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Costs of transport infra per mile: Heavy rail; 50 million Light rail: 25 million Freeway:5-10 million So why aren't they simply doing dedicated roads for tr

Costs of transport infra per mile: Heavy rail; 50 million Light rail: 25 million Freeway:5-10 million So why aren't they simply doing dedicated roads for transport? With AI platooning and supervised self driving, "trains" of busses can run along those lines, but split off and merge in from local service seamlessly. Commercial traffic (even through traffic) can piggyback on low traffic periods. In emergencies, they are additional roads for evac or supply. Roads are much more easily repaired and fail less catastrophically. Electrification of busses is well underway and should be simpler / cheaper for recharging infrastructure. Platooned "trains" of busses will conserve energy and likely could go 100 mph or more with proper convergent sensors monitoring and maintenance. Safety should be equivalent. I suspect there are political nuances where rail gets its own budget apart from roads, whereas dedicated roads get thrown it with general road funding, and then wouldn't get proper funding.

codeulike 1y ago
Rail is expensive in the US because you've lost the skills to build it. In Europe its cheaper than freeways. Also in London we dont have space to build massive carparks everywhere so lots of people in London dont have cars.
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  Who said anything about cars? I guess you are validating my opinion that this isn't politically possible because mentally people immediately assume a road means free access by moms in minivans.
  - codeulike 1y ago
    Well if you said 'road' and stressed that it was not a public road but a road with specific rules about what could go on it, that would probably get the message across. Your chosen phrase 'dedicated road for transport' doesn't convey that very well. Everything is transport.
- pjc50 1y ago
  > In Europe its cheaper than freeways. I'm not sure that's true for HS2. In practice the UK builds occasional new roads and very rarely new rail. Crossrail and Thameslink are exceptions that took decades to get approved.
rconti 1y ago
Is this freeway stat per lane-mile? Rail often has 2 sets of tracks along a corridor, or at most 4. Roads have a lot more. I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater throughput per lane than transit; even with automobiles with only 1-2 people in it, vs a train that may have hundreds but pass only every few minutes at most. One problem with roads is that once you get off the freeway, you need more roads to serve housing and businesses; and the size of those leaf nodes pushes businesses and houses all further apart from each other, necessitating MORE road trips and decreasing walkability.
- truculent 1y ago
  > I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater throughput per lane than transit Not even remotely close: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity
Ario5 1y ago
your unsourced numbers for roads are wrong and at best representative of a rural area single lane mile not a 4 lane highway. Here are some better numbers for different places and types of roads: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/appendixa.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/appendixa.cfm (scroll down a little ways) so your reference for freeway is likely using a single lane number not the actual cost of a 4 lane high way which would be 12 - 80 million per mile.
_ea1k 1y ago
Put that plan underground and add a few more vehicle classes and you'd have invented the boring company! I wish I knew how much that cost, but I'm starting to see its point now.
pjc50 1y ago
Per mile isn't the right metric in cities, where you need to consider throughput. Guided busways exist, but as far as I know nobody's doing platooning yet? Edinburgh had a guided busway for a few years but eventually built a tram over it because buses couldn't manage the throughput.

codeulike 1y ago

Rail is expensive in the US because you've lost the skills to build it. In Europe its cheaper than freeways. Also in London we dont have space to build massive carparks everywhere so lots of people in London dont have cars.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Who said anything about cars? I guess you are validating my opinion that this isn't politically possible because mentally people immediately assume a road means free access by moms in minivans.
- codeulike 1y ago
  Well if you said 'road' and stressed that it was not a public road but a road with specific rules about what could go on it, that would probably get the message across. Your chosen phrase 'dedicated road for transport' doesn't convey that very well. Everything is transport.
pjc50 1y ago
> In Europe its cheaper than freeways. I'm not sure that's true for HS2. In practice the UK builds occasional new roads and very rarely new rail. Crossrail and Thameslink are exceptions that took decades to get approved.

rconti 1y ago

Is this freeway stat per lane-mile? Rail often has 2 sets of tracks along a corridor, or at most 4. Roads have a lot more. I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater throughput per lane than transit; even with automobiles with only 1-2 people in it, vs a train that may have hundreds but pass only every few minutes at most. One problem with roads is that once you get off the freeway, you need more roads to serve housing and businesses; and the size of those leaf nodes pushes businesses and houses all further apart from each other, necessitating MORE road trips and decreasing walkability.

truculent 1y ago
> I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater throughput per lane than transit Not even remotely close: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity

Ario5 1y ago

your unsourced numbers for roads are wrong and at best representative of a rural area single lane mile not a 4 lane highway. Here are some better numbers for different places and types of roads: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/appendixa.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/appendixa.cfm (scroll down a little ways) so your reference for freeway is likely using a single lane number not the actual cost of a 4 lane high way which would be 12 - 80 million per mile.

_ea1k 1y ago

Put that plan underground and add a few more vehicle classes and you'd have invented the boring company! I wish I knew how much that cost, but I'm starting to see its point now.

pjc50 1y ago

Per mile isn't the right metric in cities, where you need to consider throughput. Guided busways exist, but as far as I know nobody's doing platooning yet? Edinburgh had a guided busway for a few years but eventually built a tram over it because buses couldn't manage the throughput.