> The proliferation of high-speed rail creates many opportunities for case studies. Cases in this report represent systems developed in areas with institutional and geographic attributes comparable to the Pacific Northwest. While this objective for research did not preclude study of the Chinese, Japanese, and full European networks, it did lead to the selection of the following cases:
> International
> • The corridor linking Paris, France to Amsterdam in the Netherlands
> • The high-speed rail systems of Spain
> • Taiwan high-speed rail, linking Taipei to Kaohsiung
> United States
> • California, linking San Francisco and Sacramento to Los Angeles and San Diego
> • Texas, from Dallas to Houston
> • Florida, linking Tampa to Orlando and Miami
p. 45:
> The rail corridor linking France, Belgium, and the Netherlands is similar in scale and scope to the project contemplated for the Cascadia corridor in the Pacific Northwest, and includes two national border crossings. The high-speed rail systems of Spain were developed after a market of suppliers had developed endogenously within France, Germany, and Japan, allowing for methods of procurement of international expertise that more likely resemble opportunities today in the U.S. The Taiwan high-speed rail project is a public-private partnership that received bids from consortia representing firms from the U.S. as well as Japan, France, and Germany, for the partial private financing of a project that incorporates real estate development of station areas into its revenue stream.
The rest of the report uses existing research about Japan's Shinkansen rather than conducting new interviews on it. Parts of chapter 2 detail some of the factors distancing Japan's system from a PNW system, such as how Japan's real-estate development and urban rail planning were mostly coterminous, creating systems that were conducive to connecting with high-speed rail, while in the U.S. history went mostly in the opposite direction.
In a subsection titled "Researchers caution against direct comparisons of proposed U.S. high speed lines with existing systems in other countries", pps. 22–23:
> This means that Japan has benefitted from a Century of transit-oriented land use development, in ways that strain comparison with conditions for rail development in the U.S. European high-speed rail lines were designed for metro-to-metro service atop existing and robust national rail networks, which served as meaningful platforms for public transportation agencies to grow and develop services. ... In Japan and China, for example, high-speed rail development began at a time when the air travel market was not as well-developed as it is today in the U.S. Compared to the U.S., there were also greater financial disincentives to owning and operating cars in Japan, China, and Europe, which likely influenced the pace and relative success of rail travel in those parts of the world (Deakin and Pérez Henríquez, 2017; Cervero, 1998).
I'd drop the Netherlands for Turkey, and France for south Korea in a heartbeat if I was in charge. Probably Taiwan for Italy as well.
The above is about building. Once it is built Japan and France have a lot to teach the world about operations.
Have they never heard of a country called Japan?