> Are you a non-native English speaker? You do seem to be picking a confusingly aggressive tone

Is ad hominem your go to argument or you just have no others?

As evidenced below I could ask the same question. I don't.

> The context behind that quote was "nuclear reactors, bridges, stations"

Yes, it was. And? How does this context make anything of what I wrote invalid?

How is it you can build thousands of these: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y7cvszoFfzxmAG6Q8 across the country but when it comes to "bridges, stations" this becomes "advanced environmental laws actually conflict with the idea of using cookie cutter designs"?

> the design isn't as much in the road itself as in where the road goes and flattening out / tunnelling through/bridging over the local environment

You don't say. So this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ByZfS93g82C1NkjdA you have no problem building. But anything else "oh it's a problem and needs bespoke designs"?

> It isn't a direct quote

Go look up the definition of a quote.

> because you're the person who is talking about impossible things or the US being special

I'm not that person. You're literally spending all your time in this discussion saying how difficult and nigh impossible it is to build cookie-cutter designs for things like bridges and stations in the US. Even though the US is literally one big cookie cutter design from beginning to end for things that are significantly larger than that. I gave three examples of that.

> your example earlier of the Swedish Metro, according to Wikipedia, is actually interesting from this aspect because apparently they're putting more of the new parts underground for environmental reasons

There's no article on Wikipedia about Swedish Metro. This is the article on Wikipedia for Stockholm Metro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Metro Not a single sentence on that page mentions environment. Or ecology.

To expand on your frankly bizarre idea that building a station or a bridge is somehow extremely difficult and cannot be done with cookie cutter designs, here's a map of Stockholm's rail transport: https://sl.se/contentassets/7bf3767b47ed44ff98b06403c08eaa6b...

This includes: subway, commuter train, light rail and narrow-gauge railway.

So let's compare.

This is a field of asphalt and concrete https://maps.app.goo.gl/uUEdDNtcK5MfHZUW8 in Ankeny Iowa. Population 70 000. Not impossible to build. No one bats an eye. Completely cookie cutter design. In that small place alone there are several such examples. For example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/nJ4F4ZUxhSJeF6hD9 or https://maps.app.goo.gl/MGMnkJFieo1edgje9

Compare that to the "context of bridges and stations".

Farsta and Farsta strand stations (population ~50 000):

- Farsta Subway station, Google Streets: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jMDdA56xstQ7q77N8 and photo inside the station: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Farsta_T...

- Farsta Strand commuter train station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RWKjNh3DJfjsDDuc6 and photo inside: https://jvgfoto.se/banor/nynasbanan/alvsjo-tungelsta/farsta-...

See how it destroys less of the environment than any shopping mall in the US?

I mean, we could go on. Literally every single station in Stockholm area is cookie-cutter design. Even the 7 or so stations in the center in of the city that photographers like (see e.g. https://uncharted.io/@dominikgehl/exploring-the-stockholm-su...) are absolutely cookie-cutter with all elements absolutely standard and modular, and just have art added on top of them.

Here's a narrow gauge railway station: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Hägernäs... which is literally in the middle of a forest. Indistinguishable from the "hard to do cookie cuter designs" of the above.

Here's a light rail station: https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Tvärbanan,_Stora_Essinge... oh look. Cookie cutter design. Even with a bridge it takes up about 1000x less space than a shopping mall in a US village. And destroys less habitat: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aYxLypPL41p2yufw7

Somehow you're arguing that these are very challenging to build in the US because, quote: "It seems unlikely that a cookie cutter design could just be emplaced in different areas without running into problems in the environmental reviews" and "advanced environmental laws actually conflict with the idea of using cookie cutter designs".

I will reiterate: the US is a) ignorant, b) assumes it's unique and special in each and every shape or form, c) extremely allergic to any kind of infrastructure except roads.

And then turn around, look at huge swaths of land covered in cookie cutter shopping malls, and parking lots, and gas stations, and.... and say "yup, that is easy, and good design". If that field of concrete and asphalt could pass environmental review, so can any bridge or station.

Anyway, this is going around in circles, so I bid you a good day.