Originally Posted by
rossiny
The original question, why did America give up on mass transit? Thats right in front of our noses. The roads were built for the car industry. When car, tire , and oil companies bought off rail lines, its pretty self explanatory. So now we have been killing for oil for about say, 50 years or so?? The comments here about America can never utilize mass transit is true also. How can that be a possibility when we built our entire world around cars. We get up in the morning and everything revolves around car. Our home, Garage, driveway, roads, city lay out, shopping, you get the picture. To rebuild walkable cities and connections to other cities or suburbs by highspeed rail would literally be almost impossible in this civilization time frame.
But the solution is staring us right in the face: "Mimic" the interstates with light rail and/or Amtrak. We "KNOW" where people want to go, because that's what Interstates were (mostly) built towards.
EXAMPLE: I live in Marietta GA, on the northern outskirts of Atlanta. I have in-laws in the Indianapolis IN area. To DRIVE it, I can be there in 8-ish hours if I don't dawdle and stop at every (Oooh! Squirrel!) along the way.( I-75-I24-I40-I65). Suppose I wanted to Bike/Rail it and bike to MARTA which coulld get me to Amtrak which could ALMOST get me to Indianapolis? Minimum of 3 days on just Amtrak alone, Because from here to there you have to go through Wash DC.
That's Horse-[stuff]. Build the rail lines INSIDE the right-of way that already EXISTS for the interstates. MARTA does this somewhat in Atlanta. likewise MAXX in Portland and BART in the Bay Area.
Give me a way to Bike/Rail from Atlanta GA to Indianapolis Indiana that's AT LEAST reasonably close to automobiling and, swear to god, I'll become the country's foremost evangelist on the topic.