On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 2:14 PM, frank theriault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 6:17 PM, Bob Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> PJ, >> The free market and distances destroyed rail transit. > > Whatever economic forces are involved, it ain't "free market". > > Cars and trucks have the advantage of free, government constructed and > maintained roads, bridges and other infrastructure for much of their > travel. Even toll roads don't come anywhere close to the cost of > building and maintaining trackage. > > Railroads had to buy their rights of way (I know, in the 1800's it was > often given away for free, but certainly not by the mid-1900's), > construct their own bridges, build and maintain tracks, etc, etc. > > Why isn't the fact that the entire roadway and infrastructure was put > in place by taxpayer money not considered a subsidy of the automobile > and trucking industries? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it > should at least be recognized for what it is. > > cheers, > frank
The railroads RoW costs have always been subsidized (free land is a subsidy). And for a long time mail subsidies also existed Note no government subsidized roads can possibly be free (You pay in taxes). Cars killed local rail, long before there were any significant investments in highways (which didn't happen until after WW2). Long-distance rail was killed by passenger aviation, also before any significant government investment in airports. Government funding of this infrastructure followed expanded use, not the reverse. Governments fund what people use, not what some people want us to use. Trucking killed off LCL freight, but for the most part never had a serious effect on long-distance freight which rail continues to dominate. Branch lines were mostly LCL, mail and passenger. two of those disappeared and mail moved from 3rd party transit to in-house aircraft & trucks and the high-value side of mail was killed off by UP and FedEx. Voila, no more Branch Lines. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
