Post B06yhGFl5WN7Xmdrsm by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
(DIR) More posts by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
(DIR) Post #B06RRV0h9nZGBvTMn2 by cstross@wandering.shop
2025-11-10T12:34:11Z
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A hypothesis about US infrastructure/politics:Amtrak continues to exist for the same reason the Democrat Party exists—to make the alternatives (respectively: driving/flying, the Republican Party) look reasonable.(If American governance was sensible, the feds would have dropped about $1Tn on building out a modern, high speed, electrified, grade-separated network no later than 1980 and would now be in a whose-trains-are-faster-and-more-punctual race with China.)
(DIR) Post #B06RRWdj6ANpFGk3Ga by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-11-10T12:48:41Z
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@cstross That's certainly why the bus service in my city exists. "See, we have transit! And nobody uses it! So let's not bother spending any more on it!"Meanwhile the schedules are such that, even in areas it serves, you can't realistically get to where you need to go, and back from there, in the time you have available.
(DIR) Post #B06RSgn6qEfb1DgYt6 by jmax@mastodon.social
2025-11-10T12:48:33Z
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@cstross If they were serious about passenger rail at all, they'd enforce the rule that passenger trains have priority over freight traffic, to start with.
(DIR) Post #B06V1hGdMXm8UescDo by rapscalorie@cyberplace.social
2025-11-10T13:28:46Z
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@publius we lost our (not even all day) half hour service over COVID, and could you believe they loved having a reason to axe it and NEVER bring it back.
(DIR) Post #B06XVoxDY0FgvhI2fA by jonpsp@mstdn.social
2025-11-10T13:56:44Z
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@publius @cstross that sounds like the only bit of cycling infrastructure in my area that actually meets the post-Johnson Government standards. It doesn't link with anywhere useful, ends on a dual carriageway, doesn't have a crossing to the nearest school, so hardly anyone uses it, giving great justification to obstruct any future cycling infrastructure.
(DIR) Post #B06bCDhEFMgHgtijHU by Cadbury_Moose@wandering.shop
2025-11-10T13:53:48Z
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@publius @cstross We have that in parts of England, too: there is a bus into the nearest town so people can go shopping, once per day; The bus that does the return journey leaves the town twenty minutes before the outward bus arrives. But "Hey, they have a bus service, what are they complaining about?". 🤬
(DIR) Post #B06bCFN61BlUt2JgB6 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-11-10T14:37:31Z
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@Cadbury_Moose @cstross I found bus service in Britain (happily not the only one at that stop) : one bus every other Friday. Now, tell me whom does THAT serve?
(DIR) Post #B06lPkXQS4jYr2E1nE by arisummerland@beige.party
2025-11-10T16:31:04Z
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@publius @cstross This. 100%. We seriously missed out not keeping our passenger train infrastructure and improving it with more light rail between cities and within cities. all of it fell into serious decline in the 1960s.
(DIR) Post #B06yhGFl5WN7Xmdrsm by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-11-10T19:01:17Z
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@arisummerland @cstross And that doesn't even account for the extensive network of interurban electric lines, which often carried small freight as well as passengers. Unfortunately, in addition to competition from motor-cars, the steam railroads often tried to drive them out of business because they saw them as competition, rather than feeder lines which took primarily traffic which cost the steam railroads too much for the revenue they made in serving it.