“Trains wouldn’t work in the US, we’re too spread out”
Meanwhile, we did have a near-ubiquitous rail network a century ago and destroyed it.
Meanwhile, the US road network is the single most economically expensive undertaking in human history and has achieved complete ubiquity in almost every lived location in the country, all of it costing more per mile than your average rail line, much of it literally poured over old rail line.
Meanwhile, Europe is the size of the US and achieves equivalent rail density with far less investment.
Meanwhile, China is larger than the US, has an order of magnitude more people, an even more dispersed population, and achieved high speed rail ubiquity in less than two decades.
Anyone who tells you ubiquitous rail cannot work in the US because of our size and density is either disingenuous, misled, or ignorant.
Reminds me of my home city where people argued that there was no way to incorporate urban rail into the city, but luckily the town is crisscrossed by bike trails. The bike trails were literally the rail bed from our urban train system that got torn out in the 50s.
I love and use rails-to-trails myself, but I can’t shake the feeling that they’re essentially motornormative culture scapegoating cyclists to bury any possible hope of reviving rail networks. The carbrained planner says “No you can’t put the rails back in, you’d displace the cyclists!” While displacing cyclists every time they choose to exclude cycling infrastructure on streets.
I have similar feelings but I tell myself this: If nothing else rails to trails maintains the right of way. The carbrained city planner says you’ll displace the cyclists, but in 30 years that planner will be retired or dead. What would kill railroads forever would be carving up the ROW and selling it off.
They also feel like something designed by someone who hasn’t ridden a bike since they were 16.
I get it. “Might was well” use land where the right-of-way is already clear, etc. But a miles of straightaways followed by gentle curves designed for a train don’t make for a very engaging bike ride. I’m sure this could exist, but I haven’t been on any that would actually be useful as bicycle infrastructure. They mostly go from nowhere to nowhere and there are few options to get on or off the ‘trail’.
Straight cycling routes with gentle curves and low grades and few intersections are great, what are you talking about? So much better than bike paths crammed next to a road or river with random twists and turns to get around car infrastructure, or worse, winding and convoluted neighborhood routes with lots of stop signs that make it take forever to get anywhere. If a trail goes from nowhere to nowhere, it would probably not have gotten frequent rail service anyway and is still useful to some people as a bike path.
I suppose it helps I’m on a fast ebike though and want to make my 11 mile commute in a reasonable amount of time.
between old small town stations, so now it’s suburb to suburb and you can’t access anything in between so they’re useless for commuting. If the rail-to-trail revamp continued on it would go on through the former rail hub of the local large town, but that part hasn’t been built out yet, and may never be because at some point they’ll have to deal with crossing (hopefully over / under) highways and stroads that have been built up since.
I have a proper bike trail in my home city that goes along a river and it’s amazing that it winds along for dozens of miles with stuff to look at and breezes. You’re not confined to a corridor with overgrowth on both sides causing stifling heat that’s trying to imitate a highway. It’s a pleasant commute if you happen to live along it and a relaxing recreational ride if you’re not.
long gradual grade. Coast one way, which is nice, Sisyphean bike ride with no rest for miles the other way.
I might’ve come off harsh, I do generally like rails-to-trails. They’re better than nothing, and you’re right that having an ebike takes the arduousness out of it, but they’re very much a hand-me-down version of proper infrastructure. I would rather have the passenger light rail service.
In the 1900s the small MS town I’m thinking of had a few hundred people and a rail station. You could pay the inflation adjusted ~$15 for all the transfers to go back and forth to the coast ~100 miles away. We didn’t discard passenger rail in the US because it wasn’t useful, but because it was hard to extract profit out of the public service.
Not saying I disagree, but I can already hear the response: “well population density is far less in the US”
What’s the response to that? That they can then just connect the more populated areas? Or point to the past, where there was rail all over the US?
