U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has announced a number of new high speed train projects, including a link from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, asking why the US cannot have the sort of rail infrastructure that Japan has.
Buttigieg Announces New High Speed Train Projects, Additional Rail Service
Speaking in Raleigh, North Carolina last week, Buttigieg announced funding for several new and existing routes across the USA:
- Help deliver high-speed rail service in California’s Central Valley
- Create a brand-new high-speed rail corridor between Las Vegas, Nevada, and southern California, serving an estimated 11 million passengers annually
- Make major upgrades to existing conventional rail corridors to better connect Northern Virginia and the Southeast with the Northeast Corridor
- Expand and add frequencies to the Pennsylvania Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
- Extend the Piedmont Corridor in North Carolina north, as part of a higher-speed connection between Raleigh and Richmond, Virginia
- Invest in Chicago Union Station, as an initial step toward future improvements to the critical Midwest corridors hub
- Improve service in Maine, Montana, and Alaska
There are many other projects under consideration as well as part of this latest funding proposal.
Buttigieg was in Japan for the G7 Hiroshima Summit earlier this year, which took place in May 2023, and framed much of his remarks in juxtaposing the USA and Japan:
“You come home thinking, ‘Why can’t we have something like that?’ Especially knowing that they’ve had high-speed rail in some form since the 1960s. And it’s not just Japan, which is famously cutting edge in these regards. In places like North Africa and the Middle East, we’re seeing levels of rail service that are beyond what the U.S. has been able to deliver. So we know we’ve got to change that — and that’s what we’re doing.”
He added that the US should lead in rail, as it once did:
“What’s really exciting for us is that this is a chance to lay out in detail what a future rail network could look like, and put dollars behind developing those routes. The broad vision is to make sure that Americans have excellent choices when it comes to passenger rail travel in a way that we frankly haven’t for, for most of our lifetimes, there was a time when the U.S. led in rail just as we have in aviation and other forms of surface transportation.”
Past high speed rail projects have proved contentious, but Buttigieg thinks this time could be different:
“Giving people an option to go downtown-to-downtown without having to go through airport security, or be behind the wheel of a car is something that, again, when you have a comparable geography in other parts of the world — especially Europe, or Japan — it would be a no-brainer. So let’s make that a no-brainer here.”
I happen to be an advocate for a far vaster rail network in this country, despite our cities and geography being much more spread out than many European and East Asian nations. But if the boondoggle high speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco is any indication, these projects become crippled by cost overruns, environmental impact lawsuits, and eminent domain concerns.
> Read More: How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails
CONCLUSION
The Biden Administration is partially funding a number of new and existing rail projects in an effort to improve the US rail network. While a laudable goal, unless the same snares can be addressed in this next tranche of funding, I fear the money will quickly disappear with little to show for it. Given that those snares as systemic to to the US system, we can marvel at the Japanese and European rail networks all day long, but that won’t create the political force to move beyond the selfish interests that undermine nearly every rail project in the USA or the geography problem that smaller countries do not share.
In the Northeast, if a person is wanting to go from Boston to NYC or DC, how much more likely is that person to take a flight, or even just drive, as opposed to using Amtrak?
Also how is Brightline being received in FL so far?
Living in Boston area, I find myself using mostly the train when I need to go to NYC. I usually have to go to midtown and arriving at Penn Station is quite convenient.
However, sometimes, due to schedule constraints, I have no other choice than to fly into LGA, which can still be competitive with th Acela, despite the unpredictable and lengthy airport transfer to Manhattan.
If the Acela service had a better frequency and was maybe 30 minutes faster than it is currently, it would be a no-brainer.
If the Acela was as fast as a typical European high-speed line, such as Paris-Lyon, it would take just a little more than an hour for Boston-NYC, downtown-to-downtown. Unbeatable. Today it’s almost 4 hours.
Let’s spent a trillion tax dollars on rail!! YES!!!! These far left bone-heads ruining our country.
I would love more trains…but not at the cost of more debt…has to be profitable. How about these moron fix the ATC system first
You want infrastructure without any debt? Right….good luck with that. How would that happen exactly?
Thinking and processing their thoughts and ‘ideas’ aren’t used very often with far right conservatives these days are they?
One purpose of our government is to build infrastructure for the benefit of our society. Unless you want to pay a toll every time you drive/walk/bike the road in front of your house, very, very few infrastructure projects are profitable.
