Trainsforming America Coming to Jacksonville

[Metro Jacksonville]

Trainsforming America Coming to Jacksonville



There is no doubt that Jacksonville residents and most of America lives in a car culture. Many U.S. citizens don't know what it would be like to live in a train culture. The population of the U.S. is on track to add over 100 million people to the country by the year 2050. Airports and highways are already over crowded. This film takes a look at what expanding passenger rail service in America would look like, as well as asking passengers what they think about increasing rail investment. Would they use it? Would it be a waste of money? Why is building high speed rail in California so urgent? Where does Jacksonville fit into all of this?

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-oct-trainsforming-america-coming-to-jacksonville

[simms3]

Trains are less stressful way to commute than cars.  Sure.  LoL that's the wrong argument if I ever heard one.

[I-10east]

It response to that video, We ALL are Trainsforming America!!!

Then there's also this ratchet side of public transit.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXz-tlK2pkI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKniIF6s7PM

[Redbaron616]

Just some quick thoughts:

Commercial airlines are safer than trains. Lots of train-road intersections leads to many accidents.

Train travel is only commercially viable in large, close urban centers. This is why Amtrak's profitable routes are mostly in the Northeast.

As for California building the high-speed trains, the price for these continues to ratchet upwards on virtually every report. In addition, until it is built and operating, there is no proof it will ever live up to its dream and will probably require continued subsidies.

The train culture died because Americans like the total freedom of the automobile. When I drive to a different city, I don't have to worry if my plane/train will be delayed and that I will just sit around for hours in a terminal waiting on the next one available.

Have a great Jacksonville day! :-)

[tufsu1]

Just some quick thoughts:

Commercial airlines are safer than trains. Lots of train-road intersections leads to many accidents.

maybe so, but like our highways, our airports and airspace are quickly filling up.  So what's next?

[tufsu1]

TransForm Jax is also sponsoring / promoting this event.  You can check out the Facebook event page here:

 https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/207551216093381/

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP as shown in the article and

[simms3]

Trains are less stressful way to commute than cars.  Sure.  LoL that's the wrong argument if I ever heard one.

please go back to sleep!

LoL - sleep?

As for California building the high-speed trains, the price for these continues to ratchet upwards on virtually every report. In addition, until it is built and operating, there is no proof it will ever live up to its dream and will probably require continued subsidies.

All transit and all roads technically require subsidies, though by default, aside from a few toll roads, generally rail is more "profitable" than roads.  Also, things like the Acela aren't exactly cheap, but EVERYONE who lives in the NE uses and loves it, and it would be the same thing in CA (except true HSR).  They're digging a very very large hole for one end of the HSR right near me, so it will be a longgg time before there is actually rail in that hole, but the infrastructure is being prepped.  As someone who does take the bus from SFO to LAX, or OAK to Bob Hope, I think HSR would be faster (and a little cheaper) than flying, so long as it doesn't stop at every small town like Pase Robles.  Only problem is nobody goes to DTLA - when I go to LA, if I fly into LAX it's a quick hop up to West LA, which is where everyone goes.

[CityLife]

Just some quick thoughts:

Train travel is only commercially viable in large, close urban centers. This is why Amtrak's profitable routes are mostly in the Northeast.

The train culture died because Americans like the total freedom of the automobile. When I drive to a different city, I don't have to worry if my plane/train will be delayed and that I will just sit around for hours in a terminal waiting on the next one available.

Is our highway network "commercially viable" and "profitable"? Deutsche Bahn and SNCF sure seem to do ok financially, while also providing a great service to citizens and stimulating a ton of money in outside tourist dollars.

Total freedom of the automobile? lol. Yea there is nothing more free than spending 10 hours in a car driving to a place that you can get to in 2 hours by plane or 4 by train...I've spent close to 2 months traveling around Europe by train, and never once had problems with delays...and while we're talking about commercial viability, it would have probably cost me 3x more to do so by car. My Dad used to work a lot in Europe (in a place that isn't dense) and always traveled by train instead of driving for out of town trips.

There is nothing more free than hopping on a train in Europe and making an adventure out of it. On one of my trips, I hopped on a train from Innsbruck and couldn't make my mind up between going to Venice/Croatia or French Riveria/Barcelona. I had a few hours to decide before Verona and looked for fellow backpackers on the train to pick the brains of. After talking to a few people and thinking it through, I went to Barca.

My wife's family is from NYC and the Jersey Shore (not the tacky MTV spot) and we fly up there occasionally for family reunions. There are a lot of times where we take the train from city to shore or vice versa with a big group of people and the beauty is that you aren't obligated to leave when everyone else wants to. The older people usually leave early, followed by the late twenties and thirty-somethings, and the younger ones stay out all night. That becomes quite the ordeal when you have 50 people and 20 cars to worry about.

