me_irl
me_irl
edit: fixed alt text
156 comments
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It doesn't need to go high speed, I was in a train a few years ago and the conductor on the loud speaker said "if you look on your left, you will be happy to be in a train and not stuck in a traffic jam." Everyone looked and the highway was completely stuck. Really Really long traffic jam. Everyone started giggling.
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I wish the train was affordable
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The one thing Germany did right in the last like 20 years: Deutschlandticket. One ticket, 49€ per month, regional/local public transport for all of Germany. I can literally take a bus from my apartment to the train station, hop on an RE train and go wherever I want, and then take the local bus in that town.
It doesn't include long haul highspeed trains, but the regional trains will still get you almost everywhere.
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Ask climate friendly taxing. Plane fuel isn't taxed right now but trains are.
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Same. It's crazy that taking a car, with all the waste that implies, is somehow the cheaper option in some reasons.
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This is the case in Germany, and it's glorious. The fastest people on the Autobahn drive around 200 km/h, whereas the trains sometimes travel at 320 km/h. Always fun to see the slow cars!
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Likewise Spain with the AVE. Cars are speed limited to 130 max I think, so it looks like the cars are stopped.
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I don't know if Deutsche Bahn is the best example of this. ICE's maximum speed only means you usually end up leaving when you are supposed to be arriving.
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god, driving at 200km/h is so insane
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Ya, I also wish those slowpokes would get out of my way…
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No, driving a moving truck (that's small enough to not full under the separate speed limit for trucks) at 200km/h is insane. Seen that before ^^
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Stuttgart - Köln is one of the connections that go max speed, and it really is glorious.
But I don't think there's actually that many places the ICE can go that fast, is there?
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I posted this comment already elsewhere in this thread, but lemme quote myself:
The ICE's max speed depends on model and variies from 250km/h to 300km/h. These speeds can be reached on:
- Hannover-Würzburg (280km/h)
- Mannheim-Stuttgart (280km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (250km/h)
- Siegburg-Frankfurt (300km/h)
- Köln-Düren (250km/h)
- Rastatt-Offenburg & Schliengen-Haltingen (250km/h)
- Nürnberg-Ingolstadt (300km/h)
- Ebensfeld-Leipzig/Halle (300km/h)
- Wendlingen-Ulm (250km/h)
There are more of these tracks currently under construction:
- Stuttgart-Wendlingen (250km/h)
- Bashaide-Rastatt (250km/h)
And many more are currently in the planning stage:
- Hamm-Bielefeld (300km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (300km/h)
- Ulm-Augsburg (300km/h)
- Gelnhausen-Fulda (250km/h)
- Frankfurt-Mannhein (300km/h)
- Bielefeld-Hannover (300km/h)
- Nürnberg-Würzburg (300km/h)
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Sometimes? How about this decade old French record?
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Do all trains in France always drive that fast? If not it's also sometimes, so...
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That works. The local L trains running along side the highway in Chicago got me, seeing 5 trains roll by while barley moving in bumper to bumper gave me the final push to covert to public transit
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This is what infuriates me on every interstate freeway drive is that Eisenhower didn't just lay tracks along the median of every intestate. If we had done it then, we'd have an entire network for the most heavily utilized corridors with natural station locations.
It isn't even about being stuck in traffic, it's also about the mind-numbing expanse that would be much more enjoyable if I didn't have to pay attention.
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As a California native who has commuted 2hrs a day to work for decades, but got to live in the UK for a year: I was way more productive when I commuted by light rail/subway.
Instead of looking out for aholes looking to break check, cut you off, deny you changing lanes; I was able to respond to emails, make some calls and even have a descent breakfast off the morning truck while sitting in a wifi available seat traveling into London from Gatwick each day. Way less stressful overall.
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I'm in Montréal, my commute by subway is slower than by car most of the time.
But I get 20 minutes of walking and fresh air and either watch an episode of TV or read a couple chapters of a book. It's also consistently the same time every time by subway. Feels much better.
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The median would probably be dangerous because of the tendency of automobiles to deroad
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My city has had these since 1989-90. In all that time, I have never heard of a car crashing into the tracks.
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They essentially would need to expand the median, which would add even more cost to the system I think it would have been worth it, but they would need barriers on both sides of the rail it wouldn't just be road rail road, it would be road | rail | road
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Frankfurt - Cologne: about twice as fast by train then by car.
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Is that the one ICE track where it can actually come near its max speed?
