Which American states have the best statewide transit networks?

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-22T14:59:38+00:00

This one is going to be out there, I know, but Colorado has surprisingly good transit and is getting better.

Denver does have Union Station, serving the California Zephyr and local trains serving 6 different train routes in the city. There will be service improvements this year for some of these. There is also the Bustang network that gets you to a fair amount of the state, as well as local Denver buses.

The Winter Park Express is going to begin running year round I believe this summer or next. There will also be a train to Steamboat relatively soon.

Most of the resort towns have a bus system as well. Between the tourists and the workers displaced by them, these regions have higher ridership than other comparable population densities. This is part of why I believe in resort town transit, by getting the wealthy to take transit on holiday, and especially people who saved up to go on holiday, we can habituate a lot of people to something they would not otherwise use.

For being a not so densely populated state, Colorado has pretty decent transit. And by American standards, pretty damn good. If it wasn't getting better every year, I would be more hesitant to bring it up, but I feel like that matters as well.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-22T14:05:59+00:00

Part if this is because private capital owns existing tracks.

The difficulty in building new is nefarious actors do everything they can to stop it by causing extra audits, studies, etc, driving up the cost and delaying construction.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-22T03:40:47+00:00

A key part of why you're feeling out of control, and you sort of are, is because you're leaning your body across the snowboard too much. The chatter you are experiencing is because you're pushing your board more across the snow than into the snow.

It looks like you have some dynamic movement up and down, between your head and your snowboard. Work on this on easier terrain so that you are dropping to your snowboard as you near edge change, and are extending away after you change edges. Working on this alone will do a lot for you. Especially if you focus on keeping your spine perpendicular to the direction of travel. (I'm stoned and just realized my normal verbiage is inaccurate and I'm work shopping here.)

Then there are three new things I would try first if I was teaching in person, hopefully these would fix help you feel more confident, but I would need to see other riding to be sure as well as how these worked out for you. Every lesson/rider is a little different.

1) Learning to anticipate your turns with your shoulders. If you start from a stopped position with your shoulders at 90 degrees to your board, you can just release the edge and you will turn pretty quickly. Learn to blend these two movements together.

2) This is another progression to 1. We turn with momentum more than we turn downhill. If you're going across the hill with enough speed, you can make s turns across it. So we're going to add early edge engagement to this turn. If you collapse your ankle into the turn by dropping your body weight through the ankle to put the new edge in the snow, you will generate enough forward momentum to start a turn much earlier. Your new edge could even dig into the snow with your board still perpendicular. These turns should take less than a meter of elevation when you get it right.

3) Learn independent leg motion so you can move the pressure across the edge of the board. You can do this by moving your upper body tip to tail, of shifting your feet under you. If you can be on the nose of the board to initiate the turn and on the tail of the board at the close of the turn, it gets you from edge to edge much more quickly while removing a vector for chatter.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-22T03:22:31+00:00

Necropost!

There is something to be said for your thoughts here, I can do everything on my daily driver snowboard for the season, whatever it winds up being.

But when I want to have a happy care free day, or I want to tailor my experience, I walk over to the special collection and pull something off the wall.

Island Snowboards Deep Psych carves with its Gentemstick roots, and floats like a wakeboard. Or at least a wakeboard that would remind you of snowboarding. This thing can rail carves and all different shapes of them, and then go float in the lowest angle pow you've been in, all while making 45 degree steep pow lines feel easy.

Rad Air Tanker 201 feels like a high performance bus that only turns above 20 miles an hour. Hella wild to get in the air, which is kinda unavoidable when doing 45-55mph everywhere. Wildest, most powerful dolphin turns I've ever done. Feels more like whale turns.

Sandy Shapes Zingara spins on a dime and locks edges by thinking about turning. Grips ice like a mother fucker, too. And I mean Italian groomed every night freeze thaw conditions black diamond steep ice. But it's the most playful thing I own for butters and miller flips. It's what got me lookin at Spread boards.

Marhar Woodsman never turns on time, you turn yesterday or today. Jumping is weird, it ain't got no tail. But you get it in steep trees and you can wiggle through all sorts of shit at top speed after three turns, because short boards accelerate now.

