Yes if you want to get a lot of people from defined point A to defined point B, you can do so more efficiently with railroads then you can with cars and highways. But while rail might be more efficient in that sense they are far less flexible. And trying to provide enough line and enough stations and enough rail cars and engines to even remotely approach the flexibility of a road network combined with cars and trucks is totally impractical. So just comparing the number of people that can be moved along one linear route with full rail cars compared to the number of people that can be moved over the same linear route with highways and private cars isn't very meaningful.
ot many people commute 2.8 hours. Examples of such long commutes aren't fictional, but they aren't very relevant to the typical commuter.
Tell that to people who commute by car in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco Bay area or the most typical, LA.
As I said its not fictional, but it isn't typical. I can tell that to anyone, and even if they commute that distance or longer it doesn't change the fact that its not typical. If I said "a typical person can not clean and jerk over 500lbs" would you say "tell that to champion weightlifters"?
Even for people who live in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Boston, LA, and the San Francisco Bay area, 2.8 hour commutes are far more than normal.
census.gov
Now if we assume that we could get rid of 90% of it at 7MPG
I think that is a completely unrealistic assumption. As is your hope to reduce long range car travel by 50%. |
