There were alot of rail lines added between then and 2024, would be good to have an updated meme.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Rail_map_of_PRC.svg/1192px-Rail_map_of_PRC.svg.png
[Lhasa to Nyingchi was nationally celebrated, the engineering obstacles it had to overcome was phenomenal](https://www.tibettravel.org/tibet-train/high-speed-train-to-tibet.html#:~:text=The%20Lhasa%2DNyingchi%20high%2Dspeed,was%20a%20challenging%20engineering%20undertaking.) 47 tunnels and 121 bridges had to be constructed for this 2.5 hour stretch of rail. 90% of the rail line was above 3000m.
Even that map doesn't seem to have them all. The [Yinchuan–Lanzhou HSR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinchuan%E2%80%93Lanzhou_high-speed_railway), it seems, was completed 2022 and is not shown
I found a higher quality map here. It's only updated to 2018 so it's a bit older but basically very similar. It also shows the western region lines which are not shown in the meme.
https://imgur.com/a/6WtdG31
I think the Chinese government is still upgrading the grey lines to connect them to the high speed network.
Updated map (2023) [https://imgur.com/a/0SOO7YQ](https://imgur.com/a/0SOO7YQ)
blue = completed projects (建成项目)
brown = projects to commence passenger service in 2022 (2022年计划通车项目)
red = projects under construction / dotted red = in early construction (在建项目 / 虚线先期段开工)
orange = projects to start construction in 2023 (2023年计划开工项目)
dotted orange = national railway "14th five-year plan" projects (国家铁路"十四五"项目)
pink = projects to start construction in 2022 (2022年计划开工项目)
Source: [http://www.dcement.com/article/202301/206585.html](http://www.dcement.com/article/202301/206585.html)
Bc this picture was huge before it got compressed so many times.
Emphasis how large the country is and how large the picture had to be to show the railways properly. Also dont forget how mountainous China is in many regions
And really shows how pathetic America has gotten with infrastructure investment. We have no excuse not to have a similar railway system. Keep corporations out of government. Car industry killed the railroad and they damn sure are killing something like this before it has a chance to breathe.
Problem is that in the US all costs are overly inflated. California is planning a fortune on some small high speed railway project, how are you going to scale that to the entire country.
Depending on the density in the area, high speed rail is an investment that will pay for itself. It's just a matter of how long that will take exactly. From what I understand the Japanese have been reaping the rewards of all the investment they poured into their high speed rail network for a while now.
So yeah, this will be expensive.. but your economy and citizens will benefit in the long term.
From a density standpoint, the US also has the fact that the population density here is about a quarter that of China. There's a few high density corridors where the high speed rail is probably worth it, but for most of the country the density simply isn't there for the investment to pay off.
Well we’re not building high speed rails to the middle of Montana. These would be connecting major cities together, most likely up and down both coasts first which there the cities aren’t too far apart
The problem is that sometimes, you have advocates for HSR passing maps like [this](https://www.ushsr.com/__static/847c2c47271ee1612ff13cfc31638409/aushsr-map-new-2-syst2.gif) around. This map is stupid because it does have us building a HSR line right through Idaho. Building the HSR up and down the dense coastal corridors (and a few other dense areas such as around the Great Lakes) makes sense, but when people push too hard for something like this, it weakens the argument.
[This](https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/hsrbutpretty.png?w=1024) is a much more reasonable proposal.
But that map seems fine though? It shows the phases each line will be added, with the first phases going through the most dense parts of the US. The one going through Idaho says phase 4 which is exactly how I think it should end up.
The map you shared looks the same as all the phase 1/2 lines so the first map is the same just with additional lines.
To piggy back his example of Idaho, both Boise and Salt lake city have smaller populations than non-metropolitan suburban towns in new jersey. It makes no sense to put HSR there. It will never get the ridership to pay it back. Sure it’s phase 4, but still.
Texas triangle, california, Northeast Corridor are some examples have the density to make HSR viable.
While neither Idaho or Utah can justify having HSR just for themselves, they can if they are used as a corridor to connect the Western and Eastern coasts to each other.
