Have you seen how empty Texas is? And how flat it is? It’s kinda ideal train territory. If Norway and Switzerland can set up train routes, the Great Plains certainly can.
I live in Texas and I can assure you it is anything but empty. The major metroplexes are so sprawled that they’ve started banging into one another. Austin and San Antonio are functionally one super-city at this point. Ft Worth and Dallas started mingling decades ago. Houston has fully consumed six other neighboring cities over the last 40 years and is - itself - surrounded by suburban echoes of itself in the Woodlands, Sugar Land, Clear Lake, and Katy. You can drive dozens of miles in any direction and never leave “the city”.
It’s kinda ideal train territory.
Absolutely. Or, at least, supplementing/replacing the big metro arteries (I-10, I-45, the various mega-loops) with rail would make a lot more sense than just stacking overpasses on top of one another.
Practically speaking, the problem is low housing density. Ideally, you want a bus stop at the front of a ten story apartment rather than at the end of a half-mile long cul de sac.
Everyone has to own a car, in large part, because everyone has to own a half-acre of turf with a ranch home squatting in the center.
Fair enough! Sorry to generalize about the geography of a state I don’t live in. I just drove through Amarillo a couple years back and it was so empty out there that it made a lasting impression 😅
I just drove through Amarillo a couple years back and it was so empty out there
No, that’s fair. Although I think Amarillo is really cursed by the smell of all that livestock. Once you get down out of the Panhandle, population density picks up quite a bit. The Big Three - Houston / Austin / Dallas - are enormous urban smears across the landscape.
Have you seen how empty Texas is? And how flat it is? It’s kinda ideal train territory. If Norway and Switzerland can set up train routes, the Great Plains certainly can.
I live in Texas and I can assure you it is anything but empty. The major metroplexes are so sprawled that they’ve started banging into one another. Austin and San Antonio are functionally one super-city at this point. Ft Worth and Dallas started mingling decades ago. Houston has fully consumed six other neighboring cities over the last 40 years and is - itself - surrounded by suburban echoes of itself in the Woodlands, Sugar Land, Clear Lake, and Katy. You can drive dozens of miles in any direction and never leave “the city”.
Absolutely. Or, at least, supplementing/replacing the big metro arteries (I-10, I-45, the various mega-loops) with rail would make a lot more sense than just stacking overpasses on top of one another.
So its not empty, but everything is super far apart. Which is it? Cant argue two sides of the same coin
Practically speaking, the problem is low housing density. Ideally, you want a bus stop at the front of a ten story apartment rather than at the end of a half-mile long cul de sac.
Everyone has to own a car, in large part, because everyone has to own a half-acre of turf with a ranch home squatting in the center.
Fair enough! Sorry to generalize about the geography of a state I don’t live in. I just drove through Amarillo a couple years back and it was so empty out there that it made a lasting impression 😅
No, that’s fair. Although I think Amarillo is really cursed by the smell of all that livestock. Once you get down out of the Panhandle, population density picks up quite a bit. The Big Three - Houston / Austin / Dallas - are enormous urban smears across the landscape.
Ehm i beg your pardon but Switzerland is packed with people.
And super inconvenient mountains that you have to route tracks above, around, and through.