SF-Sacramento
SF-Tahoe
SF-Napa
SEA-PDX
Austin-Dallas-Houston
LA-Las Vegas-Phoenix-Tucson
And I am not talking snail Amtrak 70 mph train. I am suggesting 150 mph that runs in most Europe. What is holding US back in public transport?
Rail freight transport.
What is holding Europe in rail freight transport? Passenger rail. You choose one or the other. Personally I think America made (or fell into) the correct decision.
: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroad/us-and-european-f....
After living next to train tracks in SF (for 7 yrs) and in PDX for (over 2 yrs) I can tell you that train tracks traffic is not even 10% of Euro cities like Stuttgart, Rotterdam let alone Berlin or Paris.
If traffic(freight+passenger)US is roughly equal to traffic(freight+passenger)EU then, the tracks should be equally busy no?
Your article notes that rail freight costs are much lower in the US (for shippers), while profitability is high. That suggests that the US rail network is... good for freight?
I don't know about Portland, but SF has almost no freight traffic. The caltrain tracks don't go anywhere (what are you going to do with a thousand containers at 4th and King?)
Various things, surely, but things like property rights and an unwillingness to accept wholesale use of eminent domain. A 150mph train requires shallow curves and therefore won't run on an existing freight right-of-way. If not for that, it would be pretty straightforward to build.
Meanwhile, a plane ride from Portland to Seattle is 30 minutes and cheaper anyway. There's no incentive to invest in high speed rail.
SEA airport is 30 mins by taxi, PDX is 45 mins away by taxi and for airport check-in you gotta arrive 1 hr early and then 30 mins travel time.
A high speed transit is just 1.5 hr train ride (city center to city center).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_High-S...
Ideology.
