[Silamoth]

At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you.

I’m not saying cars shouldn’t ever exist. The ‘last mile problem’ is a thing, and proper self-driving cars could be good for part of that (especially after a train and bus if you have lots of stuff). But you want to sleep in a vehicle with lots of storage space while driving across the country? That’s called a train. Nothing new needed.

[briffle]

I looked at taking the train from my town to Glacier National Park along with my bike. The route goes from Portland and Seattle to Chicago, and has a stop at south glacier.

Step 1, get to the local train station in my town. There are 6 trains daily between me and Portland. Also, amtrak on the cross country trains requires the bikes to be in a box, in storage cars.

So I gotta get a large bike box, and get myself, my bike, the box, and some tools to break it down to our local amtrak station. Then partially dissasemble the bike, and box it. (of course, our train station has room in it for 5-10 people, and most sit outside, uncovered, which is fun in spring.)

Then, get to the main Portland Train station, with my bike box, and backpack with my stuff and tools. Wait up to 9 hours for the hawaitha train. (its often many hours late, and only leaves once per day).

Load Bike in cargo car, and then board train late at night.

Wake up around 5am, (or later, if train is behind schedule) and disembark at Glacier, re-assemble my bike. Figure out how to get it, and the box (i'll need it for the return trip) to a hotel or AirBnB.

For the return trip, its about the same, 1 daily westbound train, that is usually hours late, then hope you get to portland before the last train for the day leaves for my town, or else find a place to stay with a bike, backpack, and bike box in the sketchy area around the trainstation...

Or, hop in a car with a bike rack, and drive 10 hours. Which is easier, and MUCH cheaper if I split the cost of gas with someone else. So 2 extra travel days back for vacation, and much less stress.

[NoGravitas]

Most of this is just that the US rail system is amazingly shitty by global standards.

[davidgay]

This is an extremely simplistic view. For instance, the US moves more of its freight (by percentage) than all western European countries except Switzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...

[troupo]

Passengers are not freight. And freight is one of the reasons US railways suck for passengers.

[xnx]

Moving people by train in the US makes about as much sense as delivering pizzas by barge.

[troupo]

Because the US is soooooo exceptional, right? And yet the moment you provide actual proper train connections the lines are successful and profitable (see e.g. Northeast Corridor.

[Der_Einzige]

Freight is better. Passengers don’t belong on trains.

[troupo]

Tell it to Northeast Corridor. Or Japan.

[insane_dreamer]

We're talking here about passenger rail, not freight rail. And when it comes to passenger rail, the US is terrible by the standards of other developed countries.

[llbbdd]

The US is a very big, very spread out place. I'm not sure which country has trains that take you directly to your front door.

[ssl-3]

It is indeed a very big place.

But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be.

The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule.

Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?

[llbbdd]

Near-enough is not strong competition with as-close-as-possible.

[sensanaty]

Where I live in the Netherlands the train quite literally stops in front of my door, as in my building that is ~50 meters from the train station where I can take a train every 10 minutes (15 on weekends) to any other city in the country, and even outside the country to Germany or France.

I'm even planning a Eurotrip by train this summer with some mates, I'd say the distances here are comparable to get from NL to PL for example.

And besides, how is it that the US is "too wide" for trains to work, but apparently building an equivalent highway system is perfectly possible? China is also a massive country, yet they have incredible passenger train options to get cross country.

[llbbdd]

A self-driving car can stop 2 meters outside your house on an arbitrary schedule. That's going to be the competition with trains in the very near future.

Not sure what you mean by the last bit - the US already has that highway system, and the local roads serving the last mile, because that last mile infrastructure already has to exist to get from public transit to your house.

China doesn't have the exact same problem because so much of the country lives in dense wall-to-wall housing, which sucks no matter how you spin it if you like having any kind of space to yourself.

[sensanaty]

> A self-driving car can stop 2 meters outside your house on an arbitrary schedule.

