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How far can you get in 8 hours of driving starting from 5 European capitals (europe.pub)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Sure, but so often it's "Americans are complicit idiots since half the country doesn't simply protest in the same city" and "dumb car-brained Americans won't even build highspeed rail between LA and NYC" 🙄

Even smaller-scale things like the definition of rural are so drastically different from places like the UK that they just don't translate.

The distances and population density differences are huge but simultaneously subtle enough that reasonable-ish sounding yet wildly impractical takes are a common occurrence online.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    "dumb car-brained Americans won't even build highspeed rail between LA and NYC"

    I mean the rail system in the US could definitely be better. Like NYC to LA on Amtrak is scheduled for nearly 3 days of travel and since it's Amtrak you're probably going to be 4 hours late in Chicago and LA so closer to 4 days. For reference NYC to LA on Greyhound is scheduled at the same amount of time but you'd have to be an idiot to think Greyhound is getting you anywhere close to on time.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Even if you could solve the impossible land acquisition problem and build non-stop highspeed rail in a straight line between LA and NYC, it'd still be much faster to fly the ~2500 miles than to take a train. It's 6 hour flight vs a well over 12 hour train ride.

    Passenger rail doesn't exist on that scale in the US because it's prohibitively expensive and, even if it were free, obsolete at that distance. It could be better for intrastate or travel on along the coast, but then you run into the land and cost issues. See: California working on this for nearly a decade.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago

    Yeah high speed rail across the country is pretty infeasible but the current service is really bad and that's what I was addressing.

    A train service should be faster than a bus on the same distance if for no other reason than the bus is going to have more frequent stops. Amtrak saying they can't do coast any faster than Greyhound should be embarrassing.

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