Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrus
This is not true at all.
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The rest of what you say is valid, but I'm going to pick at this statement, because it is common sense that there is a finite amount of money in the world and that you can't get everything you want.
I think what the underlying root of our arguments will be the definition of 'exceptional' as used I used it in the phrase "
There isn't really money to have an exceptional rail system and an exceptional highway system" Because it is obviously true that if you want a highway system of average utility you will definitely have enough money left over to pay for a rail system of equally average utility. If you want something that is above average, you're going to need to spend more on it, and that money has to come from somewhere.
We build our highways here in the US to be our everything transportation mode. We've built our freeways so that most people can get anywhere by driving to it in their own cars. Rail transportation has been deemed a mere supplement to this system, like a peaker-plant that handles the peak load of electrical demand on our electric grid. We made our highways have very high utility, and in so doing we've robbed the rail network of a chance to have any utility.
There is only so much demand for transportation, and it is silly to overbuild for it. I agree that we have the balance wrongly tipped too-much in favor of roads and highways, but I'm not confident that will change anytime soon - because in order to readjust the balance, you'd need to reassign some of the utility each mode has in the community. A road network will have to become stagnant enough that its utility in a certain traffic route degenerates from a high(ish) utility to at least a moderate utility before it becomes a problem worthy of money spent to address it.
So I think there is at least
some truth in it.