# Costs of trains and highways?



## ahmed007 (Jul 10, 2006)

hi guys, i just want to know how much it would cost to construct a highway or a fast railway but not neccassarily a high speed (e.g bullet) one.


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## Ted Ward (Apr 16, 2005)

$14?

It depends on a lot of things - the length of the route, the cost to buy the land, the ground conditions underneath and the route the line takes - a tunnel through a mountain for example would increase the cost quite a bit. 

The actual cost of laying the asphalt or rails is insignificant in comparison. Highways though tend to be a lot wider than railways - so I imagine they are generally more expensive, but again there are more factors to consider.


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## Nephasto (Feb 6, 2004)

^A High speed line is much more expensive to build than a motorway.
As for regular rail, I'm not sure...


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

In NL, motorways are extremely expensive, because of all demands from locals and green parties. The price of a motorway in The Netherlands tends to be 5 to 10 times higher than a motorway on similar terrain in northern Germany. 

For example, the A20 motorway between Rostock and Szczecin costs about 0,5 mln per kilometer. For the A4 motorway between The Hague and Rotterdam, the costs are about 700 mln for just 7 kms, probably more expensive than the Viaduc de Millau.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Depends how cheap the materials and the land is...

Developing railways and widening highways is hard here because of the high cost of the land.


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## Nephasto (Feb 6, 2004)

Chris1491 said:


> In NL, motorways are extremely expensive, because of all demands from locals and green parties. The price of a motorway in The Netherlands tends to be 5 to 10 times higher than a motorway on similar terrain in northern Germany.
> 
> For example, the A20 motorway between Rostock and Szczecin costs about 0,5 mln per kilometer. For the A4 motorway between The Hague and Rotterdam, the costs are about 700 mln for just 7 kms, probably more expensive than the Viaduc de Millau.



0.5 M € / Km?!? That would be way to cheap.
And 100 M € / Km! Wow.... that is really expensive!


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## Ted Ward (Apr 16, 2005)

They are building an extension to the northern end of the M74 in Scotland it is 5 miles long and estimated to cost £500 million pounds. 

That is almost 100M euro per Km as well.


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## Nephasto (Feb 6, 2004)

^^Is it in the middle of a city or a heavilly urbanized environment?
I guess only that could justify such a cost. But it's still really expensive!


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## tr (May 30, 2004)

I think a regular rail line would be much cheaper than a multi-lane highway. Here's a comparison between HSR and a highway following roughly the same route. 

Taiwan Second National Freeway 

Construction: 1984-2004
Length: 518km (main arterial 432km, branch 86km)
Interchanges: 57
Service areas: 7
Lanes: 6 

Cost: *US$9.52 billion*
Roadwork construction projects：$4.5 billion
Bridge construction projects：$3.4 billion
Tunnel construction projects：$982 million 
Architecture construction projects：$370 million 

The red line indicates the route of the second freeway.








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Taiwan High Speed Rail

Construction period: 2000 - 2006
Owner: Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation
Network: Taipei to Kaohsiung (345km)
Track construction:
73% viaduct (252km)
18% tunnel (62km)
9% at grade (31km)
Number of stations: 8 
Taipei, Banciao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung
Cost: *US$15 billion*


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## Nephasto (Feb 6, 2004)

^The HSR is much more expensive (44M $/Km) than the freeway (18M $/Km).


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## tr (May 30, 2004)

Nephasto said:


> ^The HSR is much more expensive (44M $/Km) than the freeway (18M $/Km).


Taiwan HSR is 91% viaduct and tunnel. Now, if the same percentage of the highway was elevated differences in cost would be much closer.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

tr said:


> I think a regular rail line would be much cheaper than a multi-lane highway.


You forget the maintenance costs of rail-infra is quite expensive, and there is always a lack of funds, so that has to be heavily subsidized. And there has to be material to travel with. So the costs of a rail line is more than only those two tracks. 

In The Netherlands, a travelled kilometer with the train is about 5 times more expensive than one travelled with a car.

Carowners pay everything by themselfes, but traintravellers don't. 

You can see that back in the budget of transportation ministry; The road network gets only half the funds of Public Transportation, but is used 6 - 7 times heavier than the PT-network.


