Conservatively estimating the US has spent around $20T on cars, fuel for cars and car related infrastructure, mostly on fuel for cars which only contributes to (making the car move, drill baby drill, and pollution (used to be lead pollution too) )A similar estimate, but over a longer period of time puts trains at $2T, their fuel nowadays is electricity, which can be clean, but also creates infrastructure that contributes to society. This estimate doesn't include private capital (aside from buying passes/tickets/gas, but I can assure you that it only puts the gap MUCH wider)Isn't it time we give up on the frankly silly idea that everyone needs their own personal asphalt eating tank? I'm not saying you have to live in the city, i'm just saying a tram (for the disabled) to the market from a suburb or a simple direct, tree covered, bike way is more than enough.
>Invest 20T in roads >results in 200T in economic activity >Invest in 2T in trains >Net loss of 1.5T but people with aspergers are happy they have gay trains to jerk off to
If you could fund such a thing privately like cars are funded privately then you might have a argument, but you can't because not only is there not a demand but it's wildly impractical for the vast majority of the country.
>>2019928>roads don't do anything for society or the economy, but trains do!This has to be bait.
>>2019928Mid-tier baitRoad are the most flexible transportation infrastructure and are often ultimately the cheapest and fastest way of moving the widest variety of things to and from the largest number of commonly used origin-destination pairs. This is why even for freight where the ton/mile cost of shipping by train is a fraction of the cost by truck, trucks still dominate the market. Flexibility is king and roads are some of the most useful infrastructure that you can build in terms of return on investment.Other methods of transportation may be more efficient when measured using specific metrics but this falls apart when you look at the larger picture. The lack of flexibility inherent to systems which move people/freight in bulk necessitate compromises to just how many origin/destinations can be served and how often they can be served. These compromises add costs, both tangible and intangible. For most commutes it will nearly always be faster and more convenient to drive than to take transit because your car leaves directly from your house exactly when you want to leave and goes directly to wherever you're wanting to go. Trains and busses don't.Cars also give individuals core control over the quality of their commute. They can choose to have nicer seats in your car. You can choose to drive a somewhat longer but more pleasant route. You can also choose not to pick up a random screaming homeless man covered in his own shit. Choices are good.
>>2019950Who are you quoting bro? Do you really not understand the concept of return on investment or are you just trolling. >>2019944Or do you actually believe this nonsense. Roads can't even pay for themselves.
>>2019952>baitYou know it's possible to build tracks in 99.9% of the places roads are built right? If trains god half the money that the IHS did we would have saved trillions on gas and have the exact same flexibility.
>>2019960>You know it's possible to build tracks in 99.9% of the places roads are built right? Yes. So what?>If trains god half the money that the IHS did we would have the exact same flexibility.How?
>>2019962Ask less stupid questions and you might get an answer
>>2019963Not an argument.
>>2019964You know trucks don't just drive into town and drop off your package, they all have to go to a unloading depot, which then gets sent to warehouses. They have no flexibility advantage over trains and many disadvantages, there only advantage is the fact the roads existence and MAYBE less susceptible to terrorism. Still financial insanity to go with cars,
>>2019962You can also just run busses on the roads, that would make a lot more sense but still suffers from all the issues I listed which are limitations of mass transit.There's a good reason you don't run train tracks to every house. Trains are track controlled vehicles. They have 1 dimension of freedom in their direction of travel whereas road vehicles have 2. Road vehicles can pass each other and turn onto different roads without requiring switches. Using witches also put a minimum safe distance between things running on the same track to allow time for the switch to move which limits vehicle throughput massively. Trains get around this by being large vehicles which run infrequently, compared to cars which are small vehicles which run frequently. Putting switches every dozen feet is mechanically complex and introduces about a million points of failure which would require an overwhelming amount of constant maintenance and be absurdly expensive for no benefit. Roads to not require moving parts to do the same thing better.
