4 ms·

great, now tell us how much money goes to California highway expansion and externalities. https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/02/15/legislative-analyst-studies-ne

by riffic 4y ago

great, now tell us how much money goes to California highway expansion and externalities. https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/02/15/legislative-analyst-studies-newsoms-transportation-budget-solutions/ https://cal.streetsblog.org/2023/02/15/legislative-analyst-s...

guelo 4y ago
For a 6-lane Interstate highway it costs about $7 million per mile in rural areas, $11 million or more per mile in urban areas. So $1-2 Billion for a 151 mile segment. So this train is 15-30x comparable highway cost.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  [flagged]
- asdff 4y ago
  You also have to factor in the cost of land acquisition not just construction.
- supertrope 4y ago
  A highway is not a complete system. Drivers have to bring their own cars.
- Tanoc 4y ago
  Cost of maintenance and use is much higher than a train line, though. The cost of maintenance per year for a four lane highway is something like $300,000 per mile, and repaving is $2,000,000 per mile. Meanwhile in Europe in a high speed rail line costs about €160,000 per kilometer, or $99,420 per mile. The distance between the proposed ends is 353 miles. So a highway along the same route per year would cost $105,900,000 to maintain. Meanwhile the rail line would cost $35,095,260 per year to maintain. And the road cost doesn't include the personal cost incurred to the user per year due to vehicle maintenance. So yes, the upfront cost of a high speed rail line will always be higher simply because of the type of infrastructure being built. But the running costs will be much lower, both to the state and to the individual users.
gretch 4y ago
Is there a point you're trying to make? This train was originally intended to connect norcal and socal (now it's only doing Merced to Bakersfield), so an apt comparison would be e.g. I-5 not all highways everywhere. Also, I did look at your article which cited ~5B a year, so that's cheaper than a $100B+ rail that comes out in a few decades? That's not to even mention that we can drive on the highway today and it's used to transports commerical goods.

by riffic 4y ago

guelo 4y ago

For a 6-lane Interstate highway it costs about $7 million per mile in rural areas, $11 million or more per mile in urban areas. So $1-2 Billion for a 151 mile segment. So this train is 15-30x comparable highway cost.

jeffbee 4y ago
[flagged]
asdff 4y ago
You also have to factor in the cost of land acquisition not just construction.
supertrope 4y ago
A highway is not a complete system. Drivers have to bring their own cars.
Tanoc 4y ago
Cost of maintenance and use is much higher than a train line, though. The cost of maintenance per year for a four lane highway is something like $300,000 per mile, and repaving is $2,000,000 per mile. Meanwhile in Europe in a high speed rail line costs about €160,000 per kilometer, or $99,420 per mile. The distance between the proposed ends is 353 miles. So a highway along the same route per year would cost $105,900,000 to maintain. Meanwhile the rail line would cost $35,095,260 per year to maintain. And the road cost doesn't include the personal cost incurred to the user per year due to vehicle maintenance. So yes, the upfront cost of a high speed rail line will always be higher simply because of the type of infrastructure being built. But the running costs will be much lower, both to the state and to the individual users.

gretch 4y ago

Is there a point you're trying to make? This train was originally intended to connect norcal and socal (now it's only doing Merced to Bakersfield), so an apt comparison would be e.g. I-5 not all highways everywhere. Also, I did look at your article which cited ~5B a year, so that's cheaper than a $100B+ rail that comes out in a few decades? That's not to even mention that we can drive on the highway today and it's used to transports commerical goods.