[a3camero]

That's almost exactly the distance between Shinjuku (Tokyo) and Sendai, Japan. $40 cheaper + an hour faster by train. I think that's the alternative. High speed rail.

If you happen to live by Omiya's station (about 30mi closer to Sendai), you'd be there in under 2 hours.

[excuse-me]

London Paris is 60mi further but under 3hours - and there is a sea in the way,

If even the English can do public projects better than you, you have a problem!

[DougWebb]

There aren't tens of millions of people living in the Channel blocking the path the train needs to take; digging the Channel tunnel was simple compared to putting straight rail lines between Boston, NYC, Philly, and DC.

[justincormack]

Dig a tunnel under the people if you think it is easier then.

[DougWebb]

Boston's Big Dig project was an incredibly expensive tunnel project. I'm not sure how much of the cost overrun was due to the terrain they were digging through. I think it'll be a long time before another major tunnel project will be approved though.

NYC always has several big tunnel projects going on. The problem here is the very hard granite and the depth of existing infrastructure. New tunnels have to be very deep. At the moment I believe there is a large east-side subway project and a water main project. There was supposed to be a new west side tunnel for Amtrak and NJ Transit trains coming into Penn Station from NJ, but unfortunately NJ's ahole governor killed the project.

I'm not familiar with tunnelling projects in Philly and DC, or the areas between them. I suspect the terrain is a lot more varied than below the Channel though. It'd be challenging to tunnel the whole way.

[icegreentea]

Just to build on this a bit, the Channel Tunnel's current location was chosen because this way nearly its entire length runs through continuous chalk, which is incredibly easy (especially compared to granite, or wet silt) to tunnel through. It's soft enough to cut through without too much problem, but it's still rigid and dry enough that you don't have to worry too much about collapses.

[vidarh]

The fun part is that it's now finally this fast after a lot of hurt British pride when the trains used to have to break when reaching the British side, because the tracks were of too poor quality compared to on the French side. It's taken years for them to upgrade the British side (and moving the terminal to another station where the trains could make am ore direct approach instead of going in a large semi-circle on crappy, congested suburban lines) to let the trains run at full speed.