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Fear Mongering About Range Anxiety Has To Stop — CT Governor Calls Out EV Opponents (cleantechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Fear Mongering About Range Anxiety Has To Stop — CT Governor Calls Out EV Opponents::Several state governors are fighting fear mongering as they attempt to reduce transportation emissions in their states.

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[–] 19 points 2 years ago* (17 children)

How about trains? Americans are too used to their cars for those long-range trips. Make them unnecessary. Build out the infrastructure. Have your car for local trips, switch to trains for anything else.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    The Biden administration is working on improving train infrastructure but if you look at the map of what they're adding, it's limited to a very small section of the country. I mean, it's like cross country but it's such a massive country that it's still super limited.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    funny how biden said rail workers are not allowed to protest and ask for higher wages and better worker rights in general then bam comes out with expanding train infrastructure

    someone is definitely looking out for his actual constituents

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Corporations are people too. Please think of the bottom line and its feelings would ya

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  • [–] [B] 2 points 2 years ago

    Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

    Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued. Granting non-human entities personhood is a Western concept applied to corporations.

    ^article^ ^|^ ^about^

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    Yes, we should invest in trains, but this is not a short or even medium term solution. It's also horrifyingly expensive in many parts of the US, and broad public support simply isn't there. So in the mean time we need to adapt using the infrastructure that already exists.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Years ago, I, a brit, was in Austin Texas for 7 weeks for work. During that time I thought it would good to go see New Orleans. I was like "I'll just jump on a train and read and sleep until I'm there." This what I had done in Europe. I had my error explained. So I drove. I mean, it was kind of interesting to see the different landscapes, but it was also really boring and time consuming. Basically got there, spent a few hours, and had to turn round and drive back.

    Why the hell doesn't the US have a passenger train network??

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    We do, it's just very limited. Actually in Austin I think you could have pulled it off. You could have taken the Texas Eagle to San Antonio, then the Sunset Limited to New Orleans. It would have taken 27 hours and the Sunset Limited only runs 3 times a week, so if you departed Monday at 6:30 pm you'd be in NO Tuesday at 9:40 pm. Bon Voyage!

    Just kidding. As a rail fan, it bugs me, too. My wife and I spent two weeks in Germany, visiting multiple cities, and we used a private car once (a relative gave us a ride) and a taxi once. Otherwise it was all trains and the occasional city bus, plus one motorcoach that took us to Neuschwanstein. It was pretty nice.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    It was a bit of a culture shock to be honest.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    There are spots where it's much brighter - for example, between Boston and Washington, DC, there is quite a bit of rail service, with departures frequently from each endpoint and cities in between (Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, etc.). It's higher speed than most passenger rail in the country, but not "high speed" in the sense of Europe or Japan.

    I've gone from Baltimore to Philly that way a few times, and it's pretty nice...and it's busy.

    A private company recently introduced service in Florida with semi-high speed trains that runs from Miami to Orlando. That seems to be pretty popular as well. And some cities (New York and Chicago, for example) have an extensive network of commuter rail.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I've used the NY subway before. It's the kind of thing you'd want for all cities. I've passed through Chicago and saw the trams, but didn't get to go one. They looked great at least. Most US cities I've been to have just felt like sprawl where driving is only option. Often where it seamed there was no real centre to go to anyway.

    The US is so big it's amazing it doesn't have good fast rain connecting it all. A wave of rail building could do wonders. Cities without a centre would end up growing one at the rail hub. You could then de-car that centre, make it somewhere to go.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Well, keep in mind some of those cities are thousands of miles apart - New York to Los Angeles is about 2,800 miles (4,500 km). While I believe we should have a robust rail network, it's tough to justify it for that kind of distance given that planes are so much faster.

    In my mind we'd have a three tiered approach - cities would have subways, busses, and commuter rail options. Nearby cities, say, less than 500 miles (800 km) apart, would have high speed rail connections. Longer trips would be handled by airliners. Because, lets face it, no one is going back to land transportation between New York and LA - even at 250 km/hr, a train would take 18 hours - and that's nonstop, whereas a flight is 6 hours. Few people are going to be willing to triple the travel time like that.

    So, in my world we'd have a cohesive transportation plan that focuses each mode for what they are best at. I'd still want a good nationwide rail network as a fallback (in case of, say, a 9/11 type event where the airline network is shut down), but I think it has to be bigger than just rail.

    This would reduce the issue of a busy air traffic network as well, by removing short haul flights in favor of trains.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Ideally I'd like trains for local trips and high speed rail for longer distances. I'd prefer to not own or use a car at all but most cities would have to be torn down and rebuilt to achieve this.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    but most cities would have to be torn down and rebuilt to achieve this.

    We did it once, we can do it again!

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