[grapeskin]

Worth looking at Japan’s Toukaidou Shinkansen. The route could take a direct path from Tokyo to Nagoya to Osaka, being super fast and hitting up only the main cities.

But it doesn’t. It hits up the southern coast through Shizuoka and a bunch of small cities.

[thematrixturtle]

That's also because the shortest path is basically a tunnel.

They're now building the Chuo maglev, which does take the shortest path and is currently projected at $65 billion and climbing.