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My closest superstore an hour drive away. 60 miles. The closest grocer is 12 miles. My closest international airport is 1.5 hours away. It is also the closest regional airport. 85 miles. The closest national park is 3 hours. I live 6 miles from my closest town.
There are no passenger trains, busses, or taxis. Or uber.
Rural america is empty. And spread out. We get along fine, but public transit will never exist here. Cars are the only way.
Your measurements are almost exactly mine, down to the closest town.
Yep. I live the same life in a very rural and somewhat remote area also. Population density is very low making modern conveniences non-existent and not ever likely to exist in such places.
Other things to consider: Kids often ride a school bus for an hour or more to and from school. Nearest hospital is 40 miles away. And it's a Level 3. This means it's pretty much a bandaid station. I used to work as a medic up here. The number of times I had to literally turn the lights on in the ER and wait for the doctor to get out of bed and drive to the hospital would shock you. Nearest ambulance is 20 miles away and you better hope they aren't already busy when you dial 911. Because if they are, it could be several hours before they can get to you. The US Postal Service will NOT deliver mail to my home. I need to pay $160 a year for a post office box, (no free delivery for me!), and drive the 12 mile round trip to town, (Pop: 150), just to get my mail.
The railway used to be the default for rural areas. It could be again.
So how does rail solve the Last Mile problem? It does no good to say "take the train" if the nearest train station is 60 miles away. And is it the best use of a train to run tracks to a town/village with a population 150 people or less?
Light rail and buses? Even the most remote rural towns in Japan have small shuttle buses that serve even the sparsest areas. The great thing about public transit is that it is actually scalable if there's political will to make it happen. A shuttle bus can connect a rural neighborhood to a big train station within 60 minutes. The cool factor of transit is mix and matching several types of transport to cover the most area with the highest mobility for the widest array of people.
Japan still has a higher density of population and far less landmass to cover. My nearest neighbor is over a mile away. Are you going to build a bus route or light rail just for me? Or through county, state, and federal forest lands? Logistics is a bitch.
Only where the rails went. We'd have to replace all the roads with light rails.
It would take more than that. The problem is almost not solvable under present economic and political conditions.
Oh, I agree. There are wide swaths of the country that rail cannot service. Individual homes out in the sticks, farmland, etc. they'd need a car or truck just to get to the train station.
Not for last mile, but should be a much larger part of the picture.