Originally Posted by
Roughstuff
(1) The interstates have paid themselves over a billionfold in lower transport costs, shorter and more precise delivery times, and many other ways.
So you're including a whole range of indirect benefits in that. I agree that there are many, although I think a "billionfold" is a major exaggeration. Trains also have a whole range of indirect benefits, especially when they're built out enough that many people can do without owning a car. In some countries, including Japan, a major reason they use trains so much is to reduce their dependence on oil imports (they extensively use electrified trains, powered by nuclear power). Since they have no oil resources of their own, dependence on oil imports is a major risk for them that they try to avoid. It's a major risk for us too, but we choose to ignore that. So some of the huge indirect benefits of trains can include a reduction in the need to import oil, which in turn means they can spend less on the military, and so on. Once you start including all these indirect benefits, it's hard to compare fairly. It's certainly not fair to compare trains only on the basis of "revenue in - revenue out" while attributing indirect economic benefits to highways, which is what I felt you were doing.
(2) I am not presupposing anything. In postage stamp countries and regions where gas prices are artificially inflated to $10 a gallon, people take trains. But the data show only Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Tokyo Osaka recapture their costs, in any way. In *******, freight trains generate billions of dollars of profit per year. Passenger trains are a lost cause.
You're presupposing a lot, but that's beside the point. Profit produced directly by the system is not the only important criteria. Passenger trains in the U.S. are only a "lost cause" because they've been consistently neglected in spending on infrastructure. And that's also only true for intercity passenger rail, as plenty of intra-city and light rail is perfectly viable and useful in the U.S. That's just reality, regardless of your ideological problem with the entire idea of rail.
(3) Mon cher amour Gomez, culture is the last excuse of the social scientist. I did not need a car al lthe years I was in Japan, but neither trains nor buses frequently went to where I wanted to go. I would either walk or bike, if the weather was warm enough.
I don't consider some level of government planning for the future to be "social engineering". I consider it smart government. The free market does not solve everything by itself, nor has it ever, nor will it ever. Our system is a mixed system with socialist elements and free market elements, and that's really not a disputable fact. The only question is which direction the socialist elements go. And one of the main reasons for having socialist elements in a capitalist society is because capitalism can be quite poor at planning for the long-term future.