How does building rails compare to widening freeways?
Cost of building one mile of High Speed Rail Line: $60m
This example is based on the cost of widening the I-5 in Southern California (North of San Diego), adding 4 extra lanes in each direction – that’s an extra 8,000-vehicle capacity, or 10,000 people in each direction. While actual costs vary, widening freeways is in general very expensive as the most congested sections are located in urban areas.
High Speed Rail carries about the same number of people (up to 10,000 and more in each direction), at much higher speeds.
