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Interstate Highway System: 50th Anniversary
Steve Melito writes "This week, CR4: The Engineer's Place for Discussion and News, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, "a giant nationwide engineering project" that transformed a nation. In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers described the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System as "one of the Seven Wonders of the United States". In 2006, this network of roads includes 46,000 miles of highway; 55,000 bridges; 82 tunnels, and 14,000 interchanges. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), excavation for the interstate system has moved enough material to bury the State of Connecticut knee-deep in dirt. The amount of Portland cement could build more than 80 Hoover dams, or lay six sidewalks to the moon. The lumber used would consume all of the trees in 500 square miles of forest. The structural steel could build 170 skyscrapers the size of the Empire State Building, and meet nearly half of the annual requirements of the American auto industry.
Check back with CR4 all week as we cover the 'Roots of the Road,' 'the Politics of Passage,' 'Adventures in Civil Engineering,' and 'The Road Ahead.'" One of the things that's interesting about why Eisenhower pushed for the highway system was that he saw the Autobahn system in Germany during the occupation post-WWII and knew that that was one of the things that the United States needed to develop.
I hope they didnt count the roads in Pennsylvania, most of them (at least in NW PA) are in such bad shape, they shouldn't count as being part of a 'paved highway' system.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
Wait a minute, that would be more than one bridge per mile, on average. Is that actually correct? I don't remember there being that many bridges on any of the interstates I've driven on.
For all the copycatting Eisenhower did to establish our highway system, they sure did get a lot of things wrong. Looking at today's Autobahn is a wonderous thing comparatively.
An interesting factor in difference between our highway and Germany's autobahn is the 'curviness' of the road. The Germans wanted their highway to curve with the natural landscape, and be created with a minimal of environmental destruction, which we thought was stupid. As a result, we built straighter roads, blasting through mountains and paving over forests where necessary. The result of course, was highway hypnosis, which contributes to the higher death toll and accident count on U.S. highways.
Something I've wondered about is what will happen when, sometime in the not-too-distant future, we no longer need roads for transportation because we've invented some kind of autonomous flying vehicle. What are we going to do with all that real estate? At least where I live, the roadway is too narrow to be used for additional home construction, so does all this land simply become a vast system of pedestrian malls? Or can somebody think of a better use for it? Of course the realpolitik of the situation is that the various government landowners will try to maximize the revenue to be had from selling this freed-up land, so what kind of monstrosity are they going to foist upon us?
Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
After the Normandy invasion Ike's troops were again slogging, this time through French hedgerows. Finally when he got to Germany and could use the Autobahn, well, you know the rest of the story...
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."
- H. L. Mencken
Interesting Triva. Why is there an interstate highway in Hawaii when it goes to no other state?
Because all military bases, when the project was created, had to be linked to the interstate system. It was one of the selling points to the public... we can move troops and equipment in case of need to other parts of the US. So the intertate highway system in Hawaii connects the militray bases.
It also has. just barely, but has the 2 mile straight length that was demanded in each highway every so often for landing endangered aircraft.
Also from the discovery or history channel learned that lots of it was designed from the German Autobahn system and how the intersections don't stop traffic.
Yes, roads are a good argument for network neutrality.
Gaah! No they're not! Several businesses that all ship goods to their customers rely on the effectiveness of the businesses that actually operate the vehicles that carry the freight, and the sophistication/efficiency of those operations. That's why UPS, FedEx, DHL et al duke it out so thoroughly. But since those companies adjust their business practices and prices around what they tend to be recently carrying, and for whom, and to which destinations... there's always a state of flux, price-shifting, and increasing/decreasing value from one to the next. All of them (um, except the USPS) pay taxes for their road use, just like everyone else... but the effectiveness of their networks, and the biases they deliberately give to certain specific shippers, consignees, or types of shippers and consignees is what makes choosing between them a continual business issue.
The public roads may be the public roads, but the strategic placement of shipping hubs, locally negotiated pricing, and a thousand other factors contribute to a competitive, rather than an artificially "neutral" shipping environment. Which is a really good thing.
Don't like the fact that UPS charges more for delivery to certain areas, because they've got the stats to show that deliveries there are more dangerous, harder on their equipment, more likely to be disprupted by weather, and so on? Choose a carrier that's hungrier for that sort of business, or is making up for their risks and peaks in other ways. It's very much like competing ISPs and should be. Freight companies all pay taxes and use the same public roads/airways, but they don't and shouldn't have to provide uniform service to everyone with a box to ship. If FedEx wants to deploy another 1000 trucks just to carry Amazon shipments from a new warehouse - and wants to pay for that investment by adjust rates elsewhere in their system, or for specific types of customers/deliveries - that's their business. If their decisions cost them customers, then UPS reaps the rewards of being smarter in how they relate to their customers, and their customers' customers.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
1. In the USA, everyone can drive, and does. Every kid 16 and over drives on the freeway. In Germany, I understand that a drivers license is not a gimme like it is here. I hear there are higher costs and stuff like that. So that filters out a lot of people as dumb as you and I were when we first drove on I-70.
