Rural America is covered in local airports. No large commercial carriers, but the airports exist.
We need more rail. The argument starts from a bad premise.
Rural America is covered in local airports. No large commercial carriers, but the airports exist.
We need more rail. The argument starts from a bad premise.
Literally no idea how a regular person would actually use those for realistic transportation. I figured those places were for private jets, people learning to fly and cargo/farm/industrial flights.
Would booking a flight on somebody's cesna even work and be affordable/safe?
It takes a high level license to be paid to fly people.
It is fairly applicable to learn enough to fly one self (in theory from reading). There are airplane clubs where one owns a tiny part of a plane. Fuel and maintenance are not free, but not horrible for a few hours travel.
A very cleverly designed club could work somewhat for weekend trips within a tank of gas distance. Maybe.
So basically regional airports are a terrible method of mass transportation
Yeah this stupid-ass post was made by someone who has both never lived in a rural area, and never looked at Google Maps lol
They're not viable as general passenger hubs.
Why not though? Honest question, I've been to an airport that had a terminal of around 30 square metres with decent passenger service in the EU.
I'd say it's the flying that's not scalable, not the airport footprints.
Most municipal airports can't handle jet engine planes around here. They are all just small body, single engine aircraft on poorly maintained and non-level runways. They are fine for recreational flights, crop dusters, or flight instruction, but most rural airports here are little more than a few hangers and an administrative building with a runaway.
I’ve tried to use them and they’re generally not affordable for most people, since you’re comparing to cost of driving a relatively short distance.
Edit to add: yes it’s also the airport that’s not scalable. A small airport requires minimal infrastructure, mostly provided by businesses. But for passenger service, someone needs to build a terminal, make sure there’s parking, have security staff on duty, install scanners, etc. d you have enough business to support that?
Flying is much more energy intensive, there are heightened security concerns and pilots are expensive
Every county has a county seat. There's nothing preventing the county seat from being a regional travel hub.
Removing all the train stations in towns across the USA was a huge mistake
Not if you own a car factory.
Or a highway. See also: Roger Rabbit.
True, my southern Illinois relatives are aware they can catch an Amtrak to the cities, but the trains suck really bad and the stations are often in a terrible place to leave anything of value (like your car) so they just drive when the occasionally need to go to the city for something like real healthcare
And the Amtrak in southern Illinois can be hours late.
I just really hate flying and really like going places. Give me rails, I don’t want to drive either.
I really love flying but hate going places, especially fucking packing it's bloody endless and you always forget something
I love flying but hate everything to do with air travel from the airports to the seats and especially security.
Oh yeah?! Well I hate flying but love everything to do with air travel from the airports to the seats and especially security! I kiss every TSA agent I meet, sloppy style!
Oh yeah?????!? Well I love flying and packing and traveling and free handjobs when TSA thinks my belt looks suspicious, but I hate the emissions that contribute to climate change.
Well now that must mean I hate free handjobs and loooove emissions!
Regional airports are generally extremely simple places. There's nothing complicated about them. Now, big international airports, that's unsustainable. Fact is, rural places aren't conservative because they don't have trains, rural places are more conservative because there's a lower priority placed on education and more of a priority placed on working the family farm. Then you get fed whatever horseshit political opinion your dad has and that becomes your opinion.
Also because(I'm only assuming that its the same in the states) usually politicians don't really care about investing in rural infrastructure and wehen you can see the quality from all of your infrastructure decline its easy to use populism to catch the votes from people who feel left out.
Mom, I want to go to school and learn to form my own opinions.
Honey, we already have opinions for you at home.
The point about trains is that it effectively reduces the separation between urban and rural.
Coming from a more rural region, even if trains were available, when people go to the city they come back with their car filled up with stuff because it's easier to find/cheaper in the city, most won't take the train even if it's available if they have their car they can rely on.
But cars are still more efficient (L/km/passenger) than planes so we don't need more planes for rural regions either.
Yeah going to the grocery store was a 40 minute round trip growing up. You go there and buy as much as you can so you don't have to go again for two more weeks. Having a train will not be suitable for this type of trip.
A 40 minute round trip would be average in most US cities, eg Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, suburban Chicago, etc
No, but a walkable city is. Even in a small town, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to park once then walk to the grocery, the movie theater, the home center, etc
May I point out that this effect is killing small towns and living-wage jobs? Before the car, there had to be stores and groceries and doctors' practices, et cetera, in small towns. Those provided local jobs for people, and community. Now, people drive into the city, or to the regional Walmart, and the small towns are decaying, mired in crippling poverty, isolation, and the diseases of despair that we see today. So the car might offer "freedom" to load up on a large selection of cheap consumer goods, but at the cost of dignity, connection, and meaning.
(Walmart, by the way, can be seen as predatory, killing small business with prices they can't match, but also, it is successful largely because it is so well-adapted to a car-based lifestyle. It's not the cause, it's an effect.)
Plenty of places with developed rail networks are still conservative in rural places.
Yeah, but passenger rail collapsed hard. Amtrak is a shell of the former service and most states that kept their systems focused only on commuters into cities.
You also see a lot of rural towns encouraged to spread out far more than before because cars provided transportation. A small town in the early 20th century looked a lot more like a very small city instead of the hollow suburban form they have today.
I meant in other countries. Rural France is still conservative, for example. So is rural Japan.
You cannot compare conservativism in the United States to conservativism in other Western democracies. Particularly a place like France. You're using the same word for two things but they're not the same thing. The Overton window does not even overlap between the two cases. Which is exactly the point being made.
Yeah, but that conservatism still involves as somewhat competent government helping people out. I don't think they would push for the economics of American conservatism.
American conservatism killed passenger rail. The only places you see functional passenger rail are large, non conservative cities.
Yeah, but the US is too big for trains too. It's too big for planes, cars, all of it. It's been nearly 25 years since Herbert Garrison invented the gyroscopic monowheel but just like Nikola Tesla, he's being silenced by all these corporate fatcats and government bailouts.
Planes, few cripple trains, and a shitload of giant automobiles
I could provide a pseudo valid arguement for aircraft in the future to these remote locations. But i would rather waste time and comment space providing this pointless comment that doesnt contribute to anything.
Thank you for writing the text and a link.
I don't know why this is so hard for people who post screenshots of websites.
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