No it can't, because cars aren't allowed on the streets around my house, with the exception of emergency vehicles and logistical vehicles like moving or delivery vans. The closest spot where a taxi could stop to drop me off is a lot further than where the bus or trains are. The closest parking space is actually a good 200-300m away from my door, reserved for residents so also always full, whereas I have a bus stop literally in front of my door and a train station 20 steps from it. I can also rent a bicycle 24/7 from the train station if all other modes of transport fail me (and I didn't have access to my bike for whatever reason).

Same in the center of the city, you cannot get to many places by car. A deliberate choice, for example when we dug out the hideous polluting highway and replaced it with a canal instead (which funnily enough was a canal in the first place before they made it into a highway). Utrecht is a perfect example of gov't realizing a mistake it made with car-centric design, doubling back and correcting it in a way that increases the QoL of every single resident of Utrecht.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/14/utrecht-restor...

This isn't even to say that the Netherlands is some kind of dystopia for drivers, if anything drivers here tend to be happier since they don't need to contend with a bunch of other people on the road, and more than half the country drives anyways.

> Not sure what you mean by the last bit - the US already has that highway system, and the local roads serving the last mile, because that last mile infrastructure already has to exist to get from public transit to your house.

My point was that building out the highway system was a deliberate policy choice made in lieu of a strong passenger rail/public transport network. Had they focused on making passenger rail more viable, then we'd be talking about the opposite world here, where building highly space-inefficient and expensive highways would be a ludicrous proposition.

> China doesn't have the exact same problem because so much of the country lives in dense wall-to-wall housing, which sucks no matter how you spin it if you like having any kind of space to yourself.

We're talking about cross-country lines here, if anything it's even more absurd that the Chinese can have such a strong rail network when the majority of the country has no use for the lines serving the far-west of the country where there aren't that many people. Whether the cities are shit to live in or not is a separate discussion altogether.

[mixmastamyk]

Recently, on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815395

[troupo]

There are lots of potential high-traffic corridors, and the US is still incapable of serving them.

[fragmede]

The Brightline in Florida exists, as does the Acela on the East Coast. These things are entirely possible in the US, we just don't seem to want them enough.

[ssl-3]

Sorta, kinda.

Suppose in some hypothetical future, we can take the (expensive) train to our destination in Somewhere, USA, and it drops us off.

So there we are, at a train station in Somewhere, USA.

What happens next? A bus? Light rail? Uber/Lyft/taxi? A friend who has time to show up? Renting a car? What's our next move? (Lots of destinations don't have much for local public transport.)

For contrast: When I drive myself to Somewhere, I've still got my car to use after I get there. I can go anywhere I want to go, at any time I choose to do so, and I can bring as much stuff and as many people as suits me without much additional cost.

I don't have to wait around for a train. I don't have to deal with checking luggage, or retrieving luggage. I can just pop into town -- with my car -- and set forth to do whatever I want. The bags can ride along with me until I get to wherever it is that I'm crashing for the night and until then, they don't present any particular burden at all.

I might have been better-rested if I took the hypothetical train, but getting dropped off at a train station isn't a very complete solution.

[xnx]

Hard to find an unserved corridor where train makes more sense than plane or car.

[troupo]

US East Cost. The area is about the size of Japan with similar popilation. And there are only a few disjointed efforts.

[JeremyNT]

> At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you.

As an American, it's far easier to imagine autonomous robot driven road trips than it is to imagine a government that is competent enough to build passenger rail networks.

[catlover76]

Why? Isn't Amtrak that, but just geographically-scoped? Isn't Caltrain workable? Subways also function fine in NYC, DC, Boston, and even LA

(to be clear, I don't think the other poster is correct that having trains would satisfy the desire of the guy who wants a self-driving Rivian. I consider his want/need there to be fundamentally different)

[jdprgm]

It's comically (and extremely variably) priced. A trip from DC to NYC and back would be ~$25 in electric costs with a typical electric car versus Amtrak could easily be $300+ though possibly as cheap as $50 if you are flexible to awful hours like depart at 4:30am or something.

[square_usual]

You should factor in the time/stress/wear costs but yes, I've found driving to be significantly cheaper than even the DC Metro most days.

