ButterscotchFiend

ButterscotchFiend t1_izsy6tb wrote

Reply to comment by Dr_L_Church in Suppose budget was no issue. What inter-town/city rail connections would you build, either within Vermont or from places in Vermont to elsewhere? by DrToadley

Look, what 'isn't possible' is maintaining our current level of automobile dependency.

The carbon emissions they create are literally destroying the planet's atmosphere. Within the next decades, our car-oriented infrastructure and lifestyle will flood Bangladesh and Java, starve India and Pakistan, and the refugee crisis there and elsewhere will overwhelm the rest of the world.

As for electric cars, they're a lot better, but it until a game-changing innovation in their batteries occurs, our electric grid will not be able to handle charging them assuming we are still driving at the same rate. That's also assuming we can convert most of our national fleet, which frankly is probably even more difficult a pill to swallow than the challenges you've exaggerated regarding the deployment of passenger rail.

We don't have a choice. It's either stop going from place to place, or finding a better way to do so. If we keep up our current car addiction, we're finished.

Look- this isn't that outlandish. There was a time- 1920s and 30s- when passenger rail was all across New England and America at large. The car and oil companies hastened the demise of these interurbans, but the precedent is there.

A rail revolution would be a monumental step forward for our country on so many fronts. It would be great for economic inequality, because of the regressive effect that the necessity of cars has on income. It would be great for community development, encouraging urban density and tighter rural communities, in contrast to the way that cars enabled the proliferation of the suburbs.

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