Yes. Good point. And one reason Japan has survived as long as it has is because the Japanese are good little automotons, who do as the government tells them without question. If the gov tells them to ride the train, they ride the train. And it doesn’t hurt (as Chris pointed out) that their employers pays their commuter costs. The average American has a love affair with his car. Many love their cars more than their spouse. Look at all the one occupant cars on the freeway during rush hour. The other day I took 5 separate counts at 5 separate locations. The results were about the same. 8 out of 10 cars had only a driver with no passengers. That’s the reason the USA licks the boots of Saudi Arabia even when their leaders are making pro-ISIS statements in public. Biden has asked them to cool it because it makes us look like hypocrites. lol.

However, one key point was missed. Cost and convenience to the actual traveler.

Look, a RT fare on Amtrack from LA to San Francisco is currently about $120. The trip takes 12 hours.

However, I can purchase a RT airfare from LA to San Francisco on several airlines for $140. The trip takes about an hour.

Now, the claimed bullet train travel time from LA to San Francisco is 2 hours 30 minutes. But that does not include stopovers – and as noted in this article pointed out there would be at least 2 stopovers and transfers from regular trains to the bullet train. This would undoubtedly add a MINIMUM of 2 additional hours to the trip. Total travel time: 4.5 to 5 hours.

Okay, now lets look at the fares. The fares to travel by the bullet train would certainly increase to recoup the costs of building and operating the train. You can rest assured that the CURRENT ticket price (RT $120) would get jacked up BY AT LEAST 75%. More realistically, probably by 120%. However, let’s stick with the more conservative increase. $120 +75% = $210.
So it would cost you a minimum of RT $210 to take a 5 hour trip that would cost you RT $140 and take you ONE HOUR if you traveled by air. So which one would you choose? Do you like sitting on trains for 5 hours at a time?

Now do you realize how stupid the bullet train is?

Look, instead of spending trillions on the Marshall Plan and subsiziding Japan after WW2 we should have build our own super train system and urban transportation system. But we didn’t. Now it’s too late. Our economy simply doesn’t have the velocity to finance it. So we’re stuck with what we have. Hell, we don’t even have the money to repair our bridges and infrastructure. For the love of God – how are we going to finance these pie-in-the-sky transport systems??? lol 😀