After decades of languishing development and stagnated projects, true high-speed rail in the US could be just around the corner.
Japan has the Shinkansen. France has the TGV. Spain has AVE. China has, well, China has more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined.
America has… the Acela Express. All 16 stops of it in one section of the country. It reaches its top speed of 150 miles per hour (241 km/h) just for a few minutes in one short section, and even that speed is pokey compared to other countries. The Shanghai Maglev reaches 268 mph (431 km/h).
But things are changing. Despite significant uphill battles, high-speed rail is coming to other parts of the country. Even the Acela is undergoing improvements that should make the service faster and more convenient. And high-speed rail is one of the principal pillars of the Green New Deal drafted by liberal House Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It proposes to overhaul the “transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible,” with high-speed rail as one of the main investments.
Read more: https://www.cnet.com/news/is-high-speed-rail-in-the-us-ever-going-to-happen/