Forget High-Speed Rail: Elon Musk Wants to Build Something Far More Awesome

[Admiral Yi]

OK?
Not getting the point there. The amount paid in tolls, petrol tax, etc... In no way covers the cost of road building and maintenance for the country

Well, one point is that given the magnitude of the amounts involved, calling it marginally scraping a few dollars is just ridiculous.

The second point is the same as Brain's.  I don't know if all those taxes and fees cover the cost of construction or maintenance or not, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.  I think I have read of years when the highway fund (financed by gas taxes) has run a surplus and I can't recall ever reading of a time when the public corporations like the New Jersey Turnpike Authority needed a bailout.

[Josquius]

Marginally scraping back a few dollars to help cover government spending. Kind of like train tickets.

You marginally scrape a billion here and you marginally scrape a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

OK?
Not getting the point there. The amount paid in tolls, petrol tax, etc... In no way covers the cost of road building and maintenance for the country

Do you know this, or do you think this?

I'm amazed people are trying to argue on this.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/81913/report-price-driving-doesnt-match-cost-driving

https://frontiergroup.org/reports/fg/do-roads-pay-themselves

[The Brain]

Argue? I know almost nothing about the US system and its numbers, hence the question.

[The Brain]

FWIW the Frontier Group report looks a bit weird to me.

[DGuller]

I may be remembering wrong, but aren't there some severe restrictions on tolling for federal highways that weren't grandfathered?  My understanding is that one of the reasons New Jersey gets the least money out of federal government is because toll roads meant to support Tony Soprano's untalented family members don't get federal highway funds.

[Berkut]

The point though is that the roads are funded by and large by taxes. Some of those taxes might be targetted at car owners and gas consumers, sure, but nobody says that roads are profitable. They are a cost, and the state collects taxes of various kinds to cover those costs.

Rail is somehow expected to be "profitable" without that kind of support - it is expected that it fund itself, mostly. At least in theory.

There is a road that leads from my house to the next road. I don't get charged when I use it. It is paid for by my property taxes, gas taxes, and other municipal funding, just like the local school or police department. Nobody ever argues that it should not have been built because it is not, in and of itself, profitable. Well, nobody but silly Libertarians.

[crazy canuck]

It's sad that in the US there is this whole idea that railways should be profitable. There's no such pressure on roads

What do you think highway tolls, gas taxes, and car registration fees are for?

It isn't to make it profitable.

edit: I see that Berkut just made the point with an explanation.

[Eddie Teach]

I think a consideration is that the road benefits more than just the passengers. Others benefit from the goods delivered. A high speed rail line is rarely going to be used for cargo.

[crazy canuck]

I think a consideration is that the road benefits more than just the passengers. Others benefit from the goods delivered. A high speed rail line is rarely going to be used for cargo.

remove congestion from roads with alternative means of passenger transport  = more efficient cargo transport.  It does not make sense to think of transportation systems as independent bits.

[Eddie Teach]

Generally traffic between cities moves pretty well already.

[Maximus]

Generally traffic between cities moves pretty well already.

I can't speak for California, but that's certainly not true for the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, or (in my limited experience)  the PNW.

[crazy canuck]

Generally traffic between cities moves pretty well already.

You are basing that conclusion on what?

[Eddie Teach]

My travels on interstate highways.

[Josquius]

I think a consideration is that the road benefits more than just the passengers. Others benefit from the goods delivered. A high speed rail line is rarely going to be used for cargo.

The big reason for the UK's current high speed project is not for the passengers that would travel on that line itself but for taking away that traffic from the existing railway lines (and cars), freeing them up for freight and local passenger services.
Roads certainly benefit more than just the people actively driving on them. But the same is undoubtedly true of railway lines.
There's even a decent case to be made that in a lot of cases investing in rail is more beneficial to drivers than merely adding extra lanes to roads.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't follow exactly. Are you saying that 1h air vs 3h high speed rail does or does not mean that high speed rail is competing against air?

Sure it competes- kind of like regular US mail competes against Fedex overnight or DSL competes with cable broadband.

A very common business trip in Sweden is Stockholm-Gothenburg. It's 1h by air or 3h by rail (I would describe Swedish rail as medium speed, they do 125 mph). If you go by air you have to get to and from the airport, go through security, etc. If you go by rail you go city center to city center and have 3h of continuous sit-down time when you can work. Most people I know take the train.

Well I can't speak for Sweden.
I often travel to Boston for work or at least I did before COVID.  These are day trips where I go in for a court hearing and go back same day.  It's a very common route - those trips were usually pretty packed.
The Acela travels that route so its about as high speed as you get in the US.  Its 3.5 hours as opposed to 1 hr by air
I much prefer the train but almost always take the plane because there is a big difference between 7 hours of travels time vs 2 even taking into account TSA annoyances.  It wouldnt really change the math to make it 6 vs 2.
It also happens that Logan Airport is about a 10 minute ride from the federal courthouse - about the same travel time as taking a T (subway) from South Station or Back Bay.
If I had a "rail" option that took 1 hour one-way I'd definitely switch.