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The ICE's max speed depends on model and variies from 250km/h to 300km/h. These speeds can be reached on:
- Hannover-Würzburg (280km/h)
- Mannheim-Stuttgart (280km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (250km/h)
- Siegburg-Frankfurt (300km/h)
- Köln-Düren (250km/h)
- Rastatt-Offenburg & Schliengen-Haltingen (250km/h)
- Nürnberg-Ingolstadt (300km/h)
- Ebensfeld-Leipzig/Halle (300km/h)
- Wendlingen-Ulm (250km/h)
There are more of these tracks currently under construction:
- Stuttgart-Wendlingen (250km/h)
- Bashaide-Rastatt (250km/h)
And many more are currently in the planning stage:
- Hamm-Bielefeld (300km/h)
- Oebisfelde-Berlin (300km/h)
- Ulm-Augsburg (300km/h)
- Gelnhausen-Fulda (250km/h)
- Frankfurt-Mannhein (300km/h)
- Bielefeld-Hannover (300km/h)
- Nürnberg-Würzburg (300km/h)
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Let me present: the new constructed high speed rail line Wendlingen-Ulm, next to Autobahn 8.
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With up to 200km/h (125mp/h for you american folk) with regular trains and even more with our high speed trains!
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You can run so many cancelled trains on that bad boy
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Also, in the US this could help bypass land-use issues. If you use the right-of-way the interstate highways already have, you don’t need to have a legal fight over building on privately held land.
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It's pretty easy to expropriate (eminent domain) those, at least in Canada.
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Yeah, I figured it would be different in different countries. I live in Texas, where a promised high-speed line between Dallas and Houston has been stalled by landowners telling the state to fuck off. If they had asked the Obama administration to let them use the interstates, it would probably be in construction already.
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There actually was a transportation agency that had an ad campaign oriented around this idea. Basically people in the cars saw the train going by so fast and felt jealous because they were stuck in their cars.
Anyone remember what agency put this on?
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I have no idea, but I remember a great ad DB brought out: A picture of cars bumper to bumper in a traffic jam, under it "Bumper to bumper is definitely the right approach. Now safely accelerate to 300km/h".
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They did this where I am from, but the high speed trains cost way too much yo be worth it and they never travel at their full speed and are about the same speed as a car.
You also HAVE to drive to the train station. And by the time you wait for the train and pay for parking, you might as well just drive into the city.
In fact, it hardly saves time or money and often ends up being about the same cost and time.
Also the last train leaves the city shortly after the work day ends. So if you work late or get held up, then you are not going home or paying a crap ton for a Uber home.
It’s just fucked and I hate that it is that way.
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"High speed rail" means intercity rail (think airplane or Greyhound bus replacement), not commuter rail or metro rail. That makes sense to put along a freeway because there's generally only one direct freeway connection between each pair of major metro areas.
I agree that it doesn't make sense to put commuter rail or metro rail adjacent to a freeway. Ideally, it would be the opposite: the routes radiating from the city should have the freeways and rail lines spread as far apart from each other as possible, so that commuters in different areas have good access to either one mode or the other, rather than some having good access to both and others neither.
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they never travel at their full speed
Why? Too much risk someone will be close to the tracks?
If following Hanlon's razor, that entire situation sounds like someone proposed "we need trains going into the city", set it up, and called it a day.
The train I usually take saves maybe only like 15 minutes (normally about an hour to drive), but at least you can do more stuff on the train rather than sitting at the wheel.
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Number of reasons, risk of trespassing at a large number of crossings is only one of them:
- Too many curves
- Old tracks
- Narrower right of way
- Poor maintenance
- Old bridges and tunnels
- Travelling behind lumbering freight trains
- Too many trains at central station
- Said central train station has a 100 year old electro-mechanical switching station (Looking at you, Toronto Union)
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If it is the same time and cost, you still save on time where you don't need to focus on the street or even worse. You can read something, prepare other stuff or just do nothing and relax.
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In Illinois, there is an Amtrak line from Chicago to St Louis that isn't high speed, but it is "higher speed." It has stretches that it goes 110mph. Not hugely fast, but much faster than the 65-70mph speed limit on the interstate, it is alongside much of the way. I've rode it once, and it was cool to look out the window and watch as we passed by cars with ease. I've only had a taste, and it makes me want more.
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I've ridden that I've when I went to siue. The train was never on time, being hours late. Also we always had to pull over to let other freight trains through. Amazing really needs to find a way to own it's rails.
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Amtrak is actively building dedicated rails in quite a few places
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I agree with all of that. And that's why part of Biden's infrastructure plan was Amtrak upgrades and line additions.
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Joke's on you, I have a humiliation kink
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You can experience this in multiple parts of Los Angeles. Don't tell anyone. It's fucking glorious.
