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Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

Not to me. Railroads cover only so much area, leaving the last (hundred) miles to cars.

So it is not an either or question and should be stopped treated as such ( in certain circles). Germany has a quite good railroad system, but you really won't get far outside the cities, unless you live close to a train station (like I do intentionally) and have your target close to a train station. And buses to a remote village from the last train station? Check your calendar and not your watch for the next one.

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Germany follows the standard pattern of mostly urban population. 78% of people are in cities. And I'm not sure what percentage of that remaining 22% are in "remote villages".

So you want to ban cars from the cities? I can work with that and would enjoy it, if there are working alternatives.

But in general replacing roads with train tracks, is not something I think can work.

"So it is not an either or question"

Was my original point.

This is so much bullshit. Just because your government refuses to build passenger railways and push car centric infra doesnt mean "Railways cover only so much area". Very difficuly to reach regions like islands/mountaineous terrains ? Then maybe.

Guess what germany has lots of?

Not many high mountains, but lots of high enough mountains and valleys, that you need lots of expensive bridges to pass. I happen to live right next to a big one, that was build 1850 and is now getting renovated. They are already working on it since 2 years and plan to be finished maybe next year. All this, for one already existing bridge.

There is no way you can cover even half the villages by train.

And before you declare incompetence, well first, you have to work with what you have and secondly, you have to work without stopping the existing trains too much as it is in use and alternative routes very long. (so they work mostly at night and don't care how many babies try to sleep)

Edit:

Also, do you expect that all lines get served all the time? Or do you declare that no one has any reason to go anywhere in the middle of the night? Cars are somewhat more flexible in that regard. Also, do you know what happens if one train breaks down? It cannot just be pulled to the side, like a car can. It will block the whole line. So even if you radicalize everything and use lots of autonomous small trains that can react flexible to passengers request(something that should be worked on today), it would not solve everything. Flexibility is very valuable. A train can only go where there are tracks. A car anywhere, where it is flat enough. Solve that, if you want to completely get rid of cars.

> There is no way you can cover even half the villages by train.

Thats why you combine them with buses for the remainder.

Sure and this is what is being done and makes sense (and could be improved a lot). But parent poster seemed to imply you can replace roads with train tracks.

How many buses? For busses to be a viable alternative they have to run at least every 30-60 minutes for basically the whole day. For many smaller villages this will effectively mean that many of the busses will be running empty much of the time. Or you scale back to once or twice a day to match demand and then busses are no longer a viable alternative, so people don't use them.

As someone who lived quite a long time in rural austria and heavily used buses: You kinda tend to structure your way around the bus schedule, or drive/bike a relatively short distance to the nearest bus "hub". It really isn't a problem in practice.

I agree, and I think this should not be underestimated: people who don't believe in public transportation often (usually?) don't use them.

I have never owned a car, I used public transportation my whole life. Trains, buses, publicly-available bikes/scooters, whatever. Occasionally I rent a car. And I am fine, I have just learned to organize around the public transport. Instead of being free to leave or arrive "whenever I want", I know exactly the time (so I'm usually not 20 minutes late because I had a train, where car owners are easily stuck in traffic or left 20 minutes late).

Yes, many times it is longer. But I learned to use the time I spend in public transportation: I read, I listen to podcasts, I work. When a car owner loses 2h30 in traffic, I work for 4h in my train. They lost 2h30, I... well if I can count those 4h as work, I didn't lose anything. I find that even reading is a better use of my time than driving.

But all my life, car owners around me (friends/family) have had trouble understanding that I am fine with public transportation. "Wait, take my car, it will be much longer by train!" or "Do you want me (to drive 30min) to come pick you up so that you don't have to come by bus (which takes 45min)?".

Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's more annoying, sometimes it's more expensive. Many times it's better, too. It's just different, I just learned the public transportation way. The fact, though, is that it's better for the planet.

Before I had a family, I also did not have a car. But in rural areas, it is really, really hard without one.

For example one train line in a village close by down in a valley is currently not active for whatever reason. But there are buses as a replacement - except that they do not go down in that valley, so people wanting to use that bus, just have to walk 2 km steep uphill. Then it happens, that the last train was late, you miss the connection - and are just stranded somewhere and they don't give a shit, even though they told you before, the other train will wait.

