> when 1 or 2 train tracks could meet the same demand and function
They can't.
You are treating cars as a way to get from point A to point B. Trains and buses are ways to do that. If cars were just a way to go from your home to downtown, you can in fact replace them with a train.
Yet if you build even very nice, very expensive trains that run frequently.. a bunch of people will still use cars. The train does not replace the car.
A car is both a set of abstract things (freedom, status, privacy) and practical things (storage, functional space, a moddable thing).
Build all the trains you want. Have high quality protected cyclist lanes. Have functional bus programs.
None of those things will replace personal vehicles.
> None of those things will replace personal vehicles.
Unless you mean in an abstract sense, They do, and they have. By replacement I mean "if there were a train to get me to work, I would take it instead of driving". I don't feel as free or private in a train, but I am using one instead of a car, and I would call that a replacement.
I am treating cars as a way to get from point A to point B because this is what they are to most people, and it's exactly why many people would and do use viable alternatives as a replacement: because getting from point A to point B is a more valuable function in many cases than freedom, status, privacy, storage, functional space, and mods. Europeans do not have 830 cars per capita because they have other methods of transportation that are a replacement for cars. I feel like this goes without saying, but just because a car is more private than a train etc does not mean trains shouldn't exist, which has essentially been the development ideology in America for the past 70 years, and what I'm arguing should change.
They can't.
You are treating cars as a way to get from point A to point B. Trains and buses are ways to do that. If cars were just a way to go from your home to downtown, you can in fact replace them with a train.
Yet if you build even very nice, very expensive trains that run frequently.. a bunch of people will still use cars. The train does not replace the car.
A car is both a set of abstract things (freedom, status, privacy) and practical things (storage, functional space, a moddable thing).
Build all the trains you want. Have high quality protected cyclist lanes. Have functional bus programs.
None of those things will replace personal vehicles.
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