[ardecila]

It doesn't matter that land costs will only increase. We need the national political will to build high speed rail, and that means Midwestern, Western, and Southern cities will need to be linked into the Amtrak network with rail service on legacy lines that is far better than the crap they currently receive.

I should point out that, even in boom times, European unemployment is dramatically higher than the US, so there's a lot more political will for big public works projects that directly create jobs. In the US, Americans are more easily able to find private-sector jobs, so the only leverage for transportation improvements is congestion, convenience, and speed.