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.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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%?

[–] Primarily0617@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Primarily0617@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

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?

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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

[–] png@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago

German HSR trains go about 250km/h on regular and over 350km/h on HSR-specific tracks

[–] Primarily0617@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

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