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A comment on American Maglev. Parent comment

Re:American Maglev by arebop on Friday March 27, 2009 @07:53AM (#534948)
I wondered roughly how that compared to highway costs, and I found that it's about four times as much. One thing I found was that while this article claims $700million/mile for the LA Red Line, the MTA reports that $4.5billion was spent for the 17.4 miles, giving a cost of $259million/mile.

  project                     $million/mile  persons/day
  LA Red Line                 259 [1]        140943 [1]
  MARTA heavy rail (estimate) 200
  I-64 highway                 53.5 [2]      140000 [3]
  American Maglev (estimate)   20
[1] http://www.metro.net/news_info/facts.htm [2] http://www.modot.mo.gov/newsandinfo/reports/2007Accountabili... [3] http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/370990/human_factor_...
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Re:American Maglev by patio11 on Friday March 27, 2009 @08:37AM (#534970)
I wondered roughly how that compared to highway costs, and I found that it's about four times as much

That would imply that the US has several trillion dollars invested in its highway system, correct? Does that number pass the smell test to you?

Wiki reports that our ~45,000 mile interstate highway system cost about 425 billion, or a hair under $10 million a mile, in 2006 dollars. That's under a twentieth of what the LA transit folks are quoting. (I think they're doing creative accounting by reclassifying part of construction as operating expenses, which is a frequent trick in this field, but I've got nothing to back that up.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

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Re:American Maglev by potatolicious on Friday March 27, 2009 @09:05AM (#535003)
What are the continued operating costs, though, from both the government and users? When I lived in Toronto I could have an all-access unlimited subway pass for $100 a month, that's $1200 a year.

If I commuted by car I would've personally paid a hell of a lot more for the privilege. The up-front cost of the infrastructure is not the only consideration...

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Re:American Maglev by tjic on Friday March 27, 2009 @09:23AM (#535025)
> What are the continued operating costs [?] ... When I lived in Toronto I could have an all-access unlimited subway pass for $100 a month,

This does not speak to operating costs.

Mass transit fairs are usually subsidized from general tax revenues - user fees usually cover something like 10-25% of actual costs.

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Re:American Maglev by potatolicious on Friday March 27, 2009 @09:25AM (#535028)
Right, this I'm aware of - so I'd be interested in seeing someone do some numbers on the real costs of highways vs. mass transit.
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Re:American Maglev by Retric on Friday March 27, 2009 @11:51AM (#535242)
Last time I ran the numbers the US highway system costs around 3$/gallon of gas used on the highway system. So, double your gas costs, then add all the other costs and you can approximate the "net" cost of your commute.
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Re:American Maglev by potatolicious on Friday March 27, 2009 @12:48PM (#535350)
It's more than your gas cost, though - there are other things like maintenance, amortized cost of car ownership, insurance, etc.

You don't just pay for gas, you pay for the car to put it in.

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