Yeah but China’s authoritarian system is how they went from no high speed rail to the most high speed rail in the world in just 25 years. It took Japan 70 years to get where they are now and many European nations more than a hundred.
You mean the places that did the actual research and development on how to effectively build (high speed) trains and rail networks took longer to get where they are than the place that could just use already well-established technology? No way!
Don’t get me wrong, there can absolutely be political barriers to having a good rail network (as evidenced by the US), but let’s not pretend you’re comparing apples to apples here.
All Western countries can do this too, they just only do it for motorways to subsidize the fossil fuel and car industries instead of something which would actually be good for people.
I live in Europe and regularly use rail transport here and love it… But even here we barely maintain what we have, almost never build more, and certainly build far more new roading projects than rail ones.
In Germany for example there were 19km of Autobahn and 56.5km of high speed rail line added in the last five years. Rail is an alternative to large roads. So freeways like the Autobahn network is similar to high speed rail, larger local roads with regional rail and four lane or more roads inside cities are tram or metro lines. However for local roads the alternative is cycling and walking paths and even there you probably want some limited access for things like ambulances, trucks(stores or moving large things), firetrucks and so forth. So everybody is building a lot more roads then rail.
Yeah but China’s authoritarian system is how they went from no high speed rail to the most high speed rail in the world in just 25 years. It took Japan 70 years to get where they are now and many European nations more than a hundred.
You mean the places that did the actual research and development on how to effectively build (high speed) trains and rail networks took longer to get where they are than the place that could just use already well-established technology? No way!
Don’t get me wrong, there can absolutely be political barriers to having a good rail network (as evidenced by the US), but let’s not pretend you’re comparing apples to apples here.
Sure, it’s much easier when you can just take all the land and built right over anything in your way.
All Western countries can do this too, they just only do it for motorways to subsidize the fossil fuel and car industries instead of something which would actually be good for people.
Still have to buy it though. Zoom in on any green part of China on Google maps, and chances are that is owned by the state.
Doo the same in England, and you hit a field that has been owned by the same family for 500 years.
Since when are European countries no longer part of the West?
I live in Europe and regularly use rail transport here and love it… But even here we barely maintain what we have, almost never build more, and certainly build far more new roading projects than rail ones.
In Germany for example there were 19km of Autobahn and 56.5km of high speed rail line added in the last five years. Rail is an alternative to large roads. So freeways like the Autobahn network is similar to high speed rail, larger local roads with regional rail and four lane or more roads inside cities are tram or metro lines. However for local roads the alternative is cycling and walking paths and even there you probably want some limited access for things like ambulances, trucks(stores or moving large things), firetrucks and so forth. So everybody is building a lot more roads then rail.