2. Cost. They showed the way the Autobahn is constructed, and it can handle higher speeds than the freeway.
3. Terrain. From the little I saw, there are no Rocky Mountains for the Autobahn to cross. This makes a difference in what is a safe speed, and what kind of money you spend on making expensively-safe surfaces.
4. Tradition. I guess the Autobahn was always a speeding zone, and land speed records were even set there.
5. Congestion. Does the Autobahn have anything like the amount of traffic that the Interstates have on them?
Now, not all of these factors apply in all cases (no Rocky Mountains in Nebraska (That John Denver's full of crap!), no congestion on I-70 in Utah, etc.), but I think that when taken together they make a good case.
I guess there are other reasons, too, like different traffic laws that might have a greater impace or something, but I don't know.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
While intercity high-speed trains sound great, they don't really reduce the dependence on oil much. What we really need to replace with rail are the commuting highways. New York has quite a large mass transit system, but it is really limited by the number of trains and buses that can cross the Hudson and East Rivers.
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I think that the market is doing surprisingly well at encouraging people to take mass transit -- I've noticed ridership on my current bus line, as well as my previous train line, increase as gas prices have gone up. Real estate in towns with train stations is more in demand than real estate in towns without mass transit.
The next step is for states (with grants from the federal government) to build more mass transit. If you build it, they will come & all that. There are two problems:
1) NIMBYs objecting to railroad tracks near their property
2) People in government thinking that the government should not subsidize mass transit.
I believe that, in urban areas, mass transit should be funded at the same amount as the road system.
One other thing -- our roads are getting much more expensive to maintain -- tar is getting more expensive (it's a petroleum product, after all). Much cheaper in the long run to maintain rails than roadways.
In the end, though, what's repsonsible for dominance of the roadways over mass transit is the automobile industry. The federal highway system is a handout to the auto manufacturers, the fuel companies, and the workers in those industries -- not that I disagree with public works, I think they are necessary and good, but it's important to realize that the lack of support for mass transit initiatives among our legislators is due to the auto lobby and the auto workers' lobbies.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I think there are parts of the PA Turnpike in its original form (engineering wise anyways) that predates the Interstate system by 20 years! I have pics from my father showing construction in the 1930's of parts of US19 outside of Pittsburgh and that road, engineering-wise, is the same road.
I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as I don't expect the Congress could ever again pass such a massive project.
Remember, the Interstate Highway System was a response to the problems of moving military assets across the US during WWII. It's great for visiting grandma, but it's really a national security asset.
So our current national security risk is our dependence on foreign sources of energy. I'd love to see a project on this scale to rebuild the national grid, make it easy to get wind power from the Dakotas or Solar power from New Mexico to Boston or LA. Our current grid can't do this and it's a big deal to make one that can. Tie in end-user-generated solar and build out broadband to everybody at the same time and you'd do a real benefit to the country.
When that's done we can get started with upgrading the Interstates for Personal Rapid Transit.
I look forward to reading the part of the series on the politics of passage.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
When driving through look for the bypass (generally prefixed by a number, making it a three-digit highway number, for example, 894 for I-94). The bypass will take you around or through a city with a minimal number of offramps.
... but up north we do think these things through :P
Alternatively cities like Chicago have express lanes that switch direction depending on time of day (in to town in the morning, out of town in the afternoon) that are basically the innermost lane(s) but barricaded off, and have no exits.
