The problem is a lot of the costs of highways are externalized: cars are more expensive to run than trains, parking is more space costly, roads require dedicating much larger amounts of space for lower capacity. The reality is car roads cost more but are subsidized more.
The cost to construct a new rail connection is significantly higher than the cost to construct a new road connection. Subsidies don’t enter into it.
If somebody says they have an easy and low cost solution for you, you’d be annoyed if it turned out that it was actually far harder and pricier until maybe 50 years down the line.
Maybe consider different framing: If 50 years ago we had budgeted as much public money on public railroads as roads, we’d be in a much better position today and its even more likely this trend will continue.
for railways it’s 1-2 million by most estimates, of course land acquisition has to be talen into account too but that’s true for roads too.
then there are the efficiency and maintaince costs. first of all if you are building tracka you can electrify it right away meaning you have a very green mode of transporting both people and cargo.
and efficiency wise google says trains are 3-4x more efficient than trucks (semis)
you also have to consider the electrification of trucks, if you need trucks to go across the country to hail stuff, eiher they need large batteries, which is more weight and thus more wear and tear on the roads or you need to maintain an extremely inefficient Hydrogen ecosystem which has 30% or so efficiency compared to the 85-90% of BEVs.
wouldn’t it make more sense to havw smaller semis with less range and thus smaller batteries that just hauls stuff in the final miles? from the cargo train depot to the intended destination?
I wouldn’t exactly call removing nature and laying down the track “easy” either. That’s tens of thousands of miles of steel carving through the terrain.
Also, we have a ton of rail, it’s just prioritized for freight over passenger transit. A high speed passenger rail network would be nice though.
compared to a 5 lane highway its a pittance - theres a reason why private rail companies can exist but private road companies largely don’t.
The problem is there’s a lot more federal funding for the shittier solution so when budgetting are you going to build the thing the feds will pay 100% or 0%?
why would a private company pay for a new road when the government will build that infrastructure for them? and even if they would, why on earth would they build a 5 lane highway solely for private use?
in either case, a rail line is still more expensive than a highway
thats the thing though, a rail line can pay for itself, a road often can’t. Its easy to “create a new branch road” but when you add in all the externalized maintenance factors: policing traffic, emergencies, fueling stations, stormwater management, the costs per user, the costs per user per mile traveled, land use requirements per user (4 parking stalls per vehicle, multiple vehicles per person) etc.
They often cannot pay for themselves, hence why the subsidies are necessary and why things like big box stores with huge parking lots are a net drain on most communities (its not just the low wages)
If they could pay for themselves we’d see more companies that just build and rent private roads like train companies do.
all of the factors you just listed also apply to railways
since railways are more expensive to construct and maintain than roadways, there are more cases in which a railway couldn’t pay for itself versus a roadway
why would a company build a private road when the government will do it for them?
“* all of the factors you just listed also apply to railways”
massive Walmart style parking lots don’t factor if your urban planning is centered around public transit, and parking is definately one of the highest hidden costs of road infrastructure.
“* since railways are more expensive to construct and maintain than roadways, there are more cases in which a railway couldn’t pay for itself versus a roadway”
yes, when people stubbornly refuse to use rail infrastructure or when rail/transit infrastructure is prioritized less than roads/car based transportation then of course its going to be less economically viable. Economies of scale and induced demand are a huge factor here.
“* why would a company build a private road when the government will do it for them?”
good question, and yet we still have private roads and tollroads.
trains still need sidings, along with a bunch of marshaling infrastructure that doesn’t really have an equivalent for cars
yes the reason a rail line to take you directly from your house to your local convenience store wouldn’t be profitable is because people would refuse to use it
what argument are you making here? this was in response to how rare private roads are in comparison to private rail, and your response is that actually they’re not rare? are you just trying to disagree with everything i’m saying for the sake of disagreeing?
I’m mostly just responding to your points, but if I’m trying to make any argument its that mile per mile train infrastructure is cheaper than road infrastructure when you add up all of the costs, especially the ones people normally dont consider including vehicle maintinance, extra land and infrastructure for parking, more policing, gas, time wasted on longer commutes, ect. I’m also trying to point out that the reason we can’t have nice things is because we have chosen the wrong priorities as a society, thats why we are stuck in a loop where we try to solve our car problems with more cars and car infrastructure instead of addressing the root cause of the problem.
it’s kind of an agenda pushing shit to compare high speed rail with highways, high speed railroads compete with airplanes not cars, on a regular track you can reach 150km/h easily and those cost a fraction and that’s already more than the 130km/h limit of highways in Europe
I wouldn’t call effective rail infrastructure “low-cost”.
compared to highways? absolutely low-cost.
highways are a lot cheaper than railways
How many private road networks exist in the US?
