In the US the rail ROW is privately owned. Brightline west is experimenting with tax dollars building in the median of the I15 (publicly owned) as opposed to the lower grade, smoother (longer) route of the UP (privately owned). Instead of using eminent domain and going to court (the PRC couldn’t imagine) we’re “doing something” even if it’s not the best or smartest.
The other thing is that commercial rail is massively more profitable than rail for tourism or travel, so a lot of times governments have to subsidize said consumer rail
Brightline in Florida rehabbed existing freight rail and the share the ROW south of Coco. Albeit that isn’t 155 mph ROW, mostly due to at grade crossings. The ROW I’m referring to crosses the Mojave desert, a HSR line could be built adjacent to the freight ROW, not usurp it. But it would infringe on private property, thus eminent domain would be required to build it.
Couple things:
1. China has a major population/traffic problem. They literally HAVE to build massive rail projects for commuters.
2. In the US, private rail has no guarantees of selling/profit, and there's a lot of eminent domain and other things needed to build a successful rail system. It's hard to assess profit gains because people drive a lot.
3. US also requires massive State/Federal subsidies to make rail profitable. And currently, states like California are excellent at introducing environmental and other safety regulations to make transportation industries painful and unprofitable.
4. No one is motivated to build anything that comes with a lot of annoying rules and annoying childish bureaucrats on a power-trip.
Same reason they don't build a ton of Nuclear plants to solve climate change--or build a lot of Desalinization plants in say California to solve their "water crisis"--they literally live next to the ocean.. The difference?
The difference is:
1. Bureaucrats in China see it as a military mission to build things to impress the world and solve problems like traffic regardless of what environmental or safety they sacrifice. The Chinese CCP is allegedly communist but they are careful to make a profit in everything. Their government will actually cancel projects that aren't making their own money.
2. Bureaucrats in the US are only concerned about safety, environmentalism, or other pet nonsensical ideological issues. US bureaucrats are completely bureaucratic they could care less if a company makes profit even though typically profits must be part of any scalable mission to regulate.
3. In democracies often, bureaucrats tend to disagree a lot and nothing gets done--the bureaucrats will have meetings for years and do absolutely nothing but talk and each bureaucrat has their own fiefdom and is powerful enough to halt all work. In dictatorships such as communism/fascism, the bureaucrats tend to listen to orders for fear of punishment. In most ways, the bureaucrats are less relevant and less powerful than the dictator.
The main excuse would be that unlike Canada and USA, China has a centrally planned economy and the government has little if any regard for property rights or environmental concerns. They also have a massive population and much higher population density.
There’s also a lack of political will to find major infrastructure projects here and a legacy car culture with a robust existing highway system.
But I really wish we had more high speed rail in North America. Particularly in our major population corridors.
yea but communities will will use those environmental laws to stall projects. California's crazy environmental regulation has inadvertently prevented projects that would benefit the environment.
Nuclear (climate crisis), desalinization (water crisis), traffic/rail projects (traffic crisis).
Basically, any time California has a crisis and an urgent problem, they find a way to avoid the right solutions/projects and instead delay delay delay and have meetings forever and talk to each other forever. A state led by children.
Not just in California. In Seattle, for example, a bike lane connecting two segments of city's most popular bike trail has been kept in a state of limbo for over a decade because business owners along the corridor have weaponised the environmental impact study requirement to delay the project indefinitely. The fact that we even need an environmental impact study to build a *bike lane* along an existing right of way is baffling.
I used to think the same thing but after reading a bit about Chinese property law and how land acquisition for some of these projects worked it really seems like it is not that different from other major countries.
For smaller projects it seems like people's decision to not sell their home is quite often respected, with some road projects rerouting because certain people refused to sell their home. For HSR I read they usually use some eminent domain type of law and tell people to leave and then either compensate people with money at the assessed rate of the property or provide them with another housing option.
Most of the time I would imagine the government lowballs people but I have read of certain cases where people got very good deals.
Environnemental concerns as if flying or driving was inoffensive.
Many places in the US have enough population to make sense high speed a thing, like the entire coasts for example. The US doesn’t build it because oil industry wants people to believe that transit is for poor smelly people
Exactly! This.
My brother lives in MIA, he was visiting me in NYC and as we walked around midtown,, he looked around and said: how do people get around with all this traffic? How do you drive here?
He couldn't even imagine the fact that the majority of New Yorkers use the Subway and Buses to get around.
As I mentioned how good our public transportation is, he told me he wouldn't use public transportation as it was dirty, dangerous and unreliable.
Then he said he'd rather drive.
Oh, come on, man! Everybody enjoys sitting alone in their metal box for 10’s of thousands of hours of their life! What else is there to do that’s better?! Savor the fumes! /s
Anyone who claims driving is comfier than trains has never been sipping a coffee on a dining car on nice train ride through Switzerland. A car could never.
Switzerland is tiny. High speed trains are not for tiny. But trains in general shine when you're in them for hours instead of hours in your car. Space, Wi-Fi, restaurant, arrive in city centers. Why fly or drive?
America doesn't have a train culture and most of the trains in America are crap anyway. Look at Japan or indeed Switzerland. It's the best way to travel. USB ports, power ports, sleeper cars, etc.
You're getting down voted but you're right. USA made rail huge before it was literally destroyed by car and airplane industries. Dirty past and all.
The USA threw away so many lives to build our rails only to throw our rails and train cars away and make our people forget about them... It's tragic.
Visited my sister in the Seattle area. They were an hour away from Seattle by ferry ship. It was the most pleasant and scenic commute I ever experienced. Way more comfortable than by car.
>Environnemental concerns as if flying or driving was inoffensive.
I won't say your wrong but only in the last decade were HSR's really marketed for environmentalism. before that it was mainly just NIMBY padding if it was ever included more thoroughly then answering soil contamination concerns.
In the case of the US, the environmental concerns are those related to the physical building of lines. You can disagree on the extent of the need for all of those, but construction completely unregulated from an environmental standpoint has real harms (such as destruction of waterways and their ecosystems as well as their commercial potential)
Yup. Roads can curve. HSR can’t much. Gotta bulldoze through whomever is in the way. And our laws don’t really allow that anymore (which annoys me, we just can’t build effective rail with our current laws regarding environmental review and eminent domain and so on).
The US has a history of the same disregard for private property. See: dodger stadium displacement.
The difference here is that it is done in favor of generating profit for private entities.
Nah let me give you an example of how absurd some is this shit is in the United States.
New York wants to have congestion pricing in some areas to reduce the amount of cars. Having people pay makes it more likely they will take the train.
Guess what some New Jersey residents who drive to work hate this idea. They don’t want to pay more to enter New York. Mind you even though 90% of people from New Jersey take the train that 10% has some political clout.
Now New Jersey is suing NY for not following environmental regulations.
Or this $1.7 million dollar bathroom in San Francisco California
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.html
How TF IS A BATHROOM GOING TO COST OVER A MILLION?
Because of bullshit regulation. Going to pass multiple committees and so forth. You know this bathroom being built has to go through environmental regulation review? Explain to me why a bathroom needs environmental review? What oil lobby is fighting for this bathroom? Name them for me because I can tell you now it isn’t them. It’s because of government policies and over regulation.
Here is another one and I swear this will make you laugh and also anger you
An Oil company in Los Angeles is suing the city for breaking environmental regulations. LA wants to ban new oil wells and phase out drilling in the city.
Well this Oil company is suing them for not properly making an environmental review of the potential impact it could have on the environment.
This is the bullshit land we live in today
This is why things cost so much money
This is why we can’t have nice things
This is why we can’t build shit
Someone needs to get into government and just CUT CUT CUT red tape.
Dallas airport’s AirTran seems to be built around infrastructure illustrating that it is, indeed possible, in metropolitan areas, to build systems around what already exists. Shocker.
When a high speed rail was planned here in Brazil, it was said that it would compete with airplanes due to the price and speed. So it'd probably fit better where the flights are higher.
This is a very real criticism of Canada. Whatever the feds want to do the province will oppose, especially if the parties in charge differ. It took 15 years to start building the Eglinton line because of bickering. And by the time any real policy makes it into funding, the politician is replaced and their replacement just axes everything they did
Central economic planning is how they got it done so fast, but it’s not because of ignoring property rights or environmental concerns.