[habnds]

the actual cost of a trip between times square and the national mall is about $200 all things considered based on the ~0.80 federal mileage reimbursement rate for 250 miles. that train corridor is overwhelmingly successful as well so the idea that amtrak isn't a good deal is at odds with reality.

[pishpash]

That's assuming you don't already have a time-depreciating asset in your possession. Per mile cost is about halved if you drive significantly more than average.

[habnds]

People in and around the acela corridor drive significantly less than the national average.

[JeremyNT]

Amtrak (where it exists) is often deprioritized for freight travel, and other times is often limited to extremely low speeds, resulting in extremely slow travel. Your road trips are only possible if you have extremely relaxed time constraints and specific destinations in mind.

Fees are also very high for such a slow option.

As for the future, well... it is bleak. This administration is actively trying to block transit expansion, presumably due to their undying affection for the fossil fuel industry, going so far as to withhold funding from already awarded grants to regional rail.

So while the northeast can sort-of pull it off due to its relatively compact nature and history of more progressive policies, this leaves the vast majority of the country in a no-mans land.

[Karrot_Kream]

Amtrak simply leases the lines in the West from freight providers rather than owning the track outright. The reason Amtrak can offer so much better service in the Northeast Corridor is because they own the track. Incidentally the NEC is the only part of Amtrak operating at a profit.

[JuniperMesos]

It's better if trains prioritize freight travel and car-focused roads prioritize passenger travel, than the other way around. Human beings have more pressing time constraints than nearly all shippable physical goods.

[Karrot_Kream]

Amtrak started out as a holding company for private passenger rail companies that went bankrupt. It's never had a static amount of funding (until the Biden admin, Amtrak had to renegotiate its budget regularly) and many of its stations are just pet projects for rural Congress reps who want to give their district a way to leave their area, so Amtrak runs many trains at a loss.

Building new rail projects in the US is very hard because of capital costs and regulations like NEPA (and CEQA in California) which require environmental review for everything. Brightline in Florida was able to get around this by working in an existing highway ROW.

[xnx]

> Brightline in Florida was able to get around this buy working in an existing highway ROW.

And will probably go bankrupt this year: https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-01-23/brightline-business...

[Karrot_Kream]

Oof their debt is now considered junk bonds huh. They missed some loan interest payments? Yeah not looking good...

[xnx]

I tried to ride it a few times, but could never find a way it made logistical or financial sense.

[ssl-3]

The remaining dregs of Amtrak are the result of the nationalization of the failing private passenger lines in the US.

We used to have passenger rail. Even the desolate nowhere of semi-rural Ohio was well-served. Street cars to get around town, inter-urbans to get between nearby towns, and proper passenger trains to get to points far-away.

It didn't work out. There's reasons why it didn't work, like the literal conspiracy between General Motors and Firestone Tire that deliberately sought to destroy it.

Whatever those reasons were, they are are behind us. So it may seem superficially easy to just put it all back... but it isn't.

When the lines stopped being used, we tore them out. They're gone. And where the lines are gone, old stations are also mostly gone. Cities had once been built around (and because of) rail, but were subsequently built for cars as time marched forward and things continued to expand.

In some cases, whole communities have disappeared in the transition away from rail. In many other cases, we let our central stations decay and rot or demolished them to make space for things like convention centers.

So what's left is what we have: We have cars.

It's easy for me to see a future where I can buy a car and curl up in the back seat with a movie (and maybe a cocktail) while it ferries me from A to B.

That's a future I might actually live long enough to see, and it appears to be inevitable.

And I'd love to be freed of the chains of having to drive myself from A to B.

But I'll be dead and buried before we get passenger rail to be even 1/10th of what it once was.

So I choose to dream practical dreams. I can only play the hand I'm dealt.

