I'm fascinated by the argument here. It's a failure because it loses money and connects lower-traffic cities. Can you see past the tip of your nose there?<p>When traffic is low is the perfect time to build capacity. Everything is cheaper and easier to do in a bare field rather than trying to carve an opening in the middle of an already-bustling metropolis, and you end up with fewer design compromises as a result.<p>There's also a huge "build it and they will come" angle here. Replacing a 10-hour conventional rail journey with a 3-hour HSR one makes these cities viable for new audiences-- the remote-worker occasional commuter, the shift worker who might spend several days at the office and then return home on weekends.<p>It also makes sense when dovetailed with a government that has more economic planning controls than most Western nations-- they can target development efforts in these cities to create the demand base after the rails are built.