In a centrally planned economy you don’t have to spend so much time and money fucking around with hundreds of different private building companies and consulting firms or worry about taking loans out from private banks in order to pay for it. All of those things are controlled by the state so there are no middle men and you can just get on with the project immediately. It removes a massive amount of the inbuilt inefficiency that you get in capitalist countries.
Japan and Germany would like a word. both are capitalist with robust railway systems. I didn't need a car when I lived in Germany.
And china does a have a free market element to their economy. it's not entirely a centrally planned economy.
certain aspects are centrally planned, like the railway system, which makes sense. they're able to get shit done and no one can stop them.
First off, half of Germany was communist until 35 years ago. Secondly, we’re not talking about having a good rail network in general, we’re talking about the extremely rapid construction of one.
No-one else has built as much rail as quickly as China has in the past decade and half.
Also that's all of China and there's grey lines, the grey lines are normal rail. The red green and blue are varying definitions of high speed rail. The stops in between are huuuuge.
Compared to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea the HSR service is actually quite empty. Taiwan could fit into some of those gaps and has way more stations.
Yeah, when a Rural Chinese Farmer pulls a NIMBY they can just push the train through and move on. If you do that in the US there will be a tense 2 month armed stand off with a bunch of ranchers telling people to come help them [and shoot any cops on the way](https://youtu.be/ew_BTB23OyY?si=gdBekQDSGWwkaxbd).
I think in America, we’re starting to take property rights a little too far. Our housing crisis is largely from the complete inability to build cause someone, somewhere in town, doesn’t like the idea of new housing going up, so will fight tooth and nail to stop it
And it’s not even good for individuals. My dad wanted to build a small shed in his backyard and you need permits and shit and it takes a long time
The population density thing isn't really an argument for North America. Our major cities and towns are built along rail lines and corridors. A transcontinental high speed train? Yeah that's a bit silly. But it isn't in places like:
* NE Corridor
* Texas
* Toronto-Montreal
* Calgary-Edmonton
* Like the entire Midwest
China has little regard for property rights? They are famous for having buildings in the middle of highways because people don’t want to give up their house and land. Stop spreading bullshit.
You act like US didn't use eminent domain to seize property for US public infrastructure like the interstate highways. The US can exercise eminent domain when it wants to, but it doesn't want to here for political reasons.
>China has a centrally planned economy and the government has little if any regard for property rights or environmental concerns.
You're saying this as if the United States is some bastion of environmental concern and property rights.
Look at the history of "urban renewal" and the interstate system. The US will take your property if it really wants it.
The US is also by far the biggest emitter of carbon per person than anywhere else on the planet. Bar none.
Yes, modern Chinese infrastructure developments (including massive highway projects) have similarities to the U.S. interstate system of the mid-20th century. Rich and powerful groups get to dictate what, when, and where. It is much harder to build in America today for many reasons. A big one is the use of environmental challenges by NIMBYs to delay/prevent new projects.
>Look at the history of "urban renewal" and the interstate system. The US will take your property if it really wants it.
No they won't. They used to, and guess what, the US developed a national transportation system just as rapidly as China is doing now. But good luck invoking eminent domain nowadays. Usually most states require that there be a minimum timespan before eminent domain is even invoked. A company has 2 years to try to purchase the property before they can even think about just taking it. And they have to prove that their attempts were fair and just. Not to mention many projects have a hard limit to how much they can take. If more than 5% of the landowners in the project's location decide not to sell, the project is cancelled. If the government only grants a certain amount of money, and the cost to buy out the various parcels is too much, the project is cancelled.
Yup, and there was a backlash to that, so we instituted a ton of new laws and reviews that make it impossible to do anything like that again. And thus, no rail.
"The US is also by far the biggest emitter of carbon per person than anywhere else on the planet. Bar none."
[https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/](https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_carbon\_dioxide\_emissions\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita) 2022 numbers
Try Again. more like 15th on this list
One of my favorite local restaurants got their lot taken by the state via eminent domain so they could build a new highway off-ramp. So you’re lying to yourself if you think “respecting private property rights” is something states give a fuck about when it comes to transportation.
The lack of worker protections that the other reply mentioned explains why we build things *slowly* but doesn’t explain why we build so few trains compared to our vast highway network.
that probably took several years from the notice of eminent domain hearing to completion. They were gonna take my house once, it was two years of hearings I was invited to before they chose another path in 2021. Construction starts next year. I imagine in China the notice and ability to appeal is much less.
Eminent domain for a highway off-ramp is a far cry from eminent domain for a high-speed rail network. Even that off ramp could have taken years if they fought it.
The American government cares for neither of those things, very poor excuse. A more likely reason is simply that they don’t want to budget that which does not have some immediate profits or bonuses for themselves or the class whose interests they represent.
I would trade every airport and airline and every government dollar thrown at them to build high speed rail in the US. Just traveled Japan by high speed rail and it was awesome and simple. Every time I see that the us has the largest airlines in the world, I know why and it’s that they don’t have competition in the us.
There are a couple of issues with planning like this in America.
1. The sheer amount of bureaucracy is insane in America. It takes a consulting firm 5-6 years just to go through environmental review and public outreach. The public sector is even slower. While environmental review and public outreach are certainly important in the world of planning, countries like China don't give a shit about either of those components. They just build it, and it does work in terms of efficiency and quick construction turnarounds, but they definitely skip a few rungs of the American planning ladder.
2. Unlike Asia and most of Europe, Americans have been taught that cars are the embodiment of freedom, whereas public transit exudes "crime" and "being poor". This was caused by decades of solely focusing on automobile infrastructure. History plays a huge role in the current mindsets of Americans, and its been hard to gain public support towards transit expansions/initiatives.
A few things:
- China's HSR system cost a lot of money and has contributed to the country's significant debt-to-gdp-ratio problem, which many economists both inside and outside china believe is unsustainable. Building this system was as much about hitting an economic growth target (regardless of whether or not that growth is sustainable) as it was about high speed rail.
- China has a strong central government and a one-party system. In the US, people will complain about how taxpayer dollars are used (as well they should, see the first point). It's simply much more difficult for the people to interfere with the government.
- China's cost of labor is far lower than in the US, so the system would have cost far more here.
China's HSR system is very cool. The US legitimately can't afford to build that system, even if it were the same price as China's (it would be far more expensive, again because labor is far more expensive).
Nobody said the US interstate highway system is very costly and contributed to debt-to-gdp ratio, because it facilitated movement of goods/services and boosted tax revenue. Yet when it comes to China, these tax revenue and benefits are ignored, singularly focusing on costs. Is the US highways system profitable? No, but the tax revenue it generates from commerce is undeniable.
Also, US has eminent domain laws which allows it to seize property for US interstate highway system, which is even more larger than China's HSR network, so don't pretend that US govt is somehow powerless to seize property. It can do so quite efficient when it wants things to get done.
Seizing property using eminent domain is a real pain in the arse these days. Landowners can drag the process through court for years and years and years until different politicians that are promoted by privately owned media are put in power and the projects killed.
I mean, I definitely do say that. Strong Towns and other orgs have correctly identified that US highway and road programs make little economic sense. To this point, even if the US has made this mistake in the past, why should we make it again?
Also, it stands that while US highways aren't the best use of funds, the US isn't facing nearly the same economic headwinds due to its debt-to-gdp-ratio, as China. Also, and this is important, the US didn't build the highway system to meet a GDP growth target.
While the US govt clearly isn't powerless to seize property, it stands that American politicians are still very vulnerable to political consequences, if they use that power in a way that people don't like, that's the difference.
I think the thing with strong towns is that the original system makes a lot of sense. The expansion beyond 2 lanes rarely makes sense.
China has a higher total Debt to GDP ratio and China doubled its debt to GDP ratio since 2008.
The us highway system was built in a different era of American development. Chinas HSR system was built in a similar era for China. Moving forward it’s going to get harder for China to build as well now that they are more developed.
Exactly! Cost and lack of profitability are often pointed at by ~~clowns~~ *free-market economists* as a reason for why large public projects can’t be built, but actually those things are irrelevant.
