[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Heavy trucks cause a lot of wear and tear on pavement — up to several thousands more times what an automobile causes. Truck licensing and fuel taxes do not cover the incremental costs. Therefore, less highway funding would be required, to move a given number of cars and light trucks.

Trains — including variants, such as the one proposed in the article, make a lot of sense for moving freight over long distances. Containerization makes it easy to switch modes for local pick up and delivery.

High-speed passenger rail seldom makes sense. Rail freight almost always makes sense.

[cripplecreek]

The thing is that you’ll never get trucks off the road unless you find a means of transporting goods to each individual retailer from the freight hubs. As it is now I think the average radius each freight rail hub covers is around 500 miles by truck.