The U.S had the greatest rail network and then we built the Interstate Highway system and abandoned rail.
Truth is that nobody funds multiple competing transportation network. Japan chose rail, we chose highways.
The U.S had the greatest rail network and then we built the Interstate Highway system and abandoned rail.
Truth is that nobody funds multiple competing transportation network. Japan chose rail, we chose highways.
Although Japan also has extensive highways, and they're privatized in a similar way to JR (NEXCO East, West, Central) and are nearly all tolled - if you're driving alone, it's often the same price in tolls alone as a ticket on the Shinkansen (but the equation quickly flips when you more people in the car)
This is a big difference with much of the U.S. and Europe, Japan doesn't subsidize car ownership as heavily. There is no on-street parking in the city, businesses aren't required to provide parking and if you want to own a car you first have to prove you have a parking space for it.
You do some heavy assumptions about European nations
Any statement about "Europe" as a whole will always be an oversimplification. But in Germany all of this rings true. We have lots of on-street parking, business are frequently required to provide parking spots (depends on the municipality though), it's even becoming more common that new residential construction has to provide parking spaces for all residents, no matter if the actual residents own a car
And while Germany is probably a bit worse than European average, I have seen plenty of other similarly car-pilled places in Europe. Though also some positive examples. Paris has done a lot to bring some parks to a horribly car-infested city. Amsterdam is great. Rome is pretty decent. Few places in Europe are as bad as the US when it comes to car-dependence. But there are also very few places comparable to Japan's approach to car ownership
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Rail is hardly abandoned in the US, the US has a top tier _freight_ rail network. It's just passenger rail that sucks big balls in the US.
Rail companies were rather abusive - because they could get away with it. Also, shipping freight was much more profitable/easier/simpler than shipping people. When the interstate system was being built, folks would much rather drive than ride a train (or bus for that matter).
Rail is great when you have a lot of people or things moving on the same path.
Highways are great when everyone has a different path.
Japan has most (but not all) of its large destinations on the pacific coast, which works great for rail.
I'm sure passenger rail networks used to have more routing options than amtrak does now, but it's hard to get between a lot of places by rail without going through Chicago. In the western US, you can go north/south in the pacific states or near the missisipi. Sure mountains are hard to cross, but there's no north/south in the plains either... Or Atlanta to Florida, etc.
Air is exactly the same but there are connections to everywhere from Kansas or Montana or wherever. I really think the rail situation in the US is primarily lack of investment. And it sucks; even here in Chicago where the connections are plentiful, the schedules and frequency are awful.
Air travel is easier to make work because most of the infrastructure is at the airports, not on the routes. Airlines can change routes easier than railroads. The speed of air travel has natural utility. Commercial airplanes come in many sizes... Turboprops can reasonably service small airports that can't fill a 737. Once daily or even a few times a week service from a middle of nowhere airport to a hub opens you up to a lot of destinations with 1 stop, and a 2nd stop (maybe with a different airline) probaly gets you to anywhere you want to go.
With small airports, there's probably plenty of flight time is worse than drive time and security and rental counter time add up too, so flying isn't always less time than any other mode, but often it is.
Germany has both the Autobahn and rail.
The German rail network is chronically underfunded and Germany is completely incapable of building new lines. Per capita spending on rail pales in comparison to e.g. Switzerland and Austria.
Germany is roughly the size of Montana, with the population of almost CA and TX combined.
Shouldn’t that extra population in a limited amount of land lead to more demand and better outcomes for rail and roads?
The locals value silence. It is not easy to put rails or roads. until recently people used to protest the noise of windmills (thats changing now).
Given the reputation of the phrase "getting deutsche bahn'ed", I think they chose the Autobahn.
The US did not abandon rail, it just used it for freight
Europe shifts people by train, not freight.
The US/Canada/Mexico is about 10% more than the EU, but it shifts 7 times as much freight by rail.
It’s both: the US rail network is (currently) geared for freight, and we’ve systematically removed or neglected the parts that favored passenger rail.
japan is a small island the US is one of the most extensive and biggest distance from population centers country on earth
I tihnk that helps explain the feasiability of train on each country more than inherent choices
It’s not just about size. Much of the U.S. would be cheaper to build rail networks because there is a lot of open, relatively flat land without dense building on it. Japan is very mountainous and has a lot of dense development, and it has to be more resilient in case of earthquakes.
Civil planning on that scale isn’t about feasibility but about what direction you want to shape the county in.
A sparse railway system would leave parts of the country less populated by design as it’s simply harder to get to them. People would bunch up into cities and towns because they had to.
We had a railway powered country until it was torn down
The US has several areas of high population density that have laughably bad rail networks.