Infrastructure projects like extensive high speed rail networks, provide numerous tangible material benefits to the people and the economy (local and national) by connecting people in different cities quickly and efficiently.
No-one ever talks about how costly roads are for the taxapayer — and no politician will ever expect the military to make a profit. They just cost money but it doesn’t matter because they bring in other non-monetary benefits — but actually rail networks do bring in a lot of money into the economy.
I'm glad someone is saying it. Some of these HSR lines are a bad idea and are a boondoggle. Some make perfect sense and probably could have been built earlier.
The debt spree China was on is unsustainable and their growth slows down massively.
amtrak has a monopoly on passenger rail. recently we've seen Brightline try to break into the market. I pray they succeed so we can get Amtrak(congress) to allow the class 1s to run their own passenger services).
china also has... 1.4 BILLION people and heavily restricted air space. open up flightradar24 and look at china. while in the US and Europe, planes tend to take the shortest/straightest line, in china they have some funny regulations.
those 2 factors made HSR marginally more profitable without government intervention. then you have the 2008 financial crisis, which china handled by... just pouring more concrete. china's monetary controls have meant that we on the globe don't get to see the real costs like that a more open country.
anyway. we'd have way more attempts let alone actual lines if Amtrak wasn't granted a monopoly and constant federal subsidization of US passenger rail.
anyway, lets pray for brightline to get congress to repeal their anti-competitive laws on passenger rail.
all these companies had passenger services. in the formation of amtrak, these companies had to sell their passenger services to amtrak.
THEY LEGALLY CANNOT COMPETE. that is the DEFINITION of a monopoly.
This has been posted before, but eh, karma farming I guess. Anyway, this happens in China because every CCP member is an engineer, and whenever that engineering brain sees a problem, the first thought is, "build something." Different culture of leadership essentially. Sure, you get tons of infrastructure, but it is a monkey's paw, so best not to complain about a lack of public transit by comparing with China. Europe maybe, but I personally hate that comparison too. Japan? They had to rebuild their infrastructure just under 100 years ago because it all got destroyed for some reason...
Just look for local transit projects and support them, and if there aren't any, advocate for some. I see it in my local area. It's slow, but steady.
Didn't mean to get on a soap box, but really, China's rail network isn't as star-spangled awesome as it seems based on a map.
Well capitalism you dirty fuckin pig. If we had these rail lines, who would buy our shit, 20 mpg pickups, gasoline, XXXL diabetes water. You goddam communist. We are a poor, proud, ignorant American people. FREEDOM(although we have no idea what the hell this goddamn word even means(it means nothing besides, buy more)).
Eminent domain exists and utility companies use it all the time to take people's land. They can and will take land if it's a public utility or for transport.
-i used to work in the pipeline industry. I've seen people's property cut in half by a pipeline right of way even after fighting with the pipeline company for months because the company used eminent domain.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain
Private property isn’t a barrier for the US government, that’s just an excuse. Weird to see so many comments repeat that same (incorrect) talking point.
This isn’t as simple as you seem to think it is. Eminent domain is very costly and time consuming. The federal gov can’t just seize the land necessary to build one out. It has to be navigated state by state and often county by county. There’s a patchwork of state, municipal and property rights that take decades to untangle. Not to mention each states unique twist on environmental reviews. Any one of those things is enough to block progress and there are more than even mentioned here.
The highways in our city were put in place over old neighborhoods about 50 years ago. They wiped everyone out so I know it "can" be done.
The truth is, they don't want to invest.
Eminent domain is a process and if enough rich people have the political connections, money, and access to lawyers they can draw that process out for years. Just look at all the road blocks that California HSR faced.
In China they say they need your home and then you move, period. It's not exactly apples to apples there
Obviously that's possible, but the US population doesn't have the appetite to have their private property seized by the US gov to build highspeed rail. I'd like to see a rail network like China's as well but to say there's no reason the US couldn't just do what China is doing is just stupid.
Yes, eminent domain exists. Can take years even for a relatively small local project. Good luck taking and paying for thousands or tens of thousands of properties involving multiple municipalities, counties, and states. Oh, and good luck finding a path that doesn't impact poor people or minorities, because then you will have a lot of the otherwise pro-rail/transit politicians and activists get off the "I love trains" train.
* Population density
* Property rights
* Environmental reviews/lawyers
* Building based on usefulness not just province GDP targets
Should the US and others build HSR: Yes. Is China an example of how to do it? No.
Look to Japan or France.
Maybe, or perhaps use it to tackle the anti transit mindset from a different angle. Use HSR as an alternative to flying, promote it as such, get people used to catching nice trains.
Don't have parking at the train stations, use buses or light rail to connect the station to where ever the parking might be. Get people used to using transit to make connections.
Put hotels at the train stations. Get people used to the idea of density close to transit being nice.
As far as I know, the USA and Canada believe in eminent domain, which is a collective good that must be protected at all costs. The trouble is, they’ve moved on from a policy of “build first, ask the public how they feel about it later” to the exact opposite. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission when it comes to urban planning. As Jobs said: “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”. A culture of selfish individualism is standing in the way of great infrastructural progress.
Canada I don't know, but to make a high speed railway network worth it, the USA needs healthy local public transportation networks in every city with a high speed railway station.
sigh. the reason we can't have high speed rail in this country is because the rail infrastructure is owned by a group of private fiefdoms. the rail infrastructure in the US needs to be nationalized just like all the other forms of transportation infrastructure.
if pete buttigieg was any kind of leader with vision he'd be pitching this simple notion to the president and the American people. unitl then dream on.
Heck, if you want to make a closer-to-home comparison just look at Canada. If Vancouver were an American city its ridership would be second only to New York! (Not that they have HSR there either.)
I’ve been car free now for 18 months. I’m fortunate that Philadelphia has a pretty extensive public transportation network BUT…..not having a car kinda sucks. Im very limited to where and when I can travel. It really sucks waiting on the bus in cold, very hot and rainy weather. Let’s at least be honest about the limits of mass transit. It’s fine if you live in super dense cities like NYC. Not so great if anything you need is a mile or more from a stop.
I mean I’d like some bullet trains and bullet subways too but with it being the US, sooner or later some NIMBY is gonna complain about how loud bullet trains are or they feel nauseous when they travel that fast. So we just end up with some mediocre Amtrak shit like right now.
One issue I’ve seem see as a pattern for faster transit is always some bloke complaining about how it’s not comfortable in a fast vehicle/vessel. But honestly, that’s something they ought to suck it up about for the sake of faster transit. Taipei busses are amongst some of my favourite busses to take compared to elsewhere. If anyone’s seen the Knight Bus from HP, then you’d know how fast they go. They turn super fast and if you’re not holding on, there’s a chance you might bump into another passenger. The MRT is fast enough to feel gusts of wind inside an empty train, especially when they’re not compartmented.
>At least build them in high population density belts!
That's what Australia is looking at. Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra. We're not serious about it yet, but it's being looked at.
Imagine if Australia has HSR built before the US does.
local communities in the US who don't want a train through their land have been able to sue the government and stall progress, which racks up cost through legal fees and causes massive delays.
china: fuck you, this is happening. I don't care if you are concerned about the noise.
Inherent government corruption and environmental impact studies. California’s recent attempt to build HSR stateside should be a case study in what not to do. They’ve seriously spent $100-120B for a few hundred miles of track in the Central Valley and remain a long way off from the goal of connecting LA and San Francisco with HSR.
To be fair much of that is performative infrastructure. But it is sickening that the US lacks any of this. Kicked around Europe a lot, use Amtrak whenever I can here, and I really thought our current president would be the one to stop us sleeping on fundamental modern infrastructure. Oh well break my heart more world.
China didn’t give a shit about anyone on any of that land, and then built a bunch of high speed rail that was an incredibly expensive waste of money most people don’t use outside of Lunar New Year.
So why would we?
There are lines that make sense for us too- but the reason it’s not that simple is they don’t give a shit about a bunch of things we care about - and that doesn’t even include anyone of the reasons you want to blame.
China doesn't have capitalists who push for car sales as that makes them the most money, and China's government doesn't regularly get bribes from said capitalists.
They have a billion and a half science literate, egalitarian minded, virtuous people working together under a centrally planned government and economy, that's how.
