The easy, low-cost solution is to build freight rail. But no, that’s communism and it doesn’t get a tech billionaire their extra billion.
I wouldn’t call effective rail infrastructure “low-cost”.
compared to highways? absolutely low-cost.
highways are a lot cheaper than railways
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.
The cost to construct a new rail connection is significantly higher than the cost to construct a new road connection.
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
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
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-a-mile-of-road-actually-cost
for railways it’s 1-2 million by most estimates, of course land acquisition has to be talen into account too but that’s true for roads 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?
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?
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
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.
railways are a lot more expensive than roadways per km
Citation needed
I’m not that guy, and I’m all for rail, but here’s an article that talks about it. https://seattletransitblog.com/2009/10/26/the-highway-vs-fixed-transit-debate/
“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.”
If it can be done economically, it’ll be done. And it has been, the freight rail network in the US is huge.
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.
There is nothing low cost or easy about building coast to coast freight rail. It would take a minimum of 20 years and cost billions.
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.
None of that makes rail infrastructure cheaper to build.
That is literally the most dangerous bike lane in existence
holy shit, i thought that was some kind of graphical overlay. that’s a bike lane!? that has to be intentional, like some kind of malicious compliance from someone who hates cyclists
I saw the picture first and finished the headline in my mind:
A self-driving freight truck just drove across several cyclists
JFC, whose bright idea was that?
The buddy of the governor who got the contract lul. At least that’s what happened in my friends small town when they built a roundabout that took 4 years to finish for a small 4 lane intersection that had stops before on a road that got maaaaaybe 12 cars a day
The next self driving truck will be delivering ice to alaska.
I’m sure glad we developed technology just to avoid paying one person to drive that truck. This is progress and will not have knock on consequences. We should celebrate this.
This, but unironically. Automation is a good thing, and every driver who loses their job over this drives the necessity of finding post-automation solutions that much closer to the breaking point.
Oh yes, I’m sure our current socioeconomic systems will get right on finding post automation solutions. That’ll happen real soon now. I mean, it’ll have to happen, right? We won’t just let all the jobs dissolve away so that shareholders get richer, right? That would be crazy to do that. I can’t imagine a society that would possibly do that, could you?
Caption better than meme!
I don’t get it.
their only purpose is to pass butter
Bottom frame is a scene from Rick and Morty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ht-ZyJOV2k
That was hilarious, sad and adorable at the same time. Thank you for the context, I’ve never seen the show before.
The fanbase can be… quite something to behold, but I’ve found the show hilarious and clever almost every episode.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ht-ZyJOV2k
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
King Harlaus: heavy breathing