[angelgonzales]

I’m 99-100% a car user now after living in Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. Here’s why - I gave up my car for a bike when I lived in Portland, however when people openly smoked fentanyl on the trains the train operators had to stop the train during my morning/afternoon commute for ~15 minutes (this happened often). Also the last straw for me was getting my place broken into and having my bike stolen. Therefore I moved to cars because I didn’t have to inhale secondhand fentanyl smoke or deal with unscheduled delays. As a man in Los Angeles I had to deal with a drunk man on a bus touching my thigh and hitting on me and people trying to sell me drugs/solicit me for money/phone calls/etc. As a regular hiker I’m also not sure public transit would service trailheads in the Cascades or the Sierra Nevadas. As for the environmental impact, I agree that trains or busses may sometimes be better for environment but we’re also approaching a future of self driving electric cars powered by nuclear and fusion plants providing clean energy, so I think this problem will likely go away. I welcome Waymo in Portland, I’m just concerned for the well being of the vehicles!

[soiltype]

Look I don't fault you - Americans drive cars because every alternative is absolute dogshit, I don't disagree. But I can't e realistic about that and not this:

> As for the environmental impact, I agree that trains or busses may sometimes be better for environment

That's like saying gunshots may sometimes be more dangerous than throwing rocks.

> but we’re also approaching a future of self driving electric cars powered by nuclear and fusion plants providing clean energy

Even if this was true (I don't think either change is happening nearly fast enough) car-dependency is directly upstream of numerous other environmental problems, most of which don't disappear even if you take parking out of the mix, such as grounds heat and flooding caused by paved roads, such as obsession with energy- and water-inefficient low-density residential zoning (sprawl), such as particulate pollution from tires, such as ecosystem damage from the need to dump literal tons of salt on icy roads for tires to drive on, such as the emissions of road paving itself... you get the idea.

[JuniperMesos]

These also don't disappear if you replace privately-owned cars with buses and trains. You need paved roads to put buses on and track to put trains on, and they emit particulate pollution as well unless they're also electrified which is a similar problem to electrifying cars.

Low-density residential sprawl is mostly water-inefficient because it allows people to have the ability to have a garden that they water, you don't inherently use more household-internal water if you live in a suburban house compared to an apartment. Most of the energy efficiency issues are also directly related to low-density residential zoning allowing for more physical space for a dwelling than an equivalently-expensive dwelling would cost in an expensive, dense urban area. In short, the things about low-density residential neighborhoods that are less energy efficiently mostly don't have to do with cars and mostly do have to do with goods that people actively want and can only afford outside of dense urban areas.

[soiltype]

The problems do diminish significantly if you need fewer lanes by half or more, and have fewer vehicles per person.

Low-density sprawl in the American style is impossible without cars. Streetcar suburbs could exist but those are necessarily more concentrated and again need less road coverage.

Nor can you say the sprawl is what people "actively want" when it's illegal to build to any other pattern in the vast majority of the country.

[cucumber3732842]

>Low-density residential sprawl is mostly water-inefficient

Which is more or less a non-issue east of the Missouri river

[xnx]

Indeed, the root of many water problems is people wanting to live in the desert.

[cucumber3732842]

Kind of begs the question why so much local level water stuff is federally regulated.

Why do North and South Carolina have to shell out to manage all their runoff in federally prescribed ways just because all the states on the Colorado river can't get along?

Why does St. Louis and every other "give and take from river" water district have to mandate all sorts of federally prescribed minutia written around assumptions of aquifer depletion? It's not like a lack of low flow toilets is gonna affect anything other than the size of the local water treatment plant.

[davnicwil]

I appreciate what you're saying and am a big fan of long distance train and bus journeys myself and have done a lot of both, sleeping and not.

But one huge factor that you have to contend with is the randomness of the tragedy of the commons problem on public transport / shared transport. A train journey can be blissful to sleep on right until a loud group gets on and sits across from you and there's no seats available to move.

I think this is something that can't be overlooked, especially if you're talking about something like a short trip where if you don't sleep well en route, quite a large proportion of the trip time is going to be affected. Having a private vehicle where you can guarantee control of your environment is a really huge plus.

[svnt]

It is a chicken and egg problem. As long as the majority of people who would maintain the social environment are avoiding the social environment, the healthy consensus/operating regime can never emerge.

[davnicwil]

In my experience the majority consensus is to maintain a quiet, generally polite environment on trains and buses.