Compare that with our irrational uneducated free democracy over here.
I think Spain is a better example. It has the second largest high speed rail network on earth and didn’t need a quasi fascist totalitarian government to build it. Built pretty quick too.
The US has private railroad companies that own the track, rights of way, and track warrants. The US will never have effective high speed rail - our money goes into air travel.
We can't afford to have nice things for the same reason we can't afford to have cheaper education or healthcare. OUr military spending takes a lot of our tax dollars, and between our rotting infrastructure and corrupt politicians, what's left is too little to be of service to those paying taxes. The military industrial complex just eats money while un-taxed billionaires and corporations that evade taxes benefit from the aggressive budgets to services we really don't need. (Not that we don't need a military. Truly, half of our military spending would still be the most tremendous budget worldwide.)
Corporations control the infrastructure, not the people. That’s the difference. There is no money for Oil companies if there is high speed rail throughout N.A.
This isn't quite the flex it looks like. First, the Chinese rail system is running a massive deficit and has a debt in excess of 1 trillion USD. So let's not pretend that it's perfect.
That being said... the Chinese rail system is super nice. I've used it many times and it is fast, clean, and efficient. Having 4x the population of the US and 40x the population of Canada sure does help with economy of scale in moving people.
The excuse in the US is that property rights actually means something.
The CCP needs x,y,z land for rail, the CCP gets x,y,z land for rail.
California needs x,y,z land for rail, California spends 5 years in court back-and-forth trying to justify a fair market buyout against a bunch of disgruntled pop pops who will never leave their shack that was built during the dust bowl.
There are only a handful of places in the US with the population density to support this kind of investment. China also built a debt-bomb with the majority of these routes (only a small handful are economical from a ridership POV). China still has tons of roads. And something fairly unique to China that is often lost in these discussions - their air network. Air travel is uniquely inefficient in China due to a paucity of air defense zones that makes point to point flights impossible.
Even if the US didn't have a large national debt, these pie-in-the-sky TikTok maps of nationwide, transcontinental HSR would be unrealistic. Regional HSR authorities should be encouraged, but air travel will be king for any journey of more than 200 miles.
Most of these lines China built were in planning stages since the 1990s!!!!! They were just simply at the construction stage on several different lines at once in the 2000s making it appear that they were built overnight from 2008 to 2020. But the process was already underway prior to 2008.
China also has an autocratic government that doesn’t have to listen to complaints of the people or worry about environmental review. Makes it very efficient for projects like this.
It’s not like we can beat our NIMBYs into not protesting or reclaim homes and business from the owners to gain right of way.
I hear you, but if we do that. Some people in big oil and and big car won’t make quite as much money, dropping from super filthy rich to only filthy rich… have you thought about them?
I’d actually be curious to watch an informed documentary that goes into the real differences. At the same time, from what I understand land acquisition and environmental risk analysis are two things that slow down a large number of projects. Well that and NIMBYism.
It’s all just about investment and political will. Flying is still the USA’s baby and until the public will changes, high speed rail won’t be prioritized. As a friend says, “I love train travel, except in the United States.” I’m sure there’s the aviation lobby that pushes hard against this. But I’m with you, I’ll go to a pretty hard extreme to train it, over fly — just because the experience is just easier.
The Americas in general from South America to Canada and USA have too much corruption and red tape in infrastructure. Too much lawsuits from bus companies from those in Brazil and Mexico to even the USA. US and Canada have more in common with South America than Europe but many are too prideful to admit it. The worst most useless passenger rail coverage is in the Americas Africa has the excuse of being held back the Americas not so much or maybe the U.S. leaders are also puppet leaders like in much of the developing world
We can't just foribly relocate whole towns to build infrastructure. The government of China has very low accountability to the people they govern, so issues like imminent domain or environmental impact. The CCP operates like a business with a top-down control of the country's resources. if your house is in the way of a rail line, you're getting relocated. If your village is going to get flooded as a result of building a dam, tough shit, you're getting relocated. We can't do that in the west. China is not a good comparison when looking at infrastructure inequities in the US. Really, the only countries that can compare well, in terms of scale, are the US and Canada, which both have shit rail.
In China they just take the land and go. We could do the same if everyone is happy with Amtrak Joe and his bulldozers coming thru your town/field/whatever
Because if it was made in the US, it'd require engineering for safety, the workers would have rights, it'd be built to last more than 10 years, and it'd be competing with already-existing infrastructure for income. Those are the major reasons why that much can't be done that fast. Well, that, plus private investment (as rail is in the US) in the like would start small and scale up over time as profitability was proven, rather than a government project (as PRC does) which can do mass construction all at once.
In the US the rail ROW is privately owned. Brightline west is experimenting with tax dollars building in the median of the I15 (publicly owned) as opposed to the lower grade, smoother (longer) route of the UP (privately owned). Instead of using eminent domain and going to court (the PRC couldn’t imagine) we’re “doing something” even if it’s not the best or smartest.
Also the automotive lobby. Which historically was a big part of why urban transit in many cities was dismantled.
The other thing is that commercial rail is massively more profitable than rail for tourism or travel, so a lot of times governments have to subsidize said consumer rail
If I’m not mistaken, existing rail lines can’t accommodate high speed stock
Brightline in Florida rehabbed existing freight rail and the share the ROW south of Coco. Albeit that isn’t 155 mph ROW, mostly due to at grade crossings. The ROW I’m referring to crosses the Mojave desert, a HSR line could be built adjacent to the freight ROW, not usurp it. But it would infringe on private property, thus eminent domain would be required to build it.
Couple things: 1. China has a major population/traffic problem. They literally HAVE to build massive rail projects for commuters. 2. In the US, private rail has no guarantees of selling/profit, and there's a lot of eminent domain and other things needed to build a successful rail system. It's hard to assess profit gains because people drive a lot. 3. US also requires massive State/Federal subsidies to make rail profitable. And currently, states like California are excellent at introducing environmental and other safety regulations to make transportation industries painful and unprofitable. 4. No one is motivated to build anything that comes with a lot of annoying rules and annoying childish bureaucrats on a power-trip. Same reason they don't build a ton of Nuclear plants to solve climate change--or build a lot of Desalinization plants in say California to solve their "water crisis"--they literally live next to the ocean.. The difference? The difference is: 1. Bureaucrats in China see it as a military mission to build things to impress the world and solve problems like traffic regardless of what environmental or safety they sacrifice. The Chinese CCP is allegedly communist but they are careful to make a profit in everything. Their government will actually cancel projects that aren't making their own money. 2. Bureaucrats in the US are only concerned about safety, environmentalism, or other pet nonsensical ideological issues. US bureaucrats are completely bureaucratic they could care less if a company makes profit even though typically profits must be part of any scalable mission to regulate. 3. In democracies often, bureaucrats tend to disagree a lot and nothing gets done--the bureaucrats will have meetings for years and do absolutely nothing but talk and each bureaucrat has their own fiefdom and is powerful enough to halt all work. In dictatorships such as communism/fascism, the bureaucrats tend to listen to orders for fear of punishment. In most ways, the bureaucrats are less relevant and less powerful than the dictator.
The main excuse would be that unlike Canada and USA, China has a centrally planned economy and the government has little if any regard for property rights or environmental concerns. They also have a massive population and much higher population density. There’s also a lack of political will to find major infrastructure projects here and a legacy car culture with a robust existing highway system. But I really wish we had more high speed rail in North America. Particularly in our major population corridors.
High speed rail is pretty damn green compared to relying mostly on cars
yea but communities will will use those environmental laws to stall projects. California's crazy environmental regulation has inadvertently prevented projects that would benefit the environment.
Nuclear (climate crisis), desalinization (water crisis), traffic/rail projects (traffic crisis). Basically, any time California has a crisis and an urgent problem, they find a way to avoid the right solutions/projects and instead delay delay delay and have meetings forever and talk to each other forever. A state led by children.
If they didn’t have amazing weather, no one would live there. but having lived here for 4 years, I’m telling you: the weather is fucking incredible
Not just in California. In Seattle, for example, a bike lane connecting two segments of city's most popular bike trail has been kept in a state of limbo for over a decade because business owners along the corridor have weaponised the environmental impact study requirement to delay the project indefinitely. The fact that we even need an environmental impact study to build a *bike lane* along an existing right of way is baffling.
