I agree with you. I am from Europe where mass transit and reliable and efficient public transportation has been implemented and enjoyed by the population for a long time, I think this is a way for the future.
Siemens, a German company and Alstom, a French one both have the technology to make 200+mph on a train happen in the USA.
The West Coast for example could and SHOULD have a HST from Vancouver to San Diego. By car that's roughly a 1400 miles trip or something like a 15 hours drive (give or take). With a HST, that suddenly becomes a 8 hour trip with next to no greenhouse gas emissions per person while everyone just chills out browsing the interwebs in a comfy seat.
Same for the East Coast, there should be some sort of East Coast HST as well (something to the tune of Boston -> NYC -> Philly -> DC -> somehow down to Florida or some other route, I don't live in the States).
If Germany, Spain, France, Japan and China have that, there's no reason why the USA shouldn't be able to do it as well.
EDIT: By saying that I am not implying that the "middle of America" should not benefit from HST as well, but its population density and sheer size makes that less cost-feasable.
There is a HST system under development in California, with the first segment planned for completion by 2017, with the rest scheduled in just 25 short years:
The "Criticism" section highlights how the current rails infrastructure in the USA currently places a limitation on the speeds the train can achieve. Still a reasonable good experiment. With President Obama's mention of the structurally deficient bridges in the States, maybe it will change for the better. I surely hope so.
Yeah, with those restrictions, Acela is next to useless as an upgrade from Amtrak, at a much higher ticket cost. I really wish we could just do a proper job and make a Lyon-Paris TGV-like route between Washington and Boston.
Siemens, a German company and Alstom, a French one both have the technology to make 200+mph on a train happen in the USA.
The West Coast for example could and SHOULD have a HST from Vancouver to San Diego. By car that's roughly a 1400 miles trip or something like a 15 hours drive (give or take). With a HST, that suddenly becomes a 8 hour trip with next to no greenhouse gas emissions per person while everyone just chills out browsing the interwebs in a comfy seat.
Same for the East Coast, there should be some sort of East Coast HST as well (something to the tune of Boston -> NYC -> Philly -> DC -> somehow down to Florida or some other route, I don't live in the States).
If Germany, Spain, France, Japan and China have that, there's no reason why the USA shouldn't be able to do it as well.
EDIT: By saying that I am not implying that the "middle of America" should not benefit from HST as well, but its population density and sheer size makes that less cost-feasable.