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no but that's the best part: you SHOULD tell everyone, the more people using the trains the higher frequency you get and if there's enough demand you get higher speed services too!
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This modification with perpendicular seats in carriage and on-demand open is used on line 4, where this probably was filmed.
All other lines have parallel seats only and open all doors on platforms.
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Glorious
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In California, any time I have seen an Amtrack train going the same direction as me on the freeway, I was passing it, never the other way around.
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America's rail is almost all low-speed or higher-speed (125-150 mph, but much lower average speeds)
For comparison, China has built ~20,000 miles of HSR, much of which goes up to 220, some lines averaging 200 mph.
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That would be because Amtrak is not a high-speed rail. They barely maintain their rails and so they have to go quite slowly.
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Amtrak only owns tracks in the DC area. Everywhere else, the rails are all privatized
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Public transportation in the US is abysmal.
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We have the opposite problem in Atlanta. The Marta train only goes about 40mph, so even in pretty heavy traffic, cars will be flying past it. It's fucking ridiculous they don't make it faster.
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MARTA trains hit at least 70 between e.g. Arts Center and Lindbergh or Buckhead and Medical Center (among other segments). Go stand up front next to the conductor compartment and take a look -- there's a big MPH readout right in the middle of the console that's easy to see from the door.
(Also, don't forget that this meme is about high-speed rail (intercity), which is not the same thing a subway system like MARTA (intracity).)
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The segment between Perimeter mall and Buckhead that goes between the lanes of hwy 400 is where I always see traffic zipping past it.
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That problem is, it's not up to us when to build these rails and where.
The states need their car registration $$$
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Sadly the car registration and other car related taxes, don't even cover the costs of maintaining car infrastructure. So it's no even a good reason.
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Highways are a great way to install new regional transit. Brightline West is going to link Los Angeles to Las Vegas in the median of interstate 15. That highway is a total mess on weekends and this new line is expected to drastically reduce traffic with big convenience wins given its average speed of 101mph/165kph. And the project is funding wildlife overpasses and other habitat improvements.
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I'm actually pretty hungry for this.
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Hangry, even.
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I do need it now.
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Why do you want to make people feel bad on purpose?
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Carbrains go out of their way to make pedestrians and cyclists feel bad on purpose, and society subsidizes their planet-burning nonsense and needlessly plans cities around humoring their personalized pollution machines.
Fuck 'em.
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To encourage them to engage in better behaviors when they can
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what is your preferred strategy for making people make better decisions
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Make options better. If two cities are linked by highway and objectively better rail line and majority of people still choose to travel on highway then there is a problem somewhere, but building second train line next to highway wont solve anything.
Otherewise if two cities are connected only with highway, then why how people travelling on it would make worse decision if it was their only option?
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They're not people, they're drivers.
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Nah because they know it would be close to the same after having to wait for the train to arrive.
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Driving time is dead time. Train time is time that can be used for reading, napping, watching something on your phone, whatever
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I mean waiting for the train to arrive because they are on very exact schedules, so most people won't be able to get everywhere at the time they need to be.
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End to end travel time is the biggest drawback of public transportation. Getting from my city to the next major city is an 8 min train ride or a 20 min drive. But getting from my home to my friends in that city is easily twice as fast by car.
It's a huge problem. If you live next to the train station and like to go to a pub right next to your destination's train station, all is well. But for those who like to visit friends instead of going to the nearest pub, public transportation just kinda falls apart.
My wife wanted to pick up our dog that was staying with me at a friend's place before coming home from work. Because the friend lives a little bit outside of the major city it would have been a 2h20m train ride for the whole trip. Or 30 min by car.
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My brother in Christ, this is the exact reason why we are pushing for better public transportation and reduced car dependency.
We dream of a world where, god forbid your car breaks down, you can make it to work within roughly the same amount of time whether you walk, bike, or take the bus. And this isn't even a fantasy, this dream is alive and well in The Netherlands, Japan, even fucking Disneyland.
We just need to actually start taking Public Transit seriously in this country so that it can improve.
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Getting from my city to the next major city is an 8 min train ride or a 20 min drive.
No it's not. You're talking about getting from one part of your metro area to another part of the same metro area. It's all the same city, regardless of arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries. High-speed rail (what this thread is about) is for traveling between different metro areas that would be hours apart by car.
Anyway, you're not complaining about rail so much as you're complaining about poor last-mile connectivity (which is better served by micromobility than transit).
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Tell me you've never used Amtrak without telling me you've never used Amtrak. Waiting on the train is not the part that takes time. There are no security checkpoints or any of the security theater that goes on at airports. You don't have to arrive 45+ minutes early to a train.
156 comments