The highway deaths are among 300 million people, the war deaths are among a MUCH smaller population.
AHC: Get more people in the US to take the train.
- Thread starter Duke Andrew of Dank
- Start date
The highway deaths are among 300 million people, the war deaths are among a MUCH smaller population.
Thoroughly missing the relevant part of the statistic. Let's try again!
The epidemic of gun deaths in America: well documented, much decried in the media (and rightly so), a problem that's the constant focus of a significant amount of political capital in this country. Auto fatalaties: you know, there's some concern.
Going year by year, how long does it take us to reach...oh, 1.5 million total dead for each of these categories? Snopes has gun stats up to 2015 so we'll limit auto deaths to 2015 as well and the results are:
Gun deaths: 1968, some 47 years
Auto deaths: 1979, some 36 years
Bottom line: cars = more deadly than guns and we're okay with it.
Cars are used far more often then guns. You are comparing apples and oranges again.
Well they're certainly used as a way to die more than guns, that's true.
Should we get into per capita auto deaths vs train deaths then?
Actually they do cost a lot of money (however they are cheaper than rail based on US needs), however in the context of the US cultural-ethical deprioritizing of car mobility is not a solution, because while there are some cultural issues involved in the rise of the automobile in the US, practical reasons at much more important. Lets look at history
Inter city Rail service was well established in the US up to the 1940's. The decline of rail has to do with a. size and population density of the US (yes population density matters not everyone lives in cities, nor the suburbs for that matter) b. the effects of the great depression, c. WW2, d. The emergence of the US a major industrial/military power E. The rise of a bipolar world f. political ie. power of the unions (autoworkers union), etc
Up to the end of WWI (at the time people didn't commute to work you lived in the area were you work, so you either walk, ride a bicycle or took a horse driven coach. and you use rail to travel from city to city) for example lets look at a Texas A&M student going from a farm in the outskirts of Houston to College Station, TX (97 miles or 156 km). He will need to ride a horse drawn buggy form the farm to the rail station in Houston and then grab the train from Houston to College Station, depending on your point of departure this is a two day trip.
Then WWI happens and the US Army begins to mechanize. The auto plants go to full production, and its reliability improves. in 1917 a young army officer (who did not deploy to Europe and is working in the war department) is assigned to conduct a study on the feasibility of moving an Army unit by motor transport from the east coast to the west coast. It takes him almost a year to do so. WWI ends resulting in a glut of automobiles and reinvigorated auto industry shifting to the private sector. Now it is possible for a student to do the same trip in a day and a half (take a model a or T from the farm to the station over the same trail road that the buggy took). However, the 1920's were a period of economic prosperity in the US and as more people move to the cities the means off subsistence keep moving further out. So the cities are forced to finds ways to bring fresh produce and livestock from the surrounding local farms. Politicians are faced with the option of building a rail system with Stations in each surrounding farm or build a road to the surrounding farms. The roads are not also cheaper but allow for maintenance routes for electric, telephones and water utilities coming into the city as a need or leaving the city as a service, so the city gets more for the money it spends. By 1928 it takes less time for a student to hitchhike from Houston to College Station than to take the train.
Then the depression hits and as a pathway to recovery the US embarks into a infrastructure development program (see CWA). These programs result in a major improvement of local roads, intercity connection and rail. But the efforts involving power, sewer, food, commodities, clean water distribution and the need for maintenance accessibility have the greatest impact on road, highway infrastructure up to the 40's. It is now possible for that student to do the trip in 5 hours. WW2 starts, but now a two front war The same efforts from WWI in steroids as the US is more mechanized. US local and intercity roads have been greatly improved to support a wartime economy, However there is not a reliable interstate road system. The US occupation troops and the commander of allied forces Europe (Gen Eisenhower) are able to study the German Autobahn system. US emerges from the War as a world power in a bipolar world creating the need for shifting military forces from one coast to the next (as well as increasing the # of aircraft landing fields available) , which under the Eisenhower administration becomes the National Defense Highway system (later known as the interstate system). Now that same student that had to travel 2 days to go to college, can do the Trip in 1 hour 45 minutes.
