cross-posted from: https://lemmy.skoops.social/post/727
crossposted: https://lemmy.skoops.social/post/665
Oh boy...
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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One of the factors is that the US is surprisingly huge. It takes EU tourists by surprise that a quick jaunt from NYC to visit their friend in Chicago is several days by road (unless you drive like an American roadtripper for fourteen hours a day) moreover, there's just huge tracks of land featuring not-too-exciting vistas (unless you plan your road trip to feature pretty routes, in which case multiply the distance by 1.3), so for the short while that airlines were regulated and we weren't worried (yet) about the air-travel carbon footprint (Huge. Enormous. Colossal.) it made sense to fly everywhere in the US.
Now that it's insanely expensive and inconvenient to fly, and we shouldn't be doing it, it's time for the US to build HSR for realsies, if the automotive / fossil fuel industrial complex will let us.
The US isn't as huge as you seem to believe (or Europe not as small). Europe is not as square, so its land area is much smaller, but the distances are comparable.
A trip from Hamburg to Vienna is not that much shorter than a trip from NYC to Chicago, but it's easily done by train in Europe: Board the NJ491 at 8pm in Hamburg central station (in the city centre, no need to be there more than a few minutes before boarding), have a good nights sleep, get your breakfast served at your bed (in the comfort category), take a shower and arrive well rested in Vienna (city center, no need to wait for your luggage) at 10am the next day.
Admittedly, a lot of people do fly from Hamburg to Vienna as well, as it can be cheaper than the train due to tax exemptions for the airlines (not everything is perfect in Europe), or they just don't like sleeping in a train, but these trains are usually well utilised.
EDIT: The link to truesize doesn't seem to work correctly, here's what I meant to show:
This is a wild comment. ~3.8MM sq miles vs ~1.6MM
Lisbon to Vilnius ~2375 miles longest route I could picture Portland ME to San Diego ~3200 miles Portland OR to Miami ~3250 miles NY to Chicago ~800 miles Hamburg to Vienna ~600 miles
Lisbon to Tromsø ~3200 miles