That type of reaction has kept our Nation in the dark ages of transportation and infrastructure. Most of the world’s countries manage it and so can we! Go Pete!
Do you care at all about all the money that’s going to the military-industrial complex?
Probably be cheaper to run buses 24/7 between Vegas and LA.
Didn’t Pothole Pete learn from the $50billion rail debacle in CA?
But we want to make sure that the Californians can get to Las Vegas as fast as possible to gamble. This is a huge boondoggle.
“You come home thinking, ‘Why can’t we have something like that?’
As nice as high speed rail can be, I come home thinking- I know exactly why we don’t have something like that in the US. Pretending that Japan and the US have any geographical similarity is like arguing that a green bean and flat bread pizza are the same shape.
Then there is the issue of money- the Japanese pay more in taxes and way less in military spending. Good luck running for office in the US on a platform of 25% higher taxes and 70% less military funding. And this would have to be sustained for decades.
Better passenger rail in the US would be fantastic, but people need to be realistic about what it takes to get there.
@Mr. Marcus:
I tend to think this is correct. Believe me, if LA had a Metro network like Frankfurt or Tokyo, I’d leave the car at home, but that is not the way we’ve built up the system and we are not about to start over again.
Why it wont happen:
1. Money
2. Imminent Domain Fights
‘Why can’t we have something like that?’
Because Americans, and Americans who vote, are idiots. It’s not complicated.
Read the comments here if you need any more evidence.
Twenty years ago my company worked on a soon to be introduced LA-Las Vegas railway. The government wasted millions back then and I see they’re determined to do so again. But this time it’ll probably be billions.
I give this less chance of ever happening than another supersonic airliner. I work for a railroad. Trust me, it ain’t happening. Pete is delusional and woefully unqualified for his position
But he checked a couple boxes, just like the VP and almost everyone else in that administration. Not a regular white guy who isn’t a tonsil jockey in the entire group.
Ah one of the Biden Regime’s unremarkable gay diversity hires went to Japan and decided that we should have HSR too eh? I am sure that he will tackle it with the same effectiveness and professionalism that the has shown with the rest of his job.
Step 1 – Take long, paid vacation
Step 2 – Do nothing
Step 3 – Congratulate himself for being a stunning and brave gay “man” in modern America.
Perfectly fine to disagree with his accomplishments or lack thereof, but please point to where Buttigieg ever congratulated himself, especially regarding his sexual orientation. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Putting the word “man” in quotes is why people continue to just laugh at bitter and paranoid people.
I’ve worked in transportation engineering in the Baltimore/Washington area for 30+ years. Been part of a few multi-million dollar studies to build high speed rail between the cities. Even in this ultra liberal area they can’t justify it. They can get you from Point A in DC the Point B in Baltimore quickly and efficiently no problem. The problem is getting people to Point A and from Point B to their actual destination. Still quicker, easier and more efficient to just drive.
Also worked a few projects funded by the Obama administration’s for high speed rail. They literally could not find agencies willing to take the money. The definition of high speed rail was re-written to allow the money to be used on local light rail projects instead. I think it ended up being 50mph was “high speed”.
I think we’d have to start our cities from scratch if we really wanted high speed rail to work.
Ding, ding, DING!!! And how much would that cost?
Even more importantly than that, we would have to change American thinking. Driving a car is simply too ingrained in our minds when we want to go somewhere and can’t get there by plane. Trying to build a high-speed railway in the USA is a fool’s dream.
We don’t seem to be a long-term planning nation with grand national ambitions that look multiple decades out. That our biggest publicly-traded businesses have been motivated to become ever more short-term focused is emblematic of a national culture that needs to be examined and challenged if we aren’t going to end up taking a back seat ever sooner to the fascist PRC that we built up and to the increasingly fascist India that we are building up now.
100% agree. This is the biggest existential problem facing the USA.
I’m not sure I agree with you here. Redesign may be necessary for URBAN rail but is frankly irrelevant for inter-city, long haul services. Irrespective of how a city is designed, there is still the major expense bringing a new high speed line into a city (like the HS2 debacle in the UK) or else the new line joins the conventional network several km away from the centre which should be cheaper.
As Brightline West is doing neither of these things at the LA end of the route, I do wonder how successful it will be……
A question that doesn’t often get asked is what happened to the passenger rail network that used to exist in this country? It was vast and certainly rivaled they networks of anywhere else in the world. Why did it fail? Why did it go away? Why did the federal government force what was left into Amtrak?
