I imagine everything is a lot more expensive now. More people, right of ways, etc
Didn’t California want to build its high-speed rail in the 1970s?
Americans chose to pay later for mass transit. Now it’ll cost us a fortune.
Didn’t California want to build its high-speed rail in the 1970s?
Americans chose to pay later for mass transit. Now it’ll cost us a fortune.
The same thing with small economical cars with great mileage. Remember a few years ago when gas prices rose above $4 and every pundit was saying that gas guzzling trucks and SUVs were a thing of the past. Want to guess what the the best selling vehicles are today? They aren't small sedans. They are large trucks.
https://focus2move.com/usa-best-selling-cars/
> Americans chose to pay later for mass transit. Now it’ll cost us a fortune.
No. We chose cars. And we will continue to choose cars over mass transit. It will take something drastic to change american culture and our lifestyle.
You can't generalize this to all Americans, as it largely seems to be localized to the Baby Boomer generation, who were responsible for roughly 2/3rds of automobile sales in 2011. There's an Autoweek article[1] that tries to spin this positively, but it basically says that Millennials and Gen-Z are responsible for just 30% of vehicle sales in 2017. Essentially, people ages 18-35 are purchasing less than a third of the vehicles, despite being at a position in their lives where a demand should be at its highest.
Complicating matters, it looks like the market research pointing to millennials essentially purchasing them merely out of pragmatic necessity, to drive to work or cart families around because there are no other options: Makes sense, because that's how the Baby Boomers shaped most of our metro areas. They're less car "owners" and more car hostages. As boomers die off, their economic and political power will wane and we're going to see some pretty dramatic changes to urban and suburban landscapes.
[1] https://autoweek.com/article/car-news/bucking-trends-milleni...
I'm 35 - pretty much everyone I could think of my age or slightly younger has run their vehicles into the ground before getting or new one or had to get something due to life events (babies).
My parents (Boomers) somehow cycle through new cars every 3-4 years. It's weird to get a call or text from my mom with a photo of a new car that she traded her barely two year old one in for but 'she just had to have it!'.
I'm pretty content with my 15 year old one that knock wood hopefully has more years in it.
You mean the largest and wealthiest demographic bought the most cars during one of the worst economic recessions where a significant portion of the younger generation had to move back with their parents just to survive?
> There's an Autoweek article[1] that tries to spin this positively, but it basically says that Millennials and Gen-Z are responsible for just 30% of vehicle sales in 2017.
They aren't "spinning" anything. They are just offering data and expectations. As the economy improves and as the younger generation get on better financial footing and as they get older, they'll buy more cars. What's so shocking about that? Even you acknowledge that they went from a 20% market share in 2011 ( a major recession era ) to 30% today. And as millenials get wealthier and as gen-z gets older, common sense and data says that trend will increase.
> Essentially, people ages 18-35 are purchasing less than a third of the vehicles, despite being at a position in their lives where a demand should be at its highest.
How is 18-35 at the age where demand is the highest? You think kids in college need cars?
> Complicating matters, it looks like the market research pointing to millennials essentially purchasing them merely out of pragmatic necessity, to drive to work or cart families around because there are no other options:
As opposed to buying them to hang on your wall as decoration?
> As boomers die off, their economic and political power will wane and we're going to see some pretty dramatic changes to urban and suburban landscapes.
In some matters sure. But certainly not when it comes to cars and most definitely not in the suburban landscape. Even in urban landscapes, like NYC metro area with great public transportation, people still love cars. Come check out the yearly auto show at javits center.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASKof4CR2SE
Trains run every ninety seconds or so and are packed during rush hour.
To give those numbers some context, when Seattle's Link Light Rail builds out ST2 in 2021, capacity will be 14.4K per hour; and this is running a ordinary schedule of every four minutes.
The New York City Subway at its busiest scheduled section runs much longer trains every two minutes, at a capacity of 75K per hour. That's with 1930's signalling - with modern signalling, they could run trains every 90 seconds, for a capacity of 100k per hour. And that's just on two tracks.
Cars are really space inefficient because you need an engine and a fuel tank for a small group of people. Trains and buses have the advantage of fitting more seats in the same area, and then having people stand on top of that.
That's an extremely optimistic number - running a train every 90 seconds would leave people basically no time to get on or off the train, and ingress/egress gets harder as platforms get more crowded.
That being said, it is possible for platforms to become so congested that they actually start impacting headways; the Lexington Av Line (4/5/6) in New York had this issue until recently because it was carrying more than the daily riderships of Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco's entire systems.
https://www.businesstoday.in/current/world/china-successfull...
In Friday morning traffic, the route can take 30-50 minutes by car. On Saturday nights, it can take 15 minutes. If you can get 40 MPG and pay $3.40 per gallon, this could cost just $1.27 in gasoline, instead of $2.50 to a train or bus company.
[0]https://goo.gl/maps/iyZEKttcBFo
Edit: Multiply not divide. ;)
Maglev trains won’t be running at 25 mph.