Now lets look at other reasons for the rise of automobiles in the US. For example a person going to work in the Washington DC National Capital Region ( a circle of 50 mile radius centering on Washington DC) can commute to work either via personal automobile, bus, metro, regional train or a combination of all. For example let say that I work at 11 south George mason in Arlington, Va from Woodbridge, VA. To do so minimizing the use of automobiles, I would have to walk 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop, catch a local bus to take me to the nearest Prince William county commuter bus station (30 minutes), then catch a commuter bus to the pentagon Metro station (45 minutes), then catch a local bus to take me to the nearest 11 south George mason (30 minutes) bus stop and another 15 minutes to walk to work.. Total commute time 2 hours 15 minutes (that is perfect scenario where I don't have wait time at any of the stops along the way, realistically closer to 3 hours) that represent 4 hours and 30 minutes (realistically closer to 6 hours) a day of commuting plus around $20 dollars in fees, or I can drive 1 hour (using the HOV lane or 1:30 regular lane) to work a 2 (or 3) hour daily commute for about the same price (between GAS, parking and HOV fees) which gives me 2 to 3 hours of leisure/family time back.
So the development of good roads and Interstates are not just the development of suburban culture or as result of an automobile centric culture. The interstates are actually the results of the Defense Highway Act, so while expensive they are necessary for National Defense (which automatically makes them a Federal responsibility, not a State responsibility " US Constitution - provide for the common defense". To prevent the interstate system and the abundance of good roads from emerging too many POD's are needed to include but not limited. 1. Eliminating the American dream of home/land ownership (cultural imperative, private property was one of the primary reason for the settlement of the US). The US is not as large , nor has such a low population density (balkanized US). The US never develops as an industrial power thus no need to transport subsistence from the farms to the cities. LT. Eisenhower is not assigned the transportation study in 1917. The US is not require to fight a 2 front WW2. Germany under Adolph Hitler doesn't construct the Autobahn system (serves as the inspiration for the system), The US doesn't become a world power and a guarantor of democracy in the world. The Soviet Union doesn't become a World Power with desires to spread communism around the world. Eisenhower doesn't become the US President. The combination of all the necessary PODs; make this nearly ASB or a the very least you will need a significant change to the United States with a POD predating the birth of a nation.
Riain
Banned
Except for the hundreds of US cities that had trolley networks well into the 20th century. Millions of people got around US (often surprisingly small) cities on trolleys to and beyond WW1. The car alone had to be actively nurtured and trolley systems neglected for the car to win.
People are far more willing to risk a relatively small risk of death for the convenience of a car. You can take a car any time, trains run on their schedule.
Precisely.
A big part of train ridership relies on people "living where they work". Even in low density countries like the u.s. and Russia rail was still successful because everyone in a certain town size or higher usually had a rail station a mile or less from their house.
Cities in the u.s. eventually got too big for this, so the "live where you work" radius was greatly expanded first through streetcars, and when certain cities got big enough, full on passenger rail service lines in the cities themselves (metros/subways, in nyc and to a lesser extent Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston).
Cars changed the picture. Now people who owned one didn't have to live within a mile or so of a train station or their job. This meant that land outside of rail lines was suddenly very valuable, as it could be developed into big homes for rich car owners and sold at a profit, whetheras previously, no one could live there without transportation to their work.
This wasn't the end for rail, however. America, Japan and Europe all reached this stage and went different ways. America largely gave up on rail, Japan kept expanding their network without many hiccups, and Europe was in-between.
In America though, the car really caught the public's imagination. Once It was cheap enough it became a fad that continues to this day. "Why go on a boring train commute when you have the personal freedom inducing ultra cool automobile?".
More and more people bought them and quickly the car began to be seen not as the exception (as in japan) but the norm. Even before highways cut through and devastated inner cities cars and their owners reshaped our cities to their wants and needs, to the EXTREME detriment of rail. Cars did this so fast that by the late 1920s the vast majority of new development was pretty close to the suburban hell that we wrongfully see as the norm.
As this development was extremely low density, it could not support rail development, and this is when America stopped extending it's railroads. Another big reason is that trains began to be seen as ''lower class" and suburbanites didn't want to be associated with the blacks and eastern Europeans that still walked or took the train. The roots of white flight and the decline of americaa cities were sown a generation before it actually happened.