The problem is a lot of the costs of highways are externalized: cars are more expensive to run than trains, parking is more space costly, roads require dedicating much larger amounts of space for lower capacity. The reality is car roads cost more but are subsidized more.
The cost to construct a new rail connection is significantly higher than the cost to construct a new road connection. Subsidies don’t enter into it.
If somebody says they have an easy and low cost solution for you, you’d be annoyed if it turned out that it was actually far harder and pricier until maybe 50 years down the line.
Correct. Now compare the cost of maintenance, and then compare the cost of actually moving the items.
Let’s see which comes out on top when we compare all costs, not just the cost of building.
rail lines are also more expensive than roads to maintain
the cost of moving your items depends entirely on how many items you move—sometimes roads will be cheaper, and sometimes rails will be cheaper
That’s because they transport more material than roads.
The NZ government did a thought experiment where they shifted all rail to road, and the maintenance costs would increase by $105 million.
Keep in mind the rail system in NZ is underdeveloped.
Source: https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/assets/Uploads/documents/2021-Value-of-Rail-report.pdf
If you want to shift the most materials from one place to another at the cheapest rate, you would use rail.
Do you mean cost to the end consumer or actual expenditure? Are you including CAPEX? What are you actually talking about?
Maybe consider different framing: If 50 years ago we had budgeted as much public money on public railroads as roads, we’d be in a much better position today and its even more likely this trend will continue.
but that wasn’t the case, so increasing rail use is going to be expensive and difficult
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-a-mile-of-road-actually-cost
for railways it’s 1-2 million by most estimates, of course land acquisition has to be talen into account too but that’s true for roads too.
then there are the efficiency and maintaince costs. first of all if you are building tracka you can electrify it right away meaning you have a very green mode of transporting both people and cargo.
and efficiency wise google says trains are 3-4x more efficient than trucks (semis)
you also have to consider the electrification of trucks, if you need trucks to go across the country to hail stuff, eiher they need large batteries, which is more weight and thus more wear and tear on the roads or you need to maintain an extremely inefficient Hydrogen ecosystem which has 30% or so efficiency compared to the 85-90% of BEVs.
wouldn’t it make more sense to havw smaller semis with less range and thus smaller batteries that just hauls stuff in the final miles? from the cargo train depot to the intended destination?
I wouldn’t exactly call removing nature and laying down the track “easy” either. That’s tens of thousands of miles of steel carving through the terrain.
Also, we have a ton of rail, it’s just prioritized for freight over passenger transit. A high speed passenger rail network would be nice though.
compared to a 5 lane highway its a pittance - theres a reason why private rail companies can exist but private road companies largely don’t.
The problem is there’s a lot more federal funding for the shittier solution so when budgetting are you going to build the thing the feds will pay 100% or 0%?
why would a private company pay for a new road when the government will build that infrastructure for them? and even if they would, why on earth would they build a 5 lane highway solely for private use?
in either case, a rail line is still more expensive than a highway
thats the thing though, a rail line can pay for itself, a road often can’t. Its easy to “create a new branch road” but when you add in all the externalized maintenance factors: policing traffic, emergencies, fueling stations, stormwater management, the costs per user, the costs per user per mile traveled, land use requirements per user (4 parking stalls per vehicle, multiple vehicles per person) etc.
They often cannot pay for themselves, hence why the subsidies are necessary and why things like big box stores with huge parking lots are a net drain on most communities (its not just the low wages)
If they could pay for themselves we’d see more companies that just build and rent private roads like train companies do.
“* all of the factors you just listed also apply to railways”
“* since railways are more expensive to construct and maintain than roadways, there are more cases in which a railway couldn’t pay for itself versus a roadway”
“* why would a company build a private road when the government will do it for them?”
I’m mostly just responding to your points, but if I’m trying to make any argument its that mile per mile train infrastructure is cheaper than road infrastructure when you add up all of the costs, especially the ones people normally dont consider including vehicle maintinance, extra land and infrastructure for parking, more policing, gas, time wasted on longer commutes, ect. I’m also trying to point out that the reason we can’t have nice things is because we have chosen the wrong priorities as a society, thats why we are stuck in a loop where we try to solve our car problems with more cars and car infrastructure instead of addressing the root cause of the problem.
it’s kind of an agenda pushing shit to compare high speed rail with highways, high speed railroads compete with airplanes not cars, on a regular track you can reach 150km/h easily and those cost a fraction and that’s already more than the 130km/h limit of highways in Europe
German HSR trains go about 250km/h on regular and over 350km/h on HSR-specific tracks
it’s also dishonest to insist that every road you build needs to be a four lane highway, so i thought it about averaged out