[AcerbicZero]

With the amount of semi-trucks I see on the highway crisscrossing this country constantly it seems it might be better to just focus on getting our existing freight traffic off the roads before we worry about passenger traffic.

*I'm not talking about last mile deliveries, or suggesting the entire trucking industry can be magically turned into railroad freight.

[dragontamer]

US Freight Rail is among the most utilized and most efficient in the world.

Freight Rail is actually the reason why our passenger rail sucks so much, because in USA, Freight has priority over passengers. So a lot of our passenger rails sit waiting for the freight-trains to pass.

[mulderc]

It is the other way around. Passenger rail has priority but that law is ignored by freight operators.

“For over 50 years, freight railroads have been required by law to provide Amtrak with “preference” to run passenger trains ahead of freight trains. However, many freight railroads ignore the law because it is extremely difficult for Amtrak to enforce it, and as a result, people and the American economy suffer.” https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance#:~:text=For%20ove....

[dragontamer]

Oh wow. That's incredible. So legally Passenger Rail has priority, but in practice the freight-corporations bully the passenger lines.

Its a difficult situation, because nominally, the freight-rail operators also own those raillines. So a free-market solution is likely not possible. This is just something that needs to be enforced from the top-down.

[mulderc]

A free market solution was never feasible as there are just too many parties and externalities involved. This was always going to be a situation where some type of monopoly would happen at various levels which would likely require some type of regulatory intervention to achieve a Pareto-optimal situation.

There are likely solution to the issue that are not top-down, but this isn’t a situation where free market forces will provide the socially optimal outcome.

[dubcanada]

> Freight Rail is actually the reason why our passenger rail sucks so much, because in USA, Freight has priority over passengers. So a lot of our passenger rails sit waiting for the freight-trains to pass.

Do you have any sources for this? This doesn't sound correct to me. A train is a queue, there is no priority in regards to crossings that I know of.

Edit: I stand corrected, Amtrak report does suggest that freight might have a priority. That report is honestly shocking.

[mulderc]

Freight doesn’t have priority, passenger trains have priority according to the law but the law is functionally unenforceable so freight steals priority from passengers.

[thechao]

My suspicion is that we heavily subsidize road-freight traffic by not properly taxing very heavy vehicles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

Reasonably loaded freight trucks do about 10000x as much damage to roads, per mile. Freight trucks also run a lot further per day than regular vehicles. I know a lot of roads never see any freight haulage at all, but I suspect that major transits (interstate highways) are essentially a way to get the US public to pay for freight haulage jobs. I'd guess that last mile is far less damaging, as the box trucks weigh far less.

[ElijahLynn]

This is what Tesla Semi is focusing on. The demo from Elon many years ago showed the Tesla Semi trucks autonomously driving and following each other within a couple of feet so they could take advantage of lower drag. He specifically talked about how the Tesla Semi in trailer mode or whatever it is called will be able to be cheaper than rail.

[aaomidi]

> will be able to be cheaper than rail.

Elon has a history of making fake, bold claims just as the state tried to take on more responsibility.

Starlink instead of municipal Internet

Hyper loop instead of cal train

Now “train mode trucks” which is literally just insane if you’ve driven cross country.