3 ms·

Is that true for other forms of transport too? Probably true for trains. Cars as well? all the road construction and maintenance costs are eaten by the taxpayer

• justincormack 15y ago
  I would be fairly sure that the canal business (eg in the UK, not later ones like Panama) was generally unprofitable as a general transport business, being mostly replaced by railways before paying back its build costs. The railways are less clear, the build costs were huge, and written off many times by bankruptcy, but the impression you get from say http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1947/dec/30/transport.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1947/dec/30/transport.uk was that in the first half of the 20th century in the UK they were competing well against road transport, efficient and profitable ("they were conveying more passengers than the whole of the United States railroads put together"). Other countries may vary though. The car business does not have a very good long term profitability record, I am sure if you lump in the cost of road construction you will probably end up at a loss, although that is not exactly fair as that is not the way the market was structured.