| The USA is not Japan. Others have already pointed out that our geography is different. But that might not even be the real problem. I am a fan of trains, but I live in Arlington, Massachusetts, which is not on Boston's rail-transit network, even though the Red Line subway terminates within half a mile of our town line, with a conspicuously available right-of-way leading straight from there to our town center. Isn't that odd? I was sad to learn that Arlington used to have streetcars. They went through town and extended at least three towns further out. They were torn out in 1955. I was even sadder to learn that a Red Line train station in Arlington was explicitly planned back in the 1980s, but... That plan had been supported by the Town of Lexington, but was scuttled by fierce anti-urban sentiment in parts of Arlington. This quote from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_(MBTA) ) matches what I've heard from local residents, though it's a bit more diplomatically phrased. So I've got a hypothesis: The USA's once-excellent rail network was deliberately taken apart in response to (ahem) "fierce anti-urban sentiment", a political force that remains strong. Consider this article from last week: http://www.newgeography.com/content/004788-voting-with-your-... The most recent “solution” was for the city of Lancaster to propose shutting down its MetroLink rail station in order to prevent lower income people from traveling in from other parts of Los Angeles County. If you want to "fix the problem" of connecting US cities and towns via rail, your first challenge is to convince the cities and towns to stop openly sabotaging your "fix". (Corollary to my hypothesis: In the USA, rail proposals of the last twenty years have focused on long-distance, high-speed express intercity travel because such routes don't stop in the suburbs, and therefore don't disturb suburban voters in their splendid isolation. Of course, by focusing on long-distance point-to-point travel, rail throws away most of its advantages relative to flying.) |