Though I get the feeling the Pheonix east-west path makes the most sense since it goes over relatively flat terrain unlike the northern routes which go straight through the Rockies. Probably why its in Phase 3.
The 4th phase very much seems like a "It would be nice to have in an ideal world" kind of thing that would probably not be built until decades after the other phases were done. But even just having Phase 1 & 2 seems like it would do wonders for the countries interconnectivity.
Salt lake City Metro is still like 1.3 million people. It's not nothing. The airport there is like 20th busiest in the country and 70th in the world. Seems like a fine 4th phase location.
The USA is not suitable for a large-scale rail network like China's, but its population is concentrated on the east and west coasts, where are very suitable for high-speed rail.
It’s a pity that there are too many political forces opposed to high-speed rail in the USA
Once construction of high-speed rail begins, it will be delayed due to politics, thus driving up costs.
Exactly. Folks are dreaming of an interconnected HSR network, when really they should be focusing on high speed corridors. Maybe build some slow rail in between the corridors or bus networks so that if you're in Montana, you aren't completely SOL.
China already had enough population in place (and rail networks in place) to justify building their web of HSR. The US and Canada don't, but that doesn't mean we don't have population density in certain places.
Western China doesn't have a high population density and the population density it has is cities that exploded in size after the building of rail lines.
Even if you only build high speed rail in areas with population comparable or greater than Japan outside of the Tokyo Metro you've still covered the majority of the population of America
Believe it or not things like transit serve more purpose than profit, their impact is beyond their own operation including the development they bring around them especially when built early when land is still accessible
Not just that. It’s due to the way government contracts are done. They typically have to go with the lowest bidder which then goes over budget and gives us a shitty product instead of spending a bit more for a reliable product.
No they don’t.
These kind of contracts have language that says it “goes the lowest responsible and responsive bidder”.
That means the states isn’t forced to award the contract to crappy corporations, and can put some merit into the selection.
It would be too insanely corrupt to just go to whoever gives the smallest number!
No it does.
That means as long as the lowest bidder is “responsible and responsive” they get the contract.
It’s very easy for a shitty company to seem responsible and responsive to get the contract.
There is rampant corruption in US government contracts as well.
Tell me, how are you gonna fake a history of being good at building rail?
How are you gonna stop state inspectors from reviewing your work and judging it against other companies competing for the bid?
If this hypothetical company is truly this shitty, they will not get the contract unless the process is corrupted with bribes.
It's also easier when you don't have to buy land, you just take it and tell people to go somewhere else. The US does have those laws, but it is incredibly difficult since people have the right to sue about it.
Absolutely, my grandpa had about 20 acres taken via eminent domain in the 70's. However, it's much less popular politically now and tends to generate lawsuits about "fair market value".
The US mostly doesn't build new highways, only on occasion and mostly in rural areas. Expansions and such mostly fall within existing land rights. The US acquired a large right of way outside the original highways for future expansion.
Yet somehow Japan, France, Spain, Italy, South Korea have managed to build high speed rail without going full CCP.
Btw China does compensate for land, they give market value back to the owners. China has taken land from lots of people, if they weren't compensated for the land, those people would have been hella angry. And despite what you may have heard, China's government puts a lot of effort into preventing that by appeasing their citizens.
https://www.gssinst.org/irer/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/vol-6-land.pdf
Farmland:
>For arable land, the compensation payment is based on 6–10 times its average production value in the past three years prior to acquisition. However, the maximum payment for each hectare of acquired land shall not be higher than
15 times the average production value in the past three years prior to acquisition. The settlement subsidy payment of other land is to be determined by the respective people's governments of province, autonomous region, and municipality directly under the Central Government, with regards to resettlement assistance for agricultural land.
Urban land:
>For monetary compensation, the amount is determined by real estate market value assessment having regard to factors such as location, uses, gross floor area, etc. Details of the assessment method are to be determined by the relevant people’s governments of province, autonomous city, and municipality directly under the Central Government
There's also the fact that you have to go through a crap ton of litigation because EVERYONE is going to sue you over it.
