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Because highways are simpler systems than trains. You can build them incrementally and don't need to think about timetables. https://twitter.com/yfreemark/status/1252950578130497536
I don't think it's a coincidence that in middle-income Asia, stronger states (China) build more trains than weaker ones (ID, PH, TH...).
The issue isn't safety, it's basic operations. Local notables can't build trains, but they can improve roads. https://twitter.com/FlipperForty/status/1252961807842476033
But anyway, I bring this up mostly to compare authoritarianism in strong states (China) and weak ones (Brazil, Venezuela, Philippines).
Brazil, Venezuela, and PH all have enormous levels of police brutality. Manila police are preventing slum dwellers from getting food.
China doesn't. Instead, it has organized repression: concentration camps, targeted arrests, WeChat bans, disappearances.
I bring up the strong vs. weak state issue because it also applies to democracies, e.g. the US is the 1st world's police brutality capital.
I'm not asserting a causal link between auto-centric planning and police brutality, but I do think both come from state weakness.
A strong democratic state can say, the train will go here, we have longstanding legal mechanisms for just compensation, etc.
It can say, we'll optimize construction to minimize cost and maximize usage, because we don't want to waste taxpayers' money.
It doesn't need a million veto points, because no partisan, class-based, or regional interest group can ever hope to get a majority.
It doesn't need adversarial legalism, because the ombudsman, regulators, unions, etc. provide protection from state or business predation.
Such a state will probably have a good rail network, because if you plan things well trains really aren't expensive. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/04/21/speed-zones-on-railroads/
For the same reason, such a state will have cops who fatally shoot 15 people a year in a country of 66 million, not 1,100/330 million.
Even if it's autocratic, like SG, it will have low brutality. And at VZ rates China would've shot 1,300 Hongkongers. https://twitter.com/raagagrawal/status/1252964396353159168
French cops aren't any less racist than American ones, they're just more professionally managed.
Same thing goes for schools: Germany and the US both chose inequality, but German Gymnasiums >> amateur-overseen US middle-class schools.
A stronger state is more efficient, and if is authoritarian it'll be more efficient at repression - just ask the Uighurs.
And if it is democratic, a stronger state is better at providing high-quality public services and protecting civil and property rights. /end
