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Comment by yarpen_z | Hacker News Reader

The last mile argument is often ignored, but it's very important in this discussion. What's the point of traveling fast by a train, unless you're going exactly to the downtown? Without a reliable public transport, it might be more efficient to travel by car since you won't have to rent one or Uber everywhere.

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It's ignored because it's the Achilles heel of all anti-car arguments. Even places with famed public transit don't actually provide the level of freedom and convenience rabid anti car people suggest outside of specific circumstances like rush hour and exclusive downtown usage. This is fine actually, public transit is awesome and we should build more of it, make it more reliable, etc because it benefits a lot of people but it's not a society level car replacer.

Even when you don't have the last mile problem, mass transit is much slower than a car. I can take light rail to the airport, getting to and from each train station on foot only takes a minute or two, but the train ride itself is 50+ minutes whereas the same journey with a car is about 20 minutes.

This is downtown Seattle to SeaTac I'm talking about, in case anybody wants to dispute this. Your starting point and destination can both be right on top of train-stations and cars still beat it easily because cars don't stop at a dozen train stations in between.

This said, I still use the light rail when I'm not in a hurry because it's pleasant. But there is absolutely a convenience price to pay with mass transit. Going anywhere takes longer in almost all circumstances, even when you account for traffic slowing cars down.

You are also allowed to have bike share, buses, subway/light rail, and taxis. No one is saying trains are the only mode of transportation. I’ve lived in midwestern states with miles of farmland. In the town center, a bus network and bike paths meant I almost never needed a car. Folks who lived outside of town had the option to drive in and park their car at commuter lots.

Also this is what railway lines looked liked in the US when we cared to build out our train infrastructure: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3c/57/ee/3c57eeffb7e1a3c78691.... Just because the US is big doesn’t mean we can’t build tracks.

It's not about what you're allowed.

The reason this won't happen is the USA just can't build major public infrastructure anymore.

Europe, the East ... even parts of the developing world have surpassed them in this regard.

That observation is greatly amplified by the existing "successful" northeastern Amtrak corridor (relative to the rest of the Amtrak network), interconnecting northeastern cities like New York and Washington D.C. that have amongst the best local public transport in the US. Cities outside the northeast, not so much.

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