/n/ - Transportation » Thread #1875379

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Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 15:22:40 No.1875379 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>1875415 >>1875418 >>1875502 >>1875834 >>1876726 >>1876728 >>1877351 >>1879372 >>1879584

What actually happened that in North America the shift towards car culture and the decline of american public transit happened during the interwar era, while in mainland Europe it was primarily a post WWII phenomenon?
Was North America that much richer and better off after WWI compared to Europe?
Is it a matter of the average commuting and traveling distances in NA being so much longer that public transit has a harder time to compete?
Is it because already in the early 20th century NA was pretty suburban in it's urban development?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 19:12:52 No.1875415 Report

Quoted By: >>1875421 >>1875437 >>1875501 >>1876364 >>1876757 >>1877168 >>1878801

>>1875379
In both cases it's mostly post WW2.
The US pretty much ensured it with zoning, the brazenly enforced FHWA regulations and the highway act of 1956. All of which led to the destruction of high and middle density housing in urban areas that was very similar to the Euro urbanism of the era.
This was all heavily influenced by the post WW2 economic boom in the US, which sparked a sort of futurism and reimagining of life itself.
After that they endlessly doubled down until multiple generations knew nothing but the highway and the suburb.
On the other hand, Euros sought to build back what was destroyed and only dabbled in car-centrism in the late 60s and 70s only to backpedal in the 90s.
Sadly, Eastern Euro countries didn't get to backpedal due economic stagnation induced by the collapse of socialism.

All in all, I think the post WW2 economic frenzy and the pursuit of "opulence for everyone" fucked the US irreparably.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 19:35:51 No.1875418 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875379
>Was North America that much richer and better off after WWI compared to Europe?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 19:39:01 No.1875421 Report

Quoted By: >>1876757

>>1875415
Everyone forgets that American cities were shitholes with bad policies and corrupt governments, even in the 20th century. It's the same fallacy with online shopping and brick-and-mortar; most of the failures with brick-and-mortar had rot building in them since the early 1990s.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 19:46:24 No.1875423 Report

Quoted By: >>1876713

American railroads simply didn't want to compete with government regulations whereas highway trucking was mostly unregulated when it came to pricing. Certainly, with highway trucks there were issues getting plates issued from each specific state and a much shorter allowable vehicle length but the government didn't dictate prices. If you're a billionaire you put your money into trucks and built a huge fleet. Truck tech also iterated faster and had more willing labor and could go more places.

Same for cars. If you're a commuter with money, are you taking grandpa's trolley to work or are you buying a new car with heating, air conditioning and locking doors? Then automatic transmissions happened.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 20:56:20 No.1875437 Report

Quoted By: >>1875442

>>1875415
I think the perfect situation is no cars in the innercity, parking on the outskirts with connecting tram/bus, but encourage long distance (within 300mi radius) car usage.
With high speed rail option for those who live inner city but with no car.
Obviously air travel for intercontinental or for areas with poor infrastucture.

Wouldn't be hard to implement in most euro cities, or it already is.
Some US cities it's possible but would need to redesign the streets. But it might be cheaper than maintaining failing highway infrastructure everywhere

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 21:08:39 No.1875442 Report

Quoted By: >>1875448 >>1876370

>>1875437
Why are Yuros so obsessed with the US? They even rage about our damn highways ffs why would anyone outside of the US care about that

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 21:24:00 No.1875448 Report

Quoted By: >>1875450

>>1875442
Your infrastructure is falling apart and needs work

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 13 Dec 2022 21:27:06 No.1875450 Report

Quoted By: >>1875503 >>1876259 >>1876380 >>1878802

>>1875448
That didn't answer the question: what makes America so incredible that you made it a point to know about our highways?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 14 Dec 2022 00:46:19 No.1875501 Report