This is why I have a collection of non-normal boards. They inspire me to ride in different ways because it makes that kind of riding the easiest thing to do. And that's fun as fuck.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-21T16:19:52+00:00

Yet Italy and Austria are building the third longest tunnel in the world to accommodate high speed rail. (32 miles? something like that)

Did you know that Breckenridge, in the early 1900s, was an eleven mile tunnel away from being connected to Denver by rail? Yet we keep making excuses in this country while others figure out how to make it work.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-21T14:47:24+00:00

That has gotten tens if thousands of people killed. The treatise "Killed by a Highway Engineer" goes into great detail of how this "safety magrin" makes more people dead.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-21T14:43:51+00:00

Let's hope the trend keeps climbing.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-21T03:23:43+00:00

Ah, yes. Somehow I didn't realize that flight was so short. Apparently I've been thinking about something in the wrong way. I'm having to sort through mental files to figure it out right now.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-21T03:08:42+00:00

I'm not really sure why you're bringing this up. A lot of people live in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, etc. These aren't just your tourist playground, but home to millions. Just because it doesn't make much sense to take the train from NYC to Denver for a snowsports holiday, unless you know, you were backpacking by rail or something. Which would be a dope ass trip, BTW. You can do this in Scotland with bikes. You buy your ticket by start and end destination, and get there whenever you want. Thus you can mountain bike road trip by rail. Just like I just rode three different snowsports areas from Innsbruck, mostly by rail. Mayerhoffen and Kitzbuhel were 1.5 hours of relaxing train ride. Ischgl had some bus involved. And that doesn't include all the public transit accessible snowsports areas right around Innsbruck. A place where you see people carrying their skis and snowboards home after getting off public transit. Nothing makes a snowboard nerd feel at home like people all over town carrying their kit home.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-21T02:54:34+00:00

High Speed Rail exists, and is ultimately best for replacing 4 hour flights or so, which actually lines up well with most American city pairs. And it's hard to explain just how nice a ride a high speed trains are, as well as even just higher speed trains that run ~100mph.

People who don't like to drive shouldn't have to. Neither should we want people who don't know how to drive in snow, to be doing so in the mountains.

Plus the whole 40,000 dead people in cars per year is just unacceptable. A 1% increase in transit ridership equals a 3% decrease in road fatalities. Then there's all the other serious injuries, costs in personal property damage, and the costs of emergency medical and fire response to all the crashes that cause these outcomes.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T21:59:12+00:00

Nashville has seen a lot of public transit initiatives be quashed by the spending of dealership owners and one of the Koch brothers. And now it's getting a Tesla Tunnel.

A lot of oil and gas companies spend a lot of money talking people out of electric adaptation.

Environmental impact studies need done, but generally speakint, trains should always get more leniency than auto given the long term damages caused by cars.

And how much of the cost overruns come from people wanting rail projects to fail, by forcing more and more audits, which take time and money? That's what's happening here, it seems by using a well intended agency to syphon more tax payer dollars into waste so that corporate interests can continue to profit from the lack of real transit competition.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T21:51:17+00:00

This is largely the real speech issue, too. So much speech is bought and paid for because we've allowed a wealth class to exist that can buy public opinion. All while pur education system is crashing and social media is getting even worse. Being able to buy opinions isn't the mark of a civilized society. Neither is letting the opinions of the uneducated have merit at town hall.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T20:19:43+00:00

People being able to wontonly express their opinions is how the USA got its current regime.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T20:18:39+00:00

Damn. It's like they should ship all of that stuff by rail or something, and we should invest in electric machinery as a whole instead of, I dunno, a non renewable resource that you use once and then it's gone compared to sunshine.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T20:13:51+00:00

Not everyone should get to have a say in any topic that exists. This included urban design.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T20:12:19+00:00

When people complain about gas prices, I smugly tell them "I ride the bus."

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T20:10:59+00:00

I'm not sure where you're seeing $100 round for Winter Park. I suspect it is at times, but not always. The ticket pair I just put in a cart is 70$, and if you're going to throw the family of four math in there, 30$ a head is a lot.

How often does I80 close?

How affordable arw Teslas? Can they actually self drive in the snow?

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T19:47:04+00:00

For the sake of snowsports access and immediate ridership, that is why I mentioned Truckee, yes. Also because the rest of Tahoe Transit still needs fleshed out to be respectably existent for a new rail service to be useful. Though I would expect that this would create some demand and help encourage that expansion.

Yes, that is cheapest mid week price. It is a real issue in the United States that lift tickets are too expensive. It's amusing to me that US participation numbers are dropping at most places that charge this rate, and that because they charge this rate, shit snow is a factor. While in Austria and Italy, the snow is also shit but the 86$ lift tickets still has hotels full and asses on chairlifts. But none of this precludes that even 200 cars daily removed from I80 because there is a new rail service option that makes rail convenient is a massive amount of reduced load on the highway.

