Fantasy piece on revival of train travel

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jis

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Most of the plans I've seen for reducing greenhouse gases don't expect that all cars or airplane use will be abolished, it's just that it will need to be reduced substantially. For example, a typical American who drives 15,000 miles per year could reduce a lot of GHG by driving 10,000 or even 5,000 miles per year. That might mean converting the suburbs to traditional town planning so that a person isn't driving 50 or 100 miles a day just to go to work or for shopping the strip malls. Such a scenario might involve the use of "neighborhood electric vehicles" (aka "glorified golf carts") to get to local places too far to walk, mass transit for places farther away, and a Zipcar for trips to the lumberyard and such for bulky purchases or weekend getaways. Smaller houses or apartments (at least for Americans outside of California) would also help greatly, as would people tolerating the indoors being cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer.

For long distance intercontinental travel, airplanes would probably still be the most common way to travel, but they will need to get rid of the cheap fares and reduce the demand and thus the number of flights. And also make sure most of the flights are running full. So the experience will be more expensive and probably less comfortable, but, heck, it's only 8-10 hours in most cases, and the higher fares might translate to better food for everybody.

Freight shipping by sea might see the deployment of more wind-assisted ships, and maybe even outright sailing vessels for cargoes that don't need to be shipped quickly. There are a number of new high tech sailing ship designs out there that can operate with smaller crews than the one used in the days of the windjammers.

A revival of passengers would mainly affect intracontinental travel. It might be necessary for people to accept that even transcontinental trips will require 3 or 4 days, except under extreme situations and at great cost. Flights of 500 miles or less will probably need to be discouraged and replaced by train and bus alternatives. The days of cheap airfares will definitely need to end, either through a carbon tax or a reimposition of airline regulation, or both. Increased intercity bus service will need to be supported by the State if private capital doesn't do the job, both as a supplement (i.e. Thruway buses) and a competitor to train service. The bus and train networks should be integrated to allow easy transfers. The main goal needs to be getting as many people as possible out of their cars.

This will all result in a bit of a reduction in mobility, but this is the price that we need to pay if we're serious about dealing with climate change.

Frankly, I'm not sure there's any political will to make such changes (and not just in the United States) until it's way too late to have any effect on global climate change and all the destructive side effects associated with it. If I were younger, I would move myself and any businesses I owned to either the Northeastern US or the Great Lakes states, but I wouldn't buy any seacoast properties, and I'd avoid floodplains and land adjacent to floodplains. I'm fairly comfortable with my current location in the highest part of Baltimore City, at least for the short term that will be the rest of my life.
 
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