zlacker

>>amathe+(OP)
> The fact that it takes six hours to get from Baltimore to Boston, when a faster train can cover the longer distance between Paris and Marseille in four, does not move us to protest the obvious failure of ambition.

Paris > Marseille by train is 3:08, not 4:00.

Nice writup, thanks for sharing.

>>aziazi+K2
3 hours to go 400 miles in France vs 6 hours in the US?

The United States sat out the HSR revolution. China built 26,000 miles in the past 20 years. The US has essentially nothing.

Personally, I think the creation of China’s subway system is even more impressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#:~:text=....

>>mellin+vh
My wife's small hometown (small meaning ~1 million people) in China was served by an HSR station, so we would often take an 8 hour ride on the HSR (on the Beijing - Guangzhou route) to get there. But an airport opened up recently (a decade after the HSR station opened), I think next time we will just take the plane instead given that it is still a very long train ride from Beijing.

I think in the USA, pre-existing airports have reduced demand for HSR. The US has airports in almost every city with more than 500k people, while that is definitely not true in China (even still).

>>seanmc+tq
> small hometown

> ~1 million people

Here I am in a town of 8k thinking it'd be nice if they finally connect these two bike paths.