Hacker News Reader

Comment by alex_young | Hacker News Reader

Actually I’m speaking from personal experience with rural life in several places in the US and in Europe.

While I agree that each has their advantages and disadvantages, transportation is something many places in Europe have something to show us IMHO.

A small village would typically have a train station where you can quickly travel to a populated area and urban cores are often nearly completely restricted from cars excepting deliveries making for walkable daily life.

It’s true that having a personal vehicle is more convenient, but in my opinion that is a bit of a tragedy of the commons. If everyone decides to have one then we all pay the price in needing one to get anywhere.

I’m really not sure where class figures into these two different models honestly.

View on HN

> A small village would typically have a train station

Having been born and raised in a typical small village in The Netherlands (population then ± 12000) with a lot of smaller and slightly larger villages around, there were no train station in sight for at least 30km. I had to travel to the big city to get to the nearest train station, which took about an hour by bus. And this is the norm rather than the exception.

The problem with trains is that the tracks are put in relatively straight between large cities. If your village is on that line between these cities, you're in luck and probably have a station close-by. Otherwise, you're out of luck and have to hope there is a reasonable frequent bus line going to your closest station.

Of course, because these bus lines tend to follow the more historical routes between cities, visiting each and every village in between, getting to the nearest big city by bus might take up to three times as long as just taking your own car.

Heck, if I'd not mind cycling fast (just over 20km/h) for an hour and a half I'd also be in the city. Just half an hour after the bus would get there. Actually, that was nice in summer as a poor high school student.

Americans, having traveled from center of one city to the center of another on a European train think trains connect even neighborhoods and suburbs of European cities. And that these trains are always running to serve you.

I've also seen rural US and Europe.

Trains work well when you have enough people to care to use the infrastructure. But if not, you might try buses. I saw a rural village in Hungary (~80 people) which has a bus stop to the nearest town. That's very nice, but the village center is a mile walk from the bus stop on the highway. My point is that a train may not automatically work. (Some rural communities in the USA do have similar bus routes.)

I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line? I'm asking because I just picked a random American town on the map: Spencer, Iowa. ~11k people, and it's about a two hour drive (~100 miles) in all directions to a larger city. A two hour drive is a decent drive, but it's not much overall, especially if you're comfortable driving. It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land. And that's my primary point: Europe's population is distributed more uniformly and densely than the USA. A blanket claim about how x transportation mode must be used in the USA ignores the stark regional variations.

Sure, in certain large cities, widespread car ownership may lead to a tragedy of the commons scenario, but it's on a per-city basis. The vast majority of cities in the USA will never encounter this problem because their "commons" are just so big, all cows still find a spot to graze. The cities that do encounter large traffic jams eventually build public transportation infrastructure to reduce the burden on roadways.

Playing out the maximal scenarios, I'd much rather live in a world where everyone drives cars than everyone rides trains. A mix of both is even better.

Walkable downtowns are great, and cities of all sizes should have them.

"I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line?"

Huh? We have lots and lots of train lines, also passing through very small villages. But sure, not at all to every village, so there are also enough villages, where only a bus goes. And in some only sometimes. Maybe only on the weekend, maybe only weekdays.

So you also need a car in rural germany.

Germans do have nice trains, no denying that.

My understanding of rural Germany is that villages are usually are within 6 km of each other. Is this fairly accurate?

I remember seeing a video or article about how towns in rural USA are ~15 miles (24 km) away from each other because half this distance is what a person could walk in a day, handle in-town business, and be home by dark.

Density makes a big difference.

"My understanding of rural Germany is that villages are usually are within 6 km of each other. Is this fairly accurate?"

Pretty much. You have to search for places, where that distance is higher. But there is a increasingly number of ghost villages, where only some old people remain.

Your life choices decide if you need a car or not, you can live perfectly fine in rural Europe without a car. Sure I only had 10 km to nearest busstop, 15 km to nearest store and 60 km to nearest highspeed trainstation. So not really that rural, but you do not need a car even if those distances are longer.

Most people do have a car so the pressure is high to get one, it is also cheapin rural areas of Sweden. Parking is free, always available, most of the infrastructure is slowly being erroded by car centric design. So yes soon you will be required to have a car in some rural areas to be able to travel anywhare ot get food.

"Sure I only had 10 km to nearest busstop ... but you do not need a car even if those distances are longer."

And you had those conditions, while having a family? I doubt that can work out, my wife is pregnant, for example. She cannot walk or cycle 10 km to get anywhere.

Anyway, we had the choice and we live in a village with a supermarket and trainstation. But if we had to live in a place you describe, it would not work without a car.

Pretty much everything north of 60 degrees North in Europe is pretty sparsely populated:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File...

The largest H-bomb test ever carried out was in Europe!

>The largest H-bomb test ever carried out was in Europe!

While technically Severny Island is "in Europe" in the historical continental sense, Russian arctic islands aren't what anyone is referring to as a comparison point with the US in this discussion. Nor Russia in general for that matter.

I was specifically addressing the point that:

"It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land."

Saying that a part of Europe should be excluded from debate about whether Europe has "sparsely-populated tracts of land" because it is remote and sparsely populated seems a bit circular.

A sizeable chunk of Russia is in Europe - not sure why that should be excluded?

Edit: If people mean the EU or Western Europe when they say "Europe" then that's fine - but it's arguably similar to people from Europe only regarding the US as the two coasts!

>If people mean the EU or Western Europe when they say "Europe" then that's fine

Yep, that's what I refer to. I imagine most Americans do as well. From my perspective, I don't expect Europeans to automatically include considerations of Alaska.

>it's arguably similar to people from Europe only regarding the US as the two coasts!

A well-known term in the USA is "fly-over country." That refers to all the land between the two coasts. Our own "coasties" already view the rest of the country as another world. We already do that to ourseleves!

did you ever consider that you may have only been to the places with train connections?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com