this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Not really. It would cost trillions of dollars - but it would be cheaper than car infrastructure. The key is to start building and running using transit now where it makes the most sense and expand that.
You're delusional if you think there's even a remote possibility of that ever happening in the US without inventing a time machine to stop the auto industry from killing the rail industry in the early 1900s.
The cat has been out of the bag way too long to put it back in now.
The dirty little secret is we've basically done that already - building train lines or subways in the US is so astronomically expensive that no one is doing it "for profit" anymore, and it looks likely that it'll never become financially viable unless something changes massively. I mean, from what I can tell NYC can't profitably retrofit the subways, forget about building a new line. Amtrack is constantly in bankruptcy or being bailed out. No one is going to build a modern train line from Rochester NY to NYC again - there just isn't going to be the passengers.