Quoted By: >>1875516 >>1876239 >>1876337 >>1879089

>>1875415
>In both cases it's mostly post WW2.
By the late 1920s, American railroads were reporting noticeable declines in traffic.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 14 Dec 2022 00:56:19 No.1875502 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875379
>Was North America that much richer and better off after WWI compared to Europe?
Yes. Government was richer (could invest more into automotive infrastructure), business was richer (could invest more into plant expansion), consumers were richer, credit was often easier, and mass production/economies of scale made cars even more relatively affordable.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 14 Dec 2022 01:02:06 No.1875503 Report

Quoted By: >>1875516

>>1875450
>what makes the global superpower and contemporary cultural center of the world so incredible that foreigners feel they are familiar with its inner workings and can comment on it
>for bonus points, when it's the largest historical Carbon Dioxide emitter at a time when countries
>for further bonus points, when the US economy having issues can single-handedly throw the world into devastating recession

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 14 Dec 2022 01:56:57 No.1875516 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875501
>By the late 1920s, American railroads were reporting noticeable declines in traffic.
I agree. Passenger train ridership was on the decline and trolleys were being phased out in favor of buses well before the war. Additionally, many countries had already gotten serious about highway construction and the first expressways were being built pre-WW2.

>>1875503
>when it's the largest historical Carbon Dioxide emitter at a time when countries
Nice try Pablo

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 15 Dec 2022 18:25:28 No.1875834 Report

Quoted By: >>1876279 >>1876388

>>1875379
One thing that's overlooked is that in most cities, the streetcar and interurban companies were private and granted license to operate in public right of way in exchange for locking their fares at five cents. This was fine in the late 19th century when inflation was basically nonexistent and the streetcar companies could make most of their money from developing new land near their lines, but once they had to sustain operations on fares alone less money was available for maintenance, wages, and equipment replacement.
Once the Federal Reserve came into existence in 1913, and then massive inflation happened during WW1, most systems could barely tread water on their fare revenues since they were still locked at a nickel. That lead to a continuous decline that finally came to a head after WW2 when most of them went bankrupt and had to be taken over by municipal mass transit agencies.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 17 Dec 2022 21:00:48 No.1876239 Report

Quoted By: >>1876337

>>1875501
>that ww2 spike tho

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 17 Dec 2022 22:56:35 No.1876259 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875450
>ignorance is strength

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 00:00:58 No.1876279 Report

Quoted By: >>1876355 >>1878542

>>1875834
>Noooo!!! My professor said it was a scandal that involved GM and Standard Oil!

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 07:12:01 No.1876337 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876239
Draft meant people were being ferried from across the country, not for leisure and vacation.

>>1875501
I think the number of freight cars in service is around 1.6 million. Wonder when they started to flatten out/rise instead of dropping off like they did. They also have way higher capacity in tonnage, like closer to 140 tons now, so the freight rail capacity in total has gone way up since the 1950s.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 09:27:46 No.1876355 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876279
One doesn't exclude the other, streetcars were private in Europe as well, and eventually when they went bankrupt some were bought up by the cities and kept running as a public utility. This also happened in San Francisco, or with heaby subways like in New York or Chicago.
GM seized the moment of weakness and pushed towards dismantling streetcars and building more highways, so people would be dependent on cars. What GM did probably had more effect through creating the narrative of STREETCARS BAD CARS GOOD than by actually shutting down systems. Just as NCL only did what was economically logical by closing down streetcars, but its more profound effect was, again, preventing municipalization.
tl;dr GM mostly worked through perception and narrative, but made likely a significant difference in the push of the precarious situation in the right direction

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 10:35:26 No.1876364 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875415
>Sadly, Eastern Euro countries
meh, our public transportation scheme is one of the few things to be jealous about. True that its not on a par with the west eu, but its still a sight to behold

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 11:24:25 No.1876370 Report

Quoted By: >>1879078

>>1875442
Because there are so many burgers on this site. I make fun of my next neighbour counties and my own too but mostly in other places and languages. If you only read english shitposts most will be about english speaking countries I guess.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 13:09:26 No.1876380 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875450
communism really doesn't work so we need a story to tell ouselves about why it's better than some imaginary greater failure, ideally one that's far away and hard to check

