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From: Rolf Mantel <news@hartig-mantel.de>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: People Without Meaningful Lives Seek Power Over Others
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2025 11:14:13 +0100
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Am 24.01.2025 um 09:57 schrieb John B.:
> On Fri, 24 Jan 2025 03:19:49 -0500, Catrike Ryder
> <Soloman@old.bikers.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:54:37 -0600, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/23/2025 7:42 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>>>> On 1/23/2025 7:33 PM, John B. wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> And who pays the road tax if you call the police? Or the
>>>>> water works,
>>>>> or the fire department, all of which need to use the roads
>>>>> to aid you
>>>>> the caller?
>>>>
>>>> I'm not saying non-drivers should pay zero for the roads.
>>>> But they do pay, as Andrew said, in property taxes, sales
>>>> taxes, and even the price of goods, since companies build
>>>> transport costs into that price.
>>>>
>>>> I'm simply saying more of the burden should be on those who
>>>> make more use of the roads.
>>>>
>>>> I think railroads are a close parallel to highways. Andrew
>>>> says, in essence, we should all pay for roads because we all
>>>> use goods delivered by roads. I can agree with that concept.
>>>> But it also applies to railroads. We all use commodities
>>>> delivered by rail.
>>>>
>>>> Our difference is that the car fans here want no further
>>>> expenses on those who use cars on those same roads. In
>>>> practice, they want to drive with no fares, to have their
>>>> driving subsidized. But they don't want to subsidize train
>>>> fares, even though that's a perfectly parallel situation.
>>>> And they don't want to pay congestion charges in super-
>>>> crowded cities. They just want the city residents to deal
>>>> with their presence, their contribution to congestion,
>>>> pollution, etc.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Some important differences there.
>>> Governments do not own or maintain track (outside of local
>>> urban systems such as MTA or CTA or BART).
>>>
>>> The only intercity passenger rail is Amtrak, which is an
>>> entertainment/display system, not a functional
>>> transportation system. It's not anywhere near competitive on
>>> travel times, reliability or price. And Amtrak does not own
>>> or maintain railbed AFAIK.
>>
>> There's also big differences in how highways and railroads share
>> freight travel and passnger travel facilities. Are rail passengers
>> going to be Ok with freight train speeds and the switching delays?  I
>> suspect lots of special facilities would be required for high speed
>> passenger trains whereas cars and trucks get along with each other
>> just fine on highways.
> 
> History shows that a long time ago people did ride trains, in large
> numbers and now they don't. So the first question is "why". In my
> little home town people used to take the train to Boston do some
> shopping and then train back on Sunday night. About 200 miles one way.

History shows that the demise of the railroad is not god-given.  In the 
1950's, the popularity of car driving make trains unpopular in all 
western countries.
 From the 1990's onwards, trains started to become a lot more attractive 
in Europe, with passenger numbers by now significantly higher than 
before WW 2.

In the past, there were often 4 or 5 trains per day, now we know a train 
service can only be sucessful with at least one train per hour, better 
one train every 30 minutes.