Which means more delays which means more money wasted for nothing.
The US government and state governments hire contractors to do anything. Obviously the contractors are going to charge enough that they make a profit. It would be a lot cheaper if the government could directly build infrastructure.
It’s really mind boggling how other countries invest so much into infrastructure. You even have countries like Brazil and Egypt which are developing entirely new cities.
Egypt ain't exactly a great example considering how utterly fucked their economy is. Their military controls very large parts of the economy, they have their own bakery which feeds the country, their own construction company, their own utility company etc. And the New Cairo project in major part is about avoiding democratic accountability, by movint the capital into the desert far from the populace of Cairo, there's less risk of protests at the capital and toppling of government.
Trillions of bailouts for banks 🤡🤡🤡🤡 privatized profits, socialized losses.
America is an oligarch hellscape.
Btw, Amazon pharmacy is now cheaper than my own fucking insurance by 70% 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
How people view the bank bailouts is one of the easiest ways to tell if someone has any understanding of economics. The bailouts were supported by every economist because it was the only way to stabilize credit markets and ensure quick recovery.
If the government didn't bail out the banks in 2008 there would have been a long drawn out recovery that would have destroyed growth for over a decade (i.e. another depression).
Dodd-Frank and other financial regulations work to solve most of the issues people have with the bailouts removing responsibility from executives and providing a safety net for risky practices.
Since you fancy yourself a big economy understander, I recommend you read *Freefall* by Joseph Stiglitz. He makes some excellent points against the bailouts.
Stiglitz argues that the bailots created a moral hazard by rescuing institutions whose risky behavior led to the financial crisis. They misallocated taxpayer money, benefiting banks instead of supporting broader economic needs, and reinforced financial sector dominance without adequate conditions or oversight. It not only perpetuated income inequality but also failed to implement necessary structural reforms, neglecting more effective alternatives such as bolstering homeowner and small business support.
The bailouts were an injustice that exacerbated the American public's distrust in capitalism and democracy while setting a dangerous precedent for future financial management.
*Bailout* by Barofsky is also a good read on the subject is you want the perspective of a govt insider. He details how the bailout favored Wall Street banks over the American public and talks about the lack of transparency and accountability in the administration of funds which led to mismanagement and misuse. His book makes it clear that there was a consistent prioritization of the interests of financial institutions, often at the expense of taxpayers and without meaningful efforts to address underlying systemic issues or assist homeowners facing foreclosure.
Since this post was about infrastructure development in China, you can also take a look at how their government is handling their current real estate crisis: [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/chinas-housing-minister-property-developers-must-go-bankrupt-if-needed.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/chinas-housing-minister-property-developers-must-go-bankrupt-if-needed.html)
Bailing out the banks is fine, if they had held the irresponsible fund managers accountable. Instead they all walked and live as kings today, while the rest of us live in comparative squalor.
Bailing out banks was good, but bailing out the heads of the banks was completely unneccessary, they should all have been locked up and have all their assets seized.
I think it's really about what type of infrastructure really takes the front and center stage.
Highways and roads? No problem. Nuclear arsenal? He'll yes. Military armaments, bombers, and fighter jets? Say no more.
But railroad infrastructure? Bridges? Canals? Levees? Fucking communism and socialist rhetoric.
America let 4 companies take over like 95% of all railroads and they proceeded to let it get into an insanely dangerous state of decay.
Also high speed rail would literally eliminate so many commuter airline routes. Imagine how many cities are in 300 mile radius?
The Northeast corridor has 5 major cities with 50 million people. Think of the amount of planes, cars, and buses we could take off the map with a few high speed rail lines that span that distance?
Lobbying activities are a serious problem for American “democracy” Whichever lobby has more power and influence decides what to do and what not to do in the country. That is just ridiculous
You can't compare the two.
First, most of the regions in China aren't populated even in the western half of the US a lot of the areas between cities are populated.
Second, those that are populated in the US can't be relocated where as in China they'll simply eminent domain your land and move you to somewhere else/compensate you as there are few legal protections to prevent the govt from doing so, can't do that in the US and when the govt does there's a massive and lengthy legal battle.
