It is anticipated that governments ought to invest capital in railways rather than roadways. I firmly oppose on this assertion because roadways are more versatile and require less capital for construction compared to railways.
To commence, putting money on roadways will ensure versatility compared to railways. This means roadways can be used for several purposes like cycling, public buses, and private vehicles, etc. Meanwhile, railway is limited to trains only due to the fact that railway tracks are totally different from other tracks and rails. Therefore, governments must take wise and flexible decisions by investing in land transportation. For example, the Chinese government spent $2 billion for constructing a railway for raising Beijing and Shanghai in 2004. Unfortunately, usage of road vehicles inclined while less than 5% of the public used the railway. As a result, railways were useless due to its limited flexibility.
On top of that, constructing roadways are cheaper and affordable compared to railway tracks. Because railway tracks will not be favorable for the majority of the nations, which requires plane geography, but roadways can be constructed in every geography. For instance, for a mountainous country like Nepal, they have to spend on several technologies to build railways, while for roadways, they can easily use affordable machines and equipment, saving them costs.
To sum up, it would be unfavorable for the governments to spend money on railways rather than road mediums because roadways offer versatility and construction will be cost-friendly. Therefore, I firmly contest the given assertion regarding spending on railway medium.