The advent of steam power and the industrial revolution are probably the culprits—two reasons for this
In other words—wide streets are an aesthetic choice that predate the car, not something made necessary *by* the car
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Since the USA experience most of its development during and after the industrial revolution, we have little experience with walkable cities
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And because our railways were optimized for freight—even tho in other countries, private railways in the 19th cent optimized for riders…
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…our railways were ineffective for passenger travel—Americans *needed* cars to be able to travel pragmatically
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Postscript: I think part of the reason our railways were optimized away from riders was due to an odd sense of “competition”
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That is, private railways weren’t willing to expand their ridership in a way that’d significantly expand ridership on another railway too
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When you make it easy for passengers to switch between railway companies, BOTH companies can see ridership growth
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Because all the stops on *your* line can now connect people to that many new destinations; many more trips become possible
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And people will still use your railway to get to the point of transfer—this applies to both (or more) companies that intersect
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This is true for passengers but not freight, because freight packages don’t get off one train and onto another…
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For freight to switch from 1 company to another, the actual tracks must connect—passengers just need to be able to use one station for both
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So, in the US, rail companies tended to locate their *junctions* outside the center of town, in industrial areas
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While locating their *stations* closer to businesses and residences
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There is money to make in passenger service, but *only if people can easily transfer between lines*
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Otherwise you do not have a rail NETWORK, you only have a collection of individual rail LINES
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So. All this said, is there any hope for rail in the USA in the future? Sure, but with important caveats…
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The first, most important caveat is that creating new service must start small, where it makes the MOST sense, and build out from there
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This is why I concentrate exclusively on New England. There is a viable starting point (Boston), and a modest scope for growth…
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…so I don’t get distracted in what sort of rail connections will work in, say, rural Arkansas. I focus on the network *centered in Boston*
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Second big caveat—it won’t work if past mistakes are repeated. Optimize for passengers if you want passenger!
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As for the spread out aesthetic—this is the single largest obstacle. Narrow streets are largely *banned* in the USA, and even if legal…
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…nobody has any recent experience building them. Indeed, they tend to come into existence in the first place largely unplanned!
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The best that can be done here, I think, is to show Americans what narrow streets *actually look like,* this is where the internet is good
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Accounts like @IAmDavidBoxall and
@NathanNWE, among many others, tweet lots of beautiful examples—rather like I try to do with actual trains -
One thing to note--wherever passenger traffic in the USA *was* very busy, different companies consolidated their stations
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This is why so many larger cities and towns have a "Union Station," like the one here in Northampton
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So there are two additional advantages to focusing on New England: many large settlements from the colonial era, and better networking
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