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 13:58:18 No.1876383 Report

Quoted By: >>1876391 >>1876417 >>1876937

car culture is a meme. The real reason why American public transport is in absolute shambles is because:
a) there is no demand for it anymore because you're fine with a car;
b) public transport isn't run by private companies which can raise capital and make any profit, thus being taken over by the local or federal authorities, who steal federal funds and spend more on minority hiring programs than on proper cleaning and maintenance;
c) oh yeah and the amerifats who shill for public transport totally support everything in the previous point, and come here to keep screeching about car culture.

t. yuropoor without a driver's license

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 14:54:55 No.1876388 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875834
Thanks for bringing up the nickel fare. Raising fares by changing laws or charters was the equivalent to raising gas taxes today—political suicide. The traction companies were mostly run by corrupt local robber barons and their labor practices were atrocious. Mainline railroad workers had powerful unions by then but each city system was isolated and striking workers could easily be crushed by scabs and goon squads. The average person had a low opinion of street railway companies and few years were shed when they started floundering in the 1920s.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 15:27:50 No.1876391 Report

Quoted By: >>1876476

>>1876383
>muh minority programs
>talking about a trend which started in the 1930s
Ah yes, the liberal woketards and diversity hiring programs of the 1930s...
Get a grip

Also if both roads and public transit were privatized, we'd have far higher transit ridership. Much of the high utilization of private cars is due to public subsidy.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 18:14:26 No.1876417 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876383
> there is no demand for it anymore
Yeah, there's no demand for it. Not like even LA is spending billions on it.
>public transport isn't run by private companies which can raise capital and make any profit
One of the key differences between what happened, say, in Western Europe and the US was that the European governments took over transit systems like streetcars from private operators; the US let them go bankrupt. They were replaced either with buses (which got no special handling) or with nothing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 18 Dec 2022 23:47:48 No.1876476 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876391
>Much of the high utilization of private cars is due to public subsidy.
At least the government got something right

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 05:04:21 No.1876713 Report

Quoted By: >>1876756 >>1878558 >>1882108

>>1875423
I don't think trucking is really the comparison to make, the US has probably the world's best rail freight network and trucking mostly fills the gaps where trains aren't ideal. ("Last mile," small loads, express stuff, oversize loads that won't fit the rail loading gauge, etc.) People go on and on about how the US supposedly doesn't do trains, but in fact we absolutely do and it's just that we made the decision to focus on freight transport rather than passengers.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 08:33:00 No.1876726 Report

Quoted By: >>1882109

>>1875379
When I lived in Boston, I heard from many longtime residents that they voted against extending the red line beyond Harvard square initially because they didn't want blacks from Dorchester coming up there. It's also the main reason why urban ethnic whites left the city and moved to the suburbs in the 50s-60s, so I believe it's a reasonable explanation. No one saw transit access as a positive until the 00s when crime got under control finally.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 08:38:28 No.1876728 Report

Quoted By: >>1876885

>>1875379
>all these posts and no one is mentioning the glaringly obvious racial reasons for why suburbs exploded in the 50s
Europe is going to find out this century why people started valuing single family homes with access to "good schools" suddenly en masse mid-century.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 11:19:11 No.1876756 Report

Quoted By: >>1876826

>>1876713
>trucking mostly fills the gaps where trains aren't ideal.
And in reality, that isn't true in the slightest, even for long-distance shipping.
>s just that we made the decision to focus on freight transport rather than passengers
And in reality, the importance/relative use/profitability of rail has fallen off a cliff since 1920, to the point where the industry was starved for capital for decades and several of the country's leading rail firms went bankrupt, forcing the government to salvage them lest entire swathes of the country lose all rail service.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 11:24:56 No.1876757 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875421
>Everyone forgets that American cities were shitholes with bad policies and corrupt governments, even in the 20th century.
Suburbanization was already kicking off in the post-World War I era. This is for a variety of reasons but when World War 2 ended, that was what supercharged suburbanization with the GI Bill.

