• Neato ( Neato@kbin.social ) 
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    168
    ·
    3 years ago

    Hyperloop was invented to try to kill light rail. It succeeded at killing Maryland’s new venture and Illinois’. Neither were built because Hyperloop promised bullshit. Elon hates public transport.

  • This is misleadingly reductionist. California high speed rail has made consistant progess in that time. That progress has been slower than ourslowest expectations. It demonstrates the void of expertise the US has in rail megaprojects. However, that expertise is being built, slowly and painfully. Its still forward progress for a nation which tore up half its rail overthe last 50 years.

    • America invented rail megaprojects.

      America still has the largest rail network by far. It’s well more than twice the size of China’s.

      The only interesting note is that it’s almost all freight compared to other nations’ use of passenger rail.

      • corship ( corship@feddit.de ) 
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        3 years ago

        Hehehehe

        With 0.92% of electrified rail it’s a joke to say that NGL. Absolute numbers are meaningless.

        You have to see it into perspective per area then you’ll get to feel how dense and therefore useful the rail network actually is. Because what good is a rail network if you can’t reach your desired location.

        And then you’ll see that swiss, Germany and Luxembourg for example end up with less than 10 square km per km of rail while the usa has around 40.

          • Youki ( Youki@feddit.de ) 
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            17
            ·
            3 years ago

            That still is not correct.

            Planning a high speed high throughput flexible passenger rail network is a whole different beast than laying non-electrified single track lines in a straight line through the middle of nowhere that basically only serves the occasional 2miles long freight train.

            The parameters are vastly different and almost incomparable. And America has decidedly no expertise left in the former.

            • Other than the fact that there are several American firms who have already done it, and even if there was a knowledge deficit it’s the easiest thing in the world for an American company to headhunt foreign talent. Too easy in most industries.

              Opposition to new railways is political, be it from establishment organizations or private owners, like in California. That’s all there is to it.

              • Youki ( Youki@feddit.de ) 
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                3 years ago

                Which ones? Which company actually has put out a consistent, significant, structurally sound high speed rail network including stations and the trains themselves that is based in the US?

                And headhunting foreign talent tells me that you have not worked in the rail planning sector. These companies are extraordinarily protective of their high value who are the executive “talent” behind their stuff. And the biggest rail tech companies are multinational conglomerates (Alstombardier, Siemens, CRRC, Hitachi) who have no desire or need to outsource to America.

                There is noone currently who has both intimate knowledge of American geodetic planning and high stress track planning. And building that knowledge takes a lot of trial and error.

        • Kusimulkku ( Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ) 
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 years ago

          Absolute numbers are meaningless.

          You have to see it into perspective per area then you’ll get to feel how dense and therefore useful the rail network actually is

          Same goes for the meme tbqh

    • Yep. All while getting resistance the entire way in spite of the fact that the US regularly funds without question the expansion of highways and building of interstates. Slowly but surely there does seem to be a growing appetite for rail transit throughout the nation and it is possible for more upgraded corridors to be built and if the US can keep momentum up the lessons learned in california can be applied in building rail elswherre

  • COASTER1921 ( COASTER1921@lemmy.ml ) 
    cake
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    3 years ago

    It’s much easier to build rail in places that weren’t designed around cars. Even in rural China people live in condos and apartments with parks between. This helps with NIMBYism and combined with the already large amount of green space left in Chinese cities such systems can be built with the only real concern being the engineering itself. But China is also in a good position for that, as their workforce is incredibly well educated with more engineering talent than they can even fully employ domestically. All that PLUS the political will of a single party state meant it was a very different situation than California.

    And that’s before you even consider ridership, where even the best possible SF to LA route would still pretty much require you to get a car or taxi once you get to LA (because LA was basically torn down and redesigned for cars).