this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Sorry...what? Which argument are you making here?
I was probably arguing both sides 😁
While it’s true we have almost no rail from the perspective of the entire country, we do have a handful of commuter rail systems that seem like a similar scale between cities and towns across metro regions. It’s not nothing
And of course our one “fast-ish” intercity line
And of course I recognize the irony of saying a country the size and population of the US is comparable to a much smaller country
It's not nothing but it's absolutely not enough to make rail anyones primary mode of transit unless they live there.
That's a problem.
I’m firmly in the camp of “if you build it, they will come”. Intercity rail in the northeast corridor has been a huge success, generating profits to fund the rest of the system. It’s somewhat self-reinforcing: most of Amtrak is impractical, inconvenient, useless so of course no one will use it. But NEC, especially Acela, proves that people will use intercity rail if it’s actually useful. They will prefer it.
Continued investment, continued expansion, will make it available to more people to become a primary means of transport.
We start with places it will best work where people want it, then connect and expand, take advantage of the network affect. But it’s all politics. Politicians need to make it happen. We don’t actually need more money but the wisdom to rebalance the excess car transportation investments
Do they? Feel like we can't count on that.