The parts of the country where the high speed rail lines are planned are that dense. Take the I-5 corridor (Vancouver B. C. to Eugene, Oregon), in both Washingt

The parts of the country where the high speed rail lines are planned are that dense. Take the I-5 corridor (Vancouver B. C. to Eugene, Oregon), in both Washington and Oregon something like 80% of the state's population lives within 30 miles of I-5. It's absolutely reasonable to run a real high speed rail link there, Amtrak on those lines gets used pretty heavily, if there were a link that ran on time and took 3 hours to go from Seattle to Eugene it would be used heavily.