> Sure, spending more on transit is a good idea, but it's not the tech companies' fault that it's perennially underfunded

I think your overall point is relatively sound but that example is just terrible...

Elon Musk has repeatedly lobbied against transit expansion and his Hyperloop pitch arguably derailed HSR talks in California for half a decade while the Las Vegas teslertube prevented the expansion of a monorail to actually service the strip airport corridor.

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TulliusCicero a day ago | parent | next [-]

I'll grant you Musk being terrible, no argument there, but that's not tech companies as a whole.

And California hardly needed any help to sabotage its HSR, the state's whole process for that kind of development is incredibly backwards and broken, sadly.

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nemomarx a day ago | parent [-]

it's not really tech companies fault on this either but it sucks to see large amounts of investor money going to them when it could go to solving the issue more efficiently.

(although obviously it would be less profitable for the investors so it won't happen)

I think thats the core frustration

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s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-]

It all depends on the counterfactual. Could the money solve the problem, if the issues with transportation arent funding?

It seems like an institutionally made black hole that will simply consume anything put into it. I dont think flooding it with more money will fix that problem.

Investors have poured about 10 billion into waymo prior to 2026. That could only have paid for about 5 to 7 miles of urban light rail given recent project costs in Seattle, San Francisco, or New York.

And that's if you completely ignore the challenge around who has the money and assume the state can just collect extra taxes without discontent or impacts

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inigyou a day ago | parent [-]

What if investors poured 9 billion into making light rail cheaper, and then 1 billion into light rail? Where would we be then? Other countries don't spend 2 billion dollars a mile. Hire the best engineers from Europe and Asia.

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s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | next [-]

Like the sibling said, It is mostly legal and political gridlock, not engineering.

They would have to put that 9 billion into a political takeover of the US government, a major rewriting of environmental and property laws, and silencing/steamrolling opposing interest groups.

This is a pretty tall order.

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inigyou a day ago | parent [-]

They managed it for AI. How much did it cost for AI?

	▲	s1artibartfast a day ago \| parent [-]
		Humm, interesting idea to compare and contrast the two changes? I dont think AI cost much at all because politicians were largely supportive to begin with, and the legal changes were small if any. It would be different if you had to replace them all or change their mind on a deeply held issue.

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my123 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

A big chunk of the problem is planning/political:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_(Maryland)

> A March 2025 report by the Maryland comptroller's office found that permitting and legal fees for the project, originally budgeted at $6 million, had actually consumed roughly $800 million, thanks to two lawsuits and the contract renegotiations

Better tech cannot solve that on its own, the problem is not even there.

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inigyou a day ago | parent [-]

That's still only 3% of the money per track length that we're talking about here.

	▲	tetromino_ 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My guess is that the indirect impact might have been in the tens of %. One of the biggest (if not the biggest) reasons for enormous construction costs is delays which make an efficient construction timetable impossible, and two lawsuits of course result in a long and enormously unpredictable delay.

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inigyou a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Since the Hyperloop time, China built an entire HSR network starting from nothing. Since the Hyperloop.

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peter_stokes a day ago | parent | prev [-]

HSR derailed itself. CA takes 95% of the blame

agreed on the LV monorail though