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Comment by julienb_sea | Hacker News Reader

Construction of road infrastructure can be compared to construction of tracks and stations, and it's fair to say taxpayers foot the bill in full for both.

The difference is that trains operate at a loss even with high ticket prices and operational subsidies are necessary for market viability. That is not the case with car and truck usage.

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At least in the US, local road networks in the suburbs and rural areas bleed money terribly, and as fuel taxes have not kept pace with inflation even the inner city streets and crowded highways can barely break even.

Like a growth Ponzi scheme

Local roads bleed money universally everywhere, because pretty much no place charges tolls for local road use. Gas taxes do not cover road costs, because gas taxes are not by the same entities that actually build the roads, so there is no reason to expect it to be the case. However, and fortunately, road construction and maintenance is universally a small part of municipality budgets in US, typically under 10%, and very rarely anywhere close to 20%, so there is not much reason to worry about affordability of local roads.

> That is not the case with car

I felt like private cars (the ones that are not taxi/commercial) just stay in one place the majority of its lifetime.

Pre-covid, I had a 45 minute commute. The other 22.5 hours my car just stayed in one place. Engine off. Road trips unfortunately don't happen often for me.

Trains, trucks, planes, and even taxis are probably running/flying more than it's staying still.

In London, both roads and buses are subsidised from the income of the tube lines.

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