this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Trains
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We privatized Americas rail system for the same reason we privatized everything: privatized profits and socialize losses.
We've even been giving the owners of the rails money that they're supposed to be using to maintain them, and for decades they just dont it.
Then we have massive toxic spill accidents because they didn't maintain the rail or cars and they don't follow guidelines.
And so they get fined, but that's just a cost of business as long as insurance pays out.
There's no logical reason for critical infrastructure to be privately owned.
Guy uses our roads of example for public access. But come Oklahoma were they have been privatized our roads and working on doing all of them. It the nightmare he has invasion. What really fucked up is they are owned by foreign company.
Oklahoma's roads are notoriously terrible. Even the expensive toll roads aren't great.
Exactly they are shit and raised the cost of the tolls. I live near the Tulsa area you can't get to many places conveniently without taking a toll road. And they are shit.
Roads are stupid expensive and receive ridiculous subsidies to stay operational. This is one of the most annoying things people get wrong about transportation, apparently roads don’t have to pay for themselves (and rarely do) but rail must turn a profit (it does sometimes) despite rail being exponentially better for transportation. Nobody wants to be near a highway, but everyone wants to be near a train station (and I don’t think the racists who don’t want trains have ever ridden one).