Yes, they make it work well in China and Europe. China has over four times the US population in roughly the same land area. France has triple Texas's population in a smaller land area. Even metros where it "makes sense" only makes sense for certain areas on certain trips.

The Acela makes sense for business travel from downtown DC to NYC and carries about 8,000 people a day. But from the DC burbs? Maybe to NYC, and that's more about not wanting to drive in NYC. Anywhere else I'd drive or fly.

@SeanTrende Much more than 5% in terms of population, though? There are regional lines that could make a lot of sense even outside the northeast. I mean, don’t cross the country on one, but maybe Houston to Dallas makes sense to prioritize.

@geoffreyvs It's one of the better cases, but the problem is that if you live in Montgomery County it'll probably still make more sense to drive to Dallas than to drive downtown. Unless you put in a lot of stops, in which case it isn't efficient.

@SeanTrende Yes but they had such a great experiencing riding that train from London to Paris on their semester abroad, Sean. How could it fail here?

@emzanotti It’s about 50 miles farther from Paris to London than from Dallas to Houston. And a small body of water in the former instance (and switching the side of the road you drive of) complicates driving. But hey why get in the way of a good narrative.

@SeanTrende I think the fantasy maps of HSR from, like, DC to Denver, are stupid. But there are a bunch of dense regions where plunking down HSR would make sense. SF to Portland is basically the same distance as Beijing to Nanjing; HSR is like 3, 3 1/2 hours between them.

@daveweigel They barely make sense DC to NY or NY to Boston, and those are like the best case scenarios i can @come up with. Maybe LA to SF but we all know how that went.

@SeanTrende Disagree. We just need to make it more efficient and cost effective, ala many other countries.

@SeanTrende But *a lot* of people live in the remaining 5%?

@SeanTrende @bonchieredstate Unless you're traveling on the East Coast from a city center to a city center. Then you can spare yourself some time and hassle.

@SeanTrende Getting from the station to your end destination, even in Europe, is the problem.

@SeanTrende It’s slower and more expensive than flying

@SeanTrende Rumble?

@SeanTrende @ScottWRasmussen Hyperloops. Surface trains have environmental impacts.

@SeanTrende I’ve looked several times....inconvenient departure times, cost more than driving or flying, also cost more. If trains are so great, why couldn’t California even build a modern rail line. (They did not even need to invent...they could have just ordered.)

@SeanTrende @HotlineJosh Passenger rail from Cincinnati -> Columbus-> Cleveland has been my dream since college. Would be perfect for in state students

@SeanTrende High-speed rail, with carshare link-ups in major metro areas, would eliminate the need for extensive air travel on the US. It wouldn’t address the automotive congestion, though, but would be easier to ‘sell’ to Americans.

@SeanTrende I guess that's why 95% of the country travelled by train until the early 50s.

@SeanTrende It's not a stretch to say that the modern Democratic party has optimized it's policy priorities for that other 5% of the country though.