Now once you answer those questions ask yourself what’s changed? If the elements that drove the old network into extinction are still there why would these new projects succeed?
The failed because of you, lol. Flying killed the train system in the U.S. But that was on long distance networks. The reality is that the NE routes are a success and proven to work – and exactly what is being planned here for other regions. The NE line is also the only reason Amtrak exists. The long distance trains burn money and are nothing more than a vanity project by the government. They should have been scrapped years ago for this new idea.
We got more and more cars and flights to make us get around more flexibly/independently and faster at rather affordable prices. And our lifestyles became “less centered” on city centers and any rail stations in city centers.
The reality is that the NE corridor with Amtrak is a proven success for years (the only thing that keeps Amtrak going really). I would never travel from DC to NYC any other way. Targeted metro area to metro area links (like the Las Vegas to Los Angeles example) makes perfect sense. That drive is horrid with backups at the state line that can often result in hours more than expected. Flying may be cheap but also is delay prone and both airports are awful.
The key to all of this would be to build new stations which mimic airports in a way. Parking, Uber access, rental cars etc. If they use the existing station in LA, as an example it will be doomed to failure.
I do think there would be incredible demand for high-speed rail service between LA and Las Vegas or LA and SF if it truly was fast and convenient. You’re right the drive from SoCal to Vegas is really horrible and a high speed train that could theoretically be built in a somewhat straight line and reach speeds of 400km+/hour could absolutely transform things. If it was just the cost, it would be something to wrestle with, but with all the property rights at play and environmental activists unleashing jihad against any sort of progress, I just don’t see the viability of these projects.
Exactly Matt. This Brightline project is never going to be on time or budget. If it happens at all. They are probaly underestimation the complexity of building an all new track up the Cajon Pass.
For any of this to be near beneficial, it has to be near dense urban areas:
– The east coast corridor (BOS to DC) has a legacy in commuter rail and any improvements are welcomed. I’ve taken Amtrak and Acela numerous occasions in the past. Sure beats sitting in traffic during the holidays.
– Having Chicago as the center of a hub type arrangement (St Louis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee) might work
– Linking SFO to LA to San Diego with a branch to Vegas is very expensive, but governor Gavin Newsom can claim carbon credits.
– Brightline (Orlando, Palm Beach, Ft Lauderdale, & Miami) is a privately funded system. Yet Disney & Universal are carping like Hell for they don’t want a train station with access to their parks. I guess it will cut into their parking lot revenue.
The rule of thumb is 300 miles, any thing more and the tendency is to fly.
To build a better American future, we probably should have been looking at building fast commuter rail networks to big cities where 45 minutes out by road at the most off-peak of times you were basically out into places with lots of land available for building homes or logistics facilities. But waiting and waiting to do this kind of stuff drives up the longer term costs of ever getting there or even never getting there.
Even in say Long Island, I doubt we would have the LIRR developed as it is nowadays if it weren’t for what was already operating 30+ years ago. NIMBY attitudes and ideological opposition to public transportation investments are a very strong headwind in trying to do this stuff, and delaying and underinvesting in this stuff is but a way as to reduce the possibilities to “afford to do it” later.
Err, where are you getting our information? Universal Orlando is not opposed to a nearby train station…they’re actually helping to fund it.
Don’t think I can drop a link here, but you’d find the info with a quick search.
California HSR is THE example of how NOT to implement a HSR system. Sold to California voters as ONLY costing $33B, that cost is already estimated north of $100B. The mountains north of LA were always going to preclude the line truly being HSR. And of course, the politics of the whole project have been horrible. The lead contractor/company with NO experience in HSR was selected over a Spanish company with many years experience in building such projects; rumor has it that the selection was bc the husband of a certain US senator was a board member. The only link that may ever be HSR will be between two small towns in the California central valley. And no one in our Democrat-run government has the backbone to admit that despite being a nice idea, it has been so badly executed that it is time to pull the plug and stop the financial bleeding. And now Mayor Pete wants to throw more $B at the project – amazing!
The alignment goes through Palmdale. It’s not going over the Grapevine, where it’s much steeper. In any case, the goal is travel between SF and LA in under three hours. That’s the key metric (not if one section is high speed and another is not).
