Again, the same applies to e.g. the road network in the USA. Infrastructure is there to facilitate economic growth and freedom. Without roads it’s much harder to transport goods, get people to work, give people the mobility to move to jobs that are farther away while still being able to live closer to where they want and so on and so on.
And the same applies to public transport as well.
Only supreme idiots would argue that roads should turn a profit. And public transport is much cheaper at transporting people than roads.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it would be silly to compare roads to high speed rail. One has a much higher barrier cost to entry while the other model offsets the cost by distributing it across the population. Yes, yes I know. I’m not saying one is better than the other. I’m just explaining the roi based on the startup cost. But yes, of course the benefits of infrastructure extend beyond the price to manage it. But there comes a point when the return is negative. Many of the Chinese high speed branches are crossing extended distances to literally nowhere. Only a portion of the network is serving an extremely densely populated area. So it’s a bit of column a and a bit of column b.
Again, the same applies to e.g. the road network in the USA. Infrastructure is there to facilitate economic growth and freedom. Without roads it’s much harder to transport goods, get people to work, give people the mobility to move to jobs that are farther away while still being able to live closer to where they want and so on and so on.
And the same applies to public transport as well.
Only supreme idiots would argue that roads should turn a profit. And public transport is much cheaper at transporting people than roads.
It’s !mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world that people don’t understand what infrastructure is and what it’s there for.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it would be silly to compare roads to high speed rail. One has a much higher barrier cost to entry while the other model offsets the cost by distributing it across the population. Yes, yes I know. I’m not saying one is better than the other. I’m just explaining the roi based on the startup cost. But yes, of course the benefits of infrastructure extend beyond the price to manage it. But there comes a point when the return is negative. Many of the Chinese high speed branches are crossing extended distances to literally nowhere. Only a portion of the network is serving an extremely densely populated area. So it’s a bit of column a and a bit of column b.