Thus what is now the norm in America is the cancerous sprawling suburbs that are completely and totally unsustainable without everyone and their mother owning a car. I'll give props, Canada handled it better than we did but their suburbia is just less hell, not full hell.
So how to stop this? Prevent America from reshaping around the car. This is both easier and harder to do than it sounds. As early as the great depression the new deal heavily shafted rail in favor of cars, (to name just one example
the subway's expansion in new York grounded to halt while billions of federal money was spent to construct auto-only Bridges and tunnels across the Hudson. If even some of that money was given to the subway, I bet jersey city, Hoboken, Staten island would be fully integrated into the subway system.Frankly it astonishes me why American commuter rail roads didn't try to ensure that areas within a mile of their stations were optimized for rail usages (blocks of dense apartments and townhouses organized to have just a 10-15 minute walk from the station). Nothing prevented them from subsidizing developers.
Japan did this, and it worked wonders.
Even in their hayday America wasn't dependent on trains in the way that we now are on cars. Keep cars affordable only to the high upper middle class and the rich and the downward spiral of car domination can by largely prevented, as cities will have grown large (and more importantly, dense) enough that metros, streetcars, and commuter rail are more convent in most cities than driving. You can see this in new York today (subway, path, lirr, metro North, HB light rail, Staten island rail), parts of Europe, and most of Japan)
I did the rail/metro commute from the Frederick, MD area to the Pentagon for around 7 years...IF everything was on time and I hit the metro correctly (no waiting for red/yellow line, it was a bit less than 2 hours one way from leaving my house to arrival at the Pentagon...IF things went wrong, it could be as many as 4 hours...
pre 9/11, I drove in, leaving my house around 0445 and arriving around 0545, departing the office about 1430 and arriving home before 1600...can't do that any more because of traffic and that's why I started to take the train...
pre 9/11, I drove in, leaving my house around 0445 and arriving around 0545, departing the office about 1430 and arriving home before 1600...can't do that any more because of traffic and that's why I started to take the train...
marathag
Banned
And those systems were losing money each year after WWI, except during with Rationing during WWII, and then went back to losing even more money after the war.
Hey, you know that there are trains that run every 5 minutes or so, and can get you to within a couple blocks of your workplace all without needing to worry about parking? They aren't very common in America but Europe and Asia have plenty of them.
They're called metros (or subways)
If us governments in the 60s hadn't built massive highways across the USA and especially in cities wouldn't have been broken up a much and they would have been denser and more people and if highways were on the edge of cities then there would be less suburbs
marathag
Banned
Granger Roads like the C&NW had their '400' Passenger line, 400 miles in 400 minutes, or an average 60mph. Doesn't sound impressive, but with stoos and some crossings, means the crews were doing over 100 on the straights to make time.
And that was with Steam power, and heavyweight Pullmans with no more than superelevation on some curves. Damn good. Look at Amtrak's average speeds in the NEC, and that is with controlled crossings and no need for water stops
Riain
Banned
@MorningDew where I live was the biggest Ford factory in Australia, not surprisingly the power of this employer and ratepayer in the lical and state goverment electorates was pretty massive. Geelongs tram network was shut down in 1956, 15 and 17 years before the smaller cities of ballarat and bendigo which didn't have massive car factories.
Often it wasn't the intrinsic goodness of the car that damaged the prospects of rail.
Often it wasn't the intrinsic goodness of the car that damaged the prospects of rail.
marathag
Banned
But people didn't want to live densly. They had money after the war, and didn't want to live in an old tenement any longer. They were moving up.
then the suburbs should have formed earlier in history the suburbs woud have formed way earlier in history and without the highways it simply to far from the palaces where they work and takes too long
marathag
Banned
And recall, it was switching from Horses to Cars, and many more injuries and deaths in that form of transport. Runaway horses killed/injured more than you think. Crank starting a Model T wrong could break your hand, but unlikely to be hit by a runaway car.
Car culture is why people wanted this in the first place. Without car dominance suburbs would really just be extensions of cities (like the are in Japan and parts of Europe, take a look at greater Tokyo on Google maps)