• MrMakabar@slrpnk.netOP
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    18 days ago

    The contiguous United States has a higher population density than Spain, which has a great high speed rail system. Metropolitan France is not much more denser than that as well.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      18 days ago

      Chicago to nyc is currently a 20 hour train or a two hour flight. High speed rail would be a massive expense to get a best case scenario of maybe 4 hours. The flight just makes more sense for people. Both cities have good rail options for inter city transport, or even out to suburbs.

      • boonhet@lemmy.zip
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        18 days ago

        If you guys ever properly tax your carbon, that 4 hour electric train will sound much better than a 1 or 2 hour flight in jet fuel.

        Though this is a problem worldwide, even here in Europe jet fuel isn’t taxed enough.

    • Wolf314159@startrek.website
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      18 days ago

      You can’t generalize population density across the entire continent like that. Montana and Wyoming have a wildly different population density than California or New Jersey and they’re all in the contiguous United States. Even just looking at the region east of the Mississippi to between the Mississippi and the Rockies, shows a striking difference in population density.

      Also, Spain is like 1/16 the size of the US with mostly a singular population center in the literal center of the country. And, the Paris metropolitan area is comparable to the tri-state NY Metro area and a fraction of the size of the surrounding region from NY to D.C., which itself is a tiny fraction of the area we call the East Coast.