For long distance trains:

While I also love trains and public transit, China is about the same physical size of the US, but has about four times the population, so it's four times denser. Definitely makes trains more appealing for them.

> We’re America. We went to the frickin moon. Defeated the Nazis. Etc. We can build trains.

Absolutely we can build trains. It's not that we're incapable. It's that it's not financially viable based on the usage it'll get.

Again, I'd love better trains in the US, but it doesn't make sense in a lot of cases in the US still due to density and current value props for individuals. If it was valuable, someone would do it.

Now, for intra-city transit, the lack of trains also drives me insane.

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rangestransform 3 days ago | parent [-]

There are already places in the US that can financially justify Japan-tier high speed rail (specifically the northeast corridor), but Connecticut simultaneously wants high speed rail through the coastal towns and opposes the land acquisition required to get adequately straight tracks. If American politics is unable to get out of the way in such a slam-dunk case for rail, what hope is there to bring public transit and urbanism to all of the car-dependent suburbia in the rest of the country?

	▲	fragmede 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'd say the success of Florida's Brightline, from Orlando to Miami, says that it's viable (or that the people in Florida are crazy), especially since it was finished in 2018 and not 1820.