Do it, we shouldn’t even be sending this much shit by long haul trucking anyway. Let’s revive CONRAIL under USPS, deliver more goods by freight rail, and just use small and medium trucks for last mile deliveries. Oh, and demolish urban interstates. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I propose taking two lanes from each interstate everywhere in the US and converting them into Mid-Speed Rail (90-120 mph) for longer distances and HSR where it makes sense.
My only issues would be areas with 2 lanes or less in each direction (>4 total), heavy thoroughfares/interchanges (ie where would you put the stations/would station transfers be easy to make/would location make sense), and last mile (often once I travel outside a city where I am going may be 20+ miles away from the highway exit).
In Switzerland, you cannot build any kind of major logistics facility without rail access.
In the US, local rail connection isn’t even CONSIDERED when specifying logistics facilities. Even when they are being SHOWERED with tax and infrastructure subsidies to build economically-destructive machines.
The only developed nation to have mostly privately-owned rail and right-of-way. It makes sense when you remember easily half of the country actively wants all cities to fail and collapse.
Tbf, the major freight carriers in the US blow ass to try and do business with. They’re almost all being run like vulture capital operations, not trying to grow and flat-out ignoring cost centers.
A big part of that, in my opinion, is because they own the track and right-of-way. It creates a VERY robust natural monopoly in a field that is already predisposed to natural monopoly.
In other countries, even deregulated ones, the state still owns the track and right of way. It an operator isn’t doing a job, a competing operator can be given a license or pay the fee and use the track and just blow them up. The state can be responsible for maintenance of the infrastructure and safety features either directly, through a PPP, or by requiring the work be done by the licensed operators as part of their fee structure. But with essentially private ROW and track, you lose almost all power.
Shout out to the fuckwits in Cincinnati selling off their incredibly valuable resource for pennies on the dollar.
Do it, we shouldn’t even be sending this much shit by long haul trucking anyway. Let’s revive CONRAIL under USPS, deliver more goods by freight rail, and just use small and medium trucks for last mile deliveries. Oh, and demolish urban interstates. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
While we’re aiming high I want large-scale, modern and fast interstate passenger rail
I propose taking two lanes from each interstate everywhere in the US and converting them into Mid-Speed Rail (90-120 mph) for longer distances and HSR where it makes sense.
My only issues would be areas with 2 lanes or less in each direction (>4 total), heavy thoroughfares/interchanges (ie where would you put the stations/would station transfers be easy to make/would location make sense), and last mile (often once I travel outside a city where I am going may be 20+ miles away from the highway exit).
In Switzerland, you cannot build any kind of major logistics facility without rail access.
In the US, local rail connection isn’t even CONSIDERED when specifying logistics facilities. Even when they are being SHOWERED with tax and infrastructure subsidies to build economically-destructive machines.
The only developed nation to have mostly privately-owned rail and right-of-way. It makes sense when you remember easily half of the country actively wants all cities to fail and collapse.
Tbf, the major freight carriers in the US blow ass to try and do business with. They’re almost all being run like vulture capital operations, not trying to grow and flat-out ignoring cost centers.
A big part of that, in my opinion, is because they own the track and right-of-way. It creates a VERY robust natural monopoly in a field that is already predisposed to natural monopoly.
In other countries, even deregulated ones, the state still owns the track and right of way. It an operator isn’t doing a job, a competing operator can be given a license or pay the fee and use the track and just blow them up. The state can be responsible for maintenance of the infrastructure and safety features either directly, through a PPP, or by requiring the work be done by the licensed operators as part of their fee structure. But with essentially private ROW and track, you lose almost all power.
Shout out to the fuckwits in Cincinnati selling off their incredibly valuable resource for pennies on the dollar.
Oh, there’s gotta be some kind of “collusion” or “racketeering” charge there.