>>1875415
>post WW2 economic frenzy and the pursuit of "opulence for everyone" fucked the US irreparably.
It's a problem that can be undone with enough time and investment. It's a problem with political will since we're still operating off the logic of neoliberal austerity politics where the most prudent policy is to do the status quo since you know that will return a profit eventually. Government isn't throwing around money for urban development and transportation like they were for suburban development in the postwar years.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 20:34:52 No.1876826 Report

Quoted By: >>1876865 >>1876929

>>1876756
>There are trucks hauling shit over 1000 miles and even then it's comparable to rail
That's just downright depressing policy failure.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 22:46:51 No.1876865 Report

Quoted By: >>1876941

>>1876826
Trucking is faster (3-5 business days vs 5-6 on pic related's route), has more flexibility in destination/handling and tolerates single-truckload/LTL substantially better than rail does.
While one observing an American freight train will see hundreds of double-stacked intermodal cars go by, it's clearly only a small (but important for revenue) portion of overall traffic.
Biggest advantages to trains in this case, amazing fuel economy and low crew-carload ratios are countered by the US having diesel prices on par with substantially poorer Brazil and cargo values/cultural time preference high enough to eat the costs of long-distance trucking.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 20 Dec 2022 23:56:57 No.1876885 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876728
you were so close to the answer but ended up somehow with "it was good actually to demolish dense housing for highways and build monotonous SFH sprawl"

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 21 Dec 2022 05:05:51 No.1876929 Report

Quoted By: >>1876941

>>1876826
Smaller loads on trucks and the associated logistics makes it more economical to run trucks 1000 miles. On the other hand, it's very economical to run shorter routes but larger cargo.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 21 Dec 2022 07:24:41 No.1876937 Report

Quoted By: >>1877345

>>1876383
>public transport isn't run by private companies which can raise capital and make any profit,
the last time we let private companies run public transit, they tore all the trolley lines out of the streets and cut off transit access to all the suburbs.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 21 Dec 2022 07:45:35 No.1876941 Report

Quoted By: >>1876968

>>1876865
>amazing fuel economy and low crew-carload ratios are countered by the US having diesel prices on par with substantially poorer Brazil
>>1876929
>more economical to run trucks 1000 miles

You're forgetting that roads are mostly financed by other road users and the taxpayer and that railroads on the other hand have to be covered by freight rail companies in full.
This is a subsidy of massive proportions and no-one can tell me otherwise.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 21 Dec 2022 09:54:27 No.1876954 Report

Quoted By:

These things had constant at grade crossings and only had a top speed of like 30. Basically just expensive busses

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 21 Dec 2022 13:53:18 No.1876968 Report

Quoted By: >>1878559

>>1876941
It is, but it's a non-controversial one at this stage. The wider uses/purposes behind a fully-developed road system are massive. Railroads shouldn't be taxed on land and perhaps should receive credits for trackwork and track expansion, but that's not going to make a major difference. Certainly, one can't increase taxes on diesel without causing substantial economic damage.
>railroads on the other hand have to be covered by freight rail companies in full.
They have operating ratios in the mid-50s. We complain about single-tracking and opportunity costs of not doing greater infrastructural buildout, but clearly the added cost is not substantial. Air cargo is the most expensive of them all, and still captures a high share of value; time/flexibility seems to consistently beat cost.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 22 Dec 2022 07:15:53 No.1877168 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875415
Suburbs were encouraged by the government because they limit the collateral damage of nukes.
That is basically the sole reason.
They were also encouraged by private entities as a kind of new age thing, (to get you to buy more stuff).
However it was the amicable governments that allowed it to grow popular.

