Quote Originally Posted by Junjie View Post
Have you ever ridden on HSR? In Europe, HSR tickets generally cost $50-$100 [[e.g. Madrid to Seville or Paris to Lyon). A shinkansen ride from Tokyo to Osaka is about $125. HSR in China costs as little as $9 [[Beijing to Tianjin).

For a lot of trips, HSR is easily time competitive overall with flying or has benefits that are well worth an extra hour. Rail stations often serve the actual city, so subtract the 30-45 minutes it takes to drive out to a remote suburban airport and/or get from that airport in to your destination. No security theater or need to show up as much as two hours early, so subtract 30-90 minutes and the loss of your personal dignity. Enjoy a smoother ride without turbulence or pressurization and generally with much more comfortable seating arrangements.

The FAA and airports are subsidized. Highways are subsidized. Not obvious to me why subsidized trains are unconscionable while the others are perfectly appropriate. Go Canada. But Windsor as an anchor point seems really weak - let's see it connect to Detroit proper [[and eventually Chicago).
HSR works very well in Western Europe, but would almost certainly fail around here.

Western Europe has low incomes, extremely expensive gas, very expensive tolled roads, much worse air pollution, high densities and centralized cities.

In Michigan [[or Ontario) HSR makes little sense. if you're headed from Paris to Lyon, yeah, HSR makes tons of sense.