cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3541719
America is too big for planes, too. If your transportation solution is flying, now everyone has to get around via endless highways or big, complicated regional airports, and you can only have so many of those. There’s a reason why rural areas in North America have completely different politics from urban areas, and why so much of it is driven by a sense of isolation and abandonment. Trains promise to help here because they are able to stop in small places that will never, ever have practical airports.
A good rail network provides a reliable, consistent, repeatable, and straightforward three hour connection from Nowheresberg to the nearest city. Slow, but good enough to feel like they exist in the same planet. Unfortunately, that promise is subtle, and it plays out over decades, so the reward system we’ve created for ourselves is incapable of supporting it. And thus, we have Amtrak and confederate flags
There’s nothing wrong with this argument. They’re not literally saying the country is too big to fly a plane across, they’re countering the argument made by bad faith actors that America is too big for trains, by pointing out that planes don’t actually solve the problems people think they solve.
And they’re absolutely right. I live five minutes away from a regional airport, and I would kill for high speed rail connecting me to some of the major cities in my neighbouring provinces. Hell, just a train from my town to the nearest city would be a godsend. People in North America will come up with any excuse to dismiss the potential rail has to really connect up a lot of disparate areas of these countries, because the reality is they just don’t want to invest now in a solution that takes years to realise. If twenty years ago we’d all started building high speed rail the way China did, the difference today would be unimaginable.
First, let me say I’m a proponent of rail for both freight and passenger service.
However, you’ve moved the bar with your examples and your conclusion here. Instead of “passenger rail” you’ve moved to “high speed passenger rail”.
This is the rub, except its worse than you state. Its not just that “it takes years to realize”, but if we’re talking high speed rail and low density populations then its likely the investment will never pay off. I’m actually okay with that, because that is a function of government: to do things for society that make sense for society even if they aren’t financially beneficial.
The biggest benefit China has is they don’t have to ask permission to take land because individuals don’t own the land. That is usually a significant barrier in North America that China doesn’t have to contend with.
“According to the Constitution and the land laws, Chinese individuals cannot privately own land and natural resources. The Constitution provides that land in urban areas must be owned by the state, whereas land in rural and suburban areas must be owned by the state or by local collectives.”
source PDF
Additionally, if following the same path as China, its entirely possible that high speed rail would run through your town…but not stop anymore, just like many stations in China today because of low ridership.
“Every half hour, the eerie silence is broken by the hiss of a train as it whizzes through at 350kmh. None of the trains – speeding along the Zhengzhou–Xinzheng Airport intercity railway – stop.”
source
Stepping back from high speed rail to regular speed passenger rail, you said “province” so I’m assuming Canada. Is your town not served by VIA Rail?