The Soviet strategy was to build underground bunkers everywhere.
They also went bankrupt.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 23 Dec 2022 04:39:16 No.1877337 Report

Quoted By:

It's becoming increasingly difficult to bring rail even to areas that had it previously. I'm seeing a lot of railroad ROW being lost to road projects, developers, and "rail to trail" conversions that have me conflicted as I do love my local network of trails but also lament the rail lines that used to be there decades ago.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 23 Dec 2022 06:50:27 No.1877345 Report

Quoted By: >>1877382

>>1876937
Look at Golden Gate Estates near Naples, FL or the big suburb chunk west of Rio Rancho. You couldn't even run five metro lines underground to make people leave their car at home. Suburbs were a mistake.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 23 Dec 2022 08:37:39 No.1877351 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875379
>Was North America that much richer
Car ownership scales with income per capita. Euro reached same levels of income allowing mass car ownership later.
Also not only income but adjusted by purschaing capacity. Ford and his Model T that crushed car prices is American invention.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 23 Dec 2022 14:52:34 No.1877382 Report

Quoted By: >>1878545

>>1877345
Florida is another thing entirely. Whole state was built less as a place to live and more as a themepark.

But outside of that there was a time when suburbs weren't quite a mistake, when neighborhoods were dense enough to walk and when they had dedicated transit lines into town.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Dec 2022 19:33:03 No.1878542 Report

Quoted By: >>1878567

>>1876279
GM was the largest and most valuble company in post war america until the malaise era, if they wanted something, they got it.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Thu 29 Dec 2022 19:44:18 No.1878545 Report

Quoted By:

>>1877382
Those were different kinds of suburbs though, they weren't so ridiculously spread out, and built with more sensible planning as a grid or along main roads with trolley service. They were even called "streetcar suburb".
Modern sprawl is literally designed to be impossible to traverse by foot or served by transit due to low density and impractical street layout.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Dec 2022 20:57:46 No.1878558 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876713
>the US has probably the world's best rail freight network
[citation needed]

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Dec 2022 20:59:18 No.1878559 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876968
the cost isn't the problem
them being run by private companies that do not see a reason to cut profits for societal gains is

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Dec 2022 21:19:50 No.1878567 Report

Quoted By:

>>1878542
>GM was the largest and most valuble company in post war america
And deservedly so, people wanted their products

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 30 Dec 2022 19:50:21 No.1878801 Report

Quoted By: >>1879139

>>1875415
Don’t forget Dwight Eisenhower pushed very hard for a “robust” Nationalized highway system (shortly after receiving the histories greasiest handjob from Henry Ford)

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 30 Dec 2022 19:52:42 No.1878802 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875450
Their decades long terrorism campaign to enforce the worldwide adoption of the petrodollar

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 01 Jan 2023 03:05:08 No.1879078 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876370
>Because there are so many burgers on this site.
Of course there fucking is this site was founded by a American for fucking one as an English speaking image board.

>If you only read english shitposts most will be about english speaking countries I guess.
No one ever bitches about UK, Canada and bit about Australia which have plenty of problems now to bitch about but I guess they forget about Canada at least since it's just America's hat.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 01 Jan 2023 04:53:23 No.1879089 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875501
>late 20s
I wonder what two events were going on in the late 20s that'd cause a lower amount of rail traffic

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 01 Jan 2023 13:24:53 No.1879139 Report

Quoted By:

>>1878801
Why do you keep posting this lie in every thread despite being called out?
Ford died before Eisenhower became president.
Eisenhower was a president in the 50s, 30 years after train travel died.
Cars were already the standard in the 50s.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 15:27:27 No.1879370 Report

Quoted By:

we can look at statistics, ridership numbers, etc. all day, but for anyone who lives in america it should be pretty obvious. Go ride the train in stockholm and then take the new york subway and it will make sense very quickly why everyone in america wants to have a car. Some places are even worse. In seattle nearly every train station has a homeless camp outside of it with tons of drugged, crazy people roaming around the station. Then when you get on the train there is always someone bothering you, "Hey man u got a light? I gotta light this blunt man" and people smoking weed inside the train.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 15:49:39 No.1879372 Report

Quoted By: >>1879381 >>1879391 >>1879415 >>1879416

>>1875379
Because america is really big, and its just unfeasble to build a mastransit system on this scale. roads are cheap to make and its just easier to drive to where you want to go instead of getting on and off busses and trains all day. Big dence cities like new york and chicago do have mastransit systems on par with some euroupean cities, but to do all of america would just be impossibly expensive. Plust 90's of american land is either wild forrest preseves or farms, and there's not exactly a lot of people in the mid bits.

