Not so friendly reminder that musk specifically came up with, and pushed, for hyperloop knowing that it would never be made, as an effort to stop the development of highspeed rail in America and shift all political discussions of it because “something better is around the corner”:
As I’ve written in my book, Musk admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it. Several years ago, Musk said that public transit was “a pain in the ass” where you were surrounded by strangers, including possible serial killers, to justify his opposition.
Also: 2024 update, the total length of China’s high-speed rail tracks has now reached well over 45,000 km, or 28,000 miles, by the end of 2023.
They are additionally five years ahead of schedule and expect to double the total number within ten years. And, before someone inevitably complains about “how expensive it is”, they are turning over a net-profit of over $600M USD a year.
Serious question: Aside from the obvious reasons (oil and car lobby), what is preventing the US from adopting and building high speed rail infrastructure? I would much rather take a 4 hour trip on a comfortable train than my cramp Acura.
This is all just stuff that came off the top of my head. I don’t know if it is all valid or not.
Don’t get me wrong I would fucking love to have a extensive, reliable high speed rail in the US I just don’t think it will happen without huge push from the voters and I’m skeptical that will happen.
“That’s communism!”
No, really.
For example, Minnesota (and to a lesser extent Wisconsin) keeps planning light rail/high speed rail projects but they keep getting killed by Republicans who take office. Why do they kill it? Mostly i don’t think they say, or make some vague claims about “budget” (while providing no actual explanation or justification). However, if you listen to their base it’s because they believe trains are communist and communism is bad.
In particular, the big push in Wisconsin for expanding Amtrak (not even high speed rail) circa 2010 was killed by Republicans taking office. The trains themselves were already paid for, but they never took delivery. So the state paid all the costs for nothing, and IIRC, it was actually more expensive to cancel it at that stage.
I recently took the Amtrak from Columbus, WI to Minneapolis. Even as limited and poorly implemented as Amtrak is compared to European rail, it was still a more pleasant experience than either flying or driving. I always feel exhausted after a flight; even though you’re not physically doing much, the whole process is so unpleasant that I need to collapse in bed afterwords. Didn’t feel that way at all on Amtrak.
Can’t have nice things for poor people.
Rich people will just fly everywhere.
I lived in Korea for a while and the biggest difference is how our cities are set up from the get go.
Korean cities are dense. NY dense. Buildings generally go up instead of out. Shops on the base floors, but also a lot of commercial buildings with 5+ levels of shops.
You generally don’t have to walk more than a mile in any direction to get anything you need at any hour of the day, even in smaller satellite cities. There’s usually at least a corner shop or two within a few hundred feet of your apartment entrance.
Subways are generally within a 10~15 minute walk. That connects you to anywhere in the greater Seoul area. Cabs are plentiful, you can hail one down on any major street in minutes if not seconds if you’re in a hurry. The cities are designed around walking. Wide sidewalks, overpasses everywhere, and the density makes it so anywhere you go feels a bit like walking in an outdoor shopping mall would in the US. You can’t walk more than a quarter mile without hitting another cluster of shops.
The area I lived in probably had a 100+ shops in a 2 mile(?) radius and it was a smaller city in the outskirts of Seoul called Buchun. Everything from smaller corner stores to chain restaurants & Korean versions of multi-story Walmart/Costco etc. I’m guesstimating a bit, but I never walked longer than 30 minutes to get to anything I needed.
Sure, you can drive, but walking works just fine. No one NEEDS a car if you live in a city in Korea.
The high speed rails just complements all this infrastructure to connect the cities. We don’t have any of the other stuff necessary to really make this work the same way. That last mile is the killer. If you need to drive to the rail, ride it, get off and find another car to your final destination, most folks would just opt to drive the whole way. Especially if you also factor in the return trip, or the need any degree of flexibility.
In the US, high speed rail would almost function like a plane. In Asia, it’s more like… one part of a comprehensive public transportation system.
I live in Austin in one of the expensive areas considered to be ‘walkable’, but the closest bagel shop from my house is still a 10 minute walk away. If I want to get to the breakfast place I like, it’s 20 minutes from my front door. Only thing I pass in between those two are a bunch of tattoos shops and I think a yoga studio, and some architect firm. Oh, I guess we have a few food trucks now too. They’re usually closed in the mornings when I walk anywhere.
The rest of it is just houses. If I wanted to get to the downtown rail station, it’s a 30 minute walk and I have to walk under the highway and get accosted by homeless folks on occasion. (Most of them are cool, there’s a few that are not).
Oh, and there’s no shade anywhere and it’s Texas. Five months out of the year we hit 90~100+ degrees and you’d need a change of clothes by the time you get anywhere you’re going.
American cities are just not designed for it. We have everything spaced too far apart.
Mainly it’s last mile issue. Train gets you to the state, and maybe the city you want, but where do you go from there? Busses are slow and just generally terrible here. Light rail/subways only exist in a handful of metro areas, and the cost of a train ticket here is usually more than the fuel cost to drive, and takes 3x as long.
The cost of the ticket is normally cheaper going into a metro area. You have to sit in traffic and find a parking garage. Find the place to pay the then when the event is over you have MORE traffic to leave then get home.
It’s mentally taxing.
Gonna disagree with you there. I just priced out the cost of going from my house to my brother’s apartment in the same city.
For reference, it is ~11 miles by car, and takes ~15 minutes to drive there. My car gets ~36mpg in city, so roughly 1/3 of a gallon of gas, so about $1.20 in gas right now. Parking is 1 dollar and hour, with a 25 cent service charge.
To take the bus, is almost a 2 hr trip, requires a transfer to a other bus, and it costs around 5-8 bucks (couldn’t get firm pricing for the trip).
It is way faster, cheaper, and less stressful to drive there and park for a few hours than it is to take the bus, and my city has pretty good bus transit compared to the rest of the US. Also I can do the trip anytime I want, and come back anytime I want, and round trip it saves me almost 3.5 hrs of my day.
You’re not driving into a city you’re driving into a town 🤡
Yeah, I guess I have no idea how long a drive that I do frequently takes. As for town, the metro area is a quaint 1.8 million people.
Lobbying and ideology, nothing else. We easily have the capacity to do what china did on a similar time table, especially if we piggy backed on the cleared land for highways. We just don’t.
“rugged individualism” is our culture & tells people they all need one or two cars each so they can move ‘independently’.
The real reason is that it is less profitable, mostly because of how efficient it is. When plane and car fuel prices are sky high, they can tack on an extra 10% and get filthy rich. When they tack on 10% to the cheaper electric trains, they get less filthy rich.
Capitalism, or corporatism in our case, is showing it’s true colors. It is not efficient, it is not the best way to encourage innovation, it is not good for the people it is meant to serve.
I bought a chinese phone recently, the OnePlus Open, and my eyes have been opened. It is 3 years ahead of the American Competition, the Pixel 9ProFold…
Why don’t we just shut up with the sinophobia and ACTUALLY COMPETE???
NAFTA Turned us into an investment economy instead of a manufacturing economy. We are being sold out by wallstreet piece by piece