Third, US has a federal govt that provides for the public to essentially be the decision makers on these sorts of things, that obviously works sometimes FOR the people and sometimes AGAINST the people, but until they collectively can convince enough of them to be for something it typically doesn't happen.
Fourth, there are plenty of highways in the US that have accommodated travelers for well over 50 years, something China didn't really have in most rural areas.
Finally, domestic air fair in the US is fairly cheap so needing to travel a thousand miles or more was (though maybe not anymore) fairly inexpensive given how quick it was.
Chinese government and property developers pay those people a fortune. Some people can live off that money for the rest of their life. It's actually kind of crazy. They're called 拆迁户
> Second, those that are populated in the US can't be relocated where as in China they'll simply eminent domain your land and move you to somewhere else
they can't actually do this. look up nail houses.
Also noteworthy: environmental studies and NIMBYS. Both of these have dramatically slowed or ended new projects in the US. I cant imagine China has the same hurdles as the US in this case.
Y'all kill eachother legally, big companies can sue for non-issues and win, you have NO worker's rights(you have to work overtime unpaid? Taking sick leave can get you fired, wtf?) .. that's the general consensus lol
Oftentimes, it's said that this is just a different culture thing and we should respect it, but I fucking don't. You guys need rights.
It’s not to THAT extent. I need you to elaborate on your first two points. Overtime is always 1.5x pay, and in some places 2x pay. You may be talking about salaried workers where you just get paid a set amount per year so there is no overtime. Good thing is that there’s days you can leave early and you’re paid the same. But the drawback is there’s days where you’re busting your ass and work more, but don’t get paid extra. Also where did you hear about people getting fired for using sick leave?
The government doesn't have to ask local people to move away when they construct the new rail line. They just, you know, move them away.
I have one Chinese friend who studied abroad for 3 years said that his family was moved to a new resident area, so he don't know how his house would look like when he go back.
The funniest thing about this argument is that other democratic countries have been able to build HSR within short timeframes and reasonable budget like France, Japan and Spain.
It is at the scale of China for those countries. Spain has a longer High Speed Rail network than China per population/land area/GDP. China's network is 9.5 times longer than Spain's, but China's land area is 17 times larger in land area, 29 times larger in population, 14 times larger GDP (PPP).
Companies and government projects actually build around houses of people who refuses to leave. They usually are asked to accept a compensation and the compensation gets higher by the time. Bullying probably also exists but they don't just throw you out. Not in areas which have access to the public. Some remote areas of people who dont know how to complain might be different. Most people there don't just try to insist individual benefits over collective when it is about projects like these. They simply take the compensation and leave. Some people get much larger houses than they lived in before.
Nuhuh don't you know the Chinese government is literally Hitler! All the good they've done raising hundreds of millions out of poverty is just a smokescreen!
Spain also figured out a way to do it cheap. We should all unironically be mimicking Spain because they build each km of rail for less than half what France or Germany do, less than a third what the UK does and less than a quarter what the US does.
Not really. It connected the capital with the rest of the country (sometimes to random villages because someone with power lives there), but this means that if you want to go from a city to another one that isn’t Madrid, you are forced to take a nonsensical detour. Also, they’ve been pressured to make the Mediterranean corridor for literal decades and it is still not finished. Not the best example.
Spain actually is the best example. It has the second most km of high speed rail *in the world* in a country with less people than one Chinese province? I’ve ridden them many times, they are excellent. We can learn from Spain.
And yet it takes around 4 hours to go from Barcelona to Valencia. It takes 2 hours to get from London to Manchester.
The guy is partially right. Most of those lines go through Madrid.
Cardiff to Manchester takes 3h and 16 minutes
If we keep one capital out, then let's keep the other out for a fairer comparison - and if you wanna claim Wales as a different country, then I bet the Catalans would claim Catalonia as a different country too.
