you’re looking only at the return-on-investment of rail as if passengers would have to pay for it with tickets and such. that is not at all the case.
the benefit of rail or any transport infrastructure in fact is the fact that it facilitates the rest of the economy. almost every economy depends a lot on transport, and by making transport possible, the rest of the economy becomes possible, and then that pays takes, and that’s the advantage in having streets.
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You could say the same about pretty much any infrastructure. It’s hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
All are hideously expensive and will never get paid back by utilization.
Are they all bad investments?
I claim they all are critical for their indirect benefits to an economy, a society, and rail is exactly the same.
vga@sopuli.xyz 15 hours ago
I would say that there’s quite a lot of reason to believe that infrastructure investments can be one of the best ways to help poor people rise economically. Which has obvious paybacks.
worldbank.org/…/infrastructure-and-poverty-reduct…
This still requires creating infrastructure that is actually needed, otherwise it’s just wasting money.