If you look at it by map there's not much more interstate highway than railway.
Interstate highway is also far cheaper to build and maintain than you would imagine. It took around $114 billion to build interstate across the entire country, while the high speed rail project in just California is already upwards of $128 billion.
On Europe that is kind of exactly my point, high speed rail in Europe is built and maintained by federal governments with high levels of participation, interest and oversight from their population. This can never happen in the US because our federal government has to oversee a very wide amount of area and states are not so autonomous and self-governed that their populations primarily interest themselves with their state governments.
Interstate highway is also far cheaper to build and maintain than you would imagine. It took around $114 billion to build interstate across the entire country, while the high speed rail project in just California is already upwards of $128 billion.
On Europe that is kind of exactly my point, high speed rail in Europe is built and maintained by federal governments with high levels of participation, interest and oversight from their population. This can never happen in the US because our federal government has to oversee a very wide amount of area and states are not so autonomous and self-governed that their populations primarily interest themselves with their state governments.