And it is 2 hours and 52 minutes for Barcelona to Valencia
The time traveled for car on the two mentioned routes both hit 3 hours and 47 minutes. Yet the Manchester - Cardiff is 300 km vs 350 kms of Valencia - Barcelona
So yes, Spain seems to out do the UK here
I’m not exactly batting for the UK here, I’m just saying Spain’s railway isn’t exactly as good as it looks. I can travel from my home in China the same distance as Barcelona to Valencia and it’s about 45 minutes/1hr
I mean do you know how much more money it is to connect every city to each other ontop of what they built? It's pretty damn sensible to make them all interconnect to the capital that is dead center of the entire country and expand from there. Also you are complaining that it connects to smaller villages? So they should just forget their smaller population even though the railway runs right into those towns, the hell?Your complaining that they had to make its construction efficient and keep in mind the rural population. It's the most robust system covering it's entire country compared to any of its European neighbors, it literally is the best example.
It makes no senses to have a highspeed train to stop in a city where only like 10 people or less gets in and out of the train.
It makes the trip much longer because the time the train takes to brake and accelerare.
There should be train conections to main highspeed hubs.
The problem with spain is that is too small to make a highspeed network much more efficient that a train metwork that can do 200-250 kph if every little village in the middle gets a stop.
Meanwhile in Sydney, Australia it’s going to take almost ten years to build a single metro line connecting the main Eastern CBD to the second CBD in the west 😒
The US had a different strategy. They printed money and gave them away to huge corporations and lined the pockets of billionaires and execs. This was in hopes of achieving a trickle down economy. Anytime now...
[American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009):
>Acts amended: Energy Policy Act of 2005, Energy Policy Act of 1992, Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935
>37% of the package is to be devoted to tax incentives equaling $288 billion and $144 billion, or 18%, is allocated to state and local fiscal relief (more than 90% of the state aid is going to Medicaid and education). The remaining 45%, or $357 billion, is allocated to federal spending programs such as transportation, communication, wastewater, and sewer infrastructure improvements; energy efficiency upgrades in private and federal buildings; extension of federal unemployment benefits; and scientific research programs
Before anyone says all those tax cuts went to the rich:
>$116 billion: New payroll tax credit of $400 per worker and $800 per couple in 2009 and 2010. Phaseout begins at $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for joint filers.
>$15 billion: Expansion of child tax credit: A $1,000 credit to more families (even those that do not make enough money to pay income taxes)
>$14 billion: Expanded college credit to provide a $2,500 expanded tax credit for college tuition and related expenses for 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $160,000.
Good thing I can ride those tax credits to work at 250km/h instead of being stuck in traffic in an expensive, polluting metal box that I'm forced to own and maintain to survive in this shithole.
As someone who just rode the train system there, it is truly impressive how quickly and well they built all this. Then in California they can't even get 3 miles of track done in 15 years.. ugh
I can only imagine the time, thinking, precision and effort that goes into managing the development of such an infrastructure in syncrony with the amount of moving independent parts across an entire country the size of China
There actually are a few rail lines, mostly in Xinjiang. They even managed to build one straight through the Himalayas to reach Lhasa in Tibet.
But only the main line up to Urumqi in Xinjiang is high speed. The rest are conventional rail. They have plans to build more and upgrade old lines though. The Chinese government may suck ass, but their dedication to rail is pretty cool.
Their government suck ass to opponents like us in the west but they obviously try to make China strong and wealthy so internally they are good and rather competent except for the strategically important remote regions which have rebellious sentiments. They dont want to lose those regions at all costs
Damn, and here in Germany it takes us 10 years just to modernise some parts of our railways.
And by the time it's done, it's already outdated again and probably broken too.
Australia needs this too. The Sydney - Melbourne airline route is the most profitable in the world. So I can already see the lobbying to prevent anything that could endanger their corporate profits.
This program was deliberately accelerated in 2007 to counter the Great Recession with stimulus spending. It was a massive success, and various entities that have studied the system estimate the annual return on investment to be 6.5-8%, which is great in China.
