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Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

> High speed roads should be limited to rural area and no more than two lane, one for each direction.

Because no freight moves by road, only people. And even those people mostly shouldn't.

That is, your "should" doesn't actually work in the actual world. Trucks carry something like 60% of the freight in the US. You could say that rail should carry more of it, and that works for longer distance, but regional traffic is usually more efficiently handled by truck. So unless your vision of the future is people living in their cities, with nothing in their apartments, and not eating, you need better roads than that.

And then, you run into human nature. Some of us like going places, and more of us want to do so than you seem to like. Your "should" becomes "you should live your life the way I want you to, not the way you want to". You should expect a rather hostile response for that...

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The majority of traffic on the road are....personal users, not freight. Induced demand and the usage of personal cars is what clogs road networks in urban area. Usage of mass transits such as train and trams will reduce road usage and freer flow of freight, with freight moved onto trains as much as possible, and reduction of urban area footprint.

I didn't say we should get rid of roads, I said that high speed road should be limited to 2 lanes...in rural area, exactly the area that don't need high capacity roads.

I see that you've never driven Interstate 80 across Wyoming. It's rural, and it still needs to be high capacity.

You're trying to get to the world that you want (aren't we all?), but you're not starting with the world as it is, but with a world that exists in your head. As a result, your "solution" is completely unworkable in reality.

Unworkable in reality how? Is it political? Is it economic? Is it physics? Is it geometry?

What about Interstate 80 that makes it special? Is it about freight carrying capacity? Can that be substituted by trains? Why does it have to be in that particular way?

You can say that a solution is 'unworkable', but you haven't explained your model of the world state well enough to convince someone. You haven't explained even "human nature".

Is my proposed "solution" politically unworkable? Yes, based on prevailing political opinions, society mores, cultural expectation and preferences. But perhaps you mean something else.

Nope. You're the one proposing the change; you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that your proposed change is an improvement to the existing situation.

The traffic is there. It's not going to fit on one lane each way. What are you going to do with it?

Try to fit it on railroads? Can you show that railroads can realistically handle 250% of current freight traffic, and 100000% of current passenger traffic? My gut feel is that they can't. If you have evidence that they can, then let's see it.

Or are you just going to tell the traffic to go away? Tell people to buy less stuff, so that less freight moves? Tell people to not go places, so that there's less passenger traffic on roads? The answer to that is going to be middle fingers from a huge number of people.

> Can you show that railroads can realistically handle 250% of current freight traffic, and 100000% of current passenger traffic? My gut feel is that they can't. If you have evidence that they can, then let's see it.

The system that has barley seen any investment for 100+ years and is disadvantaged by every possible regulatory and legal mechanism can't currently do it, therefore it is unworkable.

Of course if you don't invest in a capability your not gone have it. The highway system has seen an absurd amount of investment and thus is currently handling these things.

Nobody claims that you can't change it tomorrow. But the question is what is possible if you do things like proper land use and transportation planning.

And we have very good evidence that highways are inefficient and unhealthy.

> Tell people to not go places, so that there's less passenger traffic on roads?

This is pretty much the stated aim of my local council in London - they have a target to reduce car journeys by x% by 2030 or so. They want to achieve this by basically increasing journey times by adding congestion, removing lanes etc.

I find it incredibly dystopian.

A very cherry picked point of view. Here are the actual goals:

"Reducing car use and increasing cycling levels will help address many of the challenges we face, including the climate crisis, air pollution, health and inactivity, road danger, congested roads, and fairer access to amenities, jobs and services. It will enable children to travel independently, create more pleasant streets and strengthen the economic recovery of our town centres and high streets. As we emerge from the pandemic, cycling, walking, wheeling* and public transport will help us achieve the goals that will ensure London’s success."

"The UK must significantly reduce its carbon emissions to meet its legally binding goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and avoid the worst effects of climate change. The Mayor has set an ambitious goal for London to become carbon neutral by 2030. Transport is responsible for more than a quarter of London’s carbon emissions, although this proportion is increasing as other sectors decarbonise more quickly The electrification of London’s buses, now the greenest fleet in Europe, and the rollout of charging points will help reduce emissions, but this will not be enough. Even if all new vehicles are electric by 2030, transport emissions are still likely to exceed what is needed to limit global warming by 1.5°C without substantial traffic reduction. Swapping private cars for sustainable modes is therefore essential."

(https://content.tfl.gov.uk/cycling-action-plan.pdf)

TfL are not my local council. My local council has an explicit goal to reduce car journeys by a percentage.

"Just add one more lane. I swear, we're gonna fix traffic, just let me build one more lane. Just one more lane bro, please."

I don't know where you got your percentages from, but here's a graph of passenger capacity across different modes of transport: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Passenge...

By the way, wanna see something embarrassing? https://youtu.be/T3LLgzO_PrI?t=234. Japan had 100% safe, 100% punctual, high speed and throughput trains figured out in 1964.

"Over the Shinkansen's 50-plus year history, carrying over 10 billion passengers, there have been no passenger fatalities due to train accidents such as derailments or collisions, despite frequent earthquakes and typhoons."

Like I said, embarrassing.

Now do population density of Japan vs the US, or even the size of all of Japan vs various American states.

Maybe watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lupWYQdDgQ

Looking at states is stupid, because 'states' don't limit where people live.

If you look at regions where people live, the US is brilliant for trains and high speed trains.

Population density of whole region isn't as relevant as you think. The most relevant are metropolitan areas and areas of high traffic corridors. That is where trains and mass transit make the most sense.

> Trucks carry something like 60% of the freight in the US. You could say that rail should carry more of it...

Interestingly, the US carries a higher proportion of freight by rail than Europe does.

Some people in the US like to pat themself on the back about this. The reality isn't that impressive.

Because the US has basically no passengers on the rails, its of course far easier to get things on the rails. Given that the US basically doesn't have passenger, the number are not that great.

Plus, Europe has ocean on 3 sides and generally a much longer coastline so lots of stuff that in the US uses rail, in Europe simply uses water transport.

In general a lot more things simply use local resources, for historical and political reasons.

Switzerland for example matches the US in terms of cargo modal share. But if you look what we had to do to achieve this high % while still having very large passenger numbers its incredibly hard. Basically it requires a concerted effort by government to prevent road use and to have a concert policy of all government and private institutions working together to enable it.

If you compare the US freight system to a actual peer competitor, the Soviet Union, the US doesn't look that great:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/RailUSAv...

If the US actually had a concert policy of increasing modal share of rail compared to road freight transport, the US could do so, so much more. It would be a great thing for the environment and everybody in the US.

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