Cities absolutely need freight I'm just weary of the "move more freight by train!" takes (I haven't read your linked post so I'm not accusing you of having this view)
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Replying to @380kmh
We need to move less freight by truck. You have ideas besides trains?
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Replying to @capntransit
I disagree that we need to move less by truck, and am skeptical of how much current truck freight can realistically go by other modes anyway.
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Replying to @380kmh @capntransit
Freight mode split in Japan by tonnage is 91% road, 1% rail, 8% boat; by ton-km it's 51% road, 5% rail, 44% boat. Rail is optimal freight mode for cheap bulky freight going long distances w/o water routes available--not for short-haul, high-value (or anything time sensitive)
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Replying to @380kmh
Do your calculations underlying the "optimal" freight mode include the cost of maintaining the road network? I'm open to increasing our use of water (repealing the Jones Act and rebuilding our canal capacity). But how do you ship so much by truck while still keeping people safe?
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Replying to @capntransit
"Optimal" in that we already move more freight by train than almost any other country on the planet and those principles (cheap, bulky, long haul) still apply. This leads me to conclude there isn't much more freight we COULD move by train w/o a huge change in freight composition
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Replying to @380kmh @capntransit
As for safety--do trucks contribute disproportionately to accidents compared w regular cars? I would assume reducing car use and applying traffic-taming road design would be way better for safety than a slight reduction in number of trucks.
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Replying to @380kmh @capntransit
All this, together with the fact that freight railways are stubborn foes of passenger rail, makes me think "getting trucks off the road" is a de facto anti-transit, pro-driver talking point, despite the best intentions
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Replying to @380kmh
That's a really stupid way to think about things. For a century the same companies built both, until we restructured the incentives to make carrying passengers -or hosting passenger rail- unprofitable. If we restructure the incentives, the railroad owners will follow the money.
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Replying to @capntransit
Railways in the USA, even in their heyday, overwhelmingly favored freight over passenger service--a lot of books in the late 1800s got written complaining about this (with titles like "the railroad problem" etc).
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The incentive then, as now, is pretty simple: you can profit from carrying freight much more easily than from carrying passengers (frequency isn't a big deal, comfort is irrelevant, etc etc)
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