Trains are usually preferred by people if they offer competitve times (airline destroying at 2h HSR, highly competitive at 4h HSR, competitive at up to 6h). Most US Americans would not know because they have never seen a situation where HSR competes with aviation and they don’t bother to look abroad or make excuses why everything would be different on US corridors like East and West Coast etc. As experience elsewhere also shows, people are ready too pay more for such train services because they are considerably less miserable to use. Also, a considerable share are business travellers and there those flight prices above are fairy tale territory.
Flying is not cheap, it is heavily subsidised and for some reason all those laissez faire economy people are fine with it. The bigger problem is however that aviation is heavily capacity limited. Try doubling capacity of LAX for example. HSR can offer much higher corridor capacities and thereby free valuble airport capacitues where aviation is actually the only option. Capacities can also be relatively easily increased later on if needed.
It has been shown time and again, HSR develops local economy in a way aviation can’t. Look abroad to countried with fully feveloped mobility infrastructure.
Trains are usually preferred by people if they offer competitve times (airline destroying at 2h HSR, highly competitive at 4h HSR, competitive at up to 6h). Most US Americans would not know because they have never seen a situation where HSR competes with aviation and they don’t bother to look abroad or make excuses why everything would be different on US corridors like East and West Coast etc. As experience elsewhere also shows, people are ready too pay more for such train services because they are considerably less miserable to use. Also, a considerable share are business travellers and there those flight prices above are fairy tale territory.
Flying is not cheap, it is heavily subsidised and for some reason all those laissez faire economy people are fine with it. The bigger problem is however that aviation is heavily capacity limited. Try doubling capacity of LAX for example. HSR can offer much higher corridor capacities and thereby free valuble airport capacitues where aviation is actually the only option. Capacities can also be relatively easily increased later on if needed.
It has been shown time and again, HSR develops local economy in a way aviation can’t. Look abroad to countried with fully feveloped mobility infrastructure.
I’m not against them but like an 10 hour bullet train from Boston to San Francisco, HSR’s will never happen.
And no one with a clue is suggesting that.
HSR frees up space at airports for exactly those connections where only flights are suitable.