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According to Table 1.41, U.S. National Transportation Statistics, in 2009 86.1 per cent of Americans commuted to work by personal vehicle. Approximately five per cent commuted by public transport, with the remainder walking, riding a bicycle, etc.  As noted in a previous post, the per cent of the population using public transport to commute to work has not changed significantly over the past 10 years. At the end of the day, although people say many things in public opinion surveys, i.e. "I favor public transport", what really counts is what they do.  They drive. According to Table 1.42 of the aforementioned publication, 89.3 per cent of Americans traveling between cities at least 50 miles apart chose to use their personal vehicle. Only .8 per cent chose to travel by train.  Again, although Americans are reputed by NARP, as well as other passenger rail advocates, to want intercity passenger trains, when it comes down to voting with their wallets they choose to drive or fly or take a bus. Based on the aforementioned statistics, I am quite comfortable inferring that roughly 85 per cent of Americans, as indicated by their behavior, don't want anything to do with public transport.   With respect to a preference for flying, I should have said most business people. Due to the tightened airport security procedures, at least in Texas, many business people are driving legs that they would have flown prior to 9/11, i.e. Austin to Dallas, Tyler to DFW, etc.   Wanna see the preference for flying. Just go to any of the nation's major airports, as well as some not so major ones, and watch the activity. Then go to a typical passenger station. Outside of the stations along the NEC, the nation's passenger railway stations don't support a lot of traffic. For a very good reason!  Comparatively they don't have much traffic. My challenge was not your estimates of highway construct costs. It was pointed to your statement that the increase in the CPI has been minimal. A 36 per cent increase in the CPI over 10 to 11 years does not strike me as minimal. It means that a person living on a fixed pension or having issued fixed debt would have lost  nearly 40 per cent of the purchasing power of that pension or debt due to compounding. Frankly, an estimate of 70 to 150 per cent is worthless. I don't know what regression parameters you used to get to that broad of an estimate range, but they must have been pretty loose.  Moreover, if you want to estimate highway construction costs, I would think that the regional Producer Price Index(s) would be a more valid tool.
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