After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete • Hacker News Board

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#61

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #53

geezerjay wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These projects are simply to expensive for private entities to undertake The problem is not how expensive high-speed railway projects are. The problem is that in general, with a couple of notable exceptiobs, high-speed railway services are massive money drains with absolutely no viable business model. If their natural unprofitability is compounded with infrastructure costs then the problem is further compounded. Th…

The North East Corridor is profitable. “the most traveled highway in America, spanning 1,900 miles from Miami to Maine.” Who pays for all the roads? The gas tax doesn’t cover it. I’d think that between Boston and at least DC, there’s a need to travel by train at 225 mph. With a little vision, it could go to Miami.

The challenge in Boston is that the North Station and the South Station don't connect to each other, so there can be no thru-service to the north. Connecting them has often been mooted, but, well, Boston IS the home of the Big Dig.

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#62

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #46

nostrademons wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wartime. The interstate highway system got built because Eisenhower saw firsthand how effective having a national road network is for logistics in times of war, and so it became a national security concern. The transcontinental railroad was financed by the Department of War and greatly accelerated when the Southern states seceded - Congress had been denying funding for a decade before, but the first season after the…

> It'll likely be the same for high-speed rail, hyperloops, and under-city tunnels. Please don't make the mistake of equating the hyperloop scheme with reputable and tried-and-true railway services. Hyperloop is at best a marketing gimmick based on naive and ill-informed notions of what it takes to run a vehicle in a track, while real railway services are mundane technologies which have been proven to work for at lea…

[deleted]

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#63

Post by Retric » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #57

Retric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far from it, toll roads reduce congestion on non toll roads so non toll payers also benefit from them. If you want an improvement then paying by weight and mileage would be more fair unlike our current system which discounts trucks which do far more damage than their fuel usage accounts for. But, tolls are on net an even worse system than we already have.

>so non toll payers also benefit from them. That's just a glass half full way of saying that tolls keep poor people from taking trips that would involve those roads so the roads are less busy. $5 or $10 isn't much when your lunch is an overpriced $15 bagel at some trendy authentic restaurant. People who are packing PB&J to the job side avoid the toll road even if it takes longer Road tolls are just another regressive…

It's not just about people making the same trip from A->B now using the toll or not. Local roads backup when highways backup. So, the difference can end up very significant even for trips that don't go near the toll roads.

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#64

Post by ecolonsmak » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #28

mikeash wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow this stuff got built before. There must be a way to get back into that state.

It was built when the top marginal tax rate in the United States was above 70 percent, a level which would make a lot of people go into fits of apoplectic rage if you were to suggest it now.

If we want better roads, another space shuttle, the next wave beyond the integrated circuit, etc... most prudent course of action would be to reinstate the internal revenue act of 1954.

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#65

Post by Marazan » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

Someguywhatever wrote: post #45

untog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After witnessing 2008, I'm not sure that even another Great Depression would get America back to the New Deal mindset. Politicians would just blame welfare recipients, or something.

It was the government forcing banks to lend to people who would normally not qualify for mortgage loans that caused the crisis in the first place. The people who the banks accurately predicted couldn't pay and were normally denied loans were instead actually given loans, subsequently couldn't pay, aaaand everything collapsed. I think that the securitization and sell off of these mortgage backed securities were the ba…

Absolutely false. The subprime crisis was not caused by 'government mandated' lending to traditionally undeserved parts of the population.

Anyone pushing that narrative is trying to pushing a implicitly racist 'reason' for the financial crisis: "it was all them loans to the black people that did it" .

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#66

Post by RightMillennial » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #54

toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

User fees are the most "fair" way to pair for infrastructure. It's not economically efficient to collect taxes on fuel in the aggregate, and then piecemeal out highway funding by any other metric than usage (although it makes for great politics).

They can be a good allocation method, but often you get 'premium' roads and weird routing because of splitting things up. Now if there was a toll on all major roads of 2c a mile for cars and ten times that for trucks, then I'd be all for it.

The problem with tolls, and gas taxes and vehicle registrations for that matter, is that they disproportionally affect the poor. I, and many on HN might not give the marginal cost second thought, but for many it adds up.

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#67

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #60

nadermx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interstate system was responsible for decimating entire down towns, completely reducing any sense of mobility for all parties involved. Uprooting trolly systems that spanned across large parts of the country. It's not a specific issue with the word, it's a issue with what the overall view of highways portrayed by the article, and the reason it was done to begin with.

I'm not an American, so wholly ignorant on this, but how was the uprooting of the trolly systems the result of the interstate system?

I suspect it's meant to refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp....

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#68

Post by teddyh » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #50

fipple wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the costs of diversity. People don’t work together towards shared goals anymore since they characterize the other people benefiting as un-American/unpersons.

That sounds more like a cost of bigotry and intolerance.

It’s actually the combination of both which is a problem. As you say, diversity wouldn’t be a problem if there were no bigots and intolerant people, but conversely, bigots and intolerant people weren’t as much of a problem when there was less diversity.

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#69

Post by larkeith » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

cryptozeus wrote: post #13

Projects like these should be sponsored by private firms. Let them put up ads/billboards on the sponsored highway. This can provide fund to finish the project.

Turnpikes were only profitable in the pre-freeway era; trying to fund a highway on ads alone is a financial absurdity.

Re: After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete

#70

Post by dionidium » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

xemdetia wrote: post #41

dcole2929 wrote: post #9

Stuff like this is why I have exactly zero faith in the US ever building the type of high speed rail systems that other countries have and we clearly need. These projects are simply to expensive for private entities to undertake alone and federal and local governments can't stay aligned long enough to see anything that last longer than an election period through to it's finish. Unless someone invents teleportation, w…

In traveling throughout the US I don't really know how high speed rail is really going to improve anything outside of like the LA to San Fransisco and the existing Acela coverage area (which is essentially following the flow of I-95 anyway). Even maximizing the Acela flow would just being eminent domain to the existing private rail lines to allow expansion and enhancement beyond what they have already. Part of the re…

> In traveling throughout the US I don't really know how high speed rail is really going to improve anything outside of like the LA to San Fransisco and the existing Acela coverage area

I wouldn't ignore the routes that connect Chicago to the rest of the Midwest:

- Route, FY2015 Passengers, ~Distance (miles)

- Chicago – St. Louis, 576,705, 295

- Chicago – Milwaukee, 799,271, 92

- Chicago – Pontiac via Detroit 465,627, 280

These numbers are despite the truly awful experience, in many cases, of waiting long periods for freight traffic to pass. These distances are in the sweet-spot for HSR, which could be quite popular on these routes.