Ferrovial-Agroman West, LLC’s parent company is Spanish. How many companies have experience with HSR? Regular railroad? Just wondering.
Private sector HSR projects can work. I have high hopes for Brightline’s Las Vegas-Rancho Cucamonga line, which is almost entirely using highway rights-of-way. I do expect it may open by the time of the LA Olympics in 2028, following on the great success of the company’s new line from Miami to Orlando.
Haven’t Amtrak historically struggled (for political reasons) to get a budget beyond 12 months? I can’t imagine how difficult and inefficient that makes their forward planning for maintenance and new capex.
If anyone thinks the NE train routes are a success they could review another airline blog of today where the author takes an incredibly expensive train trip from DC to NY, is repulsed by the inedible food and, in the comments, even a former AMTRAC employee laments the sad state of US railroads, their food, and AMTRAC in particular.
Only a moron would defend this colossal waste of our tax dollars.
He was using the much slower original Amtrak service that has old sleeper cars, lol. He was not using Acela. Acela is actually a huge success and a great service. No, the stations and lounges are not anything wonderful (but the beauty of the train is showing up a few minutes before so who cares).. But the service is fast, efficient, and beats the hell out of dealing with Airport security, delays, and long schleps out of airports. And the nasty drive on I-95. Have no clue where you are from, but here in DC I assure you when going to PHL or NYC it’s the norm to use Acela and it’s the most efficient service to both.
Acela service and the TSA basically killed off a lot of the demand for DCA-NYC flights. So obviously Amtrak can’t be that bad everywhere.
How would you define “success?” Ridership? Profitability?
Not sure judgments on the state of the American rail system can be taken seriously if they come from someone who can’t even spell Amtrak correctly.
BTW Matthew is right about the LA to Las Vegas corridor. The liberals and environmentalists killed it- that was what my firm discovered twenty years ago.
I was recently having a discussion that touched on how Sweden has such extensive public transit and passenger rail service in a country no more dense than and barely more populated than Minnesota+Wisconsin and yet manages to have a national government budget that supports it despite a big social welfare system with relatively low corporate income taxes, negligible residential property taxes, no big inheritance/estate and gift taxes and much more balanced budgets. Then I looked at what the national subsidy is for those systems in Sweden and realized we can afford it easily too in such parts of the US if only our priorities were different and the lobbying power of the wealthiest Americans was a small fraction of what it is.
How about ya fix the rail lines we have now first…
You should talk to the railroad companies then. Amtrak runs mainly on borrowed track.
As Jan asked earlier, the train DC NYC is most efficient transport in all weather, no matter what train you choose. Boston fly unless bad weather, driving is for holidays. But I will say since the dumpster year of 2020, my friends have started using our mutual driver NYC. Perhaps this was a result of being spoiled from point to point service and the the luxury of bringing stuff. I wish our . country would invest more in trains for connective travel. Many tracks/ right of way are still available and unused.
2020 was a “dumpster fire” year only if you let it. Maybe of us traveled all across the country very cheaply and enjoyed areas we might have never visited like South Dakota.
PHL to LAS was as low as $29 each way in late March 2020 and it was a great memory of walking a closed strip with bicycles riding down it. I know the world is filled with those who now wish they wouldn’t have given in to the fear and just lived their lives.
Hey Dave, I was travelling to Manhattan to see oncologists. No fun for me but I am many were picking up where I left off. ; )
I hate driving and cars but these schemes are not feasible. The US to too big and metro areas are not dense enough. It would be stupid to build a high-speed train from Chicago to Detroit or Indy. By the time you got to the station from where you are in the metro area and then waited for the train to leave and then had to get from downtown Indy to where you are going in the Indy metro area, it would be a total waste of time. You would most likely have to rent a car at your destination. The vast majority of people don’t live downtown. The tickets would be really expensive. Jeb Brooks had a video recently where he to the high-speed train from Osaka to Tokyo. He said it was 319 miles. It was 130.00 dollars one way. Who is going to pay nearly 700 to 800.00 round trip for a family of 3 from Chicago to Indy or Detroit and then have to rent a car? Don’t forget that you have to get to the downtown station from your suburb or Chicago neighborhood. The same could be said about Dallas to Houston or LA to Vegas and LA to SF. It’s faster and easier to drive from Chicago t Indy.
