[dreadlordbone]

Doesn't having a car do this too?

[jacoblambda]

No. This is something Texas is having to come to terms with right now. Cars and roads only scale so much before you physically can't move more people fast enough even with more roads and more lanes. Rail scales way better.

So Texas is pushing a high speed rail line that will allow people to commute 30-90min into a city from locations that currently are 1.5-3 hours away. And at that allow those people to commute to cities on either ends of the line while still being a relatively accessible commute for anyone in between the cities.

And of course as great as that is, the rail line will be able to relatively trivially scale capacity by adding more trains to the same line at a rate far above massively expensive road expansion projects that cost comparable to the entire planned rail line.

So if you want to grow past a certain density you do have to start switching to rail and higher density does mean more business opportunities and generally greater options for prosperity for the populations in the area.

[nsokolsky]

Is Texas "coming to terms" with it, though? Cars don't scale infinitely but are also way more flexible than rail lines could ever be. If your goal is to have everyone work in downtown Dallas then yes, they suck. But you can just build offices and manufacturing facilities all around the state instead, avoiding the creation of single bottlenecks.

[verall]

At this rate I would be surprised if the Texas HSR is complete before 2050. Texas has not come to terms with anything. I say that as a resident for the last 10 years.

[jjav]

> Cars and roads only scale so much before you physically can't move more people fast enough even with more roads and more lanes. Rail scales way better.

Before scaling people moving up so much, I'd question why encourage so much movement.

Instead, let's encourage local areas which are walkable/cycleable that contain 95% of what people need. By eliminating the need for 95% of high-speed people moving (whether by car, train, bus, no matter), that problem becomes automatically solved. And we get a nicer life walking/biking to most places and when we need/want to drive farther, there's no congestion.

[cromka]

> Cars and roads only scale so much before you physically can't move more people fast enough even with more roads and more lanes.

The Induced Demand observed in car traffic, also known as Downs–Thomson paradox.

[kyleee]

Good comment except for the first word. Obviously cars enable all sorts of movement and economic activity, so why not just admit it? The rest of your comment is just talking about how rail may do all those things to a greater extent than cars. You don’t need to deny benefits of cars, it doesn’t bolster your arguments. Better to just be honest and then extol the virtues of rail and other transportation methods.

[dpe82]

Having a car also entails massive subsidies; when taking that into account the all-in costs per unit traveled are basically always cheaper with rail.

[gruez]

Source?

[eertami]

Anecdotally, I frequently take day (or weekend) trips to other European cities by rail. It is usually quicker than the roads but also crucially you can be productive on the train. If I had to drive my car there then I probably wouldn't bother.

[netsharc]

This reminds me of this Swedish office on a train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbrI3refig , made for a company which had an hour train commute from Stockholm. It's even got 8 telephone line (4 in and 4 out)!

I guess a lot of people would use work booths/conference rooms on trains, but the price/profit has to work for both sides (the train company and users). As for trains, the old-fashioned 6 seater compartments offer more privacy for groups.

[okr]

Trains are just big cars, where you stuff in a lot of people, to make it efficient. Because otherwise it is not.

And you can only work in it, because no one wants to use this monster on a daily basis, so its empty and you dont fight for space. :)

[next_xibalba]

Europe is not exactly the standard bearer for productivity though, is it? If one wants to advance an argument for emulating European style passenger rail, this is really not the right argument.

[lotsofpulp]

Cars destroy walkability, cyclability, ability for kids to freely play outside, enable sprawl (hence more energy consumption hence more carbon emissions).

There’s no free lunch with using more surface area, which cars greatly expand people’s ability to consume.

[nsokolsky]

True to a degree but cars also make parenting easier: you get bigger houses, bigger backyards, don't have lug your kids around on public transit, deal with the weather, don't need to worry about rail worker strikes, etc.

All America's missing is laws that allow kids to walk to school and adding more sidewalks to enable this, but this is changing over time (see Utah's free range parenting law).

[dreadlordbone]

That's a goalpost moved from my response.

[postpawl]

Trains scale better than cars in dense areas and offer more than just emissions reductions. Good rail infrastructure is a big part of makes a large city world-class and improves everyday lives. Subsidizing trains is better than a lot of other uses of government funds.

[layer8]

A car is more expensive, and clogs the roads, which causes other costs to the economy and penalizes commutes.

[dxuh]

Germany has a pretty high population density and the metropolitan areas have evolved around medieval cities, so they are sometimes very bad a carrying a lot of traffic. Getting around by car in lots of major German cities is a major PITA and parking your car there (if you live there) is just as horrible. Inside cities, public transport is much more efficient.