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Comment by chapill | Hacker News Reader

It's rather odd watching the same group that wants Net Neutrality and municipal broadband disagree with you.

Trump's nationalized 5G idea is brilliant in that it consolidates all efforts, but also serves to protect freedom. Under the privatized approach we use now, wireless ISPs spy on us, and sell the data to the government. That's constitutional and legal, because the government didn't do the spying. Under a nationalized plan, it would be unconstitutional for the government to conduct dragnet spying.

Do we drive on corporate owned highways? No, and we have the most extensive highway system in the world. For comparison, look how well privatized rail worked out. You're right. Privatized infrastructure sucks.

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U.S. freight rail is completely privatized and it is the finest system anywhere.

"our freight rail is the envy of the world, carrying over 40% of our intercity cargo. Trains carry much less of Europe’s freight, which is why trucks clog Europe’s highways. And America’s rail-shipping rates are the world’s lowest, reducing the cost of doing business in the U.S.; they’ve fallen 45% in real dollars since the industry was deregulated three decades ago."

http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/

Good freight rail and good passenger rail seem to be more or less mutually exclusive. Japan has one of the lowest rates of freight rail usage in the world, and yet the Shinkansen and the extensive urban metros and suburban railways with their absurdly high schedule reliability are basically an element of national identity...

No, it is all policy-driven. Japan's passenger rail companies are private businesses. The U.S. used to have the finest passenger rail too. But then the feds subsidized interstates, which collapsed U.S. passenger rail in the 1960s, and in turn nationalized the private companies into Amtrak. So the government killed the opportunity to reinvent U.S. passenger rail. Amtrak is a disaster, it is grossly undercapitalized and forced to maintain massively unprofitable long-distance rail.

Nearly all of the Japanese rail system was created directly through the government. Everything JR was once owned by the national government. Even as "private" companies the major subway companies in Tokyo are partnerships between the national and Tokyo government.

UK seems to do both pretty competently.

Japan used smaller gauge track for passenger. Combined with the need to keep freight from interfering with high speed trains (the opposite of the American situation) probably makes the case for your argument. Good passenger rail and priority screws cargo where good cargo screws passengers. Unless you can build two separate systems, optimization’s are not compatible.

> Do we drive on corporate owned highways? No, and we have the most extensive highway system in the world. For comparison, look how well privatized rail worked out. You're right. Privatized infrastructure sucks.

You mean the highway system that's been underfunded for the past several years even before you take into account the fact that much of it is in dilapidated condition and needs unbudgeted replacement? In contrast to the freight rail system that Europe wishes it had?

Do we drive on corporate owned highways

A good chunk of the national interstate system consists of toll roads, some of which have been privatized (ex: Indiana Toll Road). And the quality of the interstate highways varies greatly by the state. I wouldn't hold out the US public highway system out as an example of how great public infrastructure is maintained...

"A good portion," you say?

Is it 10%? 5?

Not sure I'd call it a "good portion" in this context, but it's 6.2% according to FHWA.

> Today, the 46,730-mile Interstate System includes approximately 2,900 miles of turnpikes.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/tollroad.cfm

Depends on the states and the routes... good chunk in some regions, but unheard of in others.

If you go from Philadelphia to Chicago, it's a toll-road the entire way (PA turnpike -> Ohio turnpike > Indiana tollroad -> Chicago). That's an outlier route, but toll roads aren't uncommon, especially in certain states.

No, and we have the most extensive highway system in the world.

That extensive highway system has destroyed communities, alienated us from one another. It destroyed passenger rail (air travel took the high-end of the market, to be sure, but what business does the government have in using taxpayer money to destroy an entire industry?)

If you were a person of color in the 1950s, highways likely destroyed the places you lived in. And you couldn't follow the white people to the suburbs. Racist people used zoning laws to prevent you, and where would you get the money to do so anyway? The vast majority of the high-paying professions were not open to you.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/syracus...

Highways didn’t destroy passenger rail. Cargo destroyed passenger rail in the US. Higher profit, much fewer customers, B2B instead of B2C, long term contracts, and a much lower cost. There is no business advantage to passengers over cargo.

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