Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "Is Indonesia’s China-made railway on track to launch? Jakarta says it’s ‘under control’" video.

Australia is a country almost as big as China, but with only 25 million people. High-speed rail would never pay for itself there. Much better and cheaper to use air and road.
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Well well, eventually they'll get it running, and then 5 years from now everybody will have forgotten those delays. In the long run, the main sticking point will be whether it will be popular with passengers and the line can make some money.
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I don't believe the California high-speed railway project will ever materialize. The route is not convenient for passengers and it doesn't enter main urban centers. It's also questionable that there will ever be enough passengers to support the cost. High-speed rail is for connecting large, urban centers.
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@tylershen Do you think the economic basis is there to build a high-speed line from Sydney to Melbourne? They could stop by Canberra for some more passengers. Considering the high cost of high-speed rail, you really do need a lot of passengers. I agree that high-speed trains are amazing. I have traveled on many here in China. But 'amazing' in itself is no guarantee of profit. Space travel is pretty amazing, but would you pay a million for a ticket from Beijing to Guangzhou?
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@426dfv Airports certainly should only be built if they can pay for themselves. In my country, health care and education is free (covered by taxes), so it is impossible to measure if hospitals, schools and universities pay for themselves since they don't charge money.
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@426dfv Yes, I agree that much infrastructure is not built for profit, but simply to improve society, and hopefully help to grow the economy. However, a society must also evaluate whether any piece of infrastructure is worth the cost. Let's imagine you're in Australia. A 6-lane expressway from Broken Hill to Alice Springs wouldn't make sense, so we're always faced with the decision of whether to spend the money or not. That is the entire basis for my skepticism. Maybe this high-speed railway project in Indonesia will be successful, maybe it won't. Neither you nor I can know for sure.
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"LOL, do you think China build HSR to make direct profit?" Well, I can only say that in Europe our budgets are tight and we cannot afford to throw money away on wasteful prestige projects. Very careful analysis is done to ensure that any major infrastructure project pays itself off later.
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