But that's precisely the problem, it only takes a very tiny minority to change this. If one group, one person sometimes, in a carriage of 50 people decides to go against this, then that's that. It's not even particularly common, but it happens, it's random, and so it's just something that must be contended with.

[svnt]

I think that is the case if the majority has or exercises little to no effective social power to enforce the norm.

The majority consensus is to desire a peaceful environment but do nothing when it is violated.

[tristor]

Correct. But the golden question is, do what? The authorities don't care. Rules and laws are rarely enforced, and when they are enforced they're done so unevenly. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, it's much more likely that you will be punished by the law than the person you were correcting. So, what do you expect people to do?

[svnt]

My point is that in established cultures there are expectations around how these situations are handled, and what you expect people to do is specific to the culture. A single disapproving grandmother can put a stop to it.

That is why it breaks down — once it is discarded in a melting pot the cultural expectations are unclear and it seems you’re at least initially dependent on the state or mob dynamics.

[Der_Einzige]

Create vigalantee laws that legalize “taking matters into your own hands”

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

Extremely popular and objectively reduced crime and drug usage. In portlands case, you keep weed, steroids, psychedelics, and party drugs legal and come down like hell on the society destroying stuff like fenty

China needed to do similar drastic things to get out of the slump caused by the opium wars. They call that period the “century of humiliation “ for a reason.

[charcircuit]

It's not. Pass a law that continuing to be noisy or disruptive on a bus or train after a warning results in 10 years of prison time with no parole and consistently enforce it. The problem will solve itself without a chicken and egg problem. Problematic people can simply be removed from society to make for a good social environment. Adding more good people is not the only option and in fact only hides the problem instead of solving it.

[JuniperMesos]

This would involve incarcerating a lot of homeless people, which is expensive, and pro-homeless activists would see it as a human rights abuse and fight it.

[charcircuit]

It would be expensive, but would have everyday visible tangible effects which you can't always say about other government spending. In regards to people thinking it's abusing people's rights they will just have to be ignored or taught to respect other people's right to a good experience with public transport.

[9x39]

Deeply unfortunate, but we're arguably in a lose-lose situation where suffering from the problem has abuses, and yet so does fighting those who profit or benefit from the situation.

There's immense social capital and NGO patronage at work surrounding 'homeless' - and I parse that as mentally ill now, as it's an insult (IMO) to the homeless who are perfectly capable of respecting others and participating in the social contract.

[senordevnyc]

I honestly find it horrifying that you think stripping a person of their freedom and dignity for ten years is a reasonable penalty for being “noisy” on a train.

I’d much rather be around the noisy-but-relatively-harmless person than someone with so little regard for their fellow man.

[charcircuit]

>for ten years

Or longer if they show they are unable to reform while in prison.

>penalty for being “noisy” on a train

That is ignoring the second order effects of the situation. This noise is holding back the flywheel of public transportation that could have economic benefits to millions of people. The penalty is for the enormous cost of holding the rest of society back. The person who has such little regard for their fellow man is the one who is letting the few ruin society for the many.

[senordevnyc]

You can make this kind of specious argument for any infraction, no matter how minor. Hard pass on your ridiculous dystopia.

[soiltype]

Cars are not the solution to that. Hooligans and irritating people are just a possibility in literally every social environment, they always have been, and they always will be. Answers to that problem are social - it's a bigger problem in America than Japan, for exmaplem.

Answers which involve removing oneself from society (by entering a private car) are not good answers. And when you factor in the externalities, you're just displacing "I'm upset, possibly even unwell due to sleep lost" onto "we replaced 90% of the local natural environment with pavement and paint it with crushed human beings every single day".

[arijun]

I am a huge proponent of increased public transit (I'm of the opinion that every city should have a massive congestion tax with large swaths only accessible on foot or by public transit), but trains and buses would be wildly inconvenient for what op is describing.

Trying to take something like a windsurf board on a train, and then having to navigate multiple train changes along with whatever other baggage you have makes it a non-starter.

