Then the wheel hits the track.

In California, building a high-speed rail link between

Los Angeles and San Francisco would have sounded tempting—if the project had
been stripped of all topographical and other difficulties. For political reasons, a less
direct, less economical route between the cities was chosen.

Of course, we already have cheap high-speed transport between metropolitan areas.

It’s called air travel.

As Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute points out, airplanes fly at about 500 miles
per hour. The Amtrak Acela, on the other hand, has a top speed of 150 miles per
hour. Yes, aircraft need infrastructure, but not expensive, complex new infrastructure
along their routes.

O’Toole notes that Japan’s bullet trains seemed like the future in the 1960s, when air
travel was more expensive than rail travel. Also, Japan’s bullet trains had a steady
customer base in the significant portion of the country’s population who already
traveled by train.

In contrast, in the United States today, a tiny 0.1% of all passenger travel is handled
by Amtrak.

If we built the Interstate Highway System, why can’t we build a comparable high-
speed network? As O’Toole notes, the freeway system has essentially paid for itself,
accounting for a sizable 20% of the country’s passenger-miles and a roughly
comparable proportion of freight ton-miles.

Bullet trains could never keep up. Even if you put aside the endemic cost overruns,
the inevitable construction delays, and the significant reasonable costs, it can only
carry passengers, not cargo.

As progressives rave about bullet trains as a bright future, another truly futuristic
technology is likely to emerge. If the age of self-driving cars ever arrives, people will
be able to experience a car more like a personal train, except indefinitely on rails.

California serves as a warning to the rest of the country to avoid its deceit and folly.