People who ask these questions clearly don't understand how big America is. America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the liquor store, but that's just peanuts to America.

Amtrak, the main public train system for traveling between cities, averaging 90mph non stop still takes at least 3 days to reach from one coast to the other, thats not to meantion having to wait for other rail traffic, since amtrak uses the same railsystem as the freight lines.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 16:24:18 No.1879381 Report

Quoted By: >>1879415

>>1879372
America is huge so building cross country transit would be a difficult task, but by the late 1800s they had already built a few different cross country railroads. I don't think that america could have some sort of super complete train system that can take you from city to city like they have in europe, but obviously they have the money and capability to at least build good train systems within cities or small regions.

I think the reality is that with all the money the car industry poured into lobbying and building highways and halting railway expansion, and the fact that now the entire infrastructure of the country is built around the car, makes an effective train system impossible. In the few american cities in the west where they have tried to implement a train system, it doesn't work, because people just don't want to ride them. It can't take them where they need to go, or maybe it does but people just don't want to deal with the annoyance of having to deal with all the nutjobs that populate train stations.

Like you say, it's annoying taking buses and trains to get where you need to go because everything is built around the car, so you can't just take one train ride and get where you're going, it's a whole mess of poorly coordinated buses and trains and trams that don/t work well and don't run on time, etc. Even if can take you where you need to go it's annoying and it takes 3 times as long as a car. Europe is still built on a much older foundation so everything is crammed much closer together in the cities so you don't have a grocery store 9 miles away from your house, and your job another 9 miles away in a different direction.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 16:56:51 No.1879391 Report

Quoted By: >>1879416

>>1879372
this is nonsense
rail's competition at long distances are planes, not cars

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 18:37:13 No.1879415 Report

Quoted By:

>>1879372
>People who ask these questions clearly don't understand how big America is.
The continental USA has been complete since the 1840s. They weren't exactly driving automobiles around then.
> averaging 90mph non stop
It doesn't even do this on the Northeast Corridor. The highest peak speed you'll generally see outside of that region is ~79 mph, before a host of regulations regarding higher speeds kick in.
>>1879381
Much of Europe was completely reconstructed after WWII, and also heavily motorized. They just concluded the model wasn't workable by the 1970s.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 18:43:47 No.1879416 Report

Quoted By: >>1879430 >>1879433

>>1879372
>>1879391
Of course the long-distance competition is aircraft and not cars.
States are the size of European countries, if not larger. It's not economically feasible to build road infrastructure connecting the states, or even any larger grouping of states. The distance that has to be traversed is too large and there just aren't enough drivers on any given road segment to pay the maintenance costs. That's why there aren't even any 'inter-state' highways in the USA, whereas in a compact country like Germany the autobahn system connects all the German states together. If you're in Munich and want to drive to Hamburg, no problem. But if you're in New York and want to drive to Miami, much less Los Angeles, you can't do that. The roads to do it simply can't be economically built. The USA is a prisoner of geography.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 19:39:50 No.1879430 Report

Quoted By:

>>1879416
Let's not forget more people fly to get around Europe each year than ride trains to get around Europe

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 02 Jan 2023 19:46:12 No.1879433 Report

Quoted By:

>>1879416
>But if you're in New York and want to drive to Miami, much less Los Angeles, you can't do that.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 03 Jan 2023 13:34:59 No.1879584 Report

Quoted By:

>>1875379
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRBiAhf_4GY

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 01:03:35 No.1882108 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876713
Freight in the US is retarded.
The ficking way tax breaks work and these industrial parks, industry is built needlessly far away from railroads.

We have an industrial park up on a mountain with only a steep road going into it and there's only one road in.
Winter time it becomes a severe hazard.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 15 Jan 2023 01:05:26 No.1882109 Report

Quoted By:

>>1876726
Crime was so bad likely due to lead.
If they didn't have to drive with how much leaded gas the crime would likely been have lower.

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