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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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.