A high-speed train set would be expensive and then add the tracks that have to be grade separated and it would cost too much, It would also disrupt the entire area between the cities with loud noise and take up a lot of space .
Planes don’t disrupt people on the ground nearly as much as a 300-mile train line.
Ask a private company if they will build and operate it. If Vegas to LA is such a great idea let a private company do it. They won’t because it would be too risky and costly.
We have gone all in on cars and planes. Even if our metro areas were better designed around transit, high-speed rail would not be better than planes, cars, and buses in just about all circumstances.
This blog post completely deconstructs why the LA-Vegas Brightline won’t work. TL;DR: it will be slower, more expensive, and less convenient than flying from the multiple airports around LA; and it will end up only a half-hour faster than driving.
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20689
His comments will become abundantly obvious once the federal government finishes it’s program to destroy the fossil fuel industry. From the elimination of ICE cars to “kill-switches” on new automobiles, it does not take a genius to see the logical conclusion. Yes, in an era of cheap personal transportation and abundant gasoline, most people WOULD rather drive to their destination. However once those elements are removed, the train begins to look a lot more attractive. I mean, trains have much less of an impact on the climate. C’mon man!
Repeat after me:
Public infrastructure does not have to be profitable.
It is absolutely astounding how people like you will cry and moan about the cost of transit projects and complain about profitability while enjoying all sorts of public works.
For example, the interstate system would cost over 600 billion dollars to construct today, and that’s not even considering higher wages and stricter regulations. Since they aren’t tolled, that means they have produced zero profit. Why aren’t you crying about what a waste of money those were? Oh wait, guess what, there any many many indirect benefits that the interstate system brought, including indirect economic stimulation.
Airports too are mostly publicly owned the the US. They struggle to make money compared to many European airports, and yet municipalities will keep spending money improving those too.
The government spends millions each year subsidizing essential air services to small towns that would not otherwise have access to air travel. No one bats an eye there.
But as soon as the topic of transit comes up all of a sudden everyone who wouldn’t have said a thing about these other projects come 9ut of the woodwork to start complaining about cost and profitability.
The country is completely built around cars so it is very difficult to build mass transit that would be useful at this point. You need density for transit and even NYC has terrible transit that is slow and not very convenient. I hate cars and driving but it is just easier to drive because of the way we built our housing and businesses. The govt never should have favored the car 100 years ago. It all should have been done privately and then our whole built evirormnet would be different today. Look at how we built towns on the late 1800s and early 1900s.
If someone does not drive (or cannot do so due to medical reasons), they shouldn’t be trapped at home forever or have to move to another country.
For some people already the per mile cost to drive a personal car powered by their solar power arrangement is substantially less than to drive a car running on fuel pumped into the tank at gas stations. If things continue to head in that direction, it seems to me like the relatively well-off with their own space to have their own solar-powered energy supply will increase their driving over what poorer people and people in more dense areas will do.
We aren’t heading away from being a car-centric America anytime soon, and that makes for quite the headwind when it comes to some things. Even if not for that, just look at our tendency to be more short-term focused and the desire for more immediate gratification — that is selling ourselves short longer term.
It is unfortunate that the study required to begin planning high-speed rail from SLC to Las Vegas and Boise to SLC was not funded. Hopefully that will change sometime in the future. The US needs high-speed rail to be competitive in today’s world. And it is good to see Pete Buttigieg working to make it happen.
Why would you want to ruin nature from Bosie to SlC with a ridiculous high-speed rail? Bosie is not an important city.
Almost no HSR lines should be built in the US. There should be no HSR link from Vegas to SlC either.
Historically public transport started in russia under communism as equality
european countries rooted in socialism also have public transport
which comes along with high taxes, extreme regulations which cause high prices in europe, real goverment enforced covid isolation, no amazon(thats actuaaly worth something)
look at the whole package and see if you want it
Amazon is in the EU.
US-EU/Schengen country citizens in line for mega-inheritances down the road have been giving up US citizenship because it’s a long-term money saver for them to avoid the burden of US taxation that would otherwise take more of the money than if they were just European citizens.
It seems like monarchical countries got public transit systems well before the 1900s got hit with Communism.
The NYC Subway system has its historical origins preceding the communist take over of Russia.
Of course, Tom. You’re right. It was Lenin himself, along with Stalin and Marx, who inaugurated the first line of the London Underground in 1863.
