Does this explain why there are no bullet trains in the USA? (piefed.social)

submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by Shadow79@piefed.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Short answer: cities are too far apart and the USA is large. However, how much funding is there to really implement the same thing that exists in Japan but in the United States? Also, is there an incentive for that in the first place? What about population density? Japan is more compact regarding their population density while that's not the case for America plus both Osaka & Kyoto aren't too far from each other (but Miami & Washington DC are distant).

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[-] jdr@lemmy.ml 15 points 21 hours ago

China is bigger and has a great high-speed rail network.

[-] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 0 points 18 hours ago

It's less about size and more about population density.

Japan is 338 people per square kilometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan

China is 147 people per square kilometer total https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China

The US is 36 people per square kilometer https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/density-data-text.html

The US could build long distance high speed rail like Japan and China, but the ridership level would be rock bottom due to the low population density.

[-] atan@lemmy.ml 6 points 13 hours ago

Those statistics are misleading. China's population is very unevenly distributed between the east and west, but Western China is still serviced by high-speed railway.

The 1786km Lanzhou–Urumqi HSR serves three Western Chinese provinces: Gansu (57.7 people per sq km), Qinghai (8.2) and Xinjiang (15.8).

[-] Voltarion@piefed.social 5 points 16 hours ago

Do the densly populated areas should be first to be connected im the US.

[-] jdr@lemmy.ml 5 points 18 hours ago

I think it would be fine to just build the stations in big cities. Nobody is demanding high speed rail across Alaska.

this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026

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