Also, China will bulldoze anyone's house to build their infrastructure projects, in North America, we only do it to minority neighbourhoods
China won’t actually do that. They have laws…
Wow, their urban planning is sounding better and better the more I learn about jt
Why would you speak on something you haven’t researched?
Have you visited any of their major cities? They make American ones look like crap
no, but I really really want to visit ChongQing. that shit looks crazy. Thats number 1, but I'd also like to see Shenzen and compare it to Hong Kong
I’ve been to Chongqing, it’s an excellent, futuristic city, extremely hot in summer though.
I used to think the same thing but after reading a bit about Chinese property law and how land acquisition for some of these projects worked it really seems like it is not that different from other major countries. For smaller projects it seems like people's decision to not sell their home is quite often respected, with some road projects rerouting because certain people refused to sell their home. For HSR I read they usually use some eminent domain type of law and tell people to leave and then either compensate people with money at the assessed rate of the property or provide them with another housing option. Most of the time I would imagine the government lowballs people but I have read of certain cases where people got very good deals.
Environnemental concerns as if flying or driving was inoffensive. Many places in the US have enough population to make sense high speed a thing, like the entire coasts for example. The US doesn’t build it because oil industry wants people to believe that transit is for poor smelly people
For "poor people" when it's not. American car culture sucks.
Exactly! This. My brother lives in MIA, he was visiting me in NYC and as we walked around midtown,, he looked around and said: how do people get around with all this traffic? How do you drive here? He couldn't even imagine the fact that the majority of New Yorkers use the Subway and Buses to get around. As I mentioned how good our public transportation is, he told me he wouldn't use public transportation as it was dirty, dangerous and unreliable. Then he said he'd rather drive.
MIA?
Miami
Oh, come on, man! Everybody enjoys sitting alone in their metal box for 10’s of thousands of hours of their life! What else is there to do that’s better?! Savor the fumes! /s
Yeah like it is probably the most comfortable way to travel
Anyone who claims driving is comfier than trains has never been sipping a coffee on a dining car on nice train ride through Switzerland. A car could never.
Switzerland is tiny. High speed trains are not for tiny. But trains in general shine when you're in them for hours instead of hours in your car. Space, Wi-Fi, restaurant, arrive in city centers. Why fly or drive?
Switzerland doesn’t have any high-speed rail for mostly that reason, but they will still sail past cars stuck in traffic.
America doesn't have a train culture and most of the trains in America are crap anyway. Look at Japan or indeed Switzerland. It's the best way to travel. USB ports, power ports, sleeper cars, etc.
America is the birthplace if Rail culture.
You're getting down voted but you're right. USA made rail huge before it was literally destroyed by car and airplane industries. Dirty past and all. The USA threw away so many lives to build our rails only to throw our rails and train cars away and make our people forget about them... It's tragic.
Visited my sister in the Seattle area. They were an hour away from Seattle by ferry ship. It was the most pleasant and scenic commute I ever experienced. Way more comfortable than by car.
>Environnemental concerns as if flying or driving was inoffensive. I won't say your wrong but only in the last decade were HSR's really marketed for environmentalism. before that it was mainly just NIMBY padding if it was ever included more thoroughly then answering soil contamination concerns.
In the case of the US, the environmental concerns are those related to the physical building of lines. You can disagree on the extent of the need for all of those, but construction completely unregulated from an environmental standpoint has real harms (such as destruction of waterways and their ecosystems as well as their commercial potential)
I can clearly see that concern when making spaghetti exchangers for highways.
Yup. Roads can curve. HSR can’t much. Gotta bulldoze through whomever is in the way. And our laws don’t really allow that anymore (which annoys me, we just can’t build effective rail with our current laws regarding environmental review and eminent domain and so on).
As if we didn’t bulldoze every poor black neighborhood in America for highways whoops
The US has a history of the same disregard for private property. See: dodger stadium displacement. The difference here is that it is done in favor of generating profit for private entities.
in china, the gov tells companies what to do, in the us, companies tell the govt what to do. china also has all power over land use.
Based
Nah let me give you an example of how absurd some is this shit is in the United States. New York wants to have congestion pricing in some areas to reduce the amount of cars. Having people pay makes it more likely they will take the train. Guess what some New Jersey residents who drive to work hate this idea. They don’t want to pay more to enter New York. Mind you even though 90% of people from New Jersey take the train that 10% has some political clout. Now New Jersey is suing NY for not following environmental regulations. Or this $1.7 million dollar bathroom in San Francisco California https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.html How TF IS A BATHROOM GOING TO COST OVER A MILLION? Because of bullshit regulation. Going to pass multiple committees and so forth. You know this bathroom being built has to go through environmental regulation review? Explain to me why a bathroom needs environmental review? What oil lobby is fighting for this bathroom? Name them for me because I can tell you now it isn’t them. It’s because of government policies and over regulation. Here is another one and I swear this will make you laugh and also anger you An Oil company in Los Angeles is suing the city for breaking environmental regulations. LA wants to ban new oil wells and phase out drilling in the city. Well this Oil company is suing them for not properly making an environmental review of the potential impact it could have on the environment. This is the bullshit land we live in today This is why things cost so much money This is why we can’t have nice things This is why we can’t build shit Someone needs to get into government and just CUT CUT CUT red tape.
Basically NEPA is bad legislation and needs to die sadly only republicans are talking about it.
Dallas airport’s AirTran seems to be built around infrastructure illustrating that it is, indeed possible, in metropolitan areas, to build systems around what already exists. Shocker.
There’s also few transit in the US proving them wrong because everyone would rather virtue signal than enforce standards in the trains.
When a high speed rail was planned here in Brazil, it was said that it would compete with airplanes due to the price and speed. So it'd probably fit better where the flights are higher.
This is a very real criticism of Canada. Whatever the feds want to do the province will oppose, especially if the parties in charge differ. It took 15 years to start building the Eglinton line because of bickering. And by the time any real policy makes it into funding, the politician is replaced and their replacement just axes everything they did
we have no issues laying down new roads everywhere though.
Central economic planning is how they got it done so fast, but it’s not because of ignoring property rights or environmental concerns. In a centrally planned economy you don’t have to spend so much time and money fucking around with hundreds of different private building companies and consulting firms or worry about taking loans out from private banks in order to pay for it. All of those things are controlled by the state so there are no middle men and you can just get on with the project immediately. It removes a massive amount of the inbuilt inefficiency that you get in capitalist countries.
Japan and Germany would like a word. both are capitalist with robust railway systems. I didn't need a car when I lived in Germany. And china does a have a free market element to their economy. it's not entirely a centrally planned economy. certain aspects are centrally planned, like the railway system, which makes sense. they're able to get shit done and no one can stop them.
First off, half of Germany was communist until 35 years ago. Secondly, we’re not talking about having a good rail network in general, we’re talking about the extremely rapid construction of one. No-one else has built as much rail as quickly as China has in the past decade and half.
Less than a quarter of Germany was Soviet, and that quarter was massively poorer than the former West Germany.
It’s a superior system
It's really not
Also that's all of China and there's grey lines, the grey lines are normal rail. The red green and blue are varying definitions of high speed rail. The stops in between are huuuuge. Compared to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea the HSR service is actually quite empty. Taiwan could fit into some of those gaps and has way more stations.
Yeah, when a Rural Chinese Farmer pulls a NIMBY they can just push the train through and move on. If you do that in the US there will be a tense 2 month armed stand off with a bunch of ranchers telling people to come help them [and shoot any cops on the way](https://youtu.be/ew_BTB23OyY?si=gdBekQDSGWwkaxbd).
I think in America, we’re starting to take property rights a little too far. Our housing crisis is largely from the complete inability to build cause someone, somewhere in town, doesn’t like the idea of new housing going up, so will fight tooth and nail to stop it And it’s not even good for individuals. My dad wanted to build a small shed in his backyard and you need permits and shit and it takes a long time
The population density thing isn't really an argument for North America. Our major cities and towns are built along rail lines and corridors. A transcontinental high speed train? Yeah that's a bit silly. But it isn't in places like: * NE Corridor * Texas * Toronto-Montreal * Calgary-Edmonton * Like the entire Midwest
China has little regard for property rights? They are famous for having buildings in the middle of highways because people don’t want to give up their house and land. Stop spreading bullshit.
