but how can the same system be made to work in areas with large distances between individual users and with the rails in disrepair?
The only solution I can think of would be using rails in citys and tires in rural areas with mechanisms like rail service trucks so as to meet the needs of rural individuals. I know they make up a minority, however if the government could fully replace roads with rails and bike lanes in citys it would be almost necessary to provide a way for rural people who occasionally vist to go shopping for goods that the mail system doesn’t deliver and local stores don’t stock (eg. appliances, specialty meats and vegetables, lithium ion batterys, specialty healthcare, and bulk goods).
Or we could just have subways with actual cargo space that’s secure, large enough to store 8x4 plywood, reservable in advance, and with a competent loading/ unloading mechanism for transfers from subway to train and ebike to subway.
Or we could have trains, subways, bicycle lanes, roads for cars and delivery trucks which we drive ourselves, airplanes and ships. Why do we have to reinvent the system we currently have? It works. Trains for long distances, trucks for the last part. Cycling in cities (at least in NL) and cars for longer distances. Subways, trams and busses for public transportation in larger cities, trains for travel between cities, ships for massive cargo, planes for fast casgo and traveling really far. More and more is changing to electric. We shouldn’t replace all roads with train tracks for individuals to use just because they are too lazy to drive themselves. There’s lots of work to do in the US, as that country is made for cars only. Look at The Netherlands, we’ve done a really good job changing everything to cycling and public transportation mainly. Or Denmark. Kopenhagen is insanely well designed for bicycles and public transportation, even though it’s a really old city. Tokyo is huge, their public transportation system is insane, it’s perfect in every way.
If you’re going to complain about train tracks in rural areas being in disrepair, why not repair them? Here in NL we have a track replacement train which drives at night and replaces the entire track during the time the track isn’t used. No manual labor, fully automatic.
Just because the US doesn’t repair and upgrade the systems they have and stubbornly sticks to mainly road travel even though there are many countries which have shown that doesn’t work but changing does, doesn’t mean we have to invent new stupid shit because the American infrastructure is so extremely dumb.
We will always need some cars/trucks/semi’s, we can just switch most of it to other forms of transportation which are already out there. Just learn to drive if you really need a car, it’s not rocket science. Otherwise take the buss.
but how can the same system be made to work in areas with large distances between individual users
You can also just look at history to see how this would work. Interurban cars (electric streetcars that are capable of sustaining speeds of 60+mph) would operate on flagstop routes, only stopping at stations if either a passenger onboard requested or a passenger at the station flagged them down. Additionally passengers could often flag the cars from anywhere along the tracks to pick them up (this would vary by system/line)
Combine such a system with bicycles and you’re already most of the way there to car-free/car-light rural living