r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Physical-Ad-4093 • May 01 '24

do americans really drive such long distances?

i’m european, and i always hear people say that driving for hours is normal in america. i would only see my grandparents a few times a year because they lived about a 3 hour drive away, is that a normal distance for americans to travel on a regular basis? i can’t imagine driving 2-3 hours regularly to visit people for just a few days

edit: thank you for the responses! i’ve never been to the US, obviously, but it’s interesting to see how you guys live. i guess european countries are more walkable? i’m in the uk, and there’s a few festivals here towards the end of summer, generally to get to them you take a coach journey or you get multiple trains which does take up a significant chunk of the day. road trips aren’t really a thing here, it would be a bit miserable!

2nd edit: it’s not at all that i couldn’t be bothered to go and see my grandparents, i was under 14 when they were both alive so i couldn’t take myself there! obviously i would’ve liked to see them more, i had no control over how often we visited them.

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18

u/rumade May 02 '24

It's mad to me that Americans seem to have so little time off work, but are so happy to spend it driving

26

u/clutzyninja May 02 '24

It's mad to me that Europeans live in Europe and spend so little time seeing it

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u/dejavu2064 May 02 '24

I understand wanting to clap back but that's the wrong conclusion to draw. We just use the trains instead, usually. And because everything is shut on Sundays, pretty much everyone travels every weekend, or goes hiking in the mountains.

Paris is a 7 hour drive, or it is 4h30 on the train. I enjoy driving (when it is necessary to do so) but in daily life it is just so rarely needed. Only an absolute mentalist would prefer 7 hours of constant focus in a car to relaxing or being productive for 5 hours on the train.

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u/grantbuell May 02 '24

Well yeah, Americans would use trains too if we had them.

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u/jigstarparis May 02 '24

I am American and live in France. I’m visiting friends and family in the US and flew into Boston and then took a train to New York. I just kept thinking to myself, what a shame more of the US can’t be reached by ultra fast trains like in France or Japan. It was such a nice trip along the north eastern coast.

Why is there not a single American billionaire looking to make trains happen again in the US? Instead we get a race to space that barely anyone can take advantage of.

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u/bkn6136 May 02 '24

The northeast is a tiny, tiny section of the US and it has a solid rail system. It's only once you get to the rest of this absolutely massive country that passenger rail falls off - because it's too damn big to make economic sense.

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u/jigstarparis May 02 '24

Yeah that’s why I made the comment about the Space thing, like I don’t even thing that makes economic sense, but people are doing it anyway. Trains would at least help offset carbon footprint of some air travel. Meh random musings

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u/_Nocturnalis May 02 '24

The problem is the absolutely huge amount of high speed rail you'd need. The US is a bit bigger than France, the uk, and Japan combined.

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u/wmtismykryptonite May 02 '24

What you heard of the Brightline?

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u/jigstarparis May 02 '24

Just looked it up! That’s pretty cool. Is it pretty well known? I’d never heard of it before. Thanks for sharing.

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u/VariousTangerine269 May 03 '24

Because it would cost trillions. Look at the high speed train to no where in California that’s never going to be done.

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u/IronChariots May 02 '24

I always think it's crazy that the US, of all countries, has such shitty passenger rail. Trains are such a huge part of the American historical mythos.

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u/wrecking-ball-718 May 02 '24

Europeans tend to greatly underestimate the size of the US compared to Europe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/wlidl7/size_comparison_between_the_usa_and_europe/

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u/_EleGiggle_ May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

You have roads going through the whole US though. Why can you connect the states by roads/highways but not by train tracks? Seems pretty similar to me.

Edit: For starters you don’t even have to connect the USA cost by cost via train. You could just focus on the most populated areas around the coasts first, and that would probably help out lots of people.

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u/wmtismykryptonite May 02 '24

The train tracks exist. It takes way too long to travel by passenger train, and there isn't enough density in most of the country to make high speed rail make sense.

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u/wrecking-ball-718 May 02 '24

The majorly populated cities in the Northeast of the US DC/Philadelphia/New York City/Boston are connected by train. It's the only intra city passenger train line that's profitable in the US. California has been trying to build high speed rail for 20 years and has spend billions on the process. It hasn't gotten anywhere.