• fmstrat
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    91 month ago

    Probably could have built a lot of rail for the cost of R&D on self-driving semis…

    • @sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      51 month ago

      I’m not so sure. Infrastructure is hella expensive and the US government already maintains the highways that make trucking make sense.

      • @jenesaisquoi@feddit.org
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        1 month ago

        Not necessarily. A 40 tonne lorry damages the motorway as much as 1000 160’000 passenger cars. It will lead to the state having to renew the road surfaces every few years. Rails don’t have that problem, they’ll happily take 100 tonnes for decades.

        • @sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          81 month ago

          The point I’m making is that the government has already decided to maintain the highways, so continuing on is the status quo. If they wanted to make new railroads they’d have to expend political capital to get anything new funded.

    • Lka1988
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      21 month ago

      Maybe 2 or 3 single rail lines across the country.

      You guys gotta remember that the US is double the size of the entire EU. I will say that I don’t disagree in that more rail would be nice, but you have to think about this logically.