The "last mile problem" you mention is unresolved when it comes to getting from the closest public transit stop to the actual destination (frequently in a park or even off road).

And finally, the final cost to the rider would be significantly higher, as sleeper trains are not cheap.

I think America could do quite well if it focused on public transit in and between densely populated areas. Fewer cars in cities could make for denser cities, which in turn could allow for even more public transit. But outside of population centers, America is much more spread out than Europe, meaning that trains are less economical, and often wouldn't get the ridership that would allow them to make sense.

[jwagenet]

I agree with you, however in the US the “last mile” is often the “last 50 miles” when goal is outdoor recreation.

[BobbyJo]

People just do not understand how big and spread out the US is compared to other countries. "Last mile" dramatically underestimates how much heavy lifting the personal transportation part would need to do. More like "last 50 miles".

[cameldrv]

The European mind does not comprehend how big and sparsely populated the American West is. You can't even pitch a tent in most places in the Alps, and why would you, when you just stop at a hut that has a staff and you can get fed and sleep in bunks with 20 other people? Meanwhile I can drive to numerous places where there isn't a structure or even another person in a 20km radius. No one is going to run a train to a place like that.

[TheCoelacanth]

You're describing places that have few people and hence few car trips. Most car trips, even in the US, take place in densely populated areas.

The point of public transit isn't to handle 100% of all trips. It's to handle the most common trips in a more efficient and scalable way.

[oklahomasports]

Saying most car trips take place in densely populated areas in the US is a lie

[TheCoelacanth]

That depends how you define "densely populated", but certainly most car trips are near where people live and work, not in wilderness camping areas you are describing.

[aketchum]

there are effectively no passenger trains in America and effectively no political will to expand them. Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car. This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both. Given these facts, it is not wild at all to prefer cars (self driving or not) vs alternate transportation methods

[linkregister]

MARTA (Atlanta regional transit) heavy rail average daily ridership is 80,000 people [1].

1. https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2025-Q4-Ride...

[mmooss]

> Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car.

Buses can be slower, but I don't even know of a 2x difference. For longer trips they can travel 24/7. And overall they are more efficient because you can do other things instead of driving.

> This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both

I don't have a problem on buses and trains. I have more problem with other drivers when I drive. Your comment is, ironically, antisocial.

[rootusrootus]

> For longer trips they can travel 24/7

That sounds like hell. Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats, and unlike trains there isn't even an option to pay exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment.

[mmooss]

I guess everything is hell, if you feel like writing that.

> Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats

IME bus seats are first class in padding and support, a bit wider than coach, and with more leg room (though I'd need to measure to confirm). Much more comfortable than airplane coach - and without the air pressure, vibration / noise, and humidity problems.

> exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment

It just depends on the train, how far ahead you pay, etc.

[saalweachter]

Napaway briefly offered ticketed intercity service on busses with 18 sleeper pods, but has (temporarily) discontinued it in favor of focusing on charter service.

[sumeno]

You're right, but in the US a government providing any sort of public service is an immediate target for the right (and an unfortunately significant portion of the "left"). We insist on paying more for less rather than ever allowing a poor person to benefit in a way they don't "deserve". So public transit hardly exists or is woefully inadequate in most places.

[jandrewrogers]

You are misunderstanding the nature of the problem. I like trains but they can't and don't address the issue the OP is raising. Even if the US already had public trains it still isn't a "last mile" problem. Especially in the western US, it is a "last hundred miles" problem.

No public transport system that remotely makes any kind of economic sense, either in terms of infrastructure or operational cost, can replace the established network topology that exists for cars in the US. The connectivity is much more like a mesh than a hub-and-spoke model. Even though the US has a strong regional jet system that connects arbitrary nodes in that graph it still doesn't entirely avoid the "last hundred miles" problem.

A lot of American long-distance travel is not between two big cities. Even in Europe, similar kinds of routes have no train service and limited bus service.

