[meme] Trains -- not driverless cars -- are the future of transportation

I like how you assume that society will choose to have a future over self-immolation.

I especially like that this format of the meme removes the d-bag that is in the original.

What is micromobility? I am unfamiliar with this term.

We shouldn't take anything for granted. The US has happily killed it's cities for decades instead of investing in public transit. If we don't push for it, car companies and rich people will keep public transportation from ever taking off.

If remote work takes off, and ordering most everything online, I wonder if urban sprawl will get even worse.

The more people try to "innovate" transportation the closer it gets to going back to trains. Driverless cars, for efficiency have them communicate with eachother, to accelerate and brake at the same time, for example. That's just less efficient and more expensive trains.

Good job with meme template, everyone needs to start adopting this format and not the one with the conservative fascist chud that abuses his wife.

mfs in 1923: "Cars will never replace trains and horses because there's whole swaths of the country with no highways or gas stations!"

I'm going to make the argument against trains for everything, despite being a huge fanatic for trains.

Trains are the most efficient transport method per tonne-km over land, yes. However from certain operational standpoints trains can make less sense than existing solutions.

When distance between stops for heavy rail becomes too short, you lose quite a bit of efficiency. Trains themselves aren't a one-size fits all solution as there are various types that each need their own form of investment (which is a lot $), when roads are compatible with both personal transport and large trucks with little investment by the transporter (govt pays for road maintenance).

Rail companies right now are chasing profits and neglecting operational improvements. In the US, hauling a long, LONG, old and slow train loaded with bulk aggregate, oil, grain, chemicals is more profitable than aiming for JIT capability that is more feasible with trucks. A complete change in societal incentives is necessary to bring back the usefulness of railway in all types of transport. Second, the North American way of railroad companies owning the tracks dissuades a lot of innovation and new firms from entering the market, unlike the "open road" where there are many competing OTR freight companies. None of the Big Six would like my idea of a nationally controlled rail/track system.

The future of transportation is no transportation.

How many car miles could be saved each year if people didn't have to go to the office to do their jobs? We were already most of the way there.

I agree. I just wanted to say that I really hope this meme completely replaces the original one, so we won't have to look at Steven Crowder's face as much going forward.

inevitability the future of urban transportation

I don't know, I think you're forgetting the possibility of us all just dying.

The suburbs are inherently compatible with trains and really any public transportation. They were quite literally designed around the car and the expectation that everyone would have a car.

Unless you plan to bulldoze the suburbs and then force everyone to move into higher density areas your anti-car dreams are never going to happen.

Although there are many American cities that could get much more anti-car and public transport would work. LA could theoretically not be such a car city with the appropriate infrastructure built in.

Why are the anti-car people anti-self-driving car? With self-driving cars we could mostly eliminate private car ownership.

Nope.

Those super long electric busses will become more popular than trains. They are muuch cheaper to get. You can just send in a new one in case the first one breaks down, etc.

Though we also cant all live nrar these "train stops"?

I dont live near any right now.

I don't disagree but there are two points that spring to mind.

1. This is an inevitable future, but I think it's very far off. In order to make this viable towns and cities would need to be radically different.
2. How would large item courier services operate after that modification?

I would personally bet on boats... (or even fins)

A huge problem with public transportation is safety and usability for small children, the elderly, and people with disabilities or who are sick. All these people often can't use bikes or scooters. They have problems with having to wait standing and constantly out of order escalators and elevators.

I don't own a car and live in a place with relatively good public transportation. That's the biggest problem I see, next to how badly organised it is (at least here in Germany).

Can we get light rail and trams in there?

The focus urban transportation is a good one imo

Society wants it, companies don’t

That is why we won’t adopt trains and why we haven’t yet

It's funny because trains are both the past and the future.

Also, trains and light rail have already been automated. The tech is already here.

In Europe ( i mean Paris, France and Italy ) public authority had pushed hard on micromobility, but now they are, in reality banning it cause safety problems.

Tbh, as someone living in rural community all i want is decent public transportation of any sort. Like, it would be nice to have trains or escooters but, we don't even have busses ( though that having been said i don't how busses would get out here without it making tarc fare more expensive) or making bikes or scooter ( e or otherwise) a viable option in my area or making walking a more viable option. Admittedly i don't know how they would do the last one but, the others they've been trying to do for awhile. I'm hoping that this not only made sense but, actually was on point.

I wonder how a train is picking up my walking disabled mother from three Kilometres afar?

Will a train stop at my house to pick up my some two tons of gardening scraps per year?

At which time will it deliver my 100kg of groceries per week?

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I love trains. It’s so much more relaxing than being in a car

At one point you just can't move all these people where they need to be in individual tin cans that seat four but mostly hold one.

Well in the UK, considering that a return ticket to London for commuting hours costs me £140, no, it is not the future here. I could drive most of the way from home into London, pay the ULEZ charge, park in an expensive train station car park and get a short distance train for a third of that, including fuel.