What else? Well, trains that just don't come and no more information avaiable, except that they officially are on time. So you stand there and wonder if it just came too early and left before the timetablr (also happened to me).

Then of course there are villages where the train passes through and they have a train station, but the train never stops there. And if you live a bit away from the trains, then you are lucky if one bus is coming on the weekend.

So good luck convincing those people, that they don't need cars. Not with that state of public transport.

I also simply cannot imagine, how you can run regular bus lines in low populated areas in an economic way.

The best compromise I know are buses on demand, meaning you call one hour before and then they will come. But this also only works with subsidies.

You know what Switzerland has a lot of? And yet they have an incredibly fine-grained train network. Almost every mountain has a tunnel through it or a train to the top. And they all go on time, except for the trains coming from Germany. Swiss trains don't go every 10 minutes like in some countries, but they're very reliable and a great way to visit even fairly remote parts of the country, some of which are inaccessible by car.

Of course not every tiny village has a train station, and the ones that do tend to be very touristy, but you can cover a lot with a mix of trains and buses.

"but you can cover a lot with a mix of trains and buses."

Sure and I never debated that and I like Switzerland. But as far as I know, they also have a lot of cars.

So both is needed, not either or. And yes please, wherever something from a car can be put on a train, it should be done. Every car less on the road, makes it more attractive for (e-) bikes and people walking.

> So both is needed, not either or.

Well I never meant "either or". But we should invest much more into public transportation and much less into cars (and planes). And for those who do need a car (because when you live in the countryside, you may need a car indeed), we need to transition to small electric vehicles (which Teslas are not).

Well yes, we could start by not subsidizing (tax excemption) jet fuel for example.

I am also a big fan of very light electric vehicles that are a mix of bicycle and car. But not in combination with SUV tanks and aggressive drivers.

Yep I agree there.

It's not pushing car-centric infra. Roads mean cars, bikes, motorbikes, vans, lorries, and emergency services vehicles can all get around with very little coordination.

Train tracks work for...trains. One at a time, going at a time and in a direction someone somewhere else decided might be a good idea. It's a performance optimisation, where there is enough demand to make a highly parallel transportation method worth installing (or less painful than the more bottom-up alternative).

> Roads mean cars, bikes, motorbikes, vans, lorries, and emergency services vehicles can all get around with very little coordination.

Right. I guess that's why the US need 5 lanes roads everywhere: for bikes and emergency services vehicles.

Are there any strawmen around? This thread was about replacing cars with trains, where it makes sense. Not to declare cars are the only way.

Obviously you need a healthy mix. Trains are great for some situations, not for others. Same with every other mode of transportation. For best results, make sure you use them all for the situation they're best at.

> This thread was about replacing cars with trains

Was it? My opinion is that we should invest much more into public transportation and much less into individual cars. Those who really need an individual car should get a small electric vehicle, not a Tesla.

It's hard to have threads about topics when people just push their own other things into it.

I made a comment countering the idea that roads are from some sort of carspiracy, when they are just exceptionally useful, general-purpose ways of getting people and goods around, and have been for over 2000 years.

You then straw-manned that into only 5-lane highways. I can't see a good reason for you doing that, so I am assuming you're forcing the conversation into an argument of your own making that you can then feel justified in venting in. I could be wrong, but it doesn't really matter. I just wanted to make my point and not steer the conversation into any personal catharsis.

Sorry, maybe sarcasm was not the best way to convey my idea. I just visited the US and was absolutely shocked by the size of their roads and the surface covered by parking lots :-).

Anyway, my point was that roads are useful, but you certainly don't need 5 lanes for emergency vehicles, just one. Still, the tendency everywhere is to add road not for emergency vehicles and bikes, but because there are more and more cars out there.

Instead we should invest in public transportation and push for fewer cars. Not everyone needs a big car, and therefore we would not need 5-lanes roads if most people were taking the train.

I am not saying that we should remove roads. But maybe we should stop adding more of them (or making them bigger or faster) and instead invest in trains.

Some of my wife's family lives in a mid sized village in eastern Germany, and getting from the nearest international airport to their house with public transport is literally a 6 hour affair (followed by a 4ish km walk) and if you miss any of the connections, you're not making it there that day. By car it's a 90 minute drive on nice roads.

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