I can't speak for atlanta
While all of the glory is nice and neat, let's look at the drawbacks: 1. For all the money spent on the interstate system, we could've built up our public transportation infrastructure, which needed a makeover, and have enough money to invest in cities, which also needed a makeover. 2. Sprawl and Suburbia: Now we are faced with sprawl and suburbia. While some may find this a good thing, I personally prefer the European lifestyle in large built-up cities. Suburbia is not self-sustaining. A public transportation system is not feasible in surubria. Do you know of a suburb that is not next to a city? If so, it's not called a suburb, but a rural area. 3. Strip Malls: they existed in very limited quantities before the interstate system. 4. Bad Maintenance: While we built the highways we don't know how to maintain them... pieces are going to crumble bit by bit until we have a makeover or until everything's gone 5. America is a gas-guzzling addict: Even Bush said so. The first step to fighting this adiction is admitting it. Before the interstate, we relied less on cars and more on public transit. Of course, it was harder to get around too. 6. Ever try breathing in L.A.? Yeah... you know what I'm talking about. 7. Trucking Industry - transporting things by train and using trucks for the last n miles is far more efficient, and using electric trains is even more efficient. 8. American teens are now forced into cars at the age of 16, which not only promotes bad lifestyle habits, but also continues the sprawl and suburbia. 9. Declining health/obesity: I admit, I'm not thin as a string. I tried both walking and driving to work for 6 months at a time... after 6 months of walking/public transit (which increased my commute by about 20 mins) I found amazing results - not only had I lost weight but also started feeling better, less stressed ("Ah another train will be along in 7 minutes, no big deal, no need to rush") and I also got some work done on the train/subway. Talk about benefits Of course some may find these things as benefits, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or however the saying goes). Now for the benefits: 1. Easier to get around the country. 2. Drivers are independent from public transit's schedules (of course this is a chicken and egg question: if there were more passengers, the service would be more frequent). 3. Americans can enjoy their suburban dream (although I don't think suburbia is a dream.... even considering the fact that crime rate in suburbia per 100K people is higher than it is in the city; also, in the city you know where most of the crime's happening and you can avoid those areas if you so desire). 4. Cars are not a luxury anymore, but rather a necessity. 5. American teens can break out of their shell when they turn 16. 6. ......
In the end, it's all about what kind of lifestyle you want to lead and whether or not you're a typical suburbanite or the new urban type.
-Palal
I have to disagree completely. We pay so much for highways and roadways in taxes and fees that we don't directly notice, but we don't know what options might have become available to use had we not had so many subsidies offering "cheap" roadways.
I've lately become enamored with private planes and flying. One of my neighbors (actually, he lives about 2 miles from me) has 2 private runways in his backyard. He lands his 4 passenger and 6 passenger prop planes on his lawn. Safely. For years.
Most of his flying is to other private runways such as his, that dot almost every area and region in the U.S. How do we know we wouldn't all be flying inexpensive planes rather than cars? Maybe the highways have made it easy to rip us off with gas taxes and excessive tolls because they were built. They were built before the real boom in inexpensive airplanes began (I can purchase a reasonable Cessna in great shape for less than US$20K).
While the fuel cost is likely higher, we really don't have a competitive marketplace yet because it was stillborn for so many years while the auto industry pandered to Congress to build more roadways at taxpayers expense rather than let the free market of billions of consumer decisions create what we really want and need.
I'm not putting any faith in the highways, either. My best friend is the son of the largest highway contractor in a big western state, and he's told me how much collusion and theft occurs every day in that industry. Thank government? Not for this mess.
In Europe, they've got it all. Their intercity highways are better than ours. And for commuting, they have train networks that actually work and are pleasant enough that people want to use them. Saves gas, saves time (the high-speed trains are faster and you don't have to park them), and you can still drive your car just fine when you are going somewhere the trains don't go or don't reach effectively.
I live in the UK. We used to have the best railway network in the world. Hell, we invented them. Then we had Margaret Thatcher, who loved cars, and we had decades of apathetic state-funded railway management, and then we sold the whole lot off to Railtrack, who didn't maintain the network for ten years and caused several huge railway crashes, and as a result the rail network these days is expensive, unreliable, and slow.
And it's still orders of magnitude better than the US system. The last time I went there --- it was to North Carolina, and I'm quite aware that North Carolina is not the US's best point --- it was like visiting a third world country. Where any European airport is smoothly integrated into a quiet, cleanly running mass transit hub, we got out at Raleigh into a dirty, smelly car park full of honking horns. We had to hire a car to get to the fairly large town where we were going simply because we couldn't find out any other way to get there. (There may have been buses, but we were all completely unable to find any kind of centralised bus timetable system.) It was a hell of a culture shock.
This April I went skiing in Austria. I got the bus from my house to Reading railway station; got the bus there to Heathrow; flew to Munich; got on the mass transit from the airport to central Munich; got a long-distance train to Jenbach; got on the Zillertalbahn mountain railway to Mayrhofen; and then got on the Postbus from Mayrhofen to the guest house where I was staying; I got dropped off at the door. Sounds complicated? I went to the Deutschbahn website, told it I wanted to go from Reading, UK to Juns, Austria and it routed the whole lot for me. Through three countries. Everything was on time, too.
In Boston, in the 50s, buildings were taken by emmient domain for $1 (?) to creat the central artery. It tore apart neighborhoods and caused alot of financial woes.
Today, Boston has "The Big Dig" which puts the central artery underground and is probably the last piece of the interstate system to be completed. It's amazing how much the government has done to accomodate status quo in contrast to the 50s.
It's much harder for the anyone to do a large project today. Environmental concerns, cost & existing occupation of the land required, safety costs, etc.
