In Brisbane the Queensland tax payer, & many other tax payers via the commonwealth contribution, are paying a large fortune on an under river rail tunnel, so they can spend another fortune subsidising the tickets of public servants who will use it for easy travel to their inner city offices.

I can't imagine a more stupid use of tax payer money, unless it is the hiring of more public servants, & the leasing of more inner city office space to house them.

... unless it is the hiring of more public servants ...
Hasbeen,
there's no shortage of funding to invest in votes, particularly for Labor.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the shift back to urban light rail (400 cities worldwide) and fast intercity rail has been on for 30 years. Seeing that China has stolen a march, even Joe Biden's trying to climb on board by 2035.

Our Brendan O'Reillys particularly hate Canberra light rail, despite its electorate mandate, competent build, and firm popularity. Even now, they run along behind the trams, waving their cost-benefit studies, ordering punters back onto the buses.

... waving their cost-benefit studies...
Steve S,
Well, they can't wave their own can they. They aren't of any benefit themselves !

If the various State Governments in the 19th Century had waited for positive cost-benitit analysis of railways, none would have ever been built.

In SA, conman Keating talked the local political morons into digging up railway lines that would have now been a boom for local tourism. Even suburban trains go in one direction only. The rest is all traffic jams and a busway on concrete tracks that is not used even in the country where it was invented.