Reference no: EM133230669

Question: Unfortunately, trouble with the transit system is a very American problem that has been addressed in many other countries, but our current infrastructure is lacking to correct it. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2001) "by all measures, public transit use today remains several times higher in Western Europe and Canada than in the United States. Transit typically accounts for 10 to 20 percent of urban trips in Western Europe, but only 2 percent in the United States." This is mainly due to a few factors: lack of rail systems, subway systems, and efficient public bus systems. English (2018) says that "a big difference between America's approach to big urban metro projects and that of Canadian and European cities: Even when the United States built expensive rail systems, it never took care of the basics. Cities rarely provided good, frequent local connections that allowed people to actually get to rail stations without walking or driving." The issue with the American rail system is that it was focused on the movement of freight during the industrial age, and as such, it is unable to move passengers in an efficient manner, and a particular decision problem from railway freight traffic is the railroad blocking problem (Clausen, 2013). That is, we have single tracks in most areas, requiring trains to pull into specific areas in order to pass each other, which takes a significant amount of time.

However, the greatest potential for cheap and reliable transportation still remains rail systems if they were fixed in a manner similar to the European systems. Any thoughts?