Overall low population density likely means even with high usage, you’d still be serving fewer people per mile of track than pretty much anywhere in Europe. A mile of HSR has to be more exact and defect free than a mile of road, and costs a hell of a lot more in labor and materials. Then there’s the cost of the land to build it on, because for some reason the existing right of way around interstate highways isn’t available.
I don’t think the U.S. is as perfect of a place for it as you think it is, but god damn I wish we’d at least try.
Spain’s average population density is on par with California. It would rank as the 10th most densely populated state in the US. And it is about the same size as California, too. Its GDP per capita is about one third of the US or California’s, and the whole infrastructure for high speed rail is 100% publicly funded. Private operators pay a fee to use the public tracks.
So yeah, no, that’s no excuse. Even at the state level pretty much any state with significant urban centres could pull this off.
Yeah, the D.C.-Bmore-Philly-NYC-Boston corridor is notorious for the tumbleweeds blowing forlornly down empty main streets at high noon, because of low population. /s
C’mon, that tired, old trope is so busted. Obviously, we build HSR where the people are/want to go, and not where the people aren’t/don’t want to go. The Northeast, the Great Lakes region, the West Coast, the East Coast, the South—all of these regions have the population density for a HSR network.
Much of the Desert Southwest, the Great Plains, the Great Basin, Alaska—we don’t have to criss-cross them with HSR routes to make the map look balanced.
![[image] Sometimes it feels like folks in US would build anything but efficient transit 🤦](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/9fee6912-22f8-44a0-b34c-75dd59e25f54.png){kind=link}
Overall low population density likely means even with high usage, you’d still be serving fewer people per mile of track than pretty much anywhere in Europe. A mile of HSR has to be more exact and defect free than a mile of road, and costs a hell of a lot more in labor and materials. Then there’s the cost of the land to build it on, because for some reason the existing right of way around interstate highways isn’t available.
I don’t think the U.S. is as perfect of a place for it as you think it is, but god damn I wish we’d at least try.
Spain’s average population density is on par with California. It would rank as the 10th most densely populated state in the US. And it is about the same size as California, too. Its GDP per capita is about one third of the US or California’s, and the whole infrastructure for high speed rail is 100% publicly funded. Private operators pay a fee to use the public tracks.
So yeah, no, that’s no excuse. Even at the state level pretty much any state with significant urban centres could pull this off.
Yeah, the D.C.-Bmore-Philly-NYC-Boston corridor is notorious for the tumbleweeds blowing forlornly down empty main streets at high noon, because of low population. /s
C’mon, that tired, old trope is so busted. Obviously, we build HSR where the people are/want to go, and not where the people aren’t/don’t want to go. The Northeast, the Great Lakes region, the West Coast, the East Coast, the South—all of these regions have the population density for a HSR network.
Much of the Desert Southwest, the Great Plains, the Great Basin, Alaska—we don’t have to criss-cross them with HSR routes to make the map look balanced.