re: Every developed country has high speed rail, why are so many against it in the U.S.?

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The vast majority of cars are going to be fully self driving eventually.

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You are looking at it all wrong

Modern kids have playgroups so parents are FREE chauffeurs to school, sports, and activities so kids grow up with less independence and more expectations of being driven.

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New orleans to Atlanta would stay packed but otherwise I don't see cross country passenger rail ever catching on here.

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You couldn’t see one working DFW-Houston-San Antonio-Austin? I’m talking about a true high speed that doesn’t stop anywhere but the largest cities along the way. Obviously the trick is to make it efficient and affordable.

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Because public transportation is for trash

Even flying is becoming unbearable. It needs to be way more expensive.

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I wouldn’t say “it’s for trash” but flying aside, it has been a secondary mode for a long time.

And as you say, commercial flying sucks more and more every year and is not helping the argument for an additional public transit option.

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DFW/Houston/San Antonio

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Ok, you get off the hypothetical Houston to DFW train near, say, Love Field. Now what? You gonna take a local to Plano? How are you getting to your hotel from the office? Oh, use Uber or rent a car, you say? Oh wait, you need trillions of dollars in right of way land takings, multi-millions of dollars a mile to run track (depending on where), local connectors, local rail (more trillions). Retards.

There are flights every 30m between HOU and DAL. There are nine flights a day between DAL and SAT. There are multiple "luxury" bus lines between all three.

Even in Europe, train travel can be a total fricking disaster. Try crossing the Alps and see how long things take. Germany to Warsaw should be a pretty quick trip, it was for the Wehrmacht. Oh no, it's a 13-22 hour train ride from Frankfurt to Warsaw, or a 2 hour flight.

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For the same reason that Australia doesn't.

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Australia is 85% unhabited. To fly from one major city to the next cost as much as leaving the country. They are so far an apart the railway is meaningless.

Not high speed rail

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couldn’t see one working DFW-Houston-San Antonio-Austin? I’m talking about a true high speed that doesn’t stop anywhere but the largest cities along the way. Obviously the trick is to make it efficient and affordable.

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Surely it could be made to "work" as long as you ignore the economics of it. I just don't see it being viable. We're already built around air travel.

America is a car culture you're not changing that

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commercial flying sucks more and more every year

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It really doesn't. It kicked off with mask mandates, for the most part, and was fueled by the lawlessness started by BLM and extended to anyone of any race, and then magnified by everyone wanting their ATL fight video on WorldStarHipHop. And emotional support animals.

And it's still better than being on a Greyhound.

It's kind of a regional government project with a federal government budget, so no one wants to pay for it. We are more private and secluded than Europe and Asia. Asian people are respectful of property, our people would vandalize and urinate on it. I could see Texas building one between their big cities. The northeast and west coast is the other place that would actually use it a lot, but the west coast doesn't have as much as a hard work culture and the northeast already has the amtrak. If there's no monetary incentive, it won't get done. Railroads and highways can be used to ship goods and commerce, it seems like the high speed rail is mainly for personal use and commuting.

China is a developing communist country, so it's easy for them to decide to fund a project like that. Japan is very rich, technologically advanced, and relatively small. A high speed rail can service their whole country pretty easily. Europe is perfectly set up for highspeed rail. The amount of tourists they get every year that want to travel around the big cities alone is enough to justify a system like this. They also have adventurous traveling culture with lots of free time from work.

I wonder if the distance from their cities, which was likely established by distance on horseback is much more advantageous than USA city distance, that was established by car driving distance. Like, high speed rail from chicago to new orleans is not going to be better than a flight.