![[meme] Fast trains are family values](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/99f5afd3-44ba-42ca-b465-25c06a123e7c.webp){kind=link}
Image transcript:
I don’t want fossil fuel cars
I don’t want electric cars
I want fast trains so I can go visit Grandma
(she’s a sweet old lady and I’d like to visit more often without killing the planet, my wallet, or a pedestrian)
Image transcript:
I don’t want fossil fuel cars
I don’t want electric cars
I want fast trains so I can go visit Grandma
(she’s a sweet old lady and I’d like to visit more often without killing the planet, my wallet, or a pedestrian)
I wish we could develop it alongside our existing interstate highway system. I also want us to somehow, someway, develop an interstate water system. East of the Mississippi and gulf floods. Southwest is constantly low on water. We would see such massive economic gains from the infrastructure investment
I don’t know about interstate water systems. In Europe something of the kind is already there, but the ecological consequences are pretty bad. Unconnected rivers sometimes have their own species, but connecting the rivers will mean that species from one river can invade the other. This happened when they connected the Rhine and the Danube. I don’t know how big the economic gains would be, but I feel like the world has damaged its rivers enough, with canalization and dam placements.
I would just like to point out that it is not all bad. There are several waterways in europe that have been reconnected in the last 30+ years and that those reconnections have had significant impact on the fauna and flora (in a positive way).
Do you have any stories/articles about this you can share? I would love to hear more about it!
Sure. If I remember correctly in Belgium in the 90s (or early 00) they reconnected the schelde and the leie, two rivers that used to be connected but were separated. The intend was to increase the debit that was missing from de schelde. This had a result of more oxygen in the water, increasing fish population and plant growth. 10 years after there were seals (and at some point even a dolphin) spotted in Ghent.