Why the US Has No High-Speed Rail | Hacker News Reader

Why the US Has No High-Speed Rail

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Personally, I would love to use high speed rail. Between the crappy airlines and the TSA and horrendous traffic on the roads (I live in California) high speed rail seems very attractive. As a taxpayer in California, I am seriously concerned about the costs. Too bad we didn’t invest in building this network before when things were maybe cheaper to build with less red tape. All things considered though, high speed rail is one thing that seems like it woood be a huge benefit to California, and I would be happy to have tax dollars go to that rather than to some of the other nonsense we spent insane amounts of money on. At least we get something out of this.

Of course you're assuming that TSA won't be involved with rail travel if it became more popular.

Why should it be?

The primary impetus for modern TSA was a group that figured out modern jets were useful weapons if diverted off course. While train diversions are still dangerous and catastrophes, they are nowhere near the same level of useful weapon in the hands of terrorists.

The primary impetus for the TSA was that people were afraid and it made them feel safer. The TSA actually accomplishes virtually nothing to prevent hijacking compared with the addition of armored cockpit doors and cockpit approach monitoring procedures.

The TSA does theoretically screen for bad actors and explosives, both of which are still relevant to rail travel, even if they're potentially less threatening there.

I thought the purpose of the tsa was to make people feel less safe / have more reminders to fear - thus making people less likely to demand we slash the military / police / other security budgets. I suppose they do add to the expense of moving drugs, and make it harder to move large sums of money - so people who control other routes are able to extract higher prices for them, but I don't think that in of itself actually makes people feel safer.

It's a little surprising that population density isn't mentioned as a major factor in this video. While it doesn't explain the overall cost or cost overruns, it is a major factor in whether rail makes economic sense.

Here's some key statistics:

* US lower 48 states: 40 people per square km (km2)

* California: 92 people/km2

* DC-Boston (this is hand-wavey a bit): 200+ people/km2

* France: 270 people/km2

* Japan: 330 people/km2

* China: 130 people/km2

* Eastern China: 250++ people/km2

Most of the Chinese high speed rail is in the Eastern part of the country where roughly 400M people live. That's more people than the entire US in a space about double the size of California. Likewise Japan's high-speed rail links Osaka and Tokyo which are among the most densely populated areas in the world. A high speed rail trip between SF and LA could be free and you still couldn't have a remotely full train leave every 10 minutes like you do in Japan.

The Amtrak lines that make the most sense are the shorter length ones that connect cities. The video sort of mentions this and that is in line with the Brookings Institution[1] findings. There's no coincidence that most of these lines operate in some of the most densely populated areas in the US[2] (So. California, Northeast). The goal of transit isn't strictly to turn a profit and highways don't turn a profit either. It has other goals like replacing car trips and alleviating congestion but all of these require people to actually ride. To get riders, trains need to operate where people are.

Long story short, there are some areas where high speed rail makes sense in the US but the US simply doesn't need as much high speed rail as China does.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/passeng...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...

Always the same story. When it comes to cell networks or whatever, population density blah blah. Sure, it's a factor, but it's hardly the whole story.

If you count about 140 mph as high speed train, Finland (pop. density 17/km^2) and Sweden (22/km^2) seem to be doing just fine. (Those countries also manage to provide pretty comprehensive and cheap 4G coverage (with unmetered data!) and cheap gigabit class fiber internet, but that's another story.)

The reason U.S. is like it is has only to do with path dependency. How things slowly shaped over time. Politics, generic stereotypes and opinions about things. Culture. That's all. U.S. has more than enough population density and wealth to support all those things.

> If you count about 140 mph as high speed train, Finland (pop. density 17/km^2) and Sweden (22/km^2) seem to be doing just fine.

Citing the population density of Finland and Sweden as a whole is pretty disingenuous. Those two countries have densely populated urban centers in the south with high speed rail yet vast sparsely populated areas in the north with nothing. High speed rail gets built where it makes sense and no amount of hand waving is going to make building a high speed rail line from LA to Chicago or New York viable. With that said, I will agree that politics and culture are certainly factors.

> Citing the population density of Finland and Sweden as a whole is pretty disingenuous.

Yet it's perfectly fine when it comes to US? US has densely populated coasts with some smaller density concentrations on the eastern half. So why the coasts don't sport high-speed rail?

I wrote that "there are some areas where high speed rail makes sense in the US" and I think that answers your question of "why the coasts don't sport high-speed rail". Specifically I cited the lower 48 density, not the US as a whole (including Alaska would be irrelevant), and I broke out California and the Northeast to show that they are more favorable to rail. I also mentioned that the Amtrak lines in Southern California and the Northeast make sense. Parts of the coasts do support high speed rail and as the video mentions, the coastal areas (California, Northeast, Florida, and even densely populated areas of Texas if you count the Gulf Coast) are building it albeit slower than many people would like.

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