[malermeister]

With individual transport, you move ~2 tons of metal for a payload of one person, a weight/person ratio of 2.

With high-speed rail, you move ~400 tons of metal for ~450 people, a ratio of ~0.9. [0]

This does not even account for factors such as inherently more efficient transmission from steel to steel vs rubber/concrete and the more efficient electric engines of a modern train compared to the combustion engine. Neither does it account for the fact that rail goes at more than twice the speed.

How is public transport the inefficient option, again?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_3

[ufmace]

How is it a fair comparison to make the automobile have only one person but the rail car completely full? Rail cars are very rarely anywhere near full. Infact, they have to be run nearly empty most of the time in order to have a schedule good enough that enough people to fill the car up are willing to rely on it.

[MagnumOpus]

You forget that most people don't live or work next to the rail station. That makes rail inefficient in the only way that matters to most people - their time.

(I say that as someone who takes trains to work most days.)

[malermeister]

I think trains going twice as fast as cars and not being impacted by traffic goes a long way in making up for the last mile problem - even if you take a bike for that piece, overall you're gonna be much faster than if you're stuck in rush hour traffic.

Plus, in the context of the looming climate catastrophe and the energy crisis caused by a war of aggression by our former primary energy supplier, that concern seems really petty anyways.

[adrianN]

People don't live near rail stations because we have been subsidizing cars for fifty years while letting the rail network crumble.

[stuaxo]

They don't ?

Plenty do, or live a short bus journey away.