Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's

Re:Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's by revelation on Thursday September 10, 2015 @06:45PM (#10201015)

Population density of whole countries tells us nothing.

China: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Populati...

USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_populat...

People concentrate regardless of land size. Feel free to quote population density when you are a russian farmer in Siberia brewing vodka, but chances are the argument falls utterly flat.

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Re:Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's by duaneb on Thursday September 10, 2015 @06:46PM (#10201022)

I'm not sure what you're even arguing. It seems pretty clear that population density has a strong correlation to efficiency of public transit. If nobody lives there, don't run rail to it.

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Re:Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's by anonymoushn on Thursday September 10, 2015 @07:41PM (#10201220)

You could take a bunch of regions where it would be reasonable to build trains, and then you add a bunch of regions where it would not be reasonable to build trains, and count them together. The population density of that combined area tells you very little about whether it is reasonable to build trains somewhere in that area.

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Re:Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's by duaneb on Thursday September 10, 2015 @09:55PM (#10201587)

The combined density will be lower than any of the cities you might reasonably build trains. I don't see how this isn't meaningful.

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Re:Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's by anonymoushn on Friday September 11, 2015 @02:52AM (#10202321)

I mean, if you had some Californias and some Antarcticas, your decision about whether to build a train between LA and SF within each California should not depend on the number of Antarcticas.

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