[CamperBob2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path

Road planners can respond to shifts in demand by reallocating resources. It's not easy, but it's possible. No such thing when it comes to fixed rail. Fixed rail involves investment of staggering amounts of money under the assumption that things will be exactly the same 50 years from now as they are today.

In any other context, hackers would be mortally offended by such a proposition... but for whatever reason, hackers love trains.

[tenacious_tuna]

> but for whatever reason, hackers love trains.

There's a weird inversion that happens around the concept of "freedom" w.r.t. cars--everyone insists owning a car is the ultimate expression of freedom, but they never pay heed to the fact that you, the human, become bound to a world built for rolling metal boxes when you own a car. You can only go places that have parking for it, you become responsible for driving yourself wherever you want to go.

With public transit, I can do whatever I want. I don't have to hunt (or pay) for parking, I don't have to worry about not having an extra beer when out with friends. If on a whim I decide I'm going over to a friends house or if I just want to explore the city, I don't have to circle back to where I left my car to continue my journey (or return home): I hop aboard the train from the nearest station.

When I'm on regional rail to visit a friend a few hours away, I'm not stressed about traffic or timing my bathroom trips--I get a snack and a drink from the cafe car and use the bathroom when I want, otherwise watching a movie from the comfort of my train seat.

Moreover, a car is a liability: it requires fuel, storage, maintenance, all of which have varying prices at the dictates of entities beyond us. War overseas? Gas prices go up 30%. Need to park at your apartment? That's another $100 a month. Weird sound coming from the wheel? Could be anything, I hope you've got a trustworthy mechanic. Let alone insurance!

But the subway is $2.50, the bus $2.25. I can get to the airport faster than I could drive, for less than I'd pay in gas, and I don't have to pay parking storage fees.

Cars turn our cities into endless expanses of pavement just to hold our idle vehicles when we're not using them. They isolate us from our world and our communities, limiting us to experiencing everything through metal and glass. Cars are the ultimate expression of wealth separating one from the world: of course hackers love trains and transit.

[thehappypm]

“ With public transit, I can do whatever I want.”

Not really? You can only do things that some planning board sets up a route to get you from A to B. With a car, every A to B is possible.

[tenacious_tuna]

> You can only do things that some planning board sets up a route to get you from A to B

No, I have an entire grid of transit options to go most places within the city. It's not just A to B, it's anywhere along the co-ordinate grid formed by all the transit routes, plus what I'm willing to walk or bike. Moreover, it provides far easier access to most of the places I do want to go than driving would.

With a car, A to B is possible given that (1) there's car parking at both ends, (2) there isn't overwhelming traffic in-between those two points, and (3) that anywhere else you might want to go also meets those criteria. Providing (or guatunteeing) (1) (2) and (3) results in massive expanses of parking lots which are rarely ever filled, massive expanses of stroad to support all the traffic trying to get to those parking lots, and pushes everything further apart just to support cars, all requiring maintenance and upkeep. Not that trains don't, of course they do, but they're far more efficient in terms of space and money usage to person-miles travelled.

[panick21_]

You clearly have no idea how a actual transport system works. You are so hilariously and completely wrong train infrastructure its not even funny.

Go back 50 years and look at the train usage patterns then and now in places like Japan and Switerland.

There are some rails that have been around for 100 years and have been used in many different ways. Going from mining, to transport to tourist attraction.

Rail planners regularly adjust train length to adjust for demands. Frequency of certain routes can be increased or decreased.

If you actually think about it for a while, you realize you need transport where people live. And people don't move to new places in a year or two, new cities don't just pop up.

Many city in and villages have been there for literally 1000+ years, they aren't moving. So the idea that we shouldn't build a train to them because 'who knows about what happens in 50 years' is just beyond idiotic.

If you government is actually smart, they make sure to build transport where they expect people to move. Sweden did this very nicely in Stockholm for example where they built out the train routes and zoned for living along those routes. And guess what people moved there.

This idea that each person is some rugged individualist who at any point my get up and leave to start a new colony somewhere over the horizon is ridiculous. People generally move to places where infrastructure exists.

> Fixed rail involves investment

Rail can be built and still used for 50+ years just fine. How many times do you have to repave and rebuild a road in the same time. Once you actually do the math and you are not guided by 50 year of propaganda, its clear that trains are a far better investment.

And also, just by the way. The US had a huge amount of fixed infrastructure, that was already built. And then dropped. It clear wasn't the up front investment cost that was the issue.

> but for whatever reason, hackers love trains.

Maybe they have thought about it for more then 5min.