I’m firmly in the camp of “if you build it, they will come”. Intercity rail in the northeast corridor has been a huge success, generating profits to fund the rest of the system. It’s somewhat self-reinforcing: most of Amtrak is impractical, inconvenient, useless so of course no one will use it. But NEC, especially Acela, proves that people will use intercity rail if it’s actually useful. They will prefer it.

Continued investment, continued expansion, will make it available to more people to become a primary means of transport.

We start with places it will best work where people want it, then connect and expand, take advantage of the network affect. But it’s all politics. Politicians need to make it happen. We don’t actually need more money but the wisdom to rebalance the excess car transportation investments