Re:Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles
by Retric on Thursday March 02, 2017 @01:27PM
(#13776727)
Current federal funds are only a small part of the overall picture especially when you start including the gas subsidies. The system is designed to be complex to hide overall costs, but toll roads are a great reminder of the actual cost per trip. Further, only 1/4 of miles driven are on the highway system so people have plenty of other ways of getting around.
Anyway, public transit is not what I am talking about, the US rail system continues to exist due to efficiency not subsides. Passenger rail is currently a tiny and largely ignored minority of overall traffic.
Re:Lyft Is Said to Seek New Funding as Its Rival Uber Stumbles
by cmdrfred on Thursday March 02, 2017 @01:35PM
(#13776824)
> Passenger rail is currently a tiny and largely ignored minority of overall traffic.
Exactly. Why do you assume it can scale to the point that it can replace all other forms of transportation? Rail is only cheap and efficient because those are the markets they selected to service, it won't scale up.
If it can why not get some investors and prove everyone else wrong?
FYI: a great deal of the funds for highways come in the form of tolls or gasoline taxes. A great deal of the cost of public transit on the other hand is subsidized by state and local sales taxes and income taxes. It is public transit that is subsidized in the real world not the other way around.