this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2026
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China seems to have figured it out in their mountainous regions. Some of the lines are 90% tunnel+raised rails. And as an American we should talk about how China is roughly the same size as America. The excuse well has run dry.
I’m all for high speed rail in the US, but comparing the land area of the two countries is not really that relevant.
China’s network is really focused on about a third of the land area. US could do the same, but the big population hubs are separated and on opposite sides of the country, so it’s less ideal - lot of track to connect the two. It’s like 2-3x the distance to connect LA/NYC vs Chongqing/Shanghai.
China also has 4x the population of the US. So the cost/benefit to build this out is simply much more favorable for china.
Most importantly, China’s autocratic government can clear the red tape to get big projects like this done. Just getting the land rights to build the right track could kill a transcontinental project in the US. But that decision is consolidated in the Chinese government. This cuts time and cost immensely.
None of these points are strong enough to stop the idea of high speed rail in the US. The auto lobby alone does that.
But that's a non issue. If you want to get from LA to NYC, you fly. If you want to get from Chicago to NYC or from LA to San Francisco, you take the HSR... I mean you would if the US had a fully developed transport infrastructure.
I mean sure but it’s the same issue, smaller scale at that point. You slashed the distance, but also the demand.
The big problem is always going to be getting the land anyway
The corridors I mentioned are perfectly fine HSR corridors, the population numbers and distances are great for HSR, perfectly suitable. That is absolutely not the propblem. Developed countries would have already HSR along those corridors, heavily used HSR, that is transformative for the places along it.
The problem is not getting the land, the problem is politics and legislation that is hostile to it and as a consequence it is nigh impossible to get that land for critical infrastructure like that (hostile legislation is also the reason why multiple the times of construction costs have to be paid for non-construction expenses, not even counting land acquisition). Curiously enough it is not impossible to ever widen highways or even build entirely new ones.
Cool cool
Then build a HSR on the east coast and one on the west coast. How about we start with that first?
Then you can worry about the detail that isn’t even that important. Nobody is saying to build HSR coast to coast
Next you are going to tell me it’s not a good solution because of Hawai