[lelandbatey]

The sad truth is the USA spends ~$150B/year building and maintaining it's road network (to say nothing of the inflation-adjusted costs that went into its initial roll-out). Source: The US Fed tracks it directly - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS

That's a $41/month subscription every citizen's paying no matter what. When we're pulling cash on that volume from everyone's pockets to build lavish infrastructure literally up to people's doors (vastly more road square footage than housing+school square footage combined), of course folks are going to say "nothing compares" -- because nothing does compare. Which stinks (imagine if we'd focused a century of spending on rail at rates like that; damn), but it is what we have at the moment.

[xnx]

Seems like a bargain by comparison! Chicago is about to spend $1 billion/mile to extend an above-ground train line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_Extension

[lelandbatey]

The USA is riding on 100 years of the benefits of scale and economic investment. If the USA was investing $150B a year into building passenger rail, we would not be paying $1B/mile for "new" and "trailblazing" rail projects. If we had to build much of the highway infra we built 75 years ago, but do it now, we'd be paying similar $1B/mile prices for the highways.

[joenot443]

Here in Canada we're investing $60-120b on a rail to connect Toronto to Montreal.

I hope your analysis is correct and subsequent passenger rails will be much cheaper!

[xnx]

The best thing about rail in the US is we'll have a lot of premium land for bike paths and AV lanes when the rail gets decommissioned.

[pryanbeng]

Its the ultra independence mindset. I don't think trains work for the commenter you talked to.

I want to move on my schedule and convenience, I don't want to have to warp my day to day around someone else's departure schedule.

[Lammy]

> Its the ultra independence mindset.

And there's nothing wrong with it! I take detours on road trips all the time following “Historic <thing> →” signs or just because I see something interesting in the distance and want to go check it out. On a train journey I'd just have to watch them pass by.

[boc]

I'd love for you to come along with me on a ski mountaineering trip to the eastern Sierra. It's a mountain range larger than Switzerland with basically one interstate highway to access and no roads that cross through in the winter. Very few year-round towns, and nearly zero services outside of those towns. This ain't the alps - there are no huts, no gondolas, no nothing. If you want to access it, you have to walk/ski your way there. That often means long drives (50-100+ miles), camping in your car, and bringing everything you need to survive with you.

I love the confidence with which you give your answer though! Europeans famously underestimate the American West, which is why they often get into serious trouble (or die[1]) at alarming rates out here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans

[dmitrygr]

Public transit in America presents a much higher chance of encountering dangerous people than a private car. Until those people are permanently, irrevocably, and definitively locked up, it would not matter off public transit were free, or even paid users to use it, it will not be a serious option. Nobody in my family is allowed to use public transit.

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

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

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-...

[righthand]

This is all FUD and extremely unlikely if not improbable to run into someone violent. If you’re that afraid of public transit and people in general, no amount of “rounding people up against their will” would change your mind.

[HDThoreaun]

It really is not. I use public transit heavily. The people on it fucking suck. No one helps when someone is being harassed for fear of violence. The US needs to enforce basic decorum on public transit if it wants mass buy in.

[righthand]

Great we’ll start with rounding you up first who cares about your opinion and rights.

[dmitrygr]

FUD? Are you claiming these did not happen?

[righthand]

No I’m claiming that violent people have a tendency to support violence as the only rational option. While turning around and defunding healthcare and advocating more prisons be built. Rather than diagnosing the actual problems. Violence wont stop mental illness.

The posters advocating for it and stating Daniel Penny should’ve encourage copy-cats are violent and sick people.

[ashishb]

> At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you.

So, let's say you take public transport from SF to Yosemite/Los Angeles. Now, how do I cover the last mile (or even multiple points)? Take more public transport? Hitchhike?

The reason long-distance public transport works well in Europe is that there is good local public transport in both the source and the destination cities. When that does not exist, you are better off driving.

[chronolitus]

sometimes we do this thing where we pretend rail is super efficient, whereas in reality it's often more expensive than basically any other option, even in countries that do it well (e.g. Switzerland,Japan)

I love rail but it is a convenience / luxury mode in many cases, and should be complimentary to car travel, not replace it.

[Karrot_Kream]

Connecting two Waymo geos with a train would be an interesting company idea. You could lease freight track the way Amtrak already does it in the American West but try to negotiate a contact more favorable than Amtrak's. You could try to work with Waymo to work on bundles.

