>>1604796>>1604797No doubt about that. Despite being labeled a cagetroll on here, I realize that cars are great but cannot keep expanding infinitely. However, like most issues on the internet, its posed as a black and white, cars vs trains issue, but that’s not the case. I am not a fan of trains, I think the fact that they’re stuck on steel rails and rely on massive infrastructure to be able to go anywhere are a huge disadvantage. If building trains becomes the norm, cities would have to be reshaped around the limitations of trains, hence the upzoning and rail meme. You can’t have rail without upzoning, because not enough people would live near enough to the stations for it to be practical. Cities should be structured around maximizing the well-being of the residents, not around getting people to use trains. Not to mention the billions it costs and years it takes to create a new line. That’s why I shill against them so hard, because trains are an antiquated solution to the problem of urban mobility from 200 years ago.
For some reasons trains are always presented as the panacea, but i don’t see why. They’re expensive and rigid and require completely reconstructing cities around their flaws. I think we need to start to think about other solutions for urban mobility that people seem to like more than the public transit of today, as there are many studies that show transit commuters are miserable compared to car drivers. That’s why i think things like mopeds are great, all the advantages of a car but they cut down on all of the wasted space of a vehicle designed for multiple people, being driven by one person. In fact, smaller, single seat cars would be a huge improvement as most commuters commuters alone anyways. Things like monetary incentives to carpool from the government would be awesome too. If a new train is like over a billion dollars why can’t you just give people a tax break based on how many people they can drive to work per day.
