I totally agree with this assessment. Road building and maintenance has huge costs too, but those come from general revenue in the US so people don’t notice it.

I totally agree with this assessment. Road building and maintenance has huge costs too, but those come from general revenue in the US so people don’t notice it. It was a choice in the US to build the free-to-use interstate system just as it was a choice in Japan to build the shinkansen. The highway system in Japan is not free; it is tolled and it costs roughly the same in tolls for a single person to drive vs use the shinkansen. Local trains in most cities are good too. With these policies, applied over decades, trains became the default mode of transportation. Also, Japan is very mountainous making it probably one of the most expensive countries To build rail in. But it’s a moot point because they managed to build up a national highway system as well as a it national train system, I think proving that it’s a matter of policy and not geography. The other common argument is difference in population density, but this also misses the mark for 2 reasons. First of all, the US had a pretty impressive network of rail before it has an impressive highway system, it’s just mostly used for freight now and policy for public transportation shifted to roads. Second, at least the 2 coasts have high population density more or less covered by a straight line which ought to be well served by fast trains.