> Rail is incredibly efficient If you have the density to justify it. There is a case to be made for enhancing rail transit in the eastern seaboard and maybe

> Rail is incredibly efficient If you have the density to justify it. There is a case to be made for enhancing rail transit in the eastern seaboard and maybe parts of the Midwest, but America is too large and sparse to justify rail transit at scale. It makes more sense to concentrate on rail infra for freight transit and work on revamping our existing rail freight infra. > there's a reason China has been building high speed rail as fast as it can China stopped subsidizing HSR during the COVID recession. It costs the exact same as a flight ticket now [0] due to high debt [1] (excluding the Beijing-Shanghai track, which actually can justify usage). Most Chinese use normal rail for intercity transit, but this is easier to justify given the density and ease of land acquisition. But even then, China began slowing down railway investment and construction since 2018 [2][3], and started calibrating towards air transit [4] as part of a commercial aviation push [5] [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/china-bullet-trains-ticket-prices.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/china-bullet-tra... [1] - https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-01-29/zhao-jian-whats-not-great-about-chinas-high-speed-rail-the-debt-101375797.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-01-29/zhao-jian-whats-not-... [2] - https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-01-02/china-railway-corp-slows-spending-on-rail-projects-101192400.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2018-01-02/china-railway-corp-s... [3] - https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-03-30/china-looks-to-slow-growth-of-money-losing-high-speed-rail-101682703.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-03-30/china-looks-to-slow-... [4] - https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-03-25/smaller-cities-reach-for-the-sky-with-new-airport-construction-101680466.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-03-25/smaller-cities-reach... [5] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/comac-jets-vietnam-show-chinas-push-international-market-2025-01-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/comac-jet...