Are there really enough people going from Boston to DC to support a 4 hour train over a 7 hour one?
Add stops in Philly and New York, and, absolutely. Boston to Washington is under 450 miles. A good train should be able to cover that distance in 3 hours, or 3.5 with stops at the outer edge. Shuttle flights run either hourly or half-hourly between *all* the city pairs in that group and are usually full. "Chinatown" buses leave almost as frequently and are also full; a faster, cleaner and safer train with reasonably priced tickets would probably peel off some of those travelers. And I expect if people could travel around the Northeast without the hassles of the other methods, or the insanity that is parking in New York or Boston, they might travel more often. I know I would -- as a Boston-area resident (for the moment) I'd go to New York every month just for the hell of it.
In my world the trains would not only be faster but cleaner, more pleasant, and much more frequent and reliable. My vision is modeled on the intercity line between Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland. Those trains run hourly and are a wonderful way to get places, unlike anything we have here.
Slower trains could cover the regional lines between each city. With the rebuilding that would be necessary for the high-speed trains, the regionals would speed up too.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Anyway, giving a speech after you've quit the job doesn't strike me as the bravest action one can imagine. If Ike really had huevos, he should have done something when he still had the power to do so, rather than escalate the cold war. If Bush gives a speech in 2009 about the importance of a strict separation between executive and judicial powers, it would strike me more as an apologia than an example of a president with huevos.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Right, except the Northeast is practically as dense, and thus could use a decent transit system. Unfortunately, what we have is a bunch of not-too-well-connected systems run by local authorities (there are no local direct trains between NYC and Philly, for example) and Amtrak, which is a sorry excuse for a joke.
I don't think that "high-speed rail" is the answer yet, either. What we need is, first of all, a reform of Federal railroad regulations to place more emphasis on crash avoidance and less on crash mitigation. The strength regs for railcars in the US nowadays result in trains that are heavy, inefficient, and expensive to run.
After that is done, we need trains (electric or self-powered diesel cars) that are capable of accelerating quickly after stops and running consistently quickly (80-100 mph) on *existing* trackage. In addition, the cars need to be designed efficiently (3 doors per side?) to minimize stop times. Believe it or not, a significant portion of time in rail schedules is lost by just stopping and then accelerating back up to track speed.
The current state of things is disgraceful - Amtrak from NYC to DC takes about 3hr. Krakow to Warsaw, Poland is about the same distance, and took about 2 1/2 hr (with one stop) when I was there in 1997. This wasn't a high-speed train - this was with old electric (and steam still, in some cases) engines, and cars that looked like they were built in the 50ies.
-b.
Look, you can't build enough public transport so that I don't need a car. Therefore I have a car. Given that I have a car, I'm going to drive it whenever and whereever I feel it's most convenient, of just want to drive. Maybe you'd do somehting different. But if the only way you can justify building a train where you want to go is to *force* me to ride that same train instead of driving, I'll resist your attempt to take my freedom.
Where enough people really want to use mass transit, we have mass transit. Sorry we can't build additional mass transit just for your personal use.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Erm, it *is* a right. Exclusion of powers clause. And if you are going to suggest that the government "owns" the roads, then I would point out that the *right* to travel over the "King's Highway" is as old as the Magna Carta.
"The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by horse drawn carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city can prohibit or permit at will, but a common Right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thompson vs. Smith, 154 SE 579.
And licensing is not technically legally required (though you would hardly find a court in the nation to agree with you, so don't try it), because:
"The claim and exercise of a constitutional Right cannot be converted into a crime." Miller vs. U.S., 230 F. 486, 489.
To license something is to deny it as a right, and convert it into a privilege. Technically it is legal to drive without a license in this country, because restrictions against it would have to be introduced at the Constitutional level. See the Thompson v. Smith case above, which has it falling under the Constitional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All such principled arguments have, of course, fallen on deaf ears in court for at least the past 80 years.
Not so.
The driving tests today are filled with political garbage. There's virtually nothing on them about actually driving an automobile, whilst the vast majority of the test is filled with questions regarding the dollar-amounts of the penalties for DWI, the maximum number of weeks you have to change your registration after you move, the (startlingly high) number of points you get on your license if you cut off an ice cream truck (no joke! this was on my test), etc.....
The first time I took the test was almost a full year before I ever sat behind the wheel of a car just because of the way the drivers ed system works in my home state. I got a 70 --- I re-memorized the dollar-amounts for penalties and the other absolutely useless trivia, and passed with flying colors. A year later, I completed the sate-mandated 6 hours of driving with an instructor, and couldn't help but think to myself how worthless the original test was, whilst the 6 hours were quite valuable.
The whole system is horrible, but then again.... what else do you expect from the DMV. IIRC, the cover of the driving manual (this was in 2003) showed two people driving a car that wasn't equipped with seatbelts.
