Magiccupcake

The cost to benefit looks way better if you think long term. Especially with climate change on the horizon to compete with planes but emission free.

One of the major problems for upgrading lines is straitening the route, and people fight the emniment domain way harder than they do for roads.

That would ne ideal, but sadly city planning in the United states is too political.

We'll never get anything done relying on city planning, so the only thing that seems possible is to improve the city organically, through markets.

I don't disagree, but where I live zoning is a large part of the problem

The zoning in my area perpetuates unwalkable, uncyclable, parking lot infested sprawl, because single family houses take up 84% of the available land.

I don't want industry to move into neighborhoodseither , but I wouldn't mind commercial or retail, currently prohibited.

Parking lots waste a lot of area that could be green space too.

But yes overdevelpment could be a problem , but is easily fixed by adding a green space rule to development. Like we have now for minimum parking and such.

Also high speed roads destroy a lot of green space too, with nothing in the median or a good chunk on either side, and huge empty areas in dead zones of interchanges.

Lets not think cuurent car use is good for green space.

I dont mean throw out zoning entirely, but reducing the way they promote single family housing only. I live in a county with a million people and 84% of the land is single family zoning only, I want to throw that bit out.

Also if done right you dont need to zoning for all those things. Transit development will drive denser, walkable areas all on its own if its legal to build those kinds of areas. All the city has to do it manage transit as these areas develop.

I'm not disagreeing with that, but high speed rail from Boston to Miami would be extremely practical. Efficient, fast, convient travel along that corridor reducing dependence on cars for city to city travel. And the area has both the demand and density to support such projects.

And while its impractical now, if it was built to cheapen regional travel in the region it could grow to high use spurning economic development.

I'd love to take a train at a reasonable pace from near to DC to my family in Pittsburgh, or to visit New York.

I might even enjoy a cross country trek to the rockies for skiing on a train, but it's never going to be an option.

East coast united states has similar population density to most of europe.

It's just out west we have a lot of empty land.

I agree, it seems like it should be easy to convince libertarians and conservatives with deregulations, but exactly how to frame that argument is tricky.

He talks about the intersection a lot, but the main problem with this intersection has nothing to do with the intersection itself. It's the surrounding area that backs up into and causes it to fail.

Driving requires courtesy and attention, but overreliance on cars make people the opposite.

People get frustrated driving in traffic, causing them to be rude and agressive.

Meanwhile if driving is the only way to get around, even for easily distracted people or busy or whatever, they are not going to pay proper attention. Safety features like blind spot detection and automatic crash avoidance just make people pay even less attention.

You say the problem isn't cars, but it is because in america cars are the only way to get around for most trips.

If you make other options more conpelling or faster, than these problems are less severe for those left on the road.

You can always count on people to be irresponsible, selfish, and reckless. So yeah its bad road design to count on people to be safe, when they just aren't.