this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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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