Anon05/14/26, 09:33No.288090964
[/a/thread/287913478#p288032787]
>Yeah, really interesting how that isn't an issue for a much cheaper form of infrastructure that requires far less maintenance. Really boggles the mind.
Except you don't need anywhere near as much track for a functioning high speed rail system compared to the amount of road in a national expressway system. No country, not even China, has a high speed rail network that's even close to as long as their national expressway network. Rails also do a much better job covering their own costs. The Interstate Highway System is a massive financial burden to maintain plagued with deteriorating infrastructure that the US is struggling to pay for. Highways are heavily subsidized. They're supposed to be paid for with fuel taxes and tolls but they don't even cover half the costs. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been transferred from US Treasury General Funds to the Highway Trust Fund just to keep it solvent. That's not even taking into consideration the externalized costs. If you're determining the value of a public works project by weighing the social and economic benefits it brings to its costs, you also have to take into account the costs of high fatalities, health problems from air pollution, lowered productivity (since highways are far less efficient and slower at moving people), much more fuel use. Rails are simply better for a country economically.
>Oh yeah, you would know so well, given how you don't live here and are just parroting what you read on 4chan
I have more experience traveling in the US than you think. You only think this is fine because it's what you're accustomed to and you're too insular to have the experience with the outside world to know how much better it can be.