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tweet by amtrak ben: i think we should build high speed rail next to freeways only because it would make drivers feel like complete losers all the time
edit: fixed alt text
This is the case in Germany, and it's glorious. The fastest people on the Autobahn drive around 200 km/h, whereas the trains sometimes travel at 320 km/h. Always fun to see the slow cars!
Likewise Spain with the AVE. Cars are speed limited to 130 max I think, so it looks like the cars are stopped.
I don't know if Deutsche Bahn is the best example of this. ICE's maximum speed only means you usually end up leaving when you are supposed to be arriving.
Well, Deutsche Bahn is the place where I experience exactly what the meme is suggesting. Should I have mentioned another rail service I don't know and haven't experienced?
That works. The local L trains running along side the highway in Chicago got me, seeing 5 trains roll by while barley moving in bumper to bumper gave me the final push to covert to public transit
The number of people I've met who will never take Amtrak again because they saw one delay, but will sit in gridlock for an hour each way to/from work to go 10 miles without blinking an eye drives me batty
I'd take Amtrak in a heartbeat if meaningful service actually existed.
Yeah, there's precisely one (1) train per day leaving North from Atlanta, and it departs at 11:30 PM. It's a fucking joke!
This is what infuriates me on every interstate freeway drive is that Eisenhower didn't just lay tracks along the median of every intestate. If we had done it then, we'd have an entire network for the most heavily utilized corridors with natural station locations.
It isn't even about being stuck in traffic, it's also about the mind-numbing expanse that would be much more enjoyable if I didn't have to pay attention.
As a California native who has commuted 2hrs a day to work for decades, but got to live in the UK for a year: I was way more productive when I commuted by light rail/subway.
Instead of looking out for aholes looking to break check, cut you off, deny you changing lanes; I was able to respond to emails, make some calls and even have a descent breakfast off the morning truck while sitting in a wifi available seat traveling into London from Gatwick each day. Way less stressful overall.
I'm in Montréal, my commute by subway is slower than by car most of the time.
But I get 20 minutes of walking and fresh air and either watch an episode of TV or read a couple chapters of a book. It's also consistently the same time every time by subway. Feels much better.
The median would probably be dangerous because of the tendency of automobiles to deroad
Frankfurt - Cologne: about twice as fast by train then by car.
Is that the one ICE track where it can actually come near its max speed?
The ICE's max speed depends on model and variies from 250km/h to 300km/h. These speeds can be reached on:
There are more of these tracks currently under construction:
And many more are currently in the planning stage:
Let me present: the new constructed high speed rail line Wendlingen-Ulm, next to Autobahn 8.
Also, in the US this could help bypass land-use issues. If you use the right-of-way the interstate highways already have, you don’t need to have a legal fight over building on privately held land.
There actually was a transportation agency that had an ad campaign oriented around this idea. Basically people in the cars saw the train going by so fast and felt jealous because they were stuck in their cars.
Anyone remember what agency put this on?
I have no idea, but I remember a great ad DB brought out: A picture of cars bumper to bumper in a traffic jam, under it "Bumper to bumper is definitely the right approach. Now safely accelerate to 300km/h".
In Illinois, there is an Amtrak line from Chicago to St Louis that isn't high speed, but it is "higher speed." It has stretches that it goes 110mph. Not hugely fast, but much faster than the 65-70mph speed limit on the interstate, it is alongside much of the way. I've rode it once, and it was cool to look out the window and watch as we passed by cars with ease. I've only had a taste, and it makes me want more.
They did this where I am from, but the high speed trains cost way too much yo be worth it and they never travel at their full speed and are about the same speed as a car.
You also HAVE to drive to the train station. And by the time you wait for the train and pay for parking, you might as well just drive into the city.
In fact, it hardly saves time or money and often ends up being about the same cost and time.
Also the last train leaves the city shortly after the work day ends. So if you work late or get held up, then you are not going home or paying a crap ton for a Uber home.
It’s just fucked and I hate that it is that way.
This chaotic scenario is exactly why we need to focus on public transport. If it sucks, we need to improve.
The first computers sucked. Should we have given up because they were massive, expensive, totally niche, and required specialized knowledge to even turn on? Very impractical, but we improved. The same can go for transport. Look at the goal and work towards it.
Don't look at the ingredients and give up because they aren't already a pie.
they never travel at their full speed
Why? Too much risk someone will be close to the tracks?
If following Hanlon's razor, that entire situation sounds like someone proposed "we need trains going into the city", set it up, and called it a day.
The train I usually take saves maybe only like 15 minutes (normally about an hour to drive), but at least you can do more stuff on the train rather than sitting at the wheel.
"High speed rail" means intercity rail (think airplane or Greyhound bus replacement), not commuter rail or metro rail. That makes sense to put along a freeway because there's generally only one direct freeway connection between each pair of major metro areas.
I agree that it doesn't make sense to put commuter rail or metro rail adjacent to a freeway. Ideally, it would be the opposite: the routes radiating from the city should have the freeways and rail lines spread as far apart from each other as possible, so that commuters in different areas have good access to either one mode or the other, rather than some having good access to both and others neither.
Joke's on you, I have a humiliation kink
Public transportation in the US is abysmal.
You can experience this in multiple parts of Los Angeles. Don't tell anyone. It's fucking glorious.
In California, any time I have seen an Amtrack train going the same direction as me on the freeway, I was passing it, never the other way around.
That would be because Amtrak is not a high-speed rail. They barely maintain their rails and so they have to go quite slowly.
America's rail is almost all low-speed or higher-speed (125-150 mph, but much lower average speeds)
For comparison, China has built ~20,000 miles of HSR, much of which goes up to 220, some lines averaging 200 mph.
We have the opposite problem in Atlanta. The Marta train only goes about 40mph, so even in pretty heavy traffic, cars will be flying past it. It's fucking ridiculous they don't make it faster.