Someday, I hope to have a job that allows me to commute entirely by bike or train. Cars just aren't worth the hassle, and I cringe to think of how much it must have cost to build super-highways like I-80 or I-95.
If road travel weren't so darn subsidized by the government, trains might actually be a viable form of transportation, and could be built up to the point where they were cheaper, more efficent, and faster than road travel. But for now, we have to live with the mess that is Amtrak.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The "we're more sprawled than Europe" argument is bogus. I grew up in Cincinnati, and now live in Philadelphia, and both of those cities have sizeable neighbors which are or could easily be supporting a rail connection (Dayton-Columbus-Cleveland, Indy-Chicago, Louisville, Lexington; and New York City, Baltimore-Washington, Harrisburg, Atlantic City; respectively). Our cities are no less populous, no less dense at the urban core, and no farther apart from their close neighbors, at least on the coasts and in the Midwest.
If you never hear about how great Russia's mass transit system is, you obviously have never met someone who has been to Russia. My then-girlfriend raved about how nice the tram system was to use where she was doing study abroad, and the Moscow Metro is famous for being opulently decorated with lots of marble and running a very high quality service. The Moscow-St Petersburg trains are fast and comfortable, and the only bad stories I've heard about their train network involve long-distance runs like the Trans-Sib (which Amtrak beats the pants off on all points except punctuality, which is not in Amtrak's control on the long distance routes anyway). In any event, look up the Moscow Metro on Wikipedia before you bring Russian trains into things again.
That said, I'm all in favor of toll roads. Why tax people who don't use them -- especially the GSP, since no freight is carried on it?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Simply factor in the monthly payments for you average 2 car family. You will see that the total cost for the 2 cars is around the same price as a mortgage.
There is nothing wrong with having your personal space. The problem is many Americans have a libertarian attitude towards society. See the latest studies showing Americans have 1/3 fewer friends than 2 decades ago. Many wrongly feel that they are isolated from society because the have a car and a TV. That "Freedom" comes at a heavy cost. Just compare the energy and resource usage between a city dweller and a suburbanite. From experience I can tell you that my lifestyle in London was very substainable compared to Atlanta. We are creating a country of consuming friendless debtors.
Try living in a big city like New York or a European city. When you come back to the gridlock of suburban rush hour you will find your self feeling detatched.
> There's absolutely no way I could carry 20 or 30 bags of groceries on a train without a team of sherpas.
Actually the way it works in places like Tokyo (or wherever they have good public transit) is that groceries are co-located at the train station or right beside it. Often the train stations are split level deals with food stalls and daily shopping downstairs. This has some benefits. For one thing people tend to eat much more nutrition dense fresh food and much less high bulk, high calorie, preserved food.
Another benefit is that people get accustomed to a mile or two walking exercise every day inbetween the home, office, and stations. Try getting many Americans to exercise daily. That has huge health benefits and takes the same time as many people spend driving in America, as well as social benefits. Then there is the additional time to read or such on the train.
I agree it's very difficult to do without cars in the US, but in many places like Japan is entirely possible and even preferable. The Japanese system much better as it has many side benefits Americans probably can't imagine not having tried it.
The "freedom" of a car culture is actually a big myth mostly due to car advertising and not knowing nay better. A good transit system that goes everywhere and is supplemented by taxis is actually much more liberating to get anywhere fast, avoid traffic, not have to park, lends itself to more community and less drive through sprawl, and much healthier for the bits of brief exercise one gets inbetween.
The enduring Interstate system showcases the last great example of a Republican who believed in the government taking public monies and using them to create great, massive public works projects that would provide for the common good and the growth of the nation despite the temporary inconveniences of its construction, in a rarely-seen exhibition of a long-view vision as opposed to a short-term ROI mentality.
So what the fuck happened?
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
A better question may be, do we need that many bottle caps? More steel is used in the US to make bottle caps than auto bodies. http://www.skygaze.com/content/facts/manufacturing .shtml s ting_facts.htm s ode/780563/summary.html
http://www.berro.com/entertainment/general_intere
http://www.tv.com/modern-marvels/heavy-metals/epi
The Autobahn is built differently. The biggest difference is that the road surface throughout the Autobahn system is somewhere around 27 inches thick. Most interstates, by comparison, are only 16-18 inches thick. The extra durability makes for a road that's consistently in better condition, which is why it's no big deal to do 100+ mph with a properly-maintained car over there. OTOH, they're more expensive to build. If the interstates were built to the same spec as the Autobahn, the system wouldn't be nearly as extensive as it is.
This page has some interesting Autobahn info.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Sign, burning two mod points on this (both +funny, whatever), but it's an issue that comes up whenever I talk with Europeans about mass transit, and how they can't understand why we don't have a rail system.
