Thread by @Noahpinion

If you want more trains in America, you won't do it by making driving less attractive. People will revolt and you'll lose to pro-car people at the ballot box. Instead, figure out how to make Americans more enthusiastic about riding trains.

Some of this is psychological. Since Americans aren't used to riding trains, you have to figure out smart ways of getting them to think about changing their lifestyle. This is basically a form of marketing. (For me, this was living in Japan, but obviously that doesn't scale up.)

Some of it is about development. You have to allow dense development near train stations, so more people A) live near train stations, and B) can take the train to shop and eat out.

And some of it is about the quality of the experience. You have to keep people off the train who will intimidate, harass, and/or attack people. Letting trains be dangerous zones decreases ridership and increases the political barriers to building more trains.

People love cars because they feel safer (even though they're actually far less safe), and because they offer a sense of personal space and control over one's own life.

Trains have to be more attractive than that.

If you think "That's too hard; instead let's just cut funding for roads and increase the price of driving", then people will simply vote you out of office and vote for politicians who offer to make driving cheaper and easier. And that will be that.

People, and especially Americans, insist that their lives only get better. If you try to make people's lives worse in the smallest way -- even just psychologically -- they'll get rid of you. That's democracy.

So, focus on a positive message about trains, coupled with real steps to make train riding better, easier, safer, more pleasant, and more useful.

It can be done. It just requires positivity, which is not a thing Americans are good at.

(end)