China’s High-Speed Train Map Puts U.S. Transportation to Shame | Hacker News Reader

China’s High-Speed Train Map Puts U.S. Transportation to Shame

medium.com

18 pointsjseliger8 comments

"While the United States is busy talking about making itself “great again” by demonizing immigrants and trans people while it continues to decline as a world power, Europe and China are expanding their forward-looking systems of high-quality transportation to position their regions to challenge American power, and prosper in the coming century."

More of that objective and quality journalism. Ignoring the grammatical mistakes, why throw in a silly quip like that? Especially considering that europe and china aren't too fond of "immigrants" or trans people.

You actually raise a good point, for China at least. I would argue that the EU is, generally, more progressive than the US when it comes to immigrants and trans folks.

> I would argue that the EU is, generally, more progressive than the US when it comes to immigrants and trans folks.

Is this is the same EU where people of turkish descent who lived in germany for 3 generations are still not considered german and where european politicians of african descent get bananas thrown at them? Where in europe are trans people treated better than in the US? Or are you talking about generations of north african immigrants who are confined to ghettos in france and who are pretty much barred from any positions of power? Or are you talking about the african immigrants in spain who are pretty much relegated to rummaging through garbage or prostitution? Europe isn't a utopia people love to pretend it is. All the monkey chants and racist vitriol directed at black and asian soccer players at soccer games should make that obvious.

A friend of mine, born in Iran, emigrated to England and got citizenship. A few years later, he emigrated to the US and got American citizenship. Genuinely curious, I asked him why he came to the US once he had EU citizenship. His response: "In Europe, you stay where they put you." Of course, this was 15 years ago. Things can change.

Not a fair comparison. Train is more suited for China since car ownership per capita is lower. Between cars and planes in the US, it’s hard for trains to compete. High car ownership rates in China would be bad for the environment given the large population. So, nice cars in the US, nice trains in China

It’s a fair comparison. Cars are about 3X slower than bullet trains, even when there is no traffic. If SF to LA had a bullet train, it would take less than 2 hr instead of 6 hours. That’s huge difference even if you don’t count for return trip. More cars per capita is due to lack of such train network in first place. If you go to places like Switzerland which is pretty sparse, trains are defacto way to travel even when people could easily buy car if they wanted to. The country heavily invested in public transit resulting in lower cars per capita.

I see your point. However, many things work in small countries like Switzerland where the population is more homogeneous and highly educated wouldn't work in large countries like the US with a more diverse population. Moreover, the tax rate is also quite different. Public transit like trains require tax money. However, car buying is more individual's decision. Unfortunately, raising taxes is quite unpopular in the US.

The US really has no completed high-speed rail. The map for the US should be empty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com