[TrainedMonkey]

Per hour they will be much cheaper. Part of self-fulfilling prophecy is that per hour price is mostly inelastic, so as trains get slower and take more time the price rises. And higher price means less people take trains...

[zeroonetwothree]

Per hour walking is even cheaper.

[rimunroe]

> Per hour they will be much cheaper.

How many people do you think care about the per-hour cost of travel. I feel confident saying that the vast majority of the traveling public wants to spend as little time and money as possible to get to their destinations.

[Jgrubb]

If I’m not mistaken, that’s the joke.

[rimunroe]

D’oh! It completely flew over my head. Thanks. I’ve heard people who are really into trains bill rail travel as being worth it purely for the experience, so it sounded plausible that they were arguing it seriously

[fc417fc802]

I think it's less a joke than an observation. There's some per hour cost that's approximately fixed, so for a given mode of travel the slower it gets the more expensive it becomes. The lack of investment in rail is a vicious cycle.