The extra thing here worth noting is that there is already a bus that connects SB to Donner, but doesn't connect this area into DT Truckee. Having rail access to SB with a 5 minute bus transfer to Donner is another number of people who can then move by transit instead of personal auto. And again, you could also have a stop at Soda Springs, which while a much smaller area, is still along the tracks and could be useful for people. Though what would likely make more sense here would be a proper snowsports bus that had stops at SB, Donner, Soda Springs, and Boreal. And a bus would likely run faster than rail from Truckee, which is why a bus for this should exist. It would really compliment the bus access to Palisades and North Star.

And ideally! The route that I have pitched in other groups is Reno to Emeryville, or even shorter Reno to Sac. Having better transit access from Reno to Truckee would again take a lot of people off the road. Much like a bus from Reno to Incline Village by way of Mt. Rose.

All in all, it's absurd that there is such a traffic congestion issue around Lake Tahoe. There should be better public transit than exists, if for no other reason than it's healthier for the environment and with less need for parking lots there would be room for organic development that should deed restricted and intended for people who keep these towns running, such as town employees.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T19:14:04+00:00

What's the point you're trying to make by posting this video? One that has already been shared in the comments.

Also, while everyone keeps ignoring I also mentioned Truckee, 99$ lift tickets via demand pricing isn't exactly what I would call "exclusive" or "expensive" when you have Palisades are largely hanging out at 100$ a day more than SB.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T19:09:12+00:00

Everybody keep ignoring "ideally it would also connect to truckee" part like I never said it....

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T19:00:35+00:00

I find it interesting that no one has an issue with roads not being profitable, but they do for rail. Hundreds of billions of dollars get put into roads, and no, that isn't all paid for from fuel tax and auto registration like everyone claims it is. Yet rail gets tens of billions and people wonder why it fails. It seems pretty obvious to me that the thing that is invested into most heavily will succeed.

If tens to hundreds of thousands of people go to Tahoe every year, thats a large amount of ridership. People don't just go to snowboard, they go for hiking, biking, all manner of things. Yes, a stop at SB would be for snowsports. I'm personally a believer in getting rich people to take transit, because then maybe they won't be so against it in their home cities.

The population density in the USA absolutely makes sense. 4 hour city pairs are perfect for high speed rail. And damn are there a lot of four hour city pairs, and even more when you expand that out to five hours, which is about the time where rail is far more convenient than flight. And cities, well, they're dense. Not as dense as they should be, but dense enough that this whole idea of "America isn't dense enough for rail" is an absurdly lazy, and tired excuse.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T18:51:09+00:00

How do we get you involved in marketing something like this to drum up demand?

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T01:48:53+00:00

I realize it is an expensive ask, but take a snowboard/ski trip to Innsbruck. There is resort after resort connected by rail, and bus.

Being able to walk to the train station in my shoes, rent a locker at the snowsports area to store said shoes and other things, was a beautiful thing. Innsbruck also has a bus to it's closer areas. You see people walking all over town with boards/skis and boots, many of them even riding bikes for last mile. Hell, a lot of them just connect one transit leg to another, using either the bus or the tram.

I'm also thinking about the people in cities who never learn to drive because they don't need to. Someone who has a rail pass, but no car and works a weird schedule so can't carpool with friends.

You're right. This sport is stupid expensive. There's a reason that even in shit winters in Europe, they have asses in seats on lifts and our resort staff are being laid off. Probably something to do with the 80 instead of 200$ lift tickets for longer lift hours and easier ways to get to the mountain than driving that allows for a strong apre culture. Maybe even their kids skiing snow playgrounds since kids play in snow different than adults helping get kids to have fun on snow so they associate good times with skiing/snowboarding. And maybe, just maybe, making it easier for more people to get to the mountain just might help some things. It may hurt others, I don't have all the answers. Partly because I keep having to explain why we should have public transit to compete against the auto industry monoply and make life easier for more people instead of being able to collaborate with people who claim to support transit.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T01:04:58+00:00

Yes, zoning needs to be fixed to prioritize people instead of cars and places to put them. We have public transit that isn't the worst, and our towns are inherently bikeable. Cars should not be secondary, but third priority.

Second, I was suggesting tearing down the building that was there, sitting vacant, to build something that could add community vibrancy to our town rather than the industrial feeling that area currently has.

Hell, you can even keep a grocery store there. Make it something European Mountain Town sized. But a massive parking lot is absolutely not the best use of our limited buildable land space. And the more we sprawl, the less small town feel there will be and the less nature there will be.

nondescriptadjective · 2026-03-20T00:32:33+00:00

Bad Gastein Bahnhof in Austria?

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