Why do we still use concrete and asphalt for our roadways? Why have we not found a better material that is less prone to potholes and always feels smooth to drive on?
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Cost.
Asphalt is insanely cheap and easy to recycle. Enough to be more than cost-competitive with rail per lane-mile. This means that while rail is still less expensive to operate, its infrastructure is more expensive to maintain. Which has pretty profound implications for transport policy, as we have seen over the past century or so.
Personally, I feel like there is something to be said for a civilization that has the confidence to build stuff with the expectation that it can and will be reused and replaced soon. Instead of trying to build something at incredible expense in the hopes that it will last a few hundred years without ever needing maintenance. It’s one of the things that separates the modern age from the middle ages, for example.
Of course you have to actually perform the maintenance. It doesn’t count if you let your roads get all pothole-y and never resurface them. <_<
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