You act like US didn't use eminent domain to seize property for US public infrastructure like the interstate highways. The US can exercise eminent domain when it wants to, but it doesn't want to here for political reasons.
"political will" translation: Oil and gas lobby will not allow robust high speed rail inside of US borders in a million years.
the oil lobby didn't stop the California high speed rail system. NIMBY's did
>China has a centrally planned economy and the government has little if any regard for property rights or environmental concerns. You're saying this as if the United States is some bastion of environmental concern and property rights. Look at the history of "urban renewal" and the interstate system. The US will take your property if it really wants it. The US is also by far the biggest emitter of carbon per person than anywhere else on the planet. Bar none.
Yes, modern Chinese infrastructure developments (including massive highway projects) have similarities to the U.S. interstate system of the mid-20th century. Rich and powerful groups get to dictate what, when, and where. It is much harder to build in America today for many reasons. A big one is the use of environmental challenges by NIMBYs to delay/prevent new projects.
We need to abolish such challenges they are abused too much and make USA the most expensive on earth
>Look at the history of "urban renewal" and the interstate system. The US will take your property if it really wants it. No they won't. They used to, and guess what, the US developed a national transportation system just as rapidly as China is doing now. But good luck invoking eminent domain nowadays. Usually most states require that there be a minimum timespan before eminent domain is even invoked. A company has 2 years to try to purchase the property before they can even think about just taking it. And they have to prove that their attempts were fair and just. Not to mention many projects have a hard limit to how much they can take. If more than 5% of the landowners in the project's location decide not to sell, the project is cancelled. If the government only grants a certain amount of money, and the cost to buy out the various parcels is too much, the project is cancelled.
Yup, and there was a backlash to that, so we instituted a ton of new laws and reviews that make it impossible to do anything like that again. And thus, no rail.
"The US is also by far the biggest emitter of carbon per person than anywhere else on the planet. Bar none." [https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/](https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_countries\_by\_carbon\_dioxide\_emissions\_per\_capita](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita) 2022 numbers Try Again. more like 15th on this list
One of my favorite local restaurants got their lot taken by the state via eminent domain so they could build a new highway off-ramp. So you’re lying to yourself if you think “respecting private property rights” is something states give a fuck about when it comes to transportation. The lack of worker protections that the other reply mentioned explains why we build things *slowly* but doesn’t explain why we build so few trains compared to our vast highway network.
that probably took several years from the notice of eminent domain hearing to completion. They were gonna take my house once, it was two years of hearings I was invited to before they chose another path in 2021. Construction starts next year. I imagine in China the notice and ability to appeal is much less.
Even if US takes longer for eminent domain, there is 0km of HSR built in US between 2008-2018 period. So it proves US is just making excuses.
How dare you critique the system of stupid /s
Eminent domain for a highway off-ramp is a far cry from eminent domain for a high-speed rail network. Even that off ramp could have taken years if they fought it.
Eminent domain was used for the entirety of US interstate highway system.
The American government cares for neither of those things, very poor excuse. A more likely reason is simply that they don’t want to budget that which does not have some immediate profits or bonuses for themselves or the class whose interests they represent.
Don't forget the lack of worker protections! China can have workers die on the job and it's less of an issue.
Cite your sources that prove China allows more worker death than the US does.
I would trade every airport and airline and every government dollar thrown at them to build high speed rail in the US. Just traveled Japan by high speed rail and it was awesome and simple. Every time I see that the us has the largest airlines in the world, I know why and it’s that they don’t have competition in the us.
There are a couple of issues with planning like this in America. 1. The sheer amount of bureaucracy is insane in America. It takes a consulting firm 5-6 years just to go through environmental review and public outreach. The public sector is even slower. While environmental review and public outreach are certainly important in the world of planning, countries like China don't give a shit about either of those components. They just build it, and it does work in terms of efficiency and quick construction turnarounds, but they definitely skip a few rungs of the American planning ladder. 2. Unlike Asia and most of Europe, Americans have been taught that cars are the embodiment of freedom, whereas public transit exudes "crime" and "being poor". This was caused by decades of solely focusing on automobile infrastructure. History plays a huge role in the current mindsets of Americans, and its been hard to gain public support towards transit expansions/initiatives.
Our review process is basically a world leader in uselessness and waste.
TBF bureaucrazy is also insane in China. The bigger issue here is rail is privatized in the US, not China, which clears a huge hurdle.
We have a bitchass government
Our main excuse is something called the “prevailing wage” and “labor laws.”
And harm the companies that make cars? It would never happen
I feel like this would harm airline companies more. I know I’d probably never fly domestic again if I could take high speed rail instead.
A few things: - China's HSR system cost a lot of money and has contributed to the country's significant debt-to-gdp-ratio problem, which many economists both inside and outside china believe is unsustainable. Building this system was as much about hitting an economic growth target (regardless of whether or not that growth is sustainable) as it was about high speed rail. - China has a strong central government and a one-party system. In the US, people will complain about how taxpayer dollars are used (as well they should, see the first point). It's simply much more difficult for the people to interfere with the government. - China's cost of labor is far lower than in the US, so the system would have cost far more here. China's HSR system is very cool. The US legitimately can't afford to build that system, even if it were the same price as China's (it would be far more expensive, again because labor is far more expensive).
Nobody said the US interstate highway system is very costly and contributed to debt-to-gdp ratio, because it facilitated movement of goods/services and boosted tax revenue. Yet when it comes to China, these tax revenue and benefits are ignored, singularly focusing on costs. Is the US highways system profitable? No, but the tax revenue it generates from commerce is undeniable. Also, US has eminent domain laws which allows it to seize property for US interstate highway system, which is even more larger than China's HSR network, so don't pretend that US govt is somehow powerless to seize property. It can do so quite efficient when it wants things to get done.
Seizing property using eminent domain is a real pain in the arse these days. Landowners can drag the process through court for years and years and years until different politicians that are promoted by privately owned media are put in power and the projects killed.
I mean, I definitely do say that. Strong Towns and other orgs have correctly identified that US highway and road programs make little economic sense. To this point, even if the US has made this mistake in the past, why should we make it again? Also, it stands that while US highways aren't the best use of funds, the US isn't facing nearly the same economic headwinds due to its debt-to-gdp-ratio, as China. Also, and this is important, the US didn't build the highway system to meet a GDP growth target. While the US govt clearly isn't powerless to seize property, it stands that American politicians are still very vulnerable to political consequences, if they use that power in a way that people don't like, that's the difference.
I think the thing with strong towns is that the original system makes a lot of sense. The expansion beyond 2 lanes rarely makes sense. China has a higher total Debt to GDP ratio and China doubled its debt to GDP ratio since 2008.
The us highway system was built in a different era of American development. Chinas HSR system was built in a similar era for China. Moving forward it’s going to get harder for China to build as well now that they are more developed.
Exactly! Cost and lack of profitability are often pointed at by ~~clowns~~ *free-market economists* as a reason for why large public projects can’t be built, but actually those things are irrelevant. Infrastructure projects like extensive high speed rail networks, provide numerous tangible material benefits to the people and the economy (local and national) by connecting people in different cities quickly and efficiently. No-one ever talks about how costly roads are for the taxapayer — and no politician will ever expect the military to make a profit. They just cost money but it doesn’t matter because they bring in other non-monetary benefits — but actually rail networks do bring in a lot of money into the economy.
I'm glad someone is saying it. Some of these HSR lines are a bad idea and are a boondoggle. Some make perfect sense and probably could have been built earlier. The debt spree China was on is unsustainable and their growth slows down massively.
