Most of the largest cities in Japan are within ~340 miles of Tokyo. Neither Seattle nor Portland are in our top 10. The point I am making here is pretty clear. HSR makes sense as a national investment for Japan. The people of Houston, Atlanta, Miami, and Phoenix hardly benefit at all from coastal HSR --- which is already happening anyways.
I'm not arguing against west coastal HSR. PDX-SEA makes a lot of sense, if you can get Oregon and Washington to agree on how to fund it, as does SFO-LAX. But find the nearest city to SFO not directly on the west coast that's in the top 10 by population, and see whether HSR makes sense compared to commercial air. Chances are: no.
"Most of the largest cities in Japan are within ~340 miles of Tokyo. Neither Seattle nor Portland are in our top 10. The point I am making here is pretty clear. HSR makes sense as a national investment for Japan."
You keep repeating this "top ten cities" thing, as if it's important. But the only question that matters is: do enough people/things travel between X and Y to justify investment in a rail system at cost $Z? That's an actual debate we can have. Moreover, regardless of what you think of Seattle and Portland, if you don't count SF and Los Angeles (again, 380 miles) as important American cities, I don't know what to say to you.
"The people of Houston, Atlanta, Miami, and Phoenix hardly benefit at all from coastal HSR --- which is already happening anyways."
Atlanta to Miami: 662 miles. Houston to Dallas: 239 miles. Dallas to Denver: 800 miles. There are many, many regional connections in the US that make economic sense for HSR. Not just coastal lines.
But no, it's not already happening. We have a few projects that look increasingly likely to die. Because literally every time the subject comes up, naysayers are there to argue that the USA is just fundamentally exceptional to every similar place where HSR is working well.
They say that because it is. Our geography is different, and our transportation market evolved around that geography. In the US, people fly Southwest instead of buying Eurail passes.
"They say that because it is. Our geography is different"
Well, as long as you're being specific...
That comment says nothing new. It repeats the same stuff you've already said across this thread, and provides no evidence to back up the assertions. It does get the basic facts wrong, though: the vast majority of traffic on the "Tokyo to Kyoto" line goes between Tokyo and Osaka. Those cities are big (~9 million people each; Nagoya and Kyoto are comparatively small at ~2 million people each), but they're still only ~14% of Japan's population (17% if you include Kyoto and Nagoya).
Again: the only thing that matters is the number of people traveling between the points on the line. We know these things, and it's clear where high-speed rail would work. We don't need to have nebulous debates about "economic value". And arguing that "people don't buy Eurail passes" is absurd on its face. They certainly would, if Eurail actually existed.
> if you can get Oregon and Washington to agree on how to fund it
Good luck.
We (WA) just had our 3rd special session and although we finally passed our $43bn state budget, our (admittedly smaller) capital budget is still up in the air because of water rights issues.
OR doesn't look much better right now—it's 8 days until sine die and it appears there's a chance they'll run into special sessions, too.
WA just pumped a massive amount of money ($8bn) into K-12 education because of the McCleary decision, and there's not much other money to go around. The Dems are wary about pitching an actual state income tax (this year they tried pitching a cap gains tax as an "excise tax" :-) because it's constantly been rejected by both the voters and state supreme court. The GOP just had to push a state-wide property tax and had to agree to a paid family leave act as part of budget negotiations, so I doubt they'll be down for any new taxes. Plus, ST3 was recently approved which jacks up taxes in the RTA zone, which includes big city centers like Seattle and Tacoma.
Long story short, I really, really doubt there will be any big infrastructure pushes in the near future. There's just not much money and outside of Seattle property it's not politically viable to run on "more taxes!" especially when the east side of the state will go berserk if they're forced to pay for more west side infrastructure.
I'm not arguing against west coastal HSR. PDX-SEA makes a lot of sense, if you can get Oregon and Washington to agree on how to fund it, as does SFO-LAX. But find the nearest city to SFO not directly on the west coast that's in the top 10 by population, and see whether HSR makes sense compared to commercial air. Chances are: no.