[justinc-md]

Florida is connecting Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and Orlando this year for a total cost of $3-4 billion. That’s $7.3 million per mile, and it was mostly paid for by private enterprise instead of the government. Development started in 2012, with Miami to West Palm Beach opening in 2018. CHSR started development in 2008, and isn’t slated to operate anything until 2029. When it does operate, it’ll link Merced and Bakersfield.

Florida will be operating the fastest trains in the US this year.

[rsynnott]

This thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline

That's not a high speed service. There _was_ a planned high-speed service with a similar route (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_High-Speed_Corridor), but it was killed.

Conventional rail is, of course, a lot cheaper than high-speed rail; this isn't a revelation.

It's also a one train per hour service. CHSR:

> In addition, the achievable operating headway between successive trains must be less than 5 minutes

While CHSR _is_ definitely on the expensive side for high speed rail, it's a little silly to compare it to the Florida system, which is a fairly standard intercity rail.

Incidentally, I'm not saying there's anything _wrong_ with the Florida system; I've no idea of the background, but it may be that the expected ridership didn't justify a high-speed high frequency system. It's very much not comparing like for like, though.

[b112]

I wonder though.

I live on a dirt road, out in the country. It was built by a contractor, who was selling farmland for housing, 50 years ago.

Instead of digging down, putting aggregate(gravel, etc), the road was just laid over farmland, with a foot of gravel.

Once the municipality took over, it was fine for a while, but maintenance costs were through the roof. Springtime flooding, washouts, and heavy trucks woild sink (no drainage, mud) in the spring.

Eventually, the municipality had to dig down 4ft, put in proper drainage and gravel base, to reduce failure and ongoing maintenance costs.

(I'm in Canada, and frost/snow/ice creates loads of maintenance, especally without drainage.. a southern American in Arizona might wonder what the big deal is)

Anyhow, now there are laws for road quality and developers here, 50 years later, bit I wonder....

Could that private rail developer be shifting initial cost, to higher maintenance costs?

And further, mountains have issues with freezing/etc, and it does make a massive diff...