You are absolutely correct, public transport is communist, as is all of Europe…
What a nonsensical comment, completely detached from reality.
London, Istanbul, Glasgow, Chicago, and Budapest all had mass transit in the 19th century. Paris, Berlin, New York, and Philadelphia all had it before 1910.
Russia wasn’t communist until 1917, and the Moscow Metro didn’t open until the 1930s.
Perhaps open a book at some point instead of sharing your “alternative facts.”
No comments on the stage photo of Buttigieg? It looks completely Orwellian 1984….
This was taken in the middle of COVID, in February 2021, hence the masks and distancing. It is not at all recent…something the blog would do well to disclose in a caption.
Poor Americans. You don’t get much for your buck these days. Let’s spend the money (endless funding) on building more roads! You get what you vote for silly people.
Let’s tax people so hard and debase our money so badly that they stop having children and empty out almost every city in Japan and leaving a great many totally abandoned . . . gets rid of a lot of traffic. Japan is a broken nation and should be the envy of nobody, even with its high speed trains.
The great reason we don’t have high speed rail in North America is because of … oil! Since it wasn’t mentioned here, I had to chime in – and I’ve studied this topic for many decades.
Although modern city planning in the USA is largely auto-dependent as a result of the freeways and the suburbs, this was not the case up until the 1950s when the passenger and interurban rail systems were quite literally dismantled. Our rail system, especially our passenger rail system, was the envy of the world up to that point, vast and with incredible coverage. Even the Japanese high speed rail system was developed out of an appreciation for the vast American and European rail systems.
One of the reasons Japan uses High Speed Rail, and electric trains in general, is because it also generates most of it’s energy using nuclear powerplants – which provides the perfect energy source for electric trains and electric transportation. This also reduces their reliance on oil, which they have to import and have little of at home.
On the contrary, the United States and North American transportation system now operates almost entirely on oil. Automobiles, trucks, airplanes, and even diesel locomotives, provide our transportation needs. With exception of the recent introduction of Tesla in the automobile space, this has been the case for many decades now. The few electric rail systems such as the NorthEast corridor predate this change – that was developed in the 1930s and was meant to be expanded to far many lines by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The history behind electric railways and electric propulsion – for both rail and also for automobiles – is a fascinating one, as it was effectively interupted by a consortium of oil and automobile interest groups that shaped North American transportation into what it is today, and transferred rail systems into the hands of the government, with it’s ineptitude for getting things built efficiently.
I do believe that High Speed Rail would work in the United States like it does in every other country we see it in, and honestly it’s best used for mid-tier trips, and would usurp those annoying and expensive regional jet flights we all love. You can still have high speed rail and a highly developed automobile infrastructure – Germany is a prime example of this. Until the oil monopoly is addressed, and it probably won’t in our lifetimes, any well built high speed rail is a pipe dream in North America, to the detriment of Americans and Canadians.
As someone who has used rail transportation in Japan, Germany and USA, the Japanese have it right.
They built a holistic mass transit system for the entire country. You can get anywhere in Japan by mass transit. And what makes the mass transit system in Japan so successful, is that they use a single transit payment card, which allows you to move from train, to subway, to bus seamlessly, and effortlessly.
The only exception are true bullet trains, which require a reserved ticket, but transfers to the mass transit system are allowed using the single transit payment card.
And for those trying to compare Japan to the US, yes, geographically they’re different, but the needs are the same. A need to move a massive amount of people on a daily basis in large metro areas.
The US can rebuild our mass transit systems. They’re efficient and effective…adding more roads or lanes to existing highways are not the answer. Look at LA, I-405 has 6 lanes plus HOV in both directions on large swaths of the interstate, it’s still not enough.
We just need to think long term for a solution. Short term fixes is not proper planning.
We’re a vast, empty country. Some regions will benefit from HSR but on a national level it’s a silly idea.
Regional high-speed + regional fast commuter rail could be a real game changer, but they should also plan in interchange points so there is cross-cluster and factor in intermodal connectivity to provide both more national coverage and more local feed. And assuming we are going to get to computer-driven vans/buses, there are going to be more and more ways to get public transit and more rail to work for a higher proportion of Americans in the future than today.
At some point too much waiting and too little investment in long-term planning and in audacious infrastructure development ends up being penny wise but pound foolish. Our housing and local and regional development planning is more on the level of a basket case country than of a developed country.