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A comment on California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B. Parent comment

Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by jeffrey_t_b on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @06:54PM (#16173250)
Well, even if you say that capital expenses are irrelevant considering the very long time frame, you still have to make the argument that operating expenses of the rail are smaller. What are they, and are they smaller than air travel (~$0.10/passenger-mile)? The only estimate of that I could find with two minutes of googling is ~$0.39/passenger-mile (via http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88 supposedly using the National Transit Database). That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by deaddodo on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @08:42PM (#16173920)
The cost for Amtrak and other commuter train services is inflated due to the fact that the rails are owned and/or preempted by commercial rail services. The whole point of California building out the line, directly from tax dollars, is to go around that. A dedicated line drops in price, is far more reliable and can be managed by text according to traffic.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by Gibbon1 on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @11:06PM (#16174609)
I'm slightly unsure but I think CHSR runs next to freight rail lines for a fair amount in the central valley. And I think CHSR is also paying for part of CalTrain's grade separation and electrification. So benefits aren't exclusive to CHSR.
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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @07:49PM (#16173639)
> That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run

Critical qualifier: in the United States. The British rail system, as I understand it, runs with significantly lower variable costs than e.g. Amtrak or BART.

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Re:California bullet train cost surges by $2.8B by toyg on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @08:34PM (#16173879)
Rail costs go down as traffic and network expand. Most of the US is under-served by rail, and California is pretty ridiculous too. I was shocked by how few stations Amtrak had when I last visited (about 7 years ago). Like for most things, if you invest, costs go down in the long term.
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