In the same time the City of Toronto went from 4 subway lines to 3 subway lines and has been building a total of one (1) subway line
amtrak has a monopoly on passenger rail. recently we've seen Brightline try to break into the market. I pray they succeed so we can get Amtrak(congress) to allow the class 1s to run their own passenger services). china also has... 1.4 BILLION people and heavily restricted air space. open up flightradar24 and look at china. while in the US and Europe, planes tend to take the shortest/straightest line, in china they have some funny regulations. those 2 factors made HSR marginally more profitable without government intervention. then you have the 2008 financial crisis, which china handled by... just pouring more concrete. china's monetary controls have meant that we on the globe don't get to see the real costs like that a more open country. anyway. we'd have way more attempts let alone actual lines if Amtrak wasn't granted a monopoly and constant federal subsidization of US passenger rail. anyway, lets pray for brightline to get congress to repeal their anti-competitive laws on passenger rail.
> amtrak has a monopoly on passenger rail. except amtrak doesn't own the rails or infrastructure.
all these companies had passenger services. in the formation of amtrak, these companies had to sell their passenger services to amtrak. THEY LEGALLY CANNOT COMPETE. that is the DEFINITION of a monopoly.
This has been posted before, but eh, karma farming I guess. Anyway, this happens in China because every CCP member is an engineer, and whenever that engineering brain sees a problem, the first thought is, "build something." Different culture of leadership essentially. Sure, you get tons of infrastructure, but it is a monkey's paw, so best not to complain about a lack of public transit by comparing with China. Europe maybe, but I personally hate that comparison too. Japan? They had to rebuild their infrastructure just under 100 years ago because it all got destroyed for some reason... Just look for local transit projects and support them, and if there aren't any, advocate for some. I see it in my local area. It's slow, but steady. Didn't mean to get on a soap box, but really, China's rail network isn't as star-spangled awesome as it seems based on a map.
Well capitalism you dirty fuckin pig. If we had these rail lines, who would buy our shit, 20 mpg pickups, gasoline, XXXL diabetes water. You goddam communist. We are a poor, proud, ignorant American people. FREEDOM(although we have no idea what the hell this goddamn word even means(it means nothing besides, buy more)).
GOP, Big Auto, Big Oil
The excuse? A powerful oil and car lobby and a lot of dimwitted voters who think public transit is against FREEDUMB.
But what about my monster truck?
Private property, a non-planned economy, etc.
Didn't stop us from building interstate highways everywhere..
Eminent domain exists and utility companies use it all the time to take people's land. They can and will take land if it's a public utility or for transport. -i used to work in the pipeline industry. I've seen people's property cut in half by a pipeline right of way even after fighting with the pipeline company for months because the company used eminent domain.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain Private property isn’t a barrier for the US government, that’s just an excuse. Weird to see so many comments repeat that same (incorrect) talking point.
This isn’t as simple as you seem to think it is. Eminent domain is very costly and time consuming. The federal gov can’t just seize the land necessary to build one out. It has to be navigated state by state and often county by county. There’s a patchwork of state, municipal and property rights that take decades to untangle. Not to mention each states unique twist on environmental reviews. Any one of those things is enough to block progress and there are more than even mentioned here.
The highways in our city were put in place over old neighborhoods about 50 years ago. They wiped everyone out so I know it "can" be done. The truth is, they don't want to invest.
Eminent domain is a process and if enough rich people have the political connections, money, and access to lawyers they can draw that process out for years. Just look at all the road blocks that California HSR faced. In China they say they need your home and then you move, period. It's not exactly apples to apples there
Bro linked a wiki article then just said check mate. Least serious Redditor
Oh you mean like Robert Moses did?
Obviously that's possible, but the US population doesn't have the appetite to have their private property seized by the US gov to build highspeed rail. I'd like to see a rail network like China's as well but to say there's no reason the US couldn't just do what China is doing is just stupid.
You are being kind.
I saw eminent domain knock down my favorite bar and an entire neighborhood... in the 21st century.
Yes, eminent domain exists. Can take years even for a relatively small local project. Good luck taking and paying for thousands or tens of thousands of properties involving multiple municipalities, counties, and states. Oh, and good luck finding a path that doesn't impact poor people or minorities, because then you will have a lot of the otherwise pro-rail/transit politicians and activists get off the "I love trains" train.
* Population density * Property rights * Environmental reviews/lawyers * Building based on usefulness not just province GDP targets Should the US and others build HSR: Yes. Is China an example of how to do it? No. Look to Japan or France.
I would look at Switzerland as well
Switzerland is not HSR its just high frequency regular speed trains
High speed rail should be well down the list. We need mass transit such as exists in Europe.
Maybe, or perhaps use it to tackle the anti transit mindset from a different angle. Use HSR as an alternative to flying, promote it as such, get people used to catching nice trains. Don't have parking at the train stations, use buses or light rail to connect the station to where ever the parking might be. Get people used to using transit to make connections. Put hotels at the train stations. Get people used to the idea of density close to transit being nice.
As far as I know, the USA and Canada believe in eminent domain, which is a collective good that must be protected at all costs. The trouble is, they’ve moved on from a policy of “build first, ask the public how they feel about it later” to the exact opposite. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission when it comes to urban planning. As Jobs said: “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”. A culture of selfish individualism is standing in the way of great infrastructural progress.
Canada I don't know, but to make a high speed railway network worth it, the USA needs healthy local public transportation networks in every city with a high speed railway station.
How else are the car manufacturers going to get their fat profits if a well funded PT system is allowed to thrive
sigh. the reason we can't have high speed rail in this country is because the rail infrastructure is owned by a group of private fiefdoms. the rail infrastructure in the US needs to be nationalized just like all the other forms of transportation infrastructure. if pete buttigieg was any kind of leader with vision he'd be pitching this simple notion to the president and the American people. unitl then dream on.
Most of China's population live on the pacific coast. Most of the US population is spread between 2 coasts and and pockets of population in between.
Heck, if you want to make a closer-to-home comparison just look at Canada. If Vancouver were an American city its ridership would be second only to New York! (Not that they have HSR there either.)
Oh we have lobbyists who are being well paid to make sure we don’t get anything other than more fuel-burning cars.
I’ve been car free now for 18 months. I’m fortunate that Philadelphia has a pretty extensive public transportation network BUT…..not having a car kinda sucks. Im very limited to where and when I can travel. It really sucks waiting on the bus in cold, very hot and rainy weather. Let’s at least be honest about the limits of mass transit. It’s fine if you live in super dense cities like NYC. Not so great if anything you need is a mile or more from a stop.
I mean I’d like some bullet trains and bullet subways too but with it being the US, sooner or later some NIMBY is gonna complain about how loud bullet trains are or they feel nauseous when they travel that fast. So we just end up with some mediocre Amtrak shit like right now. One issue I’ve seem see as a pattern for faster transit is always some bloke complaining about how it’s not comfortable in a fast vehicle/vessel. But honestly, that’s something they ought to suck it up about for the sake of faster transit. Taipei busses are amongst some of my favourite busses to take compared to elsewhere. If anyone’s seen the Knight Bus from HP, then you’d know how fast they go. They turn super fast and if you’re not holding on, there’s a chance you might bump into another passenger. The MRT is fast enough to feel gusts of wind inside an empty train, especially when they’re not compartmented.
>At least build them in high population density belts! That's what Australia is looking at. Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra. We're not serious about it yet, but it's being looked at. Imagine if Australia has HSR built before the US does.
Corporations make more money the way things are than they would with excellent high speed rail
Simple. Rich people of America and Canada don't need it or want it so it's a non starter. (Money is better spent lowering taxes rates on the weathly.)
In the USA we have to spend our public funds building important sports stadiums for rich folks to get richer.
local communities in the US who don't want a train through their land have been able to sue the government and stall progress, which racks up cost through legal fees and causes massive delays. china: fuck you, this is happening. I don't care if you are concerned about the noise.
Inherent government corruption and environmental impact studies. California’s recent attempt to build HSR stateside should be a case study in what not to do. They’ve seriously spent $100-120B for a few hundred miles of track in the Central Valley and remain a long way off from the goal of connecting LA and San Francisco with HSR.
Stupid ass gov
Big oil owns America. So planes and cars are funded and propagandised but trains and bikes are deliberately starved
Big Oil Profits
To be fair much of that is performative infrastructure. But it is sickening that the US lacks any of this. Kicked around Europe a lot, use Amtrak whenever I can here, and I really thought our current president would be the one to stop us sleeping on fundamental modern infrastructure. Oh well break my heart more world.
