I mentioned the Northeast Corridor because it is the most viable location to have passenger rail in the US. But even there presents some issues (which I may not have explained very well in my original post).

I disagree with your assessment because American density is very different than European density. If you look at Google Earth, there is almost continuous suburban development along the entire Northeast route. In Europe, populations are clustered in smaller urban centers. High speed rail can only stop so many times and because of this, it is more difficult for the average American to get to a train station.

This situation is obvious to people who have lived in suburban America but can be surprising to those who have not. Imagine driving up to an hour to a city center, finding a place to long term park your car near the station and then taking a mode of transportation that isn't significantly faster than your car would've been. Then needing to take an expensive taxi once you arrive because your destination city has a limited public transportation system.

Comparing region densities at face value misses the issue, the way cities and regions are designed present unique transit challenges around the world.

American cities are clustered as much as European and there's hardly a good reason why high speed rail is impossible. To the point that there literally is a private company that built a high speed link between Orlando and Miami.

As for the experience of driving to a train station, that's compounded x times by going to an airport.

But in the end the lack of use stems more from discomfort, than anything else. Having high speed connection from Poughkeepsie/Albany to NYC would open up Hudson Valley to commuters decades ago, not a boom of Zoomtowns today (Kingston, NY, Beacon, NY)

The overall infrastructure is crap in US and that is the primary reason for poor use of it. (I mean, FFS, old Tappan Zee Bridge didn't even have pedestrian walkway! While being the only available crossing for miles)

American cities are clustered differently than European ones, it's not something that can be easily quantified, it really takes some time looking at the maps to understand what I am talking about, as it doesn't seem like my explanations are doing the job. Looking at the footprints this way is simplistic but maybe helpful:

https://external-preview.redd.it/W-GAALExjeE8w0aXg7Kh0gOAHcl...

For example, Paris is one of Europe's largest cities and yet it has a footprint comparable to Cleveland, a city with less than 1/5 the population. Meanwhile, the population density of Ohio is over 5 times as high as France.

I never said high speed rail is impossible, just that there are a unique set of challenges in developing such a network in the US. I'm a huge fan of public transportation and HSR, we just need to be realistic and pair it with smart urban/regional development.

High speed rail needs a seed to start growing the network, but as soon as you have that adding other cities becomes increasingly viable. Initially you might build each of these city clusters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis#/media/F... Afterwards, running/maintaining the high rail is more economically viable due to network effects.

High speed rail is roughly double if not triple the speed of the car speed on a speedway, let alone car speed in city.

More importantly, just don't think of city as static, inanimatable object. Many american cities are created because of the rails if you remember the history, High speed rail may not create new cities, but can definitely reshape parts of the city.

Acela's average speed is 82 mph between NYC and Boston. 66 mph between NYC and DC. When you add the time to get to/from the stations my point makes a lot of sense.

If you remember the history, many of the existing rail lines were built before the suburban explosion post WWII. To make Acela go faster, the route would need straighter track which would require buying a lot of expensive, already developed, land.

That’s the basic assumption for any HSR plan. You can’t mingle 160+MPH passenger trains with freight, so you need to buy a lot of land anyway. However, getting out of the urban center at 80+MPH isn’t a major issue and that let’s you avoid buying the most expensive inner city land. Getting off in the center of a city like Penn Station vs Laguardia Airport more than makes up for a few miles of slower speeds especially as these trains take a while to accelerate.

Sounds good. Don’t make us over in California pay for it though.

Why not?

Because we get absolutely no benefit from it. If you want to have a massive government program that primarily benefits 3-4 states, don’t force Californians to shoulder that burden. That’s what state-level taxes are for.

I'm not from the US, so I guess that's why I asked. My country tends to be a tad more social and federalistic.

The US is better compared to the EU than any particular country, both in terms of size, population, and distinct governments.

So this is similar to a train being proposed from Amsterdam to Copenhagen that would be paid for by all of the member countries.