The fundamental problem is that Europeans cannot fully grasp the difference in scale invoved in America, especially in the American West. (It's big. It is really really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it is long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to Texas.) I travel rather often from San Diego, through Los Angeles, and to the Bay Area / San Francisco (these are the three major cities in California, incidentally). The trip takes 8-10 hours to complete, depending on traffic passing through Los Angeles. There is a single rail line that runs down the coast. Once per day it travels between SF and SD, and you have to get up at 5AM to catch it. It takes 11 hours.
San Francisco and San Diego are 500 miles apart.
By comparison, Amsterdam to Paris is 500 *km* apart. The distance from San Diego to San Francisco would span the breadth of England (London to Inverness was 8 hours by train, and is about 550 miles, as is Paris to Nice). When I was in Europe, I was constantly surprised about how little time it took to travel from one city to the next while I was on a train. When you live in the American West, you get used to 6 hour drives at 75-80 miles per hour where you literally see no living human beings outside of the gas stations and rest stops. And maybe some farms.
Europe is very heavily built up. It's dense. Rail networks make a lot more sense in dense networks than in sparse ones. That same rail line that runs to Oxford (60 miles from London) can be used to connect to Warwick, or Stratford-upon-Avon (if my memory serves). The rail network in California is essentially a 3-node graph with a line between SF, LA, and SD. With two mountain ranges in between, to boot. The train company loses money on the line pretty consistently. There's literally nothing in between to make the run profitable. San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz are nice places, don't get me wrong, but they simply aren't volume destinations. And because it's not profitable, there won't be any more private infrastructure development. The State of California has been toying with the notion of building a high speed line from SF to SD for a while now, but, hell, I ran the numbers myself. Japan wouldn't have built a high speed rail line if their cities were all 500 miles apart. It's too costly. The main island of Japan is about 600 miles long, total.
It's not a better-than or worse-than comparison, I'm simply stating the facts. You have to have a certain critical mass of density to make rail networks worth your while. An analogy that works well with Europeans I've met: Imagine France. Now imagine there is nothing in the country but Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. None of the little villages, towns, and cities. Nothing but desert. Now consider the practicality of a rail network in the country. This is Texas.
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This isn't an America-is-bigger-is-better argument. In fact, I can pretty firmly say that I would greatly prefer being able to travel to another city in an hour or two. I lose an entire day whenever I make the trip. A drive to Phoenix, first major city east of San Diego (Yuma doesn't count) is 6 hours (@75 MPH) through almost nothing but desert. To the average San Diegan or San Franciscan, the other city is akin to a vacation destination. Road Trips are boring as hell unless you find a way to entertain yourself -- I personally go through audiobooks like water.
Rail Networks simply don't work when the graphs are so sparse. Out in the middle of the desert, a car moves faster than a train, and costs less, so why bother going to the hassle of parking your car in long term parking (unless you have a garage of your own), and paying more money to travel slower? I'd do it just for the scenic-ness of it, except you have to board at 5AM to get in
Ehhh... not really. The idea Americans choose to be unhealthy is a bit untrue. We don't have that much of a fair or equal choice considering that our culture herds us towards unhealthy lifestyles. Why for example are so many suburban people so fat? Do they choose to be?
.22 in my car. These are infeasible to carry on mass transit, so I have a choice the Japanese commuter does not. This is, obviously, a wholly inadequate analysis of the situation; but it hangs together just as well as your assertion regarding choice.
How is it not a choice? Losing weight is simple - expend more calories than you take in. There are, obviously, two ways of doing this: burn more calories (exercise) or take in fewer calories (diet). Since one of these choices involves doing less of something, it's an option that's available to everyone, all the time. Instead of eating the potato chip, don't.
While, admittedly, social pressures will tend to determine the behaviors of the population as a whole, blaming "culture" for any individual's choices is at best disingenuous, and at worst a complete cop-out.
It's very much akin to statistics: the probability that the outcome of a series of coin flips will be an exact 50% split tends towards unity as the number of trials increases. The probability that the outcome of the next coin flip is heads is always 50%. The fact that society encourages unhealthy lifestyles does not change the fact that individuals choose to live unhealthy lifestyles.
In fact, one could make a strong argument that you've got cause and effect backwards. Why does American society make it so easy to lead an unhealthly lifestyle? Because it's what people want to do, and therefore the market caters to it. Did Ray Kroc force people to be unhealthy, or did he recognize a demand for a certain type of food regardless of health consequences?
Not in the context of driving vs. trains anyways. We like to pretend we have more freedom in our car culture, but in reality we have less. They do have cars in Japan afterall, they make the best cars in the world. Their highways are better than ours too.
