As the U.S. fantasizes, the rest of the world builds new transport system (2017)

Let me summarize the argumemts here for convenience:<p>- HSR is dumb because it&#x27;s too expensive to build a HSR from coast to coast<p>- HSR is dumb because it&#x27;s slower than flying<p>- HSR is dumb because self-driving cars do everything HSR does, but better<p>- HSR is dumb because electric scooters are much better for getting around town<p>I am wondering what this mythical HSR is, that electric scooters and coast-to-coast flights are somehow both the nails in its coffin. Straw men doesn&#x27;t even begin to describe it!<p>HSR is of course complementary to all of the technologies above. Heaven forfend, though, that we pursue a future transit system in more than one mode at a time...

The article might focus on the US but Canada shouldn&#x27;t be overlooked for its own neglect of high-speed rail. The Toronto-Montreal corridor is a clear candidate for such a service which has been promised onwards of decades now.

As an American that live in France for several years, the high-speed trains were great for certain trips, but they wouldn&#x27;t work in the U.S. because they are not as efficient. By efficiency I mean cost over time. For instance, to go from Paris to Bordeaux by car is about 8 hours, the price of gas is $5&#x2F;gal and all the freeways are toll roads. Total trip would be about the same to fly. To Fly is about $500 for one-hour flight. The train is about 8 hours and $100.<p>In America, gas is $3-4&#x2F;gal, the flight from LA to SF (about 1 hour) is $200. Also, don&#x27;t forget European cities were designed for pedestrians, while in the US, they were built for cars.<p>I would say the most efficient way to travel in France is by train, while in the US, it is by plane.

In 1869, Oakland and Council Bluffs Iowa were joined with a golden spike, completing the Pacific Railroad. From Oakland, it runs Sacramento, Truckee, Reno, Ogden, Cheyenne, Lincoln, and finally Omaha across the Missouri from Council Bluffs. I80 follows the same route today. Not because of travel demand between Oakland and Cheyenne, Wyoming (population 60k).<p>Because of geography.<p>The article asserts France has about 3000km of high speed rail. That will connect Oakland and Council Bluffs, with just enough left over to cross the bay to San Francisco. But not from SF to San Jose.<p>From Council Bluffs to New York, it&#x27;s another 2000km. That&#x27;s all the high speed rail in Germany plus all the high speed rail in Italy (as asserted in the article). In European terms, it&#x27;s like building a high speed rail line from Paris to Moscow. But if the Urals were in between.<p>The US doesn&#x27;t have a national high speed rail <i>network</i> because a <i>national</i> high speed rail network doesn&#x27;t make sense. Between the Canadian and Mexican borders, there are three geographically reasonable rail routes to the Pacific.<p>To the north of the I80 route, there&#x27;s the I90&#x2F;Great Northern route through North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. South of I80 is the I10&#x2F;ATSF route across West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. It is the only all-weather route to the Pacific in the US. The US obtained it via the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. The three routes alone would require the US to build the second largest high speed rail network.<p>Using the US Interstate system as a first approximation, a US network would have about 77,000 km of high speed rail line. 77 Germanies or 26 Frances or 3 Europes. On completion, it would be larger than all currently existing and planned high speed rail.[1]<p>There are places in the US where high speed rail makes some sense. Again, it&#x27;s about geography. Maybe the article&#x27;s DC to Charlotte is one of them...Dallas to San Marcos (population 44,000) probably not.<p>The US is vast. Even at 3x the speed of high speed rail in optimum conditions, most of it is experienced as fly-over states.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_high-speed_railway_lines" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_high-speed_railway_lin...</a>

Also worth noting: where Europe designed their rail system to reduce fatalities by improving control of trains on the track, the US chose to make trains tougher to withstand the completely avoidable accidents.<p>As a result no European train can run on US rails (technical compatibility aside) because trains like HSV are lightweight and do not meet US design rules.

Wendover had a good video about China&#x27;s rail network a while ago. [1]<p>Major points are:<p>1. China is willing to build loves that aren&#x27;t self sustainable - whereas the USA isn&#x27;t (and the US doesn&#x27;t factor in the social benefits)<p>2. China&#x27;s airspace is mostly military - leading to only small flight corridors and therefore significant delays for flights - making trains more reliable<p>3. China is willing to make train lines that make no sense beyond connecting areas that are not as friendly to the government to areas that are in the hope of increasing government support in those areas<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;0JDoll8OEFE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;0JDoll8OEFE</a>

Texas Central is another interesting private initiative: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.texascentral.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.texascentral.com&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;ve never got the importance of HSR for the US. It&#x27;s to sparsely populated. While europe can have trains going from big cities like Berlin to France you&#x27;d have to go from NYC to Chicago, NYC to LA, LA to SF, Chicago to Houston. The routes would be huge. It makes no sense.

One thing high speed rail, or any rail for that matter, requires is dense walkable cities.<p>If the rail link requires driving to the station and renting a car at the destination it&#x27;s not going to be comparable with one where you can walk or take the tram&#x2F;subway to move within the endpoints, and there it loses the appeal of convenience.<p>The best thing that trains offer is direct connection from one city centre to another city centre. These centres need to be such that they have places to go to, reachable by at most public transit and a bit of walking. If they aren&#x27;t then your single train trip effectively becomes three separate trips.

We have $2&#x2F;gallon gas, from massive domestic production (and similar or lower prices for Jet-A). There are traffic congestion reasons for mass transit in cities, but we&#x27;re pretty sorted for inter-city.

I would like to preemptively suggest that the author is focusing on dense areas of the country. He is suggesting high speed rail between Portland-Seattle, Dallas-Houston, NYC-DC, etc. Not Los Angeles-Chicago or DC-Seattle.

This was posted last year: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14678504" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14678504</a>

USA uses fleets of 737s and A320s. The mean distances are right.

Seriously? Author plots kilometers built absolute numbers for China and Italy onto the same graph?<p>Could someone politely inform said author that China is a little bit bigger than Italy.<p>The part about the US needing to wake up rings true though.

High speed rail is a non-starter in the US, except for in certain regions.<p>It&#x27;s 2000 miles from Chicago to LA. Optimistically, if you had a train that averaged 200 miles an hour, it would still take 10 hours. That&#x27;s just not competitive.

Part of me thinks the word &quot;fantasize&quot; in the title is referring to the efforts by Elon Musk with the Boring company, Hyperloop, SpaceX intra-earth travel thus I&#x27;d like to see arguments for why that is when in fact Boring company is making non-stop progress given how busy Musk is and SpaceX constantly advancing the edge of what is possible with space tech, fantasy? Not one bit.

I would prefer to live in the US than any of these countries funding HSR. Electric cars and electric scooters are enough to get around the city and around the state, with flights for anything much longer than that. Autonomous vehicles available via subscription will make that even better.