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 mist estimates, of course land acquisition has to be talen into account 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?
Cheaper than highways. The reason why long haul trucking exists is because the construction of highways is highly subsidized. Even then, it's often more cost effective to use rail.
"While a few rail-transit lines may have had a marginal effect on rush-hour congestion, the cost is exorbitant. The average light-rail line under construction or in planning stages today costs $25 million per mile ($50 million per mile in both directions). Heavy rail costs more than twice as much. By comparison, the average lane mile of freeway costs only about $5 to $10 million."
I might be mistaken, but by that quote and given that every motorway has three lanes in each direction, or at least two I assume in the USA, the cost of the road is at least comparable and at most a bit dearer. I'd even say it constitutes fudging the numbers to pull the wool over.
Only if you compare 3 roads to 1 track. If you're arguing about which costs more then it doesn't make sense to include the cost of the whole 3 lanes as all that traffic doesn't need to go by rail.
I wonder if these high costs are due to it being passenger rail inside a major city. I'm curious if this cost applies to freight rail as well.
Out here in the countryside it seems that a mile of freight rail should be worth much less than a mile of highway. Everything from easement size to site prep, equipment needed and bill of materials seems a fraction of that required for highway construction.
As mentioned elsewhere the maintenance is minimal compared to a highway as well, with the trains plowing snow themselves and the rails being very hard-wearing. The only work we ever see them doing on the rail lines is occasionally replacing sleepers and fixing up the road crossings - and it's heavy trucks that ruin those, not the trains.
This is about light rail though, which is usually built in cities (or, at least between a city and its suburbs). So I wonder how much of the cost (for both rail and road) is for land rights.
I know that asking you to Google things is maybe a lot, but isn't the answer pretty obvious if you think about it for more than five seconds?
Roads are made out of what would otherwise be a waste product from refining oil, mixed with dirt. If you just leave it alone, it will basically just sit there.
Rails are made out of steel, which is both expensive and rusts. Tolerances have to be tight. And if you fuck about with maintenance in rail, you get a train derailment.
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
Rails are indeed one of the cheapest, best scaling, and most reliable ways to move goods no doubt, but it also has a last mile problem.
Just wanted to point out the solution isn’t as easy as “rails all things”. Trucks still do offer some situational advantages, and will still have their place in logistics.
Fair response. It’s likely due to the lack of rail infrastructure why this delivery was “across the country”. Rails are typically much cheaper per ton-mile than trucks. If a rail alternative existed, I’m fairly certain the economics would have forced the use of trains.
However, I’d say the self driving part is still be a benefit that would improve truck utilization rate.
I did some digging. According to the article, the route went from Tulare, CA to Quakertown, PA. OpenRailwayMap is really good for this. Both have freight rail lines running directly through the heart of the town. Going by destination alone, this is kind of a pointless operation. Then again, the point was more to demonstrate the possibility of an autonomous truck rather than whether that particular route made any sense.
The US has had a transcontinental railroad network for over a century. The Western US was initially settled largely on railway stops, land grants, and mandatory passenger service. The passenger service was one of the conditions for the land grants.
The US has had a transcontinental railroad network for over a century.
Sure, now try and figure out the expense and time required to build another one NOW, not in 1890 but in 2023. The right of ways alone may take you until 2123 to get sorted out and I really suspect that the Chinese aren't going to show up to work for pennies a day to build the thing.
The passenger service was one of the conditions for the land grants.
We aren't talking about Passenger Service. We're talking about Cargo Service and since we already have one TC Rail System it follows that the meme is agitating that we build another one.
It would take decades and cost billions, probably tens of billions.