What they have that we don't have are bullet trains and a very good rapid transist system. They *chose* that.
Misleading. The options are different in Japan than in America. Given their real estate and population density situation, the cost of using personal vehicles as the primary mode of travel is far higher than it is in America. Parking alone dictates that. Meanwhile, given the distance between urban centers and the population density situatioin, the cost of implementing mass transit is higher in America than it is Japan (note I do not maintain that it's infeasible, just that the relative cost is higher).
I could just as easily claim that, when I leave work, I can go right to a golf course or a rifle range, because I have my clubs and a
It's neither more freedom nor less, it's simply different. I, having used my car to get to work, can leave at any time, make any number of stops, run any number of errands, go anywhere I choose. The very nature of mass transit dictates that the mass-transit commuter does not have as much flexibility. That is one aspect of "freedom," and it's the one Americans focus on when saying that cars grant freedom. The Japanese commuter can take mass transit, and avoid the costs of gasoline, insurance, and maintenance (or at least, take advantage of economies of scale in those regards), whereas I, living in America, do not have that option. That is another aspect of "freedom," and it's one that America, as a society, has not so far chosen to value.
We have an extensive road network and a society built around the assumption that adults are able to get wherever they need to be whenever they need to be there. That's the freedom cars grant. We *chose* this.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Not to mention that the sweeping (and scenic) turns built into the Autobahn significantly reduce cases of highway hyponosis. The Germans didn't plan it out that way, but it was a nice bonus,
The U.S. OTOTH... there's nothing like driving in (essentially) a straight line for many miles to turn you into a zombie.
One of the newer features on the Autobahn are overhead speed limit signs. They can change the speed limit based on road conditions. When there's a backup, they allow it to clear up by slowing down upstream traffic.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Bingo. All of Germany is about the size of Wyoming. Extending the Autobahn to the former East Germany, roughly a third the size of the former West, is a work in progress.
Also, keeping right except to pass is not uniformly followed even in Germany. There's a great billboard showing nearly all the cars in the left lane with the caption "und Sie?" (and You?). But going 220 kph (~ 132 mph) is a kick, even when others overtake! Absolute Hell on the fuel efficiency, however.
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
The autobahn was engineered to be durable and long lasting, and the US highways were designed to be cheap (but not as long lasting). In some parts of the US, the highways are in very good condition, but there's just too much variance from state to state, and even among locales within states.
But they're also much more efficient and prompt with repairs in Germany. Anecdotally, I'm told they have huge trucks (like that thing in the movie Cars) that can rip up pavement and lay down a new top layer in one pass. They also pioneered traffic monitoring and electronic speed limit and other signs to alert drivers to upcoming congestion.
But the biggest factor in the safety of German roads is the drivers. Most Germans would never consider eating a burger or putting on makeup while behind the wheel -- they take driving much more seriously, along with vehicle maintenance. Licenses cost a lot of money, and you have to be 18 to get one. Tailgating is illegal, as are rude getures, passing on the right, and rust holes or any fluid leaks, and enforcement is strict. You can get a ticket if your car leaks oil or has balding tires, and passers-by will often report parked cars they see in poor condition. It would be difficult to change the attitude of the typical US driver to match that of the Germans. I wish we could, but I don't see it happening anytime within the next ever.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Whats funny/interesting is, modern tanks (m1a1/a2 70 tons+) would ruin many sections of interstate after the first few...the "column" would have serious problems. I can think of a few overpasses/bridges/etc that would have to take the tanks in small numbers at a time too. (maybe 1 for a few downtrodden ones)
I've also noticed that often m1s are moved by rail, not road.
Germany had a similar problem in WW2 with a few of its crazy ubertanks defending near the end...they had some 100+ ton monsters that broke bridges and could get stuck on otherwise paved roads.
Not that they should lighten them at all...if I was sitting in one, I'd much rather have the nice heavy depleted uranium covering my ass. (as long as theres a bit of shielding too)
> How is it not a choice? Losing weight is simple - expend more calories than you take in.
That's rather simplistic and superficial. What informs choices? Culture predominantly. And culture determines whether we're romantic about the supposed freedom of the car culture or concerned about the rising obesity epidemic and the increased difficulty of exercising in a car culture with long commutes.
In reality if you take a large group of people who share the same culture and split them into two different environments, one which promotes health and one which promotes unhealthy living, you'll get more unhealthy people in the unhealthy environment every time. In other words people's choices are predictable in large aggregates according to the cultural and environmental predetermined factors. According to your theory each individual is entirely free to choose a healthy life and therefore the results should be equal. In reality people are shaped by their environments much more than they like to admit. Individual choice exists within statistical probabilities. As the saying goes "I believe in self determination because I can't help it."
