Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sat Apr 23, 2022 9:23 am
JohnFromJersey wrote: ↑Fri Apr 22, 2022 12:18 am
.... United States prioritized highways for the military, which is why there are so many compared to the rest of the world, and why there are duplicated/redundant highways.
Mr. John, lest we note how the Eisenhower era Interstate Highway Act was once referred to:
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-docu ... ghways-act
While the "die hard passenger rail enthusiast" community may disagree, most will hold that our society is the better owing to this public works project.
Roads are important, but the elimination of most passenger rail service, and the move of so much freight from rail to road has filled all those roads and vastly increased air pollution. So we got both good and bad. I get that there are many places where rail won't work for a given trip, but part of that is how disconnected different types of passenger rail can be, and the lack of a first and final mile connection. So let's say I want to go from Long Island to Montreal (at least pre COVID). Need to take something like a 4AM train to Penn, if one is running, and need a very expensive taxi to get to that train. Go any later and you can't count on making the train to Montreal. Get into Penn, drag your baggage up the stairs (if you can find an escalator or elevator, they are probably either way out of the way or broken). Through the hellacious LIRR concourse, if at the east end take a hopefully working escalator up one level, then go west to Amtrak. Oops, forgot the Taj Mahal Station, so I THINK you go from LIRR, under the 8th Ave Subway to the Taj, figure out where to go, and wait for your train. Once on, the very long ride with no edible food (OK, you can get a nuked greaseburger or two).
Back in the 1950's, my dad would hop on a Lackawanna train in Scranton, have a nice dinner, sleep (in a room) heading out to Detroit for meetings. Breakfast also on the train. Not sure if he had to change trains out west for Detroit. No hotel, train took him close to where his meetings would be. Superior form of travel to what one would do now for the same trip.