Europe and China are both bigger than the contiguous 48 states. The US is only “bigger” because of Alaska. Alaska is like 1/4th of Europe or something.
“Trains wouldn’t work in the US, we’re too spread out”
Meanwhile, we did have a near-ubiquitous rail network a century ago and destroyed it.
Meanwhile, the US road network is the single most economically expensive undertaking in human history and has achieved complete ubiquity in almost every lived location in the country, all of it costing more per mile than your average rail line, much of it literally poured over old rail line.
Meanwhile, Europe is the size of the US and achieves equivalent rail density with far less investment.
Meanwhile, China is larger than the US, has an order of magnitude more people, an even more dispersed population, and achieved high speed rail ubiquity in less than two decades.
Anyone who tells you ubiquitous rail cannot work in the US because of our size and density is either disingenuous, misled, or ignorant.
edit - Or they’re doing a bit!
Reminds me of my home city where people argued that there was no way to incorporate urban rail into the city, but luckily the town is crisscrossed by bike trails. The bike trails were literally the rail bed from our urban train system that got torn out in the 50s.
I love and use rails-to-trails myself, but I can’t shake the feeling that they’re essentially motornormative culture scapegoating cyclists to bury any possible hope of reviving rail networks. The carbrained planner says “No you can’t put the rails back in, you’d displace the cyclists!” While displacing cyclists every time they choose to exclude cycling infrastructure on streets.
I have similar feelings but I tell myself this: If nothing else rails to trails maintains the right of way. The carbrained city planner says you’ll displace the cyclists, but in 30 years that planner will be retired or dead. What would kill railroads forever would be carving up the ROW and selling it off.
Occasionally, in my most cynical moments, I have the same thought.
They also feel like something designed by someone who hasn’t ridden a bike since they were 16.
I get it. “Might was well” use land where the right-of-way is already clear, etc. But a miles of straightaways followed by gentle curves designed for a train don’t make for a very engaging bike ride. I’m sure this could exist, but I haven’t been on any that would actually be useful as bicycle infrastructure. They mostly go from nowhere to nowhere and there are few options to get on or off the ‘trail’.
Straight cycling routes with gentle curves and low grades and few intersections are great, what are you talking about? So much better than bike paths crammed next to a road or river with random twists and turns to get around car infrastructure, or worse, winding and convoluted neighborhood routes with lots of stop signs that make it take forever to get anywhere. If a trail goes from nowhere to nowhere, it would probably not have gotten frequent rail service anyway and is still useful to some people as a bike path.
I suppose it helps I’m on a fast ebike though and want to make my 11 mile commute in a reasonable amount of time.
The bad ones I’ve been on are:
I have a proper bike trail in my home city that goes along a river and it’s amazing that it winds along for dozens of miles with stuff to look at and breezes. You’re not confined to a corridor with overgrowth on both sides causing stifling heat that’s trying to imitate a highway. It’s a pleasant commute if you happen to live along it and a relaxing recreational ride if you’re not.
I might’ve come off harsh, I do generally like rails-to-trails. They’re better than nothing, and you’re right that having an ebike takes the arduousness out of it, but they’re very much a hand-me-down version of proper infrastructure. I would rather have the passenger light rail service.
In the 1900s the small MS town I’m thinking of had a few hundred people and a rail station. You could pay the inflation adjusted ~$15 for all the transfers to go back and forth to the coast ~100 miles away. We didn’t discard passenger rail in the US because it wasn’t useful, but because it was hard to extract profit out of the public service.
While I agree with the guilt of enjoying rail trails
Not saying I disagree, but I can already hear the response: “well population density is far less in the US” What’s the response to that? That they can then just connect the more populated areas? Or point to the past, where there was rail all over the US?
Europe and China are both bigger than the contiguous 48 states. The US is only “bigger” because of Alaska. Alaska is like 1/4th of Europe or something.
My Uncle Jimmy assembles tires at the plant downtown. Why do you want to put him out of a job?!?!