Cultural shifting of the probabilities only happens over long periods of time or due to major events. For example, after a few generations of car culture and obesity we may choose as a culture to shift towards more sustainable and healthy living, which will shift those brackets of probability in which people "choose" how to live.
> The options are different in Japan than in America. Given their real estate and population density situation, the cost of using personal vehicles as the primary mode of travel is far higher than it is in America.
Not true. There are some differences, but again they're rather superficial and not as important as you think. Japan does have higher population density than the USA on the whole when you count places like Montana, as does just about every developed country. However, much of the US population lives in metropolitan areas with population densities just as high as European or Japanese metro areas and yet their rail systems are consistently far better than ours as a cultural choice.
Also you're putting the historical events in reverse. The low population density sprawl came after the switch to a car culture, mostly after WWII, not the other way around. We didn't build a rail based infrastructure because it wasn't an option due to several unfortunate circumstance.
For one thing there was "white flight" which was less a "choice" than the product of racism due to circumstances beyond most peoples control. A minority of whites and a racist economic policy created a financial avalanche of shifting property values that forced the rest of whites and non-whites to segregate into suburban and urban. That wasn't a widespread cultural choice so much as it was stumbled into by a few in a circumstance which dragged everyone else along to their detriment.
As that mass exodus occurred new towns were being constructed piece meal with very little central planning or long term investment. It was all about cheap pre-fab homes with cheap loans (if you were white) and the resulting sprawl was incapable of building good infrastructure. Again, many people were forced economically to move to the burbs as urban property values and business plummeted as a result of bank's desire to build sprawl.
At the same time the concentration of wealth among industrialists and the big ticket industrial economy (which was a product of WWII) needed to sell cars and big refrigerators and washers and such.
So, the suburban car culture we have now is largely due to factors beyond the control of most Americans. It was marketed by industrialists, oil companies, and developers who became incredibly rich. It was spurred in many regards by a minority of racists and what can be called anti-social sentiments which led to a domino effect in economic policies. It happened in an ad-hoc manner which made civic infrastructure impossible, both in th
> I, having used my car to get to work, can leave at any time, make any number of stops, run any number of errands, go anywhere I choose. The very nature of mass transit dictates that the mass-transit commuter does not have as much flexibility.
btw, that is wrong about a lack of flexibility. First of all you can leave any time with a train system, and not have to worry about traffic jams or drunk drivers. There are late night taxis where trains aren't 24hrs. Also many people enjoy having to leave work for "last train" rather than employers keeping workers into the wee hours of the morning and 80/hr weeks due to poor management and insufficient work forces, a common problem in our culture.
Maybe you've never been in a good transit system?
You can make as many stops with as much flexibility and go to as many places as you want, faster, and without parking, individually or in groups as large as you like, with efficiency and with less pollution. In fact, because there is less space wasted for huge parking lots and such, you generally have much denser destinations where more can be done. All the shopping, entertainment, dining, etc is more closely situated. The advantage is that people can walk around to go to much more locations and see more people than in a car culture. One can for example go with coworkers/family for dinner and then a movie or drink, or to the gym, or whatever, much more easily.
btw, Americans hang out at malls a lot, so it's pretty obvious they like such places. The difference is that in Europe and Japan the gathering places tend to be around train stations, and instead of sterile "malls" they tend to be neighborhoods of small business, whether it's the small cafe, butcher, boutique, etc.
The business surrounding train stations and malls tend to evolve differently. Malls tend to be built by large developers, run centrally and often somewhat sterilely, with little flexibility to expand or contract due to issues of parking and the expense of real estate development. That tends to limit consumers options to franchises, food courts, and anme brand stores. By comparison business around train stations is often integrated right into the community and therefore has more ability to expand and contract by converting between residential/business/vacant. As a result business around train stations tend to be less franchised, more entrepreneurial, and more interesting and diverse with a real sense of community.
So, in the US you hop in a car and go from work to A to B to home. Each A + B are probably in a distinct location requiring a drive inbetween, where traffic is an issue and commute times vary. If A was a restaurant and B a gym or other recreation they'd probably require a drive in-between or be at a mall limiting the quality of both. If you're traveling with others then each has to worry about their car and parking. The 'advantage' is one doesn't need to walk much if at all, which means a trip to the gym (with a commute there) or probably no exercise. In fact one has to make a deliberate effort to take time to exercise in addition to commute time.
In a place like Japan or Europe, you simply take the train which is reliable and on time, and have no traffic issues, so you'll on average arrive faster. You get off the train and can walk a short distance to your A + B destination which are probably close to each other near the station, by design, decades ago. That integrates healthy living right into the day, seamlessly. If you're with friends, no problem. You'll have a greater number of interesting choices of activities at your destination. If you drink, no need to worry about driving.