Currently, a person living in Nagoya, Japan would have a one-way commute to central Tokyo of about 100 minutes. That’s almost too long to live in one city and work in the other. But after the Linear is completed, that commute time drops to 40 minutes each way—much more reasonable. Tokyo-Osaka drops to 67 minutes.
Daily commuting may still be cost-prohibitive, but the distance between business people who want to hold a meeting is basically negligible at that point.
Linking three major cities that are 250 miles apart as the crow flies, with about one hour of commute, and on time. If they can do it in Japan, why can’t we?