[Xichekolas]

... since we don't pay any taxes towards our road/highway system.

Private transportation is subsidized just as much as public transportation if you factor in the cost of all those eight lane interstates. It's all a matter of priorities.

I'm not saying that rail travel is a better solution... I'm just pointing out that no matter what way we go about it, the government will spend significant amounts of money. The Federal Budget allotted $67 billion for transportation improvement projects this year.[1] Add to that a huge amount spent by the states and local jurisdictions (I know my state roughly matches it's Federal grants with it's own money.) Contrast this with Europe, which spent 125 billion euros on road projects, and 73 billion on rail subsidies, and has three times as many people.[2]

You can't end a debate on rail travel by saying it's not profitable without subsidies. Roads would not happen without massive government subsidies either. Witness the need for the Eisenhower Interstate project to kickstart decent long distance highways in the 1950s.

Air travel benefits from the same things. If airlines had to build their own airports, ticket prices would be much higher. The airlines benefit from billions of dollars spent annually by states and municipalities to build nice airports, add runways, and run air traffic control.

All that comes out of your taxes too.

[1] http://www.dot.gov/affairs/dot1507.htm

[2] http://reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2007_3/en/eea_...

[Prrometheus]

>You can't end a debate on rail travel by saying it's not profitable without subsidies. Roads would not happen without massive government subsidies either.

The marginal road might not be profitable, but some roads would be built without subsidies. The earliest highways in America were funded by private businessmen who thought it would be profitable to connect the towns that they lived in. Private roads have a long and successful history, even if in modern times they have been crowded out of the market by trillions of dollars of federal and state projects.

One of the four great intercontinental railroads was built entirely without government grants or subsidies. If I recall correctly, it also lasted the longest.

When I criticize the government or question the need for its existence, people often respond with "Oh yeah, how would you get around without roads? The government provides all our transportation. That's useful.". However, the argument is a straw man, historically ignorant, and blinded by the status quo. Too often people are so constrained by how things are that they can not think about how they were different in the past or how they could be in the future.

[anewaccountname]

"One of the four great intercontinental railroads was built entirely without government grants or subsidies. If I recall correctly, it also lasted the longest."

Which one? From what I've read they all got the government to make eminent domain seizures for them (so even if this one railroad paid for the land it got, it still had a government subsidy in the form of a strongarm).

[Prrometheus]

The Great Northern Railway, built by James J. Hill, a great visionary and businessman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Hill

[anewaccountname]

I don't know if a railroad funded by a railroad tycoon's other subsidized railroads counts as not being subsidized itself =P.

[Xichekolas]

Oh I agree there would be roads/railways/airports without government subsidy. Frankly there is a need for those things, so someone will build them. I should have been more clear in that 'the road system as we have it today would not have happened without government subsidies'.

Back to the topic, what I was trying to point out is that it's silly to expect unsubsidized private railways to compete with massively subsidized road/air transport and still be profitable. It's hypocritical to always expect rail to bootstrap itself while giving such massive assistance to road/air, then claim that it's somehow rail's fault when it cannot compete.

[mynameishere]

Private transportation is subsidized just as much

Don't say "just as much". People buy their own cars, perform their own maintenance, pay their own insurance, and essentially pay a subscription through gas taxes (which, in my opinion, should fund 100 percent of roadwork.)

[ajross]

You are correct, but in precicely the wrong direction: private transportation is subsidised much, much more than rail transport as a function of GDP, passenger miles, or population. It isn't even close.

And your "gas tax should fund highways" idea is laughable. Look at the numbers (there were some posted at matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com in the past few weeks). The gas tax doesn't even cover maintenance of existing road systems, much less all the new construction that we are constantly doing. And remember that it's not just the roads themselves, but all the extra costs involved in forcing society to do all that driving. Cost of delivery of goods to residential areas, for example, is much higher in the US than western europe because of all the trucks needed.

[byrneseyeview]

private transportation is subsidised much, much more than rail transport as a function of GDP, passenger miles, or population. It isn't even close.

That is surprising. Source? Also, does your source explain why someone would want to know the subsidy per person, mile, $ of GDP, etc., instead of the percentage of spending accounted for by subsidies versus other activities? It seems that the latter measures what you would actually care about -- e.g. the government probably spends more money on retirement (through Social Security) than it does on space flight. But the government spends a higher fraction of the total money spent on space flight than on retirement, so one would argue that space flight is more subsidized.

[mynameishere]

much, much more than rail transport as a function of GDP

Uh, you have to compare it with the amount of people it moves. Not the absolute amount. If taxes pay for trains, upkeep, insurance, salaries for drivers, as well as the infrastructure, then that is a greater tax burden than just the highways, PER USAGE. I considered explaining that in my post, but I figured that math savvy hackers wouldn't need it. I figured wrong.

And your "gas tax should fund highways" idea is laughable.

Oh? Please...explain why.

The gas tax doesn't even cover maintenance of existing road systems,

Oh, I see. Well, if you re-read my sentence I said "SHOULD" fund highways. "Should"

SHOULD: A word meaning, "ought", as in, you "should" parse and process each sentence properly before commenting on it. You "should" look up any words you don't fully understand. That sort of thing.

See, I figured that a bunch of well-educated hackers could understand basic language concepts. I figured wrong.

[krschultz]

So? The cost of roads, traffic lights, snow removal, and police coverage aren't factoring in? I get on a subway car each day with 100+ other people at a time, it probably gets 1,000 people on it a day, everyday, for the last 20+ years. How much could it have cost per person over that time?

Sidenote - the MTA in NYC is only 5% paid for by the city, with 95% of its operating budget coming from rider fairs. There is a big complaint from subway riders that it isn't more, the subways make the city possible, shouldn't they pay more into it?