The Culture of Speed
Hayduke left a comment about my Arizona post that’s worthy of further discussion:
Why do we want to travel quickly for long distances?
Where do we stop feeding our desires and begin living our ideals? We only live on this poor beat up and much abused earth thing one time. No going back and doing it over. No second chances, no one gets out alive.
Why not do it right the first time?
A good, fair point…..
Americans are enamored with getting places quickly, having things delivered quickly and quick service. As a society, we’re fast paced and don’t like delays. Fast food is popular because it’s fast, not because it’s good or affordable. (It’s not good, and it’s not affordable.) Although we have the interstate system and highways, Americans seem hardly satisfied with driving safe and sane speed limits. We want to get there even faster! FedEx is all about fast. Music downloads, Netflix. It’s all fast. Fast rules the day for most Americans.
Now, when you only have five days of vacation, it’s nice when you only have to spend a few hours of it actually traveling. It’s also nice if you have a debilitating disease (like my wife) and find it difficult to sit for long periods of time. But mostly, it’s because we want our shit fast, and I suppose it’s simply another negative aspect of our consumptive culture.
Fast comes with a price. Fast means exponentially more fuel and more resource use overall. It may create jobs, but we can create better jobs than taking fast food orders. How miserable can that be!
As far as travel is concerned, I think train is the way to go, but I’m not happy with our current system of routes. For example, for me to get from Memphis to New Orleans and then on to west Texas, I have to take a series of buses between major stops, including Lafayette, a city I travel to several times a year. This trip could take several days and is simply not practical. In fact, it’s idiotic.
Let’s look at the Lafayette, Louisiana trip on the Sunset Limited. If I left Memphis on Wednesday, I’d get to Lafayette, only 437 miles by car, on Friday because there’s no service from New Orleans to Lafayette on Wednesday night or Thursday. I’m better off driving the Prius down the pleasantly shaded and mercifully slow Natchez Trace. On a single tank of gas, mind you.
Memphis to New Orleans is a nice, reasonable eight hour ride, but New Orleans to San Antonio is nearly 16 hours or 48 hours when you add the Memphis section. That’s an additional 8 hours for travel and a day lay over. It’s 726 miles by Prius in 11 hours and less than two tanks of gas, and I don’t have to pay for cab fare once I get to my destination. And just to illustrate how pathetic our rail system is in the United States, a comparable trip from Paris, France to Marseille St. Charles (nearly 800 miles) takes slightly over 3 hours on Société Nationale des Chemins de fer français (SNCF).
As I’ve said before, we need vast improvement in this area, a national rail system comparable with those in Europe and Japan, but don’t hold your breath. Looks like we’re only getting a cosmetic, politically motivated, face lift, not the real thing.
Categories: Backpacking-Travel, Environment
Tags: train travel
Comments: 2 Comments.
We can find many excuses for doing what we want to do.
When traveling by train, the journey is part of the joy of the trip. The trip is as important as the destination. If sitting in a car on the way to the airport, sitting in the terminal, and sitting on the airplane is an onerous, wasted time, why do it?
The City of New Orleans goes right through Memphis on its way to New Orleans. The Sunset Limited goes right from new Orleans to Tucson (Ridin’ on the City of New Orleans!) Stay in a classy Hotel in New Orleans, Have some étouffé and a glass or two of Voignier, exult in a hot bath, get up at a civlized hour in the morning, have a leisurely breakfast on the veranda and catch the Sunset Limited for the desert, if you must. Sounds a hell of lot better than being shoe-horned into a metal tube with surly passengers coughing on you.
“There’s more to life than increasing its speed.”
Mohandis K. Ghandi
Actually, the City of New Orleans does not go to Tucson. That’s the Sunset Limited, I believe.
But yes, the way to do that trip is to spend an evening in New Orleans. It’s a good trip. I just wish we’d construct a real rail line in this country. If we’re so technologically advanced, why not?
Oh wait. I forgot. We have a bunch of wars to finance and Wall Street fucktards to bail out.
I’m certain I’ve probably made my last trip by air. The whole experience is so disgusting. Even if traveling to California, it would be better to drive and see the country, stopping at little roadside motels and campsites and eating at local diners.