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[quote user="blue streak 1"] [quote user="Maglev"] Blue streak, how do we account for the cost of politics?  This cost manifests itself with delay and inefficiency. [/quote] You made me chuckle. Frankly I've no idea. The politics of road and rail and light rail and buses drives me crazy.  NIMBYS, the absolutely nothings, the put it over theres, etc. As whiley says  ARG----------. All I wish to know is what todays roads would cost today. [/quote] The cost of a road depends on numerous variables, i.e. location, capacity, expansion of existing roadway vs. new system, materials, local labor rates, real estate costs, etc.  The estimated cost to build TX 130, which is a toll road designed to take through traffic off of I-35 and route it around Austin, was approximately $30,8 million per mile.  The tolls average 12 to 18 cents per mile, depending on the distance traveled.  The cost to upgrade the Austin Western Railroad for the Leander to Austin commuter train was somewhere between $2.8 and $4.1 million per mile, depending on whose accounting one chooses to believe.  The estimated cost to build a scratch light rail line from the Austin airport to downtown, as well as the University of Texas and beyond is approximately $47 million per mile.  In a sense the cost of highways vs. railways (heavy or light) is immaterial in many if not most areas of the United States.  Americans have shown consistently that they want to drive to work, play, etc., and will only use public transit when the cost of driving (economic, time, frustration) makes doing so impracticable.  This is especially true in Texas where the love of the automobile is as great as ever. People choose to drive, at least in part, because they don't have to sit next to someone who has not showered for a week and is shouting into a cell phone or uttering profanities.  They can listen to the radio or chat with a companion of their choosing.  This is a major reason why only 4.8 per cent of Americans use public transport to get where they are going.
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