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## Qaabus (Aug 4, 2006)

A motorway can easily handle 100000 travellers per day. I can't see a railway doing that. The difference in capacity makes roads lots cheaper in travelled kilometer per person.


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## cjav (Jun 24, 2006)

^^ 2000 to 3000 per train.. train every 5 or 10 minutes 

lets take the lowest amounts 2000 x 10 = 20.000 per hour... 

100.000 no problem for an average railway id say..


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## Nephasto (Feb 6, 2004)

tr said:


> Taiwan HSR is 91% viaduct and tunnel.


And that happens for a reason! Exactly because it's a HSL... that's what makes it expensive!


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## Riise (Nov 12, 2006)

Chris1491 said:


> Carowners pay everything by themselfes...


Except the cost of using the motorway/highway/road.



Chris1491 said:


> You can see that back in the budget of transportation ministry; The road network gets only half the funds of Public Transportation, but is used 6 - 7 times heavier than the PT-network.


Maybe in New Zealand but elsewhere...




Qaabus said:


> A motorway can easily handle 100000 travellers per day. I can't see a railway doing that. The difference in capacity makes roads lots cheaper in travelled kilometer per person.


*Maximum Capacity per hour per lane/track.*

Motorway: 4,000 Passengers
4 Car LRT: 22,500 - 26,000
8 Car Heavy Rail: 42,400 - 49,000


*Conclusion*

I think it is safe to say that in most cases a motorway has a cheaper initial, or base cost compared to HSR. In the long run, though, the costs catch up as it is much more expensive to expand and maintain a motorway. To increase the capacity of a motorway you have to build more lanes while with HSR you simply have to increase the frequency of the trains. A motorway with a capacity of 40,000 passengers phpl requires the maintenance of 20 lanes, while an 8 car heavy rail system only has a pair of tracks that requires maintenance. And while an HSR might initially be more expensive than a motorway non-high speed rail might be as cheap, if not cheaper, as well as just as fast, if not faster, than a motorway.


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## tr (May 30, 2004)

Quote:
Originally Posted by tr 
Taiwan HSR is 91% viaduct and tunnel. 



Nephasto said:


> And that happens for a reason! Exactly because it's a HSL... that's what makes it expensive!


A viaduct is not a requirement for a HSL .... hno:


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## ren0312 (Oct 30, 2006)

Chris1491 said:


> You forget the maintenance costs of rail-infra is quite expensive, and there is always a lack of funds, so that has to be heavily subsidized. And there has to be material to travel with. So the costs of a rail line is more than only those two tracks.
> 
> In The Netherlands, a travelled kilometer with the train is about 5 times more expensive than one travelled with a car.
> 
> ...



Well this depends on your ideas about ways of government spending, in my view, the private sector should be the one who build, maintains, and operates the railways and it should not be subsidized by the government in any way, the most the government must do is to build and to maintain the railroad tracks, but the operation of the rolling stock and their maintanance should be left entirely to the private sector.


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## Nephasto (Feb 6, 2004)

tr said:


> Quote:
> Originally Posted by tr
> Taiwan HSR is 91% viaduct and tunnel.
> 
> ...



Not the viaduct in itself, but there is a reason to why they built the most of in a viaduct, and that is because it has to have extremelly large turns and can't go up and down inclined slopes. And for that reason it can't follow the terrain (if it's a difficult terrain), and many tunnels and viaducts are needed.
The geometrical carathteristics of a freeway are much more relaxed, so the problem is much less important.

Also, the HSL has to be built in a much "solid" ground, so if the terrain is very soft, the HSL might have to be build in a viaduct.
This also doesn't happen in a freeway.

This 2 reason help tp explain why the HSL has so much viaducts and tunnels.


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## Cloudship (Jun 8, 2005)

Chris1491 said:


> Carowners pay everything by themselfes, but traintravellers don't.


No, Car owners pay expenses out of pocket. Train traditionally pays through taxes. One way or the other you pay - whether that's by each individual deciding how much they will pay and living with the differences involved in equipment, safety, and control, or by simply paying it from the tax base and standardizing everything, you pay one way or another.


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