The US has optimised its rail network for freight. By modal share, the US ships 44% of its freight by rail. France, the subject of this article, ships only 15

The US has optimised its rail network for freight. By modal share, the US ships 44% of its freight by rail. France, the subject of this article, ships only 15% I would argue that rail is better optimised for freight than passengers. Building rail to send huge amounts of heavy freight at relatively slow speeds is very cheap, and removes a lot of trucks. Building HSR is very expensive, and the network would need to be duplicated since none of the existing tracks could be used. People who comment on these articles base their opinion on ideals, rather than facts. I'd suggest that few people have even travelled in Europe by rail, where actually most passengers will go on slower trains which are less expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage#Freight_modal_share_for_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag... Hub-to-hub transport is dying out. Airlines have recognised this, Uber has recognised this, Escooters have recognised this. Spending billions on HSR is a waste of money. Better to invest in autonomous busses and cars, so that for the same number of vehicles on our roads, we can carry 2x the number of passengers, immediately solving congestion with minimal additional infrastructure spend.