This is all fine for city dwellers, but for those of us living rural, 4busses per hrs all day and night would be waste. But a mix perhaps
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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I live in a rural town, that has two universities near by, thus a thriving downtown area surrounded by forest and trails. There is some density.
In my pipe dream, they would ban vehicles downtown, and we'd have a trolly that goes from the strip mall (Walmart) down the route, through downtown, and to the end where there are three more strip malls. Make the whole area walkable and bikeable. Have a park and ride at either end.
Them my son could ride his bike to school, I wouldn't need to get in a car to go to the grocery store that is a half mile from my house, instead crossing a 50mph road, it would be walksble, and my kid could go to the park on his own.
There are so many places to go within two miles of my mostly old folk trailer park, but all of it currently is inaccessible without a car or crossing basically highways.
New England is an interesting place, we have high (well maybe more) medium density, and rural areas mixed together everywhere. We could do better.
Highspeed rail would be great. Im 2 hours drive from my states largest city, where tons of cool events happen, and I never ever go, because it's a bitch to drive. There is no direct public transport, so I lose out. Even if the train ran twice a day it would be worth it.
England, the UK, have rural areas with trains. Why can't we?
I guess it depends what you call waste. Its providing a service, realistically around here park and ride is pretty popular where people to to edge of the city, park in a carpark with solar cover and ride a bus to town.
traffic still sucks because of other morons who don't use it and drove but it would be worse if everyone drove
The waste would be empty busses running a lot of the times. That power could be used for something else.
I could drive my own car, but that leaves us where we are now. Much rather have autonomous small transport, that i can order. And others can ride along if they order too
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I want a better distribution of walkable white collar work and more work-from-home jobs.
I used to live within easy walking distance to the light rail, and work was easy walking distance from the other stop. The stops were 20 miles apart through the center of the city.
I could drive there, around the beltway, around the whole damn west side in 30 minutes.
The train was over an hour on a good day.
I tried it:
Day one, there was some mid day stuff happening in town, the train was PACKED and spent 10m at every stop, that day was 2 hours.
Had a few decent days, then they hit a car. We were forced to stay on the train for an hour in summer heat, no AC.
Some days the train was every 10. Some days every 30, some days 2 in a row. It was supposed to change frequency with time, it changed rather randomly.
By the end of my first month, there was an outage, so they did a bus bridge. That trip home was 4 hours.
I know that the light rail here was just substandard. but that didn't make it any easier.
Trains need a specific ecosystem and population density to thrive. In the US, we seem to have an issue that installing train stops connecting suburbs to significant cities brings crime to the suburbs and pushes out boutique shops from the stops. Is there any of that in other countries, or does the train increase commerce in an area?
my town has the worst god damn trains, i swear to fuck they're not even trying
Anyway:
trains need a specific ecosystem and population density to thrive
Which is totally not just some unverified just-so story people fucking say because it sounds nice, in spite of all evidence.
do trains work to connect a population of 4,000 540 miles away to a 300,000 person city?
It sounds like your city does not prioritize trains at all
train was PACKED and spent 10m at every stop
add more wagons or increase frequency for example
then they hit a car
intersections with car traffic are always a problem and they should be minimized
train was every 10. Some days every 30, some days 2 in a row
i can bet the tracks share the same space with regular roads and signaling does not prioritize public transit, which usually leads to this sort of inconsistent schedule
that didn’t make it any easier
that's usually the excuse used to cut funding to public transit instead of the other way around: "see it doesnt work, why waste money on it". They never mention how it's been underfunded for decades, how cars are always prioritized, and the success cases seen all around the world where it works properly
does the train increase commerce in an area?
stations are usually prime real state for commerce and housing due to all the foot traffic it brings. Just look at stations in Japan, they are basically big shopping malls, without all the unnecessary parking, and high towers all around for housing
That’s not boring, that’s convenient.
Things that are convenient don’t necessarily excite you, they delight and comfort you.
I think this image would be improved without the unrelated first sentence about self-driving cars.
I don't like cars, but I would prefer cars be built with seatbelts.
I don't like cars, but I would prefer cars use renewable energy instead of gasoline.
I don't like cars, but I would prefer they be built to sensible safety standards.
I don't like cars, but I would prefer they could drive themselves reliably instead of requiring a fickle and inattentive human pilot.
The tram in edinburgh scotland was awesome when I visited.
Come to Seoul~~~
I know many don't like this but i'll say my opinion again:
Public transport should be built on the coastlines, which coincidentally also are blue states, because there's a high population density and public transport makes sense there because of the frequency.
Public transport does not and never will make sense in the midwestern and rural areas of US. The major reason for this is that people there simply largely (70% of people) don't want it. You can't get something through against the will of the local population. Just deal with it. You won't be able to take a train from the East Coast to the West Coast, you'll still have to fly (or drive) that distance.
All this 'public transit not work for the rurals' shit i keep hearing repeated just seems like something you say to make what has happened so far seem somewhat reasonable and just, a statement of hope and denial, not anything supported by history¹, not anything derived from deep analysis of available options and methods², and not anything an expert told you³.
Please stop repeating it without evidence.
¹because it's not. Quite the opposite.
²im not a serious transit nerd and theres shit obvious to me that you people miss every time
³because they wouldn't
there is evidence it doesn't work well in some rural areas of the us, specifically Nome Alaska, which had a railroad (last I checked the rails were still there in significant disrepair) that failed because the company ran out of money
I think the issue goes well beyond technical terms, where it would probably be doable.
The issue is of a fundamental nature: The right to self-determination. You cannot make states install public transport that don't want it.
That's just how a society works.
Desires are nit rational or immutable essential states.
I certainly dont tjink we shoukd kerp accommodating car brain. I think withouy all the road and oil subsidies, thry would like cars a lot less.
I want flying cars. Fuck trains. Build nuclear powered flying drone-like cars, what's the fucking problem?
What about both? Nuclear powered flying drone-like trains