Oh Yeah - We're #1

[DramaQueen]

What would happen if Alabama gets independence

[FatAndFaithless]

What would happen if Alabama gets independence

The civilized world would rejoice.

[Alex K]

Neither does most of America.

And even when there are trains....
Case in point, I know from painful experience that going from the middle of Long Island to Manhattan takes 2 hours, and if you're lucky the train doesn't derail and send you to a fiery death on a front lawn in Huntington. It would take less than 30 mins with a modern high speed train.

People were definitely negligent when it comes to building up that type of infrastructure, but in America's defense, distances are huge and population is mostly sparse, so this makes it very expensive to have good quality infrastructure compared to western europe, japan or korea. For the NY metropolitan area though, it's not an excuse.

[Anomalocaris]

Neither does most of America.

And even if there are trains....
Case in point, I know from painful experience that going from the middle of Long Island to Manhattan takes 2 hours, and if you're lucky the train doesn't derail and send you to a fiery death on a front lawn in Huntington. It would take less than 30 mins with a modern high speed train.

People were definitely negligent when it comes to building up that type of infrastructure, but in America's defense, distances are huge and population is mostly sparse, so this makes it very expensive to have good quality infrastructure compared to western europe, japan or korea.

So they still make you change trains at Huntington?

China is a tad larger than the US. China interconnected all of its major cities with high speed rail in a little less than 8 years, or about 2/3 the time and 1/3 the cost of the war in Iraq. In fact they connected their whole country with about 7000 miles of high speed rail trackage at only about three times what california estimated would cost to connect Los Angeles with San Francisco using just 400 miles of tracks.

I took the train from Shanghai to Beijing, equivalent to New York to Chicago, it took just 3 hours from near city center to city center. Flight from New York to Chacago would take an hour 30 minutes, which when added to commute time to and from the airports, would have taken longer than 3 hours in total.

In backwards socialist china it is just possible to live in Shanghai and commute to work in Beijing. In the US good luck with living in New York and commuting to work in Chicago.

What happened to labor mobility in the land of the free and home of captialism?

[Minimalist]

Flight from New York to Chacago would take an hour 30 minutes, which when added to commute time to and from the airports, would have taken longer than 3 hours in total.

Don't forget the time it takes to get through "security."

[Anomalocaris]

Flight from New York to Chacago would take an hour 30 minutes, which when added to commute time to and from the airports, would have taken longer than 3 hours in total.

Don't forget the time it takes to get through "security."

Yeah, and the arrive 90 minutes early shit.

With high speed trains in china you can buy tickets on line and arrive 10 minutes before the train departs if you want. The train stations are usually not far from down town financial or commercial district.

That's labor mobility.

But here free enterprise would appearently happily say fuck you to the overall economical and social benefit of labor mobility so long as the particular party doesn't see direct personal benefit from facilitating labor mobility.

[Alex K]

With high speed trains in china you can buy tickets on line and arrive 10 minutes before the train departs if you want.

Here one can buy the long distance ticket on the train.

---

So they still make you change trains at Huntington?

Hrhrhr.
Well to be honest, it's 9 years ago, so maybe the changed it * looks at lirr site *
no they didn't

[bladevalant546]

It is because America is bought and paid for. Technology that free it citizens is bad MMKAY. Just look at Tesla.

[Anomalocaris]

Here one can buy the long distance ticket on the train.

Here in Los Angeles the police would give you a citation in lieu of a ticket if you tried that.

[Alex K]

Here one can buy the long distance ticket on the train.

Here in Los Angeles the police would give you a citation in lieu of a ticket if you tried that.

The system is set up such that you are asked for your ticket with near 100% certainty very early in your ride, so there's really not such a thing as trying to dodge the fare (except if you hide in the bathroom). In places where only spot checks are performed by the personnel, this wouldn't work.