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Comment by mattfrommars | Hacker News Reader

People keep on forgetting the immense size of the continental USA.

http://francistapon.com/images/travels/europe/usa/900/TEXAS....

People keep on forgetting the immense density of America across it's East Coast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis

The northeast corridor accounts for 60M(!) people in the United States and yet the rail options are expensive and slow. it still boggles my mind that flying from Boston to NYC was cheaper by flight than train.

While the US is geographically immense, the population is actually concentrated pretty well. Obviously rail doesn't work everywhere but if we had rails serving the Northeast Corridor, Texas (Austin, Dallas, Houston), California Coast (San Diego -> SF) we would have lines serving highly trafficked and dense areas.

That train's as expensive as it is because 54% of people doing rail-or-fly trips between Boston and NYC take the train. It's value pricing.

I mean, China is not small either. In terms of doable, there is still a higher density of wealth per square mile in the U.S., even if the population density is less. But at any rate, you don't need to have the entire country be one high speed rail system. You could connect the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle, including L.A., S.F. and Las Vegas. You could do the same for the East coast. And you could have a Houston, Dallas, Austin circuit, among others. No need to do S.F. to NYC for passenger transport.

The US built a transcontinental railroad in 1869. We built a comprehensive interstate highway system in 30 years.

That argument is bunk.

France has approximately the same population as the Northeast megalopolis (the Boston–Washington Corridor) but the French population is spread out over three times the area.

Why does that matter? Did the immense size of China prevent them from building high speed rail?

Ignoring that for a moment, high speed rail between major cities and population centers is where it would be most beneficial anyway.

The US should take leadership ideas from China? Uh, without trains, how would an average Chinese person travel 100 miles? Sure, something on wooden wheels. That is, notice that China is very short on private cars.

Last I heard, in Belgium or some such, sure, can buy a new car. But it will have to be imported, and the import tariff is 180% of the cost of the car. Now understand why the EU is so big on bicycles and trains?

Yes, the U.S. should start taking ideas from China.

And cars in Belgium aren't 180% of the price in the U.S. (not to mention they're part of the EU so they don't have to import German or French cars). The main difference is that cities are built on a human scale so cars don't fit and aren't a good way to go around, not to mention garages are almost nonexistant and parking is very expensive.

Interesting. Recently I read the 180% number. And that should apply to importing a US car. Yup, I didn't keep a reference.

And the reference neglected to mention that buying cars within the EU would have no import fee.

I can believe the 180% number related to importing an U.S. car, but why would anyone do that? :)

> The US should take leadership ideas from China?

Yes, why not? The USA should take good ideas from anywhere they come from, as should any other country.

> notice that China is very short on private cars.

China has 172 million private cars, is that "very short" on private cars?

The USA has 250 million private cars by comparison.

China will likely exceed the US private car ownership in a few short years, will they still be "very short" on private cars when that happens?

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-automotiv...

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/25/c_135043964.htm

Interesting. Okay, but the more relevant number for mass transportation planning would be the number of cars per, say, 1000 people or 1000 working age people or some such. With that, the US has a lot "more" cars and China is "short" on cars.

Yeah OK you're super special and no one else has the same problems you do. The irony of that considering the title was not missed.

Who cares about chunks of the country nobody lives in?

A high speed rail line to cover the region from LA to the Bay Area or the Eastern Seabord wouldn't be any less a project than when Japan did it. If anything it would be easier since our land isn't all geologically unstable.

...which means more room to put a few railroads in.

Currently in the UK there is talk of a high speed rail link from London to what Londoner's call 'the North'. Many, many houses will have to be demolished to put this line in. The cost of buying those properties - to demolish them - is fairly cost prohibitive, plus people like their homes so it is politically awkward.

Thus population density/country size cuts both ways.

Furthermore, sometimes it can be advantageous to have a longer journey by train than a shorter journey by plane. When I was working in Glasgow I would take the overnight sleeper train, to arrive for the start of the working day having 'slept' on the train. The alternative taxis and planes and hotel stay was a lot more tiring than the train, even with that stop at Crewe where they change the rolling stock around, waking everyone.

It's not just talk, Phase1 has approval and is starting construction now, and Phase2a (to Crewe) will get approval this year, assuming the wheels don't fall off the current govt.

China isn't all that small either

They are just as large, but they have 4x the pop. That helps a lot in more ways than one.

If you adjust the numbers in the graph at the bottom of the article for head of pop in the countries, China's still overshadowing everyone else, but suddenly France, Spain, and Italy tower over the US, and the US is still a flat line at 0.

This "Texas-Europe Size Comparison" fails to include half of Europe.

This is a discussion about high-speed rail, not US geography.

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