this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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why would an individual car “train” that can go anywhere (eg. train tracks on all roads for self driving cars) be shitter than a train that has limited availability and is extremely restrictive in where it can go?
Because you have to pay a good chunk of a year's salary for one, store it around your house somewhere, and then when you finally do get to use it, there are a million other people with the same idea and you have to compete just for space in which to use it.
And that's before you get to all the maintenance the government has to spend on the paths (and make you pay tax for all that). Oh, and it's incredibly dangerous, so dangerous that it's one of the leading causes of death in the US.
We are talking about an equivalent 'pod/train car', not a car but I'll bite anyway
Have you ever been on a train? It sucks, a bus 10000% more, buses fuckin suck so much, I'm sorry for you to hear this in the echo chamber which features 'fuck cars'.
Like I said, trains and buses have 2 big negatives:
Trains especially so, my local train would be a 20-30 minute walk away and it goes far south and to the city, if i don't want to go to either of those I'm in for a 5 hour marathon of a trip at best
But we should invest more in trains you might be saying, and again the question goes back to, why would a train be better than a pod/car that can roll around on train tracks
This whole thread took the original meaning and warped it into a circle jerk about trains which is not what the OP was saying
Works pretty well in Europe. They have a huge train system that goes all over the place.
No it doesn’t
Notably, as shown in Figure 1, passenger cars accounted for 73.0% of passenger-km travelled in the EU-27 in 2022 – the largest of any mode of transport
Public transport activity reached around 995 billion passenger-km in the EU-27 in 2019. This represents a 2.2 percentage points reduction in the share of these modes in the total transport activity compared with 1995. This share reached approximately 16.6% in 2019
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/sustainability-of-europes-mobility-systems/passenger-transport-activity
Cars > Trains
Skill issue. Japan, Korea, China all have extremely comfortable and efficient trains. Trains can be quite nice if the government is interested in having good trains instead of making infinitely dollars for the shareholders while spending nothing on maintaince and charging as much as possible.
Thanks for mentioning Japan and Korea
https://files.ikt.id.au/y0q8ls.webp
Japan, South Korea and North Korea would all fit into a space the size of our second smallest state Victoria but that state has a population of 8 million, the combined Korea's and Japan would be 200 million
Speaking of large population sizes:
We are nearly as big as China but with 1.4 billion, if you took their desert which has fuck all trains and transposed that onto Australia we're actually pretty close in terms of trains and public transport
But regardless:
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00416/auto-appeal-fades-one-in-four-japanese-households-do-not-own-a-car.html
Which leaves 3 in 4 who do own a car, so much for skill issue right :)
I almost thought you were American given your "rail doesn't work, look how big our country is" BS argument. I guess it works for Australia too, though. Funnily enough your own map shows how Australia is actually perfectly siuted for extensive rail infrastructure connecting most of the metropolitan regions with each other.
Adelade-Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane covers most of Australia's population and is a model case for an HSR corridor, certainly also has the population to support one as well. Add to that a Dutch style multimodal urban model and Australia could be on par with the rest of the developed world infrastructure wise. Perth and Darwin are self contained urban islands anyway, too far for attractive rail but also road connection
Yes, it has been attempted many many many times, it's now parodied in our own parks and rec style comedy program:
Is A High-Speed Rail Possible In Australia? | Utopia
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8av3knflbQo
I don't think you are noticing just how sparsely populated we are and how big those mountains are in between the cities
That is exclusively a problem of politcal and may be incompetence. It doesn't change the fact that Australia is extremely well suited for HSR covering the majority of its urban population. All with a single line.
you are free to crique the last 50 years and 10 different government and private enterprise attempts at doing it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia
apparently you know better 👍
You are aware that your link confirms my point, aren't you? Countless studies showing that the corridor is feasible and makes sense, yet not a single project in 50 years, where the government has shown the political will to get serious about it, never mind showing long term commitment.
If you want to bring up actual arguments why what is possible in Japan, China and much of Europe is impossible on the Melbourne-Sydney corridor, be my guest.
i give up mate, if you can’t read i can’t help you
No arguments? A pity.
it seems it wasn't me who didn't read your own source:
"Every federal government since this time has investigated the feasibility of constructing high-speed rail with speeds above 200 km/h, but to date nothing has ever gone beyond the detailed planning stage"
Even the US has come further already than that.
You’re confused why it’s not getting past the planning stage?
Maybe watch the video again? You’re literally the guy in it :)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8av3knflbQo
Yeah, thanks for confirming my argument. The video is pretty much bringing up the arguments I'd expext. But it really shows how weak they are when they complain about distances being to far when they are actually perfect for HSR and yes, it is enough if individual relations are close enough. That is how many HSR networks work.
But sure, Australia is the only country with mountains and suburbs. And kanguruhs are an unsurmountable issues for rail, but not for highways.
It all boils down to ideology. Weirdly enough it was not impossible to build on inner urban highways though, which required much more space. But then, unlike road infrastructure, rail is required to be proftibale and that is why Australia remains underdeveloped and its airports overloaded.
Add to the wavering back and forth to financial support a tenerally hostile legal environment towards HSR projects and and general histile laws to building important large national infrastructure, balooning costs on any such project. I would not ve surprised if more money would gave to be spent on bureaucracy and judicial things than on actually building that thing. Not much different from the US where they need to pay multiple times more per km than in other Western countries with comparable corridors.
They run hundreds of trains a day between population centers in that desert, I took them to get to Kazakhstan and back.
The skill issue is being able to build efficient, comfortable, cheap trains, which Japan has the first 2, but they could be cheaper.
