You don't need to drive cross the whole state for your daily commute, do you?
> along with the EU being more densely populated
Reversing cause-and-effect, here. Suburban sprawl happens because of the car-centric development, not the other way around.
I've done this before in America. It's over twice as cheap to drive than take a train.
Yeah, I can also take a plane from Germany to England and pay less than what it costs me for the taxi that I will need to get to the airport. Does that mean that flying EasyJet should be considered the most efficient means of transportation?
What exactly are you trying to argue, here?
- That the cost of one train ticket is higher than the cost of a car trip?
- For one single passenger or for a family?
- In the US or overall?
- Are externalities factored in?
I'm arguing that in America the only reason to take a train for me is for the novelty factor. Novelty isn't enough to garner a ton of investment to get rail built.
Sure, if you are willing to disregard all of the environmental and health costs associated with car-centric development, then there is no reason to invest in rail.
If you are willing to ignore the more than 40 thousand people that die on car crashes per year in the US, then there is no reason to invest in rail.
If you are willing to ignore the fact that all cities are going bankrupt because they don't get enough in property taxes to maintain the roads and basic infrastructure in the suburbs, then there is no reason to invest in rail.
If you don't care about the fact that your kids are growing completely isolated because they can't go anywhere unless they have someone driving them around, then there is no reason to invest in rail.
I just checked on Amtrak and you can get a train from Seattle to Spokane for $37 in July. This website suggests a comparable cost for driving: https://www.travelmath.com/cost-of-driving/from/Seattle,+WA/... . That seems to be based purely on fuel costs, not counting the marginal costs of insurance and maintenance.
Using the same method, I can get Amtrak from Seattle to Chicago at $169, vs $300 drivings costs.
- most travel is within the local polity, e.g. suburbs to work & back, social activities, etc. The radius for these is not hugely different between the US and the EU.
- it's the European train network at this point, not one country's, and it needs to be one US system too, not one state's.
Yes, trains are hard in the US Midwest. But not on the west coast, and not in the larger east coast area either.
Hell, even in the Paris region, outside the closest suburbs, there are only a few train lines going into Paris. At best you'll need to ride a bus or two to grab one, but most often you'll take your car.
I ran some rough calculations and this is true but the distinction is perhaps not as great as you imagine.
USA has land mass 9.1 million km2 50 states => 182000 km2 per state
EU has land mass 4.2 million km2 and 27 countries => 156000 km2 per country
The average EU country is 87% the size of the average US state.