4 ms·

municipal rail is a money sink. currently across the nation there is over a hundred billion dollars of deferred maintenance on municipal rail; light and heavy.

municipal rail is a money sink. currently across the nation there is over a hundred billion dollars of deferred maintenance on municipal rail; light and heavy. worse bus service tends to suffer because they try to force people to use rail by making bus service less attractive which in effect is just damages the concept of public transport. no the real solution is get over this mythological idea that America is too car heavy. everywhere that people get freedom of travel they go their own transport. what automation will bring is freedom to those who cannot drive so we best better figure out how to get cars talk to each other and which areas will be reserved for automated driving only. funny you mention Seattle, a city that blew over their recent rail budget by half a billion dollars [1]. plus is it also a city deferring maintenance to hide the costs of their folly. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/500m-hole-how-hot-economy-city-requests-punctured-sound-transits-lynnwood-light-rail-budget/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/500...

moultano 8y ago
> everywhere that people get freedom of travel they go their own transport. They have freedom to travel, but not freedom to live where they want. The United States has entirely banned dense housing in everywhere that people want to live, and this consequently makes transit impractical. Get rid of zoning restrictions on housing, and we'd be in a much different place.
ntsplnkv2 8y ago
It seems that way because the costs are centralized, but cars are as well, and it's disingenuous to compare this way. If you look at how many people go in debt to own cars or the amount of credit on cars, you would see poor numbers there as well. Cars are incredible money sinks. There is a reason why Uber doesn't operate its own fleet. If public transit billed by value it would easily be kept afloat. But the value proposition in most cities in America just isn't there, because they simply aren't dense enough. It's not a mythological idea. It's simple math. > funny you mention Seattle, a city that blew over their recent rail budget by half a billion dollars [1]. plus is it also a city deferring maintenance to hide the costs of their folly. Funny you mention things going over budget because nearly all infrastructure projects in this country do - yes, including roads. This is a problem with our government, not mass-transit solely. In your very own article, the reasons stated for the price increase have nothing to do with mass transit inherently. They would be true of any infrastructure project.
- pacaro 8y ago
  The 520 bridge[1] cost approx. $4.5 billion By way of contrast the Millau Viaduct[2] cost approx. €400 million and the Øresund Bridge[3] cost approx €2.6 billion — and represents an order of magnitude more engineering challenge. Civil engineering in the US just seems to cost a lot more than in other developed countries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bridg... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge

moultano 8y ago

> everywhere that people get freedom of travel they go their own transport. They have freedom to travel, but not freedom to live where they want. The United States has entirely banned dense housing in everywhere that people want to live, and this consequently makes transit impractical. Get rid of zoning restrictions on housing, and we'd be in a much different place.

ntsplnkv2 8y ago

It seems that way because the costs are centralized, but cars are as well, and it's disingenuous to compare this way. If you look at how many people go in debt to own cars or the amount of credit on cars, you would see poor numbers there as well. Cars are incredible money sinks. There is a reason why Uber doesn't operate its own fleet. If public transit billed by value it would easily be kept afloat. But the value proposition in most cities in America just isn't there, because they simply aren't dense enough. It's not a mythological idea. It's simple math. > funny you mention Seattle, a city that blew over their recent rail budget by half a billion dollars [1]. plus is it also a city deferring maintenance to hide the costs of their folly. Funny you mention things going over budget because nearly all infrastructure projects in this country do - yes, including roads. This is a problem with our government, not mass-transit solely. In your very own article, the reasons stated for the price increase have nothing to do with mass transit inherently. They would be true of any infrastructure project.

pacaro 8y ago
The 520 bridge[1] cost approx. $4.5 billion By way of contrast the Millau Viaduct[2] cost approx. €400 million and the Øresund Bridge[3] cost approx €2.6 billion — and represents an order of magnitude more engineering challenge. Civil engineering in the US just seems to cost a lot more than in other developed countries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bridg... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Øresund_Bridge