European Urbanism and High-Speed Rail
A very good use of massive infrastructure spending along this line would also be building proper regional rail. Electrifying and improving what we typically call “commuter rail” in the US into modern, faster and comfortable all day service. Overhead 25kv. Modern European style EMUs. This forms the backbone of transit in major regions and can be connected by new HSR lines over time, making HSR more effective.<p>Caltrain electrification is an attempt at this in a very small scope but really shows just how slow and terrible we are at this kind of thing. And again thanks to CAHSRs not invented here attitude stuck with weird decisions like needing to support the worlds highest platform height. (I’m only barely surprised CAHSR didn’t decide to invent a new track gauge.)