• De_Narm@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    2 days ago

    Still not that big of an achievement, but it’s total length and India is only about 1/3 the size of the US. So it’s more than 3 times as dense already.

    • Saapas@piefed.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      2 days ago

      But if this is about metro trains then size doesn’t matter as much as number of big and dense cities

        • Saapas@piefed.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          2 days ago

          Right but many does the US have vs. how many does India have? The original comparison was for their land size, I think a better comparison would be based on the number of big and dense cities.

          • Baŝto@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            Yes, it’s not a very useful metric. Better would probably amount of people living in urban areas / area of urban areas.

    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 days ago

      India has about 4 times the population of the US, so even if they could all afford cars, geometrically it wouldn’t work

    • Baŝto@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      2 days ago

      For the list it is an achievements. That means it grew from the third largest to the second largest network. Catching up with China will take longer since it’s 11x as large.

      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        The US spends practically nothing on public transit, this is like claiming you can run faster than a cheetah but neglecting to mention that you specifically mean you can outrun Lasty The One-Legged Cheetah

        Like yeah it’s an achievement, but maybe it would be a more impressive achievement if you weren’t essentially claiming “hey look were almost not in last place”.

        • azimir@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          2 days ago

          But it does help if it’s against a famous name. For example saying “I had a better baseball career than Michael Jordan” can really draw headlines.

          The US hasn’t seriously invested in its infrastructure in 50 years now. I’m glad that India is at least ahead of the US, so it’s a start.

          • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            2 days ago

            That’s a perfect comparison, actually. I would probably also have a snarky voice in my head while reading that, but I’ve never laid a railroad track or played baseball, so I don’t really have a leg to stand on

            • Baŝto@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              2 days ago

              Metro rail network length per country isn’t a very useful metric. India already passed Japan.

              As of 2020 the top ten were:

              1. China
              2. United States
              3. India
              4. Japan
              5. South Korea
              6. Russia
              7. Spain
              8. United Kingdom
              9. France
              10. Turkey

              There is country size, population, population density, percentage of population living in urbanized areas … a lot of factorsimportant for metro rail