this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2026
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My feeling is that widespread high speed rail will never take off in America there are too many barriers. Two that come to mind that will delay and increase the cost to prohibitive levels are Private Land acquisition and Environmental assessments and preservation laws.
What I think will be a more realistic "High speed Rail" option for the US is using existing infrastructure in new ways. Something like fully automated cars, where each car is similar to a rail car and the connection between cars is digital not physical.
Are they also big challenges for highway projects?
Yes. But I would think less since that infrastructure has largely been in place for many decades. It's not building something out from nothing but updating and maintaining something already in place
What a strange argument. For those effected by projects it does not matter how anything is connected to anything. That said, HSR does not need to be part of an HSR network to make sense.
New Highways are built all the time and many are widened, which also requires a lot of real estate to be taken over by highway infrastructure.
So replace the highway with tracks