>>2019958>Do you really not understand the concept of return on investment or are you just trolling.Do YOU? Do you really think that trains provide benefits to society and economy but somehow roads don't?
>>2019965>they all have to go to a unloading depotSo... they're just like trains>You know trucks don't just drive into town and drop off your package, they all have to go to a unloading depot, which then gets sent to warehouses.Trains are even less accessible to customers with the added problem of time and scheduling; trains are slower. Another problem is that railroads function as monopolies in some respects. If you build a facility served up UP, then UP service is all you're going to get. Don't like it? Use trucks - and countless former customers did just that.
>>2019967The vast majority of roads literally don't and cost way more than they will ever be worth. And heavily used roads have much higher maintenance costs offsetting their value. There is a reason roads go to shit in most places the second the roads stop getting subsidized. Train tracks in comparison are literally 100x cheaper to maintain after they are built >>2019968>so they are just like trainsexactly, but cost way more and carry way less.>problem of time and scheduling, slowerTrains are both faster and easier to schedule than cars. In-fact there is industry standard proven software that can schedules trains for an entire country. >railroads function as monopoliesThat is simply not true and you can have as many companies on a track as is realistic.
>>2019969>exactly, but cost way more and carry way less.In the US, trucks carry more tonnage than trains annually. It's cheaper to move a trailer across the country by truck than by train.>Trains are both faster and easier to schedule than cars.You can get a truck across the country faster than on a train, and it's far easier to deal with trucking companies that compete with each other than railroads. There's a reason people call being screwed over "getting railroaded.">That is simply not trueYes it is. Nearly all rail lines are privately owned in the US.
>>2019969>stop getting subsidizedUrbanists have built up this mythology that infrastructure is a massive part of any city budget. It's only "subsidized" the same way education is (which, by the way, occupies a MASSIVE chunk of the budget)>Train tracks in comparison are literally 100x cheaper to maintain after they are builtIt all depends on the use of them, streets that see hardly any traffic can remain effectively untouched for years, same with rail. It's not a good comparison because all of the costs of trains are in operating.>exactly, but cost way more and carry way lessTrucks require one person and can go directly from point to point, while trains require a whole crew and can't. Freight trains are only efficient and profitable when they can carry vast amounts of cargo (like a bunch of tank cars carrying the same thing). Disconnecting cars is a massive pain. Slowing down a train and backing up is a massive pain. There's a reason why most of the smaller spurs to non-specialized warehouses have been dismantled.>That is simply not true and you can have as many companies on a track as is realistic.Like the other anon said, railroads are owned by the companies that run trains on them. Anything not owned by them (say, Union Pacific trains running on BNSF tracks) pays trackage rights.
>>2019944>people with aspergers are happy they have gay trains to jerk off toUnironically this, love cars and trains but unless you are Socialist State with little to no private car ownership and a small amount of land (like Czechia) it is a simple calculus to determine that automobile infrastructure requires way less maintenance than rail. Rails are complicated with lots of failure points, leave them untouched for a decade or more and your trains will be stuck moving at 10-40 KM/H along such iron roads. A road requires little to no maintenance save for bridges, and cars can still go on unpaved forest roads. There is the question of fuel and parts yes, but it's still less than how much work steel behemoths tend to require. That's not even getting into the cost of maintaining overhead lines.Really, if it wasn't for maintenance costs there wouldn't br a reason not to spam rails to supplement water and road everywhere.
>>2019969>>2019970Railways should not be privately owned, they should always be nationalized. You can have private carriers use them but the railways should be property and responsibility of the state run company.
>>2019976>Railroads should all be managed like AmtrakToo bad, they're private in the US
>>2019928It's about time the US Government stops subsidizing the destruction of our country through Big Oil and Big Auto. The policies lobbied by Big Oil and Big Auto over the last century has been DISASTEROUS, economically, socially, and ecologically. Paired with Big Bank for predatory loan terms and what you have is debt slavery of the common man only for his capital to be used against him.>"Buy this car to go to work>Go to work to pay for this car"