Amtrak could do the same thing but because of how Amtrak is organized in not sure that it would be possible. Most of the current Waymo geos are not connected by Amtrak directly and require transfers.

[chpatrick]

In the US it's often not the last mile, but the last 10 or 100 miles. I'm saying this as someone enjoying fantastic public transport in Budapest.

[adrianmonk]

The scenario is a cross-country trip in an electric car. What actual, specific advantage does a train or bus offer in this scenario? What problem does it solve better?

It's an electric car, so carbon emissions are low.

Most of the route will be in rural areas in the middle of the night, so the impact on traffic will be minimal.

As for the cost to build and maintain the roads, they are already needed so rural areas are accessible. Wear and tear on roads and bridges isn't much of an issue since heavy vehicles like trucks cause massively disproportionate damage[1]. (A bus might actually be worse than the equivalent number of cars in this respect.)

---

[1] See https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share... . Some studies show that damage varies with the fourth power of axle weight.

[nradov]

I can't take my dog on pretty much any public transit or most ride shares. More than 20% of Americans have dogs.

[sheikhnbake]

Unfortunately, until something big happens in the US, autonomous vehicles will be more accessible to working class americans than good and reliable mass transit, especially outside of major population centers.

[nebula8804]

Its a trojan horse on the way to make car ownership impossible to a large swath of Americans.

[throwaway-blaze]

Public transit only works if you live in the densest of the dense part of a city. If you live out in Beaverton or Gresham these bus lines lose money hand over fist, not to mention farther-flung places.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

In my experience, night trains with private cabins are fan service for rail fans, environmentalists and/or masochists, not real transport options.

One of the famous sleeper trains in Europe (Nightjet Vienna-Amsterdam) is often booked out weeks (sometimes months) in advance, costs as much as a plane ticket + hotel room or more, and you have a decent chance of being told (as you show up in the evening) that unfortunately one car is missing tonight and you have the option of a full refund (screwing up your entire trip and having to book a last minute plane ticket), or you can take a 50% refund on your 255 EUR sleeping ticket and spend the night sitting in the shared seating part on a seat that would have regularly cost 35 EUR. This was something that on some routes was happening routinely for over a year [1].

The night train from Switzerland to Malmö was cancelled (after tickets had already been sold) because the Swiss government decided to not subsidize it.

Trains like this offer zero flexibility (you have to book a specific train weeks in advance), go where they go which is a very limited route network, and even in Europe with all the environmentalists, rail networks, shorter distances, and massive government subsidies, they don't seem to be able to run them very frequently or on many routes.

Calling them equivalent or a replacement for self-driving cars (which would take the passenger where they want, when they want) is disingenuous and isn't going to magically convince people.

[1] https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/espresso/f...

[some_random]

It's a train or bus that is exclusively yours, goes exactly where you want it to go, when you want to go. Sounds objectively better than a train to me.

[dyauspitr]

Enough with this public transport bullshit. We live in very spread out suburbs where you need to drive to everything and everyone has big backyards because we like it that way. Most people here don’t want to live in a tiny coop sharing walls with neighbors on all sides and live the vast majority of our lives in a 15 min public transport bubble. Further, having a train line is borderline not feasible the way the vast majority of the US lives. There is no way having a train station with even a 30 minute walking distance is feasible or even desirable. I also don’t want to get into public transport with a whole bunch of other people no matter how nice it is. It’s not going to be able to compete with a self driving EV of my own that I charge with my solar panels for free.

That being said I’m in full support of metros for large cities and high speed rail between major cities but it’s hard to beat a domestic airline you can show up for an hour before it leaves at an airport and gets you there 10x faster for anything other than the shortest trips.

[chucksmash]

It would also be satisfied by magic flying carpets. Between flying carpets, functional public transport, and self-driving cars, only one of these three things is not utter fantasy in the near-ish future in the United States.

[floxy]

How do those carpets handle in the snow?

[NoGravitas]

I fucking love trains.