Quote:
Originally Posted by vbscript2
The rail explanation is just plain wrong. While the U.S. does have far more domestic air traffic than any other country, the prevalence of domestic air travel in the U.S. has nothing to do with having a 'poor' rail network, but everything to do with the fact that the United States is huge and its population is spread out over most of its area. In terms of population density/distribution, there aren't any otherwise-comparable first-world countries. American cities are an order of magnitude farther apart than, say, European or Japanese cities. The entire country of Japan would fit inside the U.S. state of Montana and any Western or Central European nation would fit inside Texas (and France is the only one that wouldn't fit inside Texas at least twice.) The top 11 U.S. states are all individually larger than the entire U.K. The distance from London to Paris is less than half the distance across the state of Tennessee, which is only the 36th largest state in the U.S. Say what you want about the idea of American exceptionalism, but it is indisputably exceptionally large. Except in the Northeast corridor and along the CA coast, 'high-speed' rail would be useless in the U.S. The population centers are simply too far apart for it to make any sense, especially when we can already travel the same distances with a much cheaper and much faster fleet of jet airliners.
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You made an excellent point about America's vastness.
Using London as an example, you can ride on one HSR train without transferring to another to Brussels and Paris. Brussels is 363 kilometers (or 225 miles) from London, while Paris is 452 kilometers (or 262 miles) from London. Soon you'll be able to ride a HSR train to Cologne, which is 586 kilometers (or 364 miles) from London. To go farther, you'll have to transfer and ride a different train to your destination or to your next transfer station.
The average distance of all the three destinations is 467 kilometers (or 284 miles), which is a greater distance than what you can ride today. Obviously, this is the distance that European nations believe HSR trains are most competitive in the market.
How many of America's major metros are closer than 284 miles? First we must answer what population ranks as a major metro. Again, lets average London, Paris, Brussels, and Cologne to find that population. Brussels 2,923,000 + Cologne 3,130,000 + London 13,880,000 + Paris 12,293,000 =
10,742,000.
That's huge, only two metros in America are that large, #1 New York City at 20,092,000 and #2 Los Angeles at 13,262,000 - #3 Chicago comes in at 9,555,000. Let's be generous and more than half that number to 5,000,000 to metros qualify as a major metro area. I'm being arbitrary, but I believe that's being fair in relation to London's city pairs.
Now we can add 6 more metros to the list;
#4 Dallas-Fort Worth 6,954,000,
#5 Houston-Galveston 6,490,000,
#6 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington 6,051,000,
#7 Washington, Arlington-Alexander 6,034,000
#8 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach 5,930,000
#9 Atlanta 5,614,000.
Note: #10 Boston 4,732,000 is well below 5,000,000.
The closest metro to Miami is obviously Atlanta at 663 miles. No
Atlanta to Washington is 639 miles, Atlanta to Chicago is 687 miles, Atlanta to Dallas is 782 miles. No
Washington to Philadelphia is 139 miles. Yes
Philadelphia to New York City is 94 miles. Yes
Chicago to New York City is 790 miles. No
Chicago to Philadelphia is 759 miles. No
Chicago to Washington is 696 miles. No
Chicago to Dallas is 926 miles. No
Chicago to Houston is 1,084 miles. No
Chicago to Los Angeles is 2015 miles. No
Dallas to Houston is 239 miles. Yes
Only the bolded city pairs fit our scenario, the others city pairs are much too far apart, all more than twice the 284 miles. The bolded city pairs above have Acela service, or has HSR being studied and planned. Additionally, Los Angeles and San Francisco has HSR under construction.
FYI, San Francisco's metro is ranked #11 with a population of 4,594,000. The distance is 382 miles from Los Angeles, higher than the 284 arrived at earlier and also greater than London to Cologne. It is being built piecemeal anyways. California is stretching the train's distance somewhat from what is most ideal, but only 20 miles farther than London to Cologne - which is probably acceptable.
What you may consider a sufficiently large enough metro capable of supporting multiple HSR trains (at least once per hour) may differ from mine. There are just 9 metros larger than 5,000,000, 14 metros larger than 4,000,000, and 17 larger than 3,000,000. Exclusively falls away below 3,000,000 because there are 31 metros larger than 2,000,000. But you have to draw that line somewhere.
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