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The Partisan American... the real issue with American Politics

 
 
 
RVonse said:
Because without his involvement the world (and especially China) would not even have the electric vehicles we have today.
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True. Pioneering and inventing are not the same. What Musk did was pioneering within a fledgling industry (not even an industry at the time) by bringing EVs to mass market and disrupting the traditional automotive industry.
And it wasn't until Tesla's first production vehicle in 2008 did China start dumping cash into EV development. Without Tesla, would China have still moved forward with EVs? Doubtful. With also having to set up the charging infrastructure? Doubtful. Surely not outside their own country. And China is all about export.
Tesla will be 20 years old in 2028. In spite of Trump's efforts and Musk's own mouth, it survives.
 
Toni said:
We could do much better with passenger railways. Certainly throughout cities and into suburbs but I would also advocate for passenger lines between cities, including smaller cities there is finally more than one passenger train a day that passes through my town and it has decent ridership from my observation ( don’t have access to numbers of passengers). There are talks of speed rail lines between major cities such as Chicago and Minneapolis. I hope they invest in that. When I lived just outside of DC, I made use daily of commuter busses and trains to get to/from work and sometimes on the weekends. Very convenient and relatively inexpensive—I could actually afford it. I’ve ridden the L in Chicago a few times: very convenient and easy. I’ve run down the subway in Boston: Same. I’d happily use trains much more often if they were available, especially as I am older.

I agree re: carbon taxes. I think domestically we need to do even more re: water use, particularly with data centers exploding across the landscape. They make almond trees seem very economical in their water use.
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The problem with trains into the city are tracks. It is simply too expensive to obtain the land, trains can never overcome this. The places that have done it switched existing track from freight to passengers, but that means they can't run much freight into the city. (Except China--but China was basically tearing everything down anyway.)
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Toni said:
We could do much better with passenger railways. Certainly throughout cities and into suburbs but I would also advocate for passenger lines between cities, including smaller cities there is finally more than one passenger train a day that passes through my town and it has decent ridership from my observation ( don’t have access to numbers of passengers). There are talks of speed rail lines between major cities such as Chicago and Minneapolis. I hope they invest in that. When I lived just outside of DC, I made use daily of commuter busses and trains to get to/from work and sometimes on the weekends. Very convenient and relatively inexpensive—I could actually afford it. I’ve ridden the L in Chicago a few times: very convenient and easy. I’ve run down the subway in Boston: Same. I’d happily use trains much more often if they were available, especially as I am older.

I agree re: carbon taxes. I think domestically we need to do even more re: water use, particularly with data centers exploding across the landscape. They make almond trees seem very economical in their water use.
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The problem with trains into the city are tracks. It is simply too expensive to obtain the land, trains can never overcome this. The places that have done it switched existing track from freight to passengers, but that means they can't run much freight into the city. (Except China--but China was basically tearing everything down anyway.)
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We have zero problem obtaining land for more interstates, freeways, interchanges. Zero problem.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
The problem with trains into the city are tracks. It is simply too expensive to obtain the land, trains can never overcome this.
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...and yet they did, and do. Everywhere except the USA. And indeed, in the USA it was done in the past, for freight railroads, as you reveal when you say "The places that have done it switched existing track from freight to passengers". That track wasn't created by God at the formation of the Earth.

This is not really an economic barrier; It's a political one. If the government in a given jurisdiction wants rail infrastructure, then they can either sieze the land from its current owners and give it* to the railroad as a subsidy; Or buy the land at whatever price the owners demand, and donate it to the railroad as a subsidy; Or buy the land at a price they set themselves, and donate it to the railroad as a smaller subsidy; Or (if they don't want to subsidise private companies) they can do one of the previous three things and then run the railroad as a nationalised entity.

If the people want rail infrastructure, then they need a government that will do one of those things. And in a democracy, they can elect one. In an oligarchy, the oligarchs can make that call. In a dictatorship, the dictator can decide.

It's pure politics; You can have it if enough people (and the right people, the influential people, the people in charge) want it.

If someone is telling you that a mere political obstacle is in fact an insuperable economic problem, or indeed an insuperable problem of any other kind, you should be very wary of them - they are lying to you for political reasons.

That goes double when the thing they claim is impossible has actually been done elsewhere, and/or at an earlier time.

People have been building railroads into and through cities around the world since the 1830s. If it were "simply too expensive to obtain the land", this could not have happened. It DID happen, therefore your "simply" is hiding a lot of complexity behind simpletonism, in a purely political effort to avoid even discussing ways to enable a project that you (or those you are parroting) oppose.










* Or sell it at a knock-down price
 
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