Partly why this is an apples-oranges comparison is that Italy's federal government stepped in to make it happen (planning, land acquisition, funding, establishing federally-owned corporate structure). In the US, projects like this are governed just as much by states as they are the federal government, and since the 1970s we've had a strong and entrenched culture of not having the federal government step in to exert its will on a system to produce a public good.

There's a reason why Obamacare was so fraught and ultimately led to a political downfall of the democrats: it spit in the face of private and state interests (from their perspective) to undercut what they'd grown to do in the previous 40 years. This good, but ultimately half-hearted measure, is only a fraction of the kind of political willpower needed to transform the federal state into something that can build infrastructure again.

They do spend on these things. The army corp of engineers is planning a 53 billion dollar project for nyc harbor and sea protection to be built in 2030 or so.

US infrastructure is increasingly terrible, true. But high-speed rail isn't probably what I'd point to as the most glaring problem. No doubt the TGV and Shinkansen are impressive, but the longest route in Japan (Tokyo-Aomori) is 675km compared to 4000km from Los Angeles to NYC (assuming you could it make a straight line, which you couldn't). Not to say I wouldn't be delighted to even have service from San Diego to Seattle, a mere 1800km.

Everything east of the Mississippi could be connected by high-speed rail.

Chicago to NYC is about the same distance as Beijing to Shanghai (1200 km), and that only takes 4.5 hours in China.

The fact that HSR doesn't make sense between LA and NYC is no excuse for not building it in the large parts of the country where it makes sense.

yeah exactly, the first benefit of trains is to substitute for short but frequent flights between major cities.

I think of this, every time it takes me more than 4 hours to "fly" 150 miles to the Chicago airport, when you count all of the overhead at the two ends, plus average delays and cancellations.

Actually, I take the intercity bus.

You can just switch trains in Tokyo and continue on to Fukuoka on the Nozomi Shinkansen. That's another 1000km. 8 hours travel time, with a 10 minute layover is quite nice, I've taken most of that ride (Aomori to Hiroshima). That would be like what, Miami to NY? Or Houston to Chicago.

but why would you build such a long route ? just build train along the coast lines should have plenty benefit.

Most US HSR routes are envisioned planned along similar corridors as the EU ones.

DC - Philly- NYC - Boston

SF - LA - SD

Chicago - Detroit - Toronto

Miami - Orlando - Jacksonville

The longest high-speed line is 2,760 km (in China; Beijing to Kunming). I actually don't think an LA to NYC line is _that_ absurd an idea; at 350km/h you'd do it in 11 hours (in practice somewhat more with stops). But east coast and west coast lines would be more plausible.

If you’re going to do HSR you have to think smaller than coast-to-coast. Think of that as the final stretch goal from a well laid out network spanning the places that it makes sense because past a certain distance you’re never going to outcompete airplanes and we have an extensive array of airports all across the country. Even Los Angeles to San Francisco should have been the stretch goal rather than the original goal, with the original goal to build Los Angeles to San Diego, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, then Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and Los Angeles to Bakersfield.

Maybe in parallel you could also: improve the trackways between San Francisco and San Jose, maybe build Sacramento to San Francisco, Sacramento to Stockton (and maybe extend that to San Jose and Fresno, with a San Jose to Santa Cruz stretch goal). Other stretch goals: Sacramento to Redding, Fresno to Bakersfield.

Instead we’re building the Central Valley segment first, in part due to the insistence of the Obama administration when Los Angeles to San Diego would have made way more sense and been up and running and in revenue service sooner.

> Maybe in parallel you could also: improve the trackways between San Francisco and San Jose

They did, sort of, but not to HSR, just by electrification.

https://www.caltrain.com/testing

https://www.caltrain.com/?active_tab=route_map_tab&center=-1...

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/caltrains-switch-to-elec...

https://airqualitynews.com/cars-freight-transport/electrific...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c01096

https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/04/07/caltrain-ridership-in...

I know, but that was outside the specific scope of HSR so I excluded that to keep the discussion focused.

Sorry.

Hakuna matata.

But the thing is, I don't need a train from LA to NYC - I just need one from SEA<-->PDX. Or one from Boise <--> SLC. You could connect key cities within a region and it would be game changing. Living in WA if I had GEG<-->SEA or PSC <--> SEA and GEG<-->PSC - you could completely shift the housing problem etc.

To me, it’s better to compare China with India. Similar populations, yet the effects of different systems of government are extremely obvious.

Both have large populations, but have entirely different histories and cultures and economies.

Thailand, the UK, and Tanzania have similar populations, that does not mean they are useful comparisons. What about Sri Lanka and Australia, or Syria and Taiwan?

The dialectic is only valuable when comparing things that arent the same. the difference in their economy is the point, the difference in their history is how they got here.

They are only similar in size. Do you mean that size is the only factor when doing operating a government ?

Because the only difference between them is their government, not history, not internal differences, or anything else?

> Europe built the completely novel floodgates for Venice

That's wild! How do you convince people in Latvia or Norway that they should help pay for infrastructure like that in Italy?

If Manhattan wants flood gates, NY will have to build them. At some point, they will probably have to because the cost of insurance will exceed the cost of the bonds needed to build.

The European Investment Bank provided €1.5b of funding.¹ EIB decisions don’t generally attract lots of attention from member states other than those concerned, since it is generally understood that the EIB is funding lots of projects in member states simultaneously. Similarly, the budget of the Commission and similar bodies will generally be set in advance, usually with a formal or informal understanding as to the broad distribution of funds between member states that will follow.

In any case, this project seems to me to be no more extraordinary than the redistributive effects of e.g. Medicaid or Pentagon spending, or the construction of Interstates. The Interstates, in the present US political environment, might indeed seem extraordinary; but the question is then not how one convinces people from state A to spend on state B, but how to convince people to make large long-term investments in the first place.

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20130111042126/http://archiviost...

There are typically federal grants for major infrastructure projects. The Hoover Dam, for example, was entirely paid for by federal dollars. Many bridges also have federal backing and the interstate highway system is subsidized. This is because good infrastructure helps increase the GDP and benefits everyone in the country.

Wait, doesn't the US Army Corps of Engineers do some of that sort of thing?

Keep in mind China has construction more than just from population capacity; it's also a shell game for local districts to get taxes and for "investment" by locals who are told it'll always go up, just like the American market.

And then at the top level, China views it as a "make work" project to keep industry going.

well, doesn't trump want to get the US industry going? i see an opportunity there. invest billions into infrastructure and demand local development of technology used for it.

> won’t even contemplate building something similar to protect NYC

Perhaps not as ambitious as a barrier spanning the entrance to NY Harbor (comparable to Venice's system), NYC did build extensive storm surge barriers along the East River:

https://www.nyc.gov/site/escr/about/resiliency-and-flood-pro...

https://www.nyc.gov/site/ddc/about/press-releases/2021/pr-10...