High-speed rail feels like such a red herring for the US (and really any part of the world). You know what's great and costs a fraction of this stuff? Normal tr

High-speed rail feels like such a red herring for the US (and really any part of the world). You know what's great and costs a fraction of this stuff? Normal trains. HSR is not very useful for local commutes cuz if it's going fast there aren't going to be many stops. So just build cheaper intercity networks that bring people where they need to go, and have _lots_ of stops. Successful HSR exists in places like France and Japan because of how urbanism was shaped in those places. Everything is in Paris, so people _have to go to Paris_. So the "every TGV line is to- or from- Paris" serves that purpose. Japan is one-dimensional, so you also only need one HSR line for effect (exageratting a bit). But HSR in both of those countries are extremely expensive, and despite people posting all the "Japan is cool" stuff with people taking the shinkansen every day for work, the reality is more banal (business trips, family vacations, same stuff as what you find with planes). But the big payoffs come from having people be able to rely on trains for more day-to-day stuff. And you solve the last mile problem by just building a train station every mile! And in that case your train really doesn't actually need to go that fast.