Austin Murrey

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie It's actually the cost divided by passengers since you're trying to find the cost per person.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie The closest I could come to an estimate is taking a percentage of the operating budget of $222 million and an estimated 40% allocated to track maintenance (based on other railways' budget allocations) so $954,000 per mile.

That feels *far* too high so I doubt my methodology.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie I couldn't find maintenance costs per mile for the DART rail but the estimated maintenance for lane mile of road is around $17500.

And I did follow up my tweet with per passenger costs, generously estimating 1 person per car. I don't pay for Twitter so I have a limit.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie So per mile a car costs around $611 and the light rail $971.

The math doesn't support passenger rail over freeways in Texas's MSAs using probably the best comparison we have available, even for the millions who would supposedly benefit from rail.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie Would they serve more people and be cheaper?

The Dallas light rail system cost $59.1 million per mile. The I-35 extension cost $33 million per mile (personally both seem too high but numbers are numbers)

The same corridor for I-35 has 55000 cars and rail has 60900 passengers.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@tootmcboots @nickgillespie Which argument?

That central planners love control so they reach for methods that favor that control or that passenger rail was widely adopted across the US historically but has since largely been abandoned due to a better technology for transport being introduced?

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@tootmcboots @nickgillespie If I was saying stupid things in a way that shows I think I'm smart I'd be arguing for expanding passenger rail in the US despite its demonstrable historical abandonment due to cost and inconvenience.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie I argued that passenger rail boosters would argue resources should be directed towards their favored areas and other towns should be excluded and you immediately proposed just that.

Is Luckenbach affluent or white? I confess I picked it as the smallest town in the Austin MSA.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@tootmcboots @nickgillespie It's truly a burden, but I must bear it!

Thank you for checking in however, I'm glad you could take time away from thinking about the horsepower of the GE ES44AC to admire my tweets.
(I Goggled that so I could relate to you, I hope it's not condescending to ferroequonologists.)

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@tootmcboots @nickgillespie If the question is "why do people keep coming back to passenger rail?" motivation is actually the pertinent thing to discuss - why of course going to *motive.*

But that's OK, as someone with a beautiful mind I'm used to lesser minds' noncomprehension.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@tootmcboots @nickgillespie Thanks!

I didn't mention "city planners" I mentioned "central planners."

You might not know this but central planning encompasses quite a bit of human activity that doesn't limit itself to transit.

There was this big experiment run on the concept in Russia last century even!

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@tootmcboots @nickgillespie What a nice strawman you have there, is it Guy Fawkes day?

Another explanation for paasenger rail enthusiasts is a complete inability to understand geography and urban development after the Model T rolled off the line. Which given the average experience of a driver is plausible.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie Thanks for proving my point!

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie Because we value the ability of people to move on their own schedule and allow them to live where they please.

A town of 90 can be tied into a road network because the investment is the roadway, not the car and drivers as well, so the cost is lower for freedom.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie Light rail, and trains generally, can't create an integrated rail network so someone would be able to walk to a local station at Luckenbach, TX and make it into downtown Austin in 2 hours without an investment so large no one would argue for it.

That roadway exists right now.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@AwesomePhone @nickgillespie Why?

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@Ogiel23 @SandyofCthulhu @monsterhunter45 Kurt's curse was drafted by a lawyer so that "all those who died and were laid to rest in Liechtenstein shall rise and consume the living" so that makes sense.

A good reminder to always get French lawyers to draft your curses to ensure broad interpretation by the Nether Powers.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@SandyofCthulhu @monsterhunter45 That's a bogus statistic, Lichtenstein records zero deaths because they dump all the bodies in Austria to avoid them rising as zombies due to curse of Kurt von Liechtenstein, Europe's last necromancer.

[Austin Murrey @AustinMurrey]

@jmart This is hardly surprising, the Dems wanted to eliminate the filibuster because they wanted to ram their agenda through without compromises. Trump wants the same.

Fetterman is a 90's Dem, he realizes that's got a good chance of causing disaster.