Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Transit is only cost effective in concentrated populations and hub-and-spoke type commuting patterns.
We shouldn't build our cities like Seoul, Hong Kong or Madrid because we have something they don't. Space. We have options that they don't.
We should be focusing on spreading out the populations and having multiple, smaller urban cores. No one wants to commute on a packed rush hour train or a backed up freeway.
And we shouldn't be building new infrastructure for as long as the existing stuff is falling apart.
Madrid does have space though, it's located in the inland part of Spain, which has a similar population density to Indiana (if not less). It just doesn't use as much of that space to expand the city, the way that Dallas or Houston would.
No one wants a long commute, but a lot of people do still want to live in a big city.
Nearly $77 *billion* to build a few stations and not much subway ROW is an example of just how out of control costs are for major infrastructure projects are in USA.
Nearly $77 *billion* to build a few stations and not much subway ROW is an example of just how out of control costs are for major infrastructure projects are in USA.
If it actually saved us money, I'd say yes. Instead, our inability to build infrastructure often manifests itself with overpaid and corrupt projects that cost more than they should and that break down sooner than they should. In Honolulu, we have the disaster of the rail project, that is already billions over budget and already full of structural and other issues.
Yeah, we have a global military presence and invasions to support, rather than useful infrastructure to use now (and maintain later).
Who wouldn't trade better railroads and airports over a new F-35 and some bombs we can drop in the mideast??
Lots of the normal low information ranting about military spending crowding out infrastructure. That's checkers thinking in a world of chess.
As an allegory. The Superconducting Super Collider was being built south of Dallas. Then a cabal from one side of the political aisle with help from a few on the other plus one who represented the district containing Fermi-Lab in Chicago killed it. The rational was we couldn't afford it........the entire SSC construction budget amounted to less than three weeks of social/human spending.
Most years military spending = about 15% of gov't. spending......"Human Services" = not quite 75%.
Lots of the normal low information ranting about military spending crowding out infrastructure. That's checkers thinking in a world of chess.
As an allegory. The Superconducting Super Collider was being built south of Dallas. Then a cabal from one side of the political aisle with help from a few on the other plus one who represented the district containing Fermi-Lab in Chicago killed it. The rational was we couldn't afford it........the entire SSC construction budget amounted to less than three weeks of social/human spending.
Most years military spending = about 15% of gov't. spending......"Human Services" = not quite 75%.
So we caved and our Euro buddies built CERN.
This isn't the best example since new particle colliders are considered by some, such as Sabine Hossenfelder, to be a jobs program for physicists at this point. IOW since we confirmed the Higgs boson there are no more theoretical particles to test for. The era of building bigger particle colliders may be over, and we can do with the Tevatron and the LHC.
Rail projects in the 21st century usually have terrible economics. I simply don't understand why the public, or certain elements of it, fetishize rail travel. I enjoy rail travel, but I see it as an anachronistic indulgence. I would never push for it as a public initiative.
If you think the Honolulu rail build out is a disaster, or California's HSR, just be grateful that we (the USA) tend to take on these larks of a project in bite-sized pieces. Compare that to China's HSR build out, which is already a white elephant. To use a lame business phrase, China "scaled it before they nailed it." Nailing it here means operating the rail lines as a going concern without losing gobs of money.
The USA is responding to price pressures and mostly saying, "no thanks" to new infrastructure. That is our saving grace.
I know it's difficult to comprehend that not everything, esp. public works, has to be profitable or even break even.
Imagine NYC shutting down the subway system because it's $2B in the red.
This isn't the best example since new particle colliders are considered by some, such as Sabine Hossenfelder, to be a jobs program for physicists at this point. IOW since we confirmed the Higgs boson there are no more theoretical particles to test for. The era of building bigger particle colliders may be over, and we can do with the Tevatron and the LHC.
A. It isn't over.......not even close.
B. It certainly wasn't over when the SSC was killed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
