In 2014, I was given the opportunity to travel to Europe with my family. While I was there, I noticed a large number of trains and metro/subway systems. People drove cars over there, but it seemed like the majority of people used other means of transportation. Maybe the United States never got the message that there is more out there than just automobiles.
The average cost of driving and maintaining the average sedan in 2015 was $8,698. This translates to 58 cents per mile driven or $725 dollars per month (according to AAA). What if there are other means of transportation — like trains? The cost of driving might go down as there is more options for transportation.
Trains can be as cheap as $150,000, and if they are high speed rail trains they can cost billions of dollars. However, this is comparable to the amount of money spent each year by the United States government to update and maintain roads — most of which is done by state and local governments. In fact, in 2015 the government passed a bill that will provide $61 billion dollars to maintenance of roads for the next five years. Maybe trains can be cheaper...
So if billions of dollars are spent maintaining roads every year, why don’t we spend more of our money on trains and other means of transportation? If you think about it, roads would probably require less maintenance if less people drove on them every year.
The United States’ government does own Amtrak and that is a start, but couldn’t we do more to provide rail transportation?
CNN had an article explaining why the United States was lacking in its train and rail industry. Two of its main points were that the United States was too far spread out to have trains and that our railway infrastructure is already too far behind that it won’t catch up.
The article stated that airplanes would work just fine for cross country travel because they go faster than high speed rail systems; however, it is interesting that Amtrak reported they had more travelers last year than all of the airliner companies combined. Maybe the people of the United States have caught on, but the government and the railway companies haven’t.
Additionally, the United States was founded on the idea that if you want something and you work hard enough, you can get it. CNN’s reasoning in their article is total crap. If the United States wanted to update their transportation system to include more railway transportation, we could totally do it. We just have to want to do it.
Ultimately, this article is just meant to instill the idea of more railways into your mind. Think about it,do some research, maybe you might decide that you want more railway transportation as well.