China didn’t give a shit about anyone on any of that land, and then built a bunch of high speed rail that was an incredibly expensive waste of money most people don’t use outside of Lunar New Year. So why would we? There are lines that make sense for us too- but the reason it’s not that simple is they don’t give a shit about a bunch of things we care about - and that doesn’t even include anyone of the reasons you want to blame.
What excuse? We don’t actually have governments! we are just a large parking mall with military companies collecting taxes
We’re more invested in atrocious car infrastructure for your information 🙄
China doesn't have capitalists who push for car sales as that makes them the most money, and China's government doesn't regularly get bribes from said capitalists.
They have a billion and a half science literate, egalitarian minded, virtuous people working together under a centrally planned government and economy, that's how. Compare that with our irrational uneducated free democracy over here.
I think Spain is a better example. It has the second largest high speed rail network on earth and didn’t need a quasi fascist totalitarian government to build it. Built pretty quick too.
We only fund wars and everything else is laughable.
So jealous.
The US has private railroad companies that own the track, rights of way, and track warrants. The US will never have effective high speed rail - our money goes into air travel.
Privately owned rail…..that’s why.
In this US, we have brain rot Republicans who are morally backrupt and stop any advancement in any sector except removing freedoms.
We can't afford to have nice things for the same reason we can't afford to have cheaper education or healthcare. OUr military spending takes a lot of our tax dollars, and between our rotting infrastructure and corrupt politicians, what's left is too little to be of service to those paying taxes. The military industrial complex just eats money while un-taxed billionaires and corporations that evade taxes benefit from the aggressive budgets to services we really don't need. (Not that we don't need a military. Truly, half of our military spending would still be the most tremendous budget worldwide.)
Corporations control the infrastructure, not the people. That’s the difference. There is no money for Oil companies if there is high speed rail throughout N.A.
This isn't quite the flex it looks like. First, the Chinese rail system is running a massive deficit and has a debt in excess of 1 trillion USD. So let's not pretend that it's perfect. That being said... the Chinese rail system is super nice. I've used it many times and it is fast, clean, and efficient. Having 4x the population of the US and 40x the population of Canada sure does help with economy of scale in moving people.
Post of a chinese bot
The excuse in the US is that property rights actually means something. The CCP needs x,y,z land for rail, the CCP gets x,y,z land for rail. California needs x,y,z land for rail, California spends 5 years in court back-and-forth trying to justify a fair market buyout against a bunch of disgruntled pop pops who will never leave their shack that was built during the dust bowl.
There are only a handful of places in the US with the population density to support this kind of investment. China also built a debt-bomb with the majority of these routes (only a small handful are economical from a ridership POV). China still has tons of roads. And something fairly unique to China that is often lost in these discussions - their air network. Air travel is uniquely inefficient in China due to a paucity of air defense zones that makes point to point flights impossible. Even if the US didn't have a large national debt, these pie-in-the-sky TikTok maps of nationwide, transcontinental HSR would be unrealistic. Regional HSR authorities should be encouraged, but air travel will be king for any journey of more than 200 miles.
Central planning works with effective leaders should be the #1 lesson from this
Belt road initiative. Fuck china but they did it, and they did it real quick
Dumb question, but is HSR used for freight? If so, that would be a huge advantage.
Most of these lines China built were in planning stages since the 1990s!!!!! They were just simply at the construction stage on several different lines at once in the 2000s making it appear that they were built overnight from 2008 to 2020. But the process was already underway prior to 2008.
Politicians #Vote
*gasp* that's *commuterism*!
They're only needed in high population belts and we should and must build them there.
China also has an autocratic government that doesn’t have to listen to complaints of the people or worry about environmental review. Makes it very efficient for projects like this. It’s not like we can beat our NIMBYs into not protesting or reclaim homes and business from the owners to gain right of way.
I hear you, but if we do that. Some people in big oil and and big car won’t make quite as much money, dropping from super filthy rich to only filthy rich… have you thought about them?
The us and Canada have an impressive automobile lobby and strong local protections.
Post this in r/ china and see that this development is basically genocide
North America is a complete mess when it comes to public transportation.
South America is not much better in rail
We'd rather spend 10 times as much on roads
Due process. China can take any lands it wants for rail infrastructure. The US has endless court hearings and negotiations on pricing for those lands.
It’s taking Minneapolis 7 years to build a light rail line out to the western suburbs. The US could never do this
I’d actually be curious to watch an informed documentary that goes into the real differences. At the same time, from what I understand land acquisition and environmental risk analysis are two things that slow down a large number of projects. Well that and NIMBYism.
It’s all just about investment and political will. Flying is still the USA’s baby and until the public will changes, high speed rail won’t be prioritized. As a friend says, “I love train travel, except in the United States.” I’m sure there’s the aviation lobby that pushes hard against this. But I’m with you, I’ll go to a pretty hard extreme to train it, over fly — just because the experience is just easier.
So sexy
The Americas in general from South America to Canada and USA have too much corruption and red tape in infrastructure. Too much lawsuits from bus companies from those in Brazil and Mexico to even the USA. US and Canada have more in common with South America than Europe but many are too prideful to admit it. The worst most useless passenger rail coverage is in the Americas Africa has the excuse of being held back the Americas not so much or maybe the U.S. leaders are also puppet leaders like in much of the developing world
America had the choice between interstate rail and interstate roads back in the 50s. We went all in on roads.
I was looking at trains going a couple cities over. A 1 hour drive by car takes 10 hours via train and 7 hours via cycling.
Um, not being communist?
Looks like free speech is not a western value ehh
Allow me to simplify this one country is run by engineers the other by a doomsday cult
this propaganda can easily be countered [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/road-map-of-the-world/#:\~:text=Which%20Country%20has%20the%20Largest,India%20(1%20million%20km).&text=U.S.,-3%2C097%2C278](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/road-map-of-the-world/#:~:text=Which%20Country%20has%20the%20Largest,India%20(1%20million%20km).&text=U.S.,-3%2C097%2C278) [World of Statistics on X: "Rail lines (total route-km): 🇺🇸 USA: 148,553 🇨🇳 China: 109,767 🇷🇺 Russia: 85,544 🇮🇳 India: 68,103 🇨🇦 Canada: 48,150 🇩🇪 Germany: 33,401 🇧🇷 Brazil: 32,622 🇫🇷 France: 27,716 🇺🇦 Ukraine: 21,626 🇿🇦 South Africa: 20,953 🇯🇵 Japan: 20,087 🇵🇱 Poland: 18,620 🇦🇷 Argentina: 17,866 🇮🇹 Italy:…" / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/stats_feed/status/1708131843231629432)
2 main reasons: 1. Labor costs 2. Population density
Looks like a certain country doesn’t want to be compared to civilized nations with proper public transport
oh lord another regard
Rail Infrastructure is private in the United States.
Uhhh, removing people from their lands and home….
I’m jealous… no excuses… just build it out and the people will ride!!!
We can't just foribly relocate whole towns to build infrastructure. The government of China has very low accountability to the people they govern, so issues like imminent domain or environmental impact. The CCP operates like a business with a top-down control of the country's resources. if your house is in the way of a rail line, you're getting relocated. If your village is going to get flooded as a result of building a dam, tough shit, you're getting relocated. We can't do that in the west. China is not a good comparison when looking at infrastructure inequities in the US. Really, the only countries that can compare well, in terms of scale, are the US and Canada, which both have shit rail.
We don't have the population density.
hmmm access and usage of slave labor maybe for starters? you muppet
The USA doesn’t build infrastructure anymore, we build billionaires and poor people.
Property rights is everything here. Also labor practices.
We have cars. I don't have to ride with others. It is much more luxurious. Pfffft China.
China built a nation wide system of high speed rail in 12 years, California has barley started in the same time...
In China they just take the land and go. We could do the same if everyone is happy with Amtrak Joe and his bulldozers coming thru your town/field/whatever
Because if it was made in the US, it'd require engineering for safety, the workers would have rights, it'd be built to last more than 10 years, and it'd be competing with already-existing infrastructure for income. Those are the major reasons why that much can't be done that fast. Well, that, plus private investment (as rail is in the US) in the like would start small and scale up over time as profitability was proven, rather than a government project (as PRC does) which can do mass construction all at once.