Really I don't know why I even wasted my time typing the above, because trying to teach someone the plusses of train travel who has never been somewhere with a great train network, is like an astronaut trying to explain what its like on the moon.

[simms3]

^^^Europe's cities are much much closer together than cities typically are in America (outside of the NE where Acela and other trains/popular busses are).  I don't think Europe and America can be compared as apples to apples, outside of the NE, CA (and even here it's really all about SF/Sac and LA/SD and there is a large gap between), and upper Midwest.

Also, trains much cheaper than cars?  Maybe in parts of Europe that I haven't been, but popular train routes/corridors in the US (and Amtrak in general) is more expensive than it would be to travel by car if you are by yourself, and especially if you're more than 1 person (as opposed to 2-4+ people in a single car).  I think the argument here is not price, but rather efficiency, time to travel, ease, etc.  I mean, you are paying for point to point convenience and smooth, comfortable travel (trains are by far the most "comfortable" way for the masses to travel).

Acela drops you off from the center of one city in the center of another, and navigating train stations is much faster than airports.

[tufsu1]

Trains are less stressful way to commute than cars.  Sure.  LoL that's the wrong argument if I ever heard one.

please go back to sleep!

LoL - sleep?

I deleted the post when I realized your original post was around 1am PDT...so you hadn't gone to sleep yet!

[CityLife]

Well of course Europe's cities are closer to each other...they are built around a transportation network that promotes compact cities. Europe has also been having population strains since before we were even founded as a country....Germany has 583 people per square mile, Italy 511, France 301, and Spain 240; by contrast the US has 88 per square mile (skewed heavily down due to West/Midwest). So sure today you can't make an apples to apples comparison, but what happens when we average 500 people per square mile up and down the entire East and West Coast and don't have an adequate rail network?

Train travel in Europe is cheaper than cars. Ever seen how much gas is? $9 a gallon in Italy, $8.50 in France and Germany, $8.40 in the UK. That is due to a multitude of factors, but certainly makes train travel a cheaper alternative at times...and you can't really compare Amtrak to Europe's systems which can provide much more reasonable costs due to scale, efficiency, and subsidy.

But you are absolutely right, the real selling point in trains in their convenience, comfort level, sociability, and ease of travel. I was simply replying to the other posters efforts to say train travel does not provide as much freedom as car travel.

[simms3]

Trains are less stressful way to commute than cars.  Sure.  LoL that's the wrong argument if I ever heard one.

please go back to sleep!

LoL - sleep?

I deleted the post when I realized your original post was around 1am PDT...so you hadn't gone to sleep yet!

How do you know I wasn't posting from the road on EST?    I kid bc I was on W Coast, but if you notice my posting history in this thread, I got about 4 hours last night (relatively normal for me)

[Overstreet]

When you travel to Jacksonville from Tampa by rail your first leg to Orlando/Sandford will be by bus. I see the "AMTRACK" labeled busses quite often.

[Tony B]

I lived in NYC for years and had no car in the city. Thus I used the NYC subway system and the various regional rail systems. Metro rail (Metro North) out of Grand Central was a great way to travel regionally. It was great to relax and watch the miles zoom by. 

The NYC subway system was a terrible experience and a nice private car is a better way to travel in every respect except parking and getting home after hitting the bars.  I would never want to trade my car for subway travel again.

Just one little (of many) quality of life issues: illness. Do you know the effect of being packed onto a subway car several times a day with hundreds of strangers? You're sick a lot more. It seemed like I had a perpetual cold living in NYC.  In NYC I caught 8-10 colds during a winter season in JAX maybe one a year.

That doesn't of course include the stink, the homeless, the panhandlers, the public masterbators, the rats, the heat in the summer, the constant crush of people, the noise.

I'm convinced most people who love the idea of public transportation have never had to rely on it daily.

[Tacachale]

Train travel in Europe is cheaper than cars. Ever seen how much gas is? $9 a gallon in Italy, $8.50 in France and Germany, $8.40 in the UK. That is due to a multitude of factors, but certainly makes train travel a cheaper alternative at times...and you can't really compare Amtrak to Europe's systems which can provide much more reasonable costs due to scale, efficiency, and subsidy.

Depends on where you go and what you're doing. When I went to Ireland renting a car for the week was a lot cheaper than getting a rail pass, and we could go where we wanted. We also looked at rail passes in England and Wales but they weren't any cheaper than renting a car and again, didn't go everywhere we wanted.