>>1258756Wrong. Utterly wrong. Yet another American that has to be educated about his own country.
Paris (12 M people) to Marseille (2 M people): 750 km. There's a direct TGV connection.
Madrid (7 M people) to Barcelona (3 M people): 550 km. There's a direct AVE connection.
One could also mention the fact that there's an HSR from London to the continent (Paris, Brussels and IIRC Amsterdam as of recently), where the 50 km tunnel under the Dover Strait probably cost more than a thousand km of overground HSR.
There is no HSR for the following sub 1000 connections:
NYC (20 M people) to Philadelphia (2 M people): 150 km.
NYC (20 M people) to Boston (4,5 M people): 350 km.
Bay Area (7 M people) to Los Angeles (13 M people): 600 km.
Austin (2 M people) to Houston (6 M people): 260 km.
Chicago (9,5 M people) to Cleveland (2 M people): 540 km.
Toronto (6,5 M people) to NYC (20 M people): 800 km.
Seattle (3,5 M people) to Vancouver (2,5 M people): 230 km.
Miami (5 M people) to Jacksonville (1,5 M people): 550 km.
Houston (6 M people) to New Orleans (1,2 M people): 560 km.
Atlanta (5,7 M people) to Washington D.C. (6 M people): 1 000 km.
San Diego (3,3 M people) to Los Angeles (13 M people): 190 km.
Dallas (7 M people) to Austin (2 M people): 300 km.
Given a French cruise speed of 350 km/h, 1000 km means a travel time of about 3 hours, whereas a plane takes 1h 30 (~900 km/h of cruise speed, but long take off/landing times), with above an hour of overhead. I accept that the plane is better for longer trips, at least when it comes to time (the train is still more convenient).
There is literally 0 excuse to not have HSR, especially given that North Americans are richer than Western Europeans.
