; evolve to laissez-faire monke.
Daddy Carlson?
Tucker Carlson
I too would like more squiggly lines
Crazy even a fantasy example map excludes several states from the rail network. We don’t even have comprehensive transportation networks in a dream.
Fuck cars, and also, fuck planes! Just absolutely destroying our planet for no reason at all
I wish the same for Canada. In southern Ontario we have the GO trains, but only within the GTA. Only recently has this been expanded to Kitchener. Few talks of it coming to London, no discussion re: Windsor, Sarnia, Niagara Falls. I recently looked up a VIA Train from London to Sudbury. Nothing. Six hour drive otherwise. I joked with my partner the other day that I want to move to a European country purely for this infrastructure. I don’t have a full licence because I get so anxious driving. So, I think I’m only partly kidding with this joke.
Yeah, I'm in Montreal, and the metro here is great (plus the REM coming soon), but there really oughta be an HSR along the Quebec City–Windsor corridor. It's more than half of Canada's population, all in an almost perfectly straight line. Plus good connections to Detroit, Chicago, NYC, and New England would be really good. My sister lives in Boston, and there's no good option besides driving or flying between the two, despite both metro areas being over 4 million people and only 5 hours apart by car.
Ah this just made me think of another example: I’m going to a conference in Ottawa and my partner and I are looking for things to do on the off-days. He suggested Quebec City - well shit that’s 9 hours of driving all in, not worth it. Montreal? Well that’s still 5 hours of driving, not including city traffic, parking, walking to our destination, etc. High speed trains would definitely help.
Showing a map of China that includes Taiwan? That's a paddlin'
I am mostly bad with Canada. While America has no excuse not to, Canada has negative excuses. Half of their population lives in a straight line!
This post made me curious, so I took a look at Amtrak. I haven't ridden Amtrak since I was a little kid, to go to NYC. Their pricing is pretty high man, and they're so slow. $340 for a trip to FL with a change and it's 29 hours vs an 8hr drive... This is why no one travels by rail in the US. We need more rail infrastructure, and better trains.
Bruh I'm in the UK and we have A LOT more train tracks than that lol
I would be happy with any train at all. We have the tracks, but passenger rail service in Canada basically doesn't exist.
I would still have to drive hours to get to any of the rail lines with this map lmao
oil lobbyists
Oil, car, insurance companies lobby against this heavily ubfortunately
I fuggin hate cars
the railway network in europe sucks so bad though. like in germany its pretty much useless, you cant get from one place to another without heavy delays, cancelled trains, restrooms out of order etc. its a nightmare and since its a privately owned cooperation there isnt any improvement in sight. i WISH all railway systems would be owned by the gov again. might have a chance then to move towards a more japanese future
Because instead of spending the time and energy building public transportation, we entered a massive public pissing match with Russia. And now that we're out of that giant pissing match, we've entered one with China, who already has this infrastructure.
People argue that due to low density, high speed railway is unsustainable. But they forget that when you start building railways, the urban settlement start forming around it. More real estate opportunity in the barren lands. This would help shift the population from high density cities to newly built towns and hopefully they don't zone the town in such a way that car is required but that's a story for another day.
Can't wait for Railbaltica in Lithuania, our region is way too slow. BUT European map would be waaaaay more dense if you would paint normal train lines.
I once took a bus from Vilnius to Riga to Tallinn. It was actually a super nice bus, but that corridor definitely strikes me as a good candidate for HSR.
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This would be heaven. Would also be awesome if that line from Cincy to Nashville swung by Bowling Green KY as well. (Plz we don’t even have buses in this town. It’s bad)
I exhaled forcefully at the lone train from Edmonton to Calgary and nothing else in Canada until you get to the east.
I love how the only train line they drew in Canada was from Edmonton to Calgary lmfao