I rented a car with adaptive cruise controle a month ago and it felt like riding a train. Driverles cars could work if they aren't personal possession.

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Trains are great but people want their own personal bubble and don't want to stand around outside waiting for a train especially since the timetable is out of their control

Do electric mopeds and motorcycles count?

!micromobility

It's the best thing for the future, that doesn't mean it's inevitably the future

Idk how the train will pick me up living in the middle of nowhere. Sure, trains are practical where civilization lives, but it's just far too rural for trains here.

I heartily agree, but I'm 67 years old and society is slower than the Antarctic melt. Oh, wait, that's not slow.

I live in a small walkable city in the Netherlands. I ride the bus, the train and my bicycle. I still own a car since those other transport modes don’t cover every need I have. And car sharing is non existent in my town.

Based

Good luck with that municipal planning.

Also, did everyone just forget about the pandemic we just went through? Haven't we decided as a society stuffing lots of people in a small space is bad for our health?

The future is as hazy as literally everything else. Do we have cars where they aren't needed? Yes Do we have rail systems that are hot garbage? yes Do we have rural area that are sprawling making rail and micro less possible? yes

Will trains and public trans be a staple of the future just like it is today in larger cities? yes.

When I lived in Philly, I took the train everywhere but the grocery store.... except when I had leisure time then I took my car... and where I went, and a train or self driving care won't take me there.

In the United States, I don't know how you'd accomplish this. It would be impossible for almost all rural neighborhoods unless we're going to build a grocery store within walking distance of most homes.

This is one of those liberal (I rarely leave my home) notions whose heart is in the right place but is ultimately stupid.

One day, we will be jacked in the comfort of our houses and remotely control our android avatars who do our physical labors irl.

Do electric mopeds and motorcycles count?

What I'm saying is even if that car was part of a network of attachable cars, the maintenance of the infrastructure needed to accomodate those cars is still way more expensive. This is not even getting into the discussion that if you have enough cars to need a highway (let alone enough to start attaching self-driving cars to each other), a train is more feasible. Period.

I will agree with you that the train is not the be all and end all. Good bike infrastructure (separated bike lanes that are connected through a planned network), light rail/trams and buses all have their place. What I disagree is the use of cars in urban and suburban centers/ corridors. There is no need. The only people that should use private vehicles are delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles, and those that live in impossibly remote areas that are very much disconnected from urban centers - areas that are hardly surrounded by a self-sustaining community.

Okay. For the US: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9658b5befb944256bb587bc9b268a09a

Trains and micro mobility don't work for the significant majority of homes.

Edit: That link estimates that 20% of the US population lives within a 10 minutes walk from a grocery store.

I thought remote work and urban archipelagos, so yeah.

What is micro mobility? I've not heard this phrase before.

Counterpoint: Society will collapse to the point where cities, let alone trains and microtransport, will no longer be available or viable.

Driverless cars will very much have a future because you can't build trains everywhere. They won't be personally owned though, i.e. they'll be robotaxis. Just imagine cities without parked cars.

By the time those thing will have taken over, something else will be in their place. For certain values of ‘trains’, ‘urban’ and ‘micro mobility’, your claim will likely be true, but ithat is too vague to talk someone out of if that’s simply your stance.

I live in a small walkable city in the Netherlands. I ride the bus, the train and my bicycle. I still own a car since those other transport modes don’t cover every need I have. And car sharing is non existent in my town.

You really want my kids screaming on the train during your commute?

More likely that it will be trains between cities and AI taxis in cities. Owning a car will make less sense when you can at a moments notice just jump into a AI taxi and trains will be way faster than cars between cities. Within cities I do not see subways making much sense less a few busy routes.

Yeah, never going to happen. Most of us don't like to live like sardines in a tin can, sharing 4 walls with other inconsiderate assholes.

Fuck city living. Fuck the city. Fuck densely packed consumer culture bullshit. Fuck public transportation. Put up as many roads as you can, give me 4 wheels and a place to visit.

City living just exacerbates the problem with corporations owning everybodies housing, and the expectation of everyone coming into the office every day. Move education, work, etc online and be done with the need to travel into a city at all.

All it would take is a couple thousand city-dwellers to move out into rural America and America's republicans would be eradicated, moving us towards actually electing politicians that believe in sound scientific policy, etc.

But instead, all the uneducated slack jawed yokels are out living in nature, meanwhile people who don't even SEE trees or wildlife are on the internet proclaiming how much they love the earth and how we need to save it. Fucking come out here you cowards!

Whether society wants it or not? Quite, um, authoritarian if I do say so, sir.

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How do you feel about utility trucks and stuff? Like how are you gonna move homes without atleast a van?

Trams, buses and metros might be ok for cities and burbs. Trains are cancer.