I mean that's fine but that doesn't answer my original point when 3/4th's of people are using cars to get around, this public transport paradise is limited to inner city and highly dense locations, and even then 50%+ of people are still using cars
Doesn't scream public transport is a winner
I also much prefer driving in my car listening to music and not having little shits on the train making a racket and running around and my car is more comfortable and when I want to go down to GYG at 11pm for a cheeky fries run I'm not standing out in the dark and cold in my suburb (not the nicest) waiting for a bus to turn up and then the same thing on my way back, that would be the pits
Maybe this works in a big urban centre but the whole world is not a big urban centre
They own or have access to a car, but the bulk of travel is public transit. You like not having to sit in traffic? So did the japanese, despite being a major car manufacturer. Solution is to remove as many trips as possible via alternative transit. I would not call Japan a public transit paradise, but there are things they do well we can learn from.
Earbuds.
Never seen that over here, what are yall doing differently?
You must have excessively shitty trains if having to pay attention to traffic while sitting in 1 position can be more comfortable than sipping tea in a dining car, free to stretch your legs or just using a laptop at your seat.
Yes they are in my ears 24x7, I do like listening through my speaker though
Where are you? I bet I can find out pretty quickly you have security teams on your trains at night
It's really not that hard to drive and I would rather get to work in 30 minutes than sit around for an hour, the comfort difference is minimal to me, especially so if it's busy and trains are packed, then nobody is stretching your legs
Here's a map of most of where I've been in asia, mostly travelling by train or ferry, except in vietnam, where I switch from train to motorbike in Hanoi. I have seen the occasional security guy in China and Korea, never in Japan.
The only reason cars are good right now is because countries like US and AU went 100% all in on cars. Do you have any idea the astronomical cost of public roads and car infrastructure? Imagine if we invested the same amount into a really really good train and tram system. Or, alternatively, imagine if we underfunded roads the same way we do public transport.
Not 100%, Melbourne kept its trams around and Victoria still has massive car use
We're just a huge massive low density country so it's hard to compare to inner western europe
Melbourne's trams are terrible because cars are given priority even though having much lower capacity. The "low density" argument is meaningless. Most people live in metropolitan regions and they are as well suited for transit as you build it. Turns out, Australia went all in on car only design on new projects. Surprisingly that makes anything other than cars unattractive.
Please don't downvote just because you have a different opinion, it makes you look like a dick
Yes you're right, I was being hyperbolic. We're 90% mostly-in on cars
Have you?
Trains and buses, when funded, are fine. Millions of people take them every day.
I work from home but I used to daily commute by train. Walk to station. Wait a few minutes. Get on. Arrive at destination. I read so many books and finished so many games.
sadly yes
https://translink.com.au/service-updates/june-july-26
and as mentioned I need my car to get there:
Trains especially so, my local train would be a 20-30 minute walk away and it goes far south and to the city, if i don’t want to go to either of those I’m in for a 5 hour marathon of a trip at best
The facts you are using to support your argument point largely to a failure of the particular transit system currently implemented in your country and area.
When a country invests heavily in car infrastructure, cars are easier to use.
That's not a general problem with trains that proves they suck. The suck is places have been built out for cars with other modes as after thoughts.
I live somewhere with much better train and bus coverage, and it makes it easier than driving for the vast majority of trips.
The day to day suffering is because of cars. So fuck cars. Fuck the culture that made them primary.
I mean if you are only going around the city sure but even in not just bikes favourite country the limitations are obvious
With a total road network of 139,000 km, including 3,530 km of expressways,[2] the Netherlands has one of the densest road networks in the world; much denser than Germany and France, though not as dense as Belgium.[3]
On the roads it has grown continuously since the 1950s and now exceeds 200 billion km travelled per year,[8] three quarters of which are done by car.[9] Around half of all trips in the Netherlands are made by car, 25% by bicycle, 20% walking, and 5% by public transport.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Netherlands
But that’s a tiny country country that is extremely flat
As soon as you get out into a real world the problems are obvious
Is A High-Speed Rail Possible In Australia? | Utopia
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8av3knflbQo
I take the train and the bus all the time, it's awesome. No traffic, no road rage, no anxiety, no danger. I just shitpost on My phone until I'm at My destination.
Sure badly built or unprioritized public transit infrastructure might suck, but busses and trains sure are amazing when prioritised, built correctly.
Many European cities combine well functioning train, bus and cycle infrastructure, which together makes it possible to go anywhere at any time for cheap.
I think it really just comes down to prioritizing to develop the infrastructure (costs money and requires political will to move away from car based infrastructure).
Also I don't think a pod system would solve any of the problems of either cars or trains/busses and would be much more expensive...
can you name all these European cities combining well functioning train, bus and cycle infrastructure outside of the netherlands? (where the average person/household does not have a car as they don’t need it)
Public transportation seemed to work well in Brussels, Paris, Prague, Copenhagen, and even Edinburgh. Just thinking of the last few cities I was in outside of the Netherlands (leaving out the USA, which is obviously a nightmare for transportation of all kinds). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Buses are the worst (actually, pneumatic tyred 'trams' are the worst)
Trains are great though.
yeah tbh i was being a bit hyperbolic, i don’t mind my train trip to work despite it being slow af
but it would take an insane public transport network to service south east queensland, until we find an infinite money glitch it’s only going to be used for a minimum viable amount of very popular trips, eg between brisbane and the gold coast and soon the sunshine coast
but for example if you want to go to crows nest from brisbane there will never be a train that goes that way because of low numbers
Brisbane was built by car users for car users. If you go to central Melbourne, that's a great place to catch the tram because it was built for the tram. On the other hand, the Melbourne suburbs stink ass because they were built after cars became popular.