Since train travel is one of the most expensive forms of travel per passenger mile,
Actually the exact opposite is true, but I've come to expect such disinformation from the Global Oil Pimps.
Passenger rail systems are not only more fuel efficient per passenger-mile compared to individual automobiles, they are also much more durable and have longer ecoomic lifespans. So when you tally up all the passenger miles they accumulate over the course of 20, 30.. even sometimes 40 years of service, they are a MUCH more efficient use of capital than the tens of thousands of individual automobiles that would have to be purchased to accumulate the same number of passenger-miles.
“Passenger rail systems are not only more fuel efficient per passenger-mile compared to individual automobiles, they are also much more durable and have longer ecoomic lifespans.”
All this might be true if you could accurately predict future demand. You can’t, which means huge investments in road beds that go where no one wants to go. We have been through this before. Trains go from train station to train station, cars go exactly where you want to go. There is a huge disconnect between these two realities.
I don’t buy that.
Rail travel and mass transit is useless. It is only for high density clusters. If you want to kill property values then you suck all the business and move it around rail travel stations near the high rises owned by insiders.
Mass transit will NOT fix congestion, it will just force people to cram into stink filled cattle movers.
I don’t buy that.
Rail travel and mass transit is useless. It is only for high density clusters. If you want to kill property values then you suck all the business and move it around rail travel stations near the high rises owned by insiders.
Mass transit will NOT fix congestion, it will just force people to cram into stink filled cattle movers.
What Willie’s not telling you is that Amtrak doesn’t treat depreciation of capital assets as an expense. So, if the railroad rolling stock is treated as “free” for accounting purposes, yeah, it’s cheaper than the cost of purchasing and replacing an automobile.