Looks to me like . . .
. . that Scotland map is all intercity heavy rail (freight and travelers) not commuter rail.
Here in Los Angeles we have quite a lot of light rail with more planned, some heavy commuter rail and more planned - but even with all planned rail installed only patches of LA/Orange Counties will be covered. This is a combined city of more than 1000 square miles. Most will still have to use a car to get to rail stations, as they do now. It would take LA much more than 200 years to re-organize around rail - if we really wanted to.
Los Angeles also has a LOT of very heavy freight rail, as 1/3 of this entire country's foreign commerce passes through Los Angeles (port of Los Angeles / Long Beach). Rail connects to huge "inland ports" that have been built on the desert, because there isn't nearly enough room in Los Angeles County for warehousing and distribution on that scale. Those railroads aren't shown on the commuter rail map.
Much of that rail has been lowered or raised (at great cost) so it doesn't interfere with surface traffic.
We also have a whole lot of bus service to most of the yellow area on that map (I live in a yellow area) but to use it for any distance will take hours where a car is minutes.
Ecology and conservation enthusiasts always come up with plans that maximize the use of the one resource that is in critically short supply and not at all renewable, for any of us - time, as related to the shortness of life.
Of course, for me, public transport is simply impossible. I need to travel the region a lot, with varying destinations and and with varying loads of tools and equipment, usually much more than can be carried on public transportation.
What we really need is smaller more efficient cars, and for people to adjust to smaller, more efficient cars. Electric cars and hybrids are now very common here in LA County. When Toyota announced they'd sold a million Priuses, I wondered where they'd sold the other 12. You can't drive more than a few miles anywhere around here without seeing Teslas - they swarm here. I even see some of those electric BMWs that look like mineature Pontiac Azteks (what were they thinking?).
Here in Los Angeles we have quite a lot of light rail with more planned, some heavy commuter rail and more planned - but even with all planned rail installed only patches of LA/Orange Counties will be covered. This is a combined city of more than 1000 square miles. Most will still have to use a car to get to rail stations, as they do now. It would take LA much more than 200 years to re-organize around rail - if we really wanted to.
Los Angeles also has a LOT of very heavy freight rail, as 1/3 of this entire country's foreign commerce passes through Los Angeles (port of Los Angeles / Long Beach). Rail connects to huge "inland ports" that have been built on the desert, because there isn't nearly enough room in Los Angeles County for warehousing and distribution on that scale. Those railroads aren't shown on the commuter rail map.
Much of that rail has been lowered or raised (at great cost) so it doesn't interfere with surface traffic.
We also have a whole lot of bus service to most of the yellow area on that map (I live in a yellow area) but to use it for any distance will take hours where a car is minutes.
Ecology and conservation enthusiasts always come up with plans that maximize the use of the one resource that is in critically short supply and not at all renewable, for any of us - time, as related to the shortness of life.
Of course, for me, public transport is simply impossible. I need to travel the region a lot, with varying destinations and and with varying loads of tools and equipment, usually much more than can be carried on public transportation.
What we really need is smaller more efficient cars, and for people to adjust to smaller, more efficient cars. Electric cars and hybrids are now very common here in LA County. When Toyota announced they'd sold a million Priuses, I wondered where they'd sold the other 12. You can't drive more than a few miles anywhere around here without seeing Teslas - they swarm here. I even see some of those electric BMWs that look like mineature Pontiac Azteks (what were they thinking?).
