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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

>But how is it so expensive?

that is a classic megaproject which will be expanding in cost until there is no more expansion is possible and then a bit more.

Lets imagine some numbers - at 100B cost and say $5B/year expenses, it would need $7B/year of tickets for 50 years ROI, ie. it would need $20M/day, which is 100000 passengers/day at $200/ticket, like a 100 trains/day with 1000 riders each.

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That's not how you assess ROI. You assess ROI by estimating the total economic contribution to the area.

https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/...

Oh! you're right. Such approach though would easily allow the cost to continue balloon, and $200B by 2027 don't look unimaginable.

Large infrastructure projects like this are paying it forward. They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, just as we have benefited from inherited infrastructure of our cities.

> They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, …

Thanks to deficit spending they will be paying for it.

The only people getting a gift here are the ones fleecing the government to run up the costs. They get their money now and all our kids and grandkids get the bill.

As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. There are other externalities too, like the economic benefits from quicker transport between major cities.

If you want to ask the size of those benefits, imagine London or New York without their underground/subway systems. It is a big deal and can't just be counted by ticket prices!

> As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt.

Actual growth might not, but as most infra spending is financed with fixed rate bonds, a couple more years of Biden’s 9.6% inflation will take a nice bite out of those costs in future dollars.

"Biden's 9.6%" - I'm not american so this seems like a peculiar way of putting it since inflation is spiking across the whole western world. It seems weirdly partisan, was that the intention?

One can wonder what the future generations are robbed off by the money being redirected into the black hole of HSR.

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