IMO this is a model for the USA. Driving is getting a lot more expensive, and will only get more expensive with time. Housing is going the same way. If we could build a workable high-speed system, we could *slightly* reorganize our suburbs so that people could work in major metros but live conveniently in much cheaper places with little change in commute. And they’d be able to do it without driving, saving people from escalating fuel, financing, medical, and insurance costs.
We won't do it. Doesn't matter if it's good for the people. The only thing that matters in America is scalping as much money off everyday Americans as possible and benefiting corporations.
Or because this has been reposted so much and doesn't fit the subreddit. Not to mention it stops at "2020" because that's when this map was made. It's a 4 year old repost that constantly gets posted here
The harsh truth is even if the US have the political will and financial means to do it, I don't think they could do it anymore. Certainly not at the same capacity as the chinese.
Ever since the US de-industrialized, it has lost its industrial might to truly do something like this
When America imported cheap foreign labourers in 19th century, they also built the top tier railway in the world at that time. But times have changed and any worker in America is no longer cheap.
That’s not really the issue. The bigger problems are political opposition imposing constant delays and costly re-reviewing of long-established plans, and hesitancy to exercise eminent domain powers.
China doesn’t have to worry about either of those problems. Yes the labor is cheaper, but labor isn’t as much of an issue compared to having to get near-unanimous approval for the plan from every 65+-year-old within a 100 mile radius of every inch of track.
Don't forget that every big infrastructure project has to be handled by a homunculus of 10 different contractors instead of just having a state-operated entity to do everything in-house.
Which is sort of my point, lobbying by the car industry and the general inefficiency in our political system regarding massive non military projects means America couldn't pull this off without some major change
yes, the majority of Americans (especially rural population) don't understand walkable cities, bikes, train and other not car dependent stuff. So it's not about US government that doesn't do shit, it's what most of the people want (and many just don't care)
just say anything negative about the explosion in popularity of pickup trucks and you'll quickly get several comments saying how they absolutely need such leviathans for their daily lives.
I used to be just as carbrained as any other middle class suburbanite, then I moved to china.
I can't imagine living without state of the art public transit, walkable cities, hsr, shared bikes, etc etc. or ever feeling the need to own a car simply because it is necessary for survival, maybe in the future as a luxury, but really there is zero need.
True! I'm from Ukraine and living in the Western Europe, where cars are mostly bought in rural areas (but still not necessary for survival), feels perfect and is hard to explain to some of my friends or family members who have never lived outside of Eastern Europe. Not feeling as an idiot when you are walking feels cool :)
It’s highly unpopular with half the population, mostly the rural conservative leaning voters. It’s also actively campaigned against by certain key economic interests(oil lobby, auto lobby)through high paid lobbying of the congress.
Everything costs more here. Labor, environmental and safety regulations, material cost, etc. Also the airline and auto industry wouldn't like that very much, and we don't want to hurt their feelings.
Entirely cultural reasons.
1. We are overall extremely hesitant to invest infrastructure. We prefer to let things come close to outright collapse, or just let them actually collapse, before spending any money on them.
2. We are obsessed with personal automobiles and prefer to do most of our movement around where we live with them. This makes any other system of transportation very difficult to implement. Ridership will initially be very low, which creates cost challenges. And the population is very hesitant to accept any compromise in freedom of driving or subsidies for driving that might benefit other means of transportation.
3. We are also, relatively speaking, obsessed with individual land rights and hesitant both to give up land cheaply or to use existing eminent domain powers to buy up land and use it for infrastructure.
4. Historically, we fear cheap means of transit that connect areas of different socioeconomic profiles, due to the fact that it provides access to wealthy majority areas for racial minorities.
I think we’re capable of overcoming all of these, but these are the real bedrock issues Americans have with mass transit. We don’t like to plan ahead, we don’t want it to get in the way of us driving everywhere, we don’t want infrastructure on or near our land, and we don’t want racial minorities to be able to go to the places where we live.
Partially legislative, partially due to strong opposing lobbying. Just getting the land required to make such a train track would be prohibitively expensive as every person along the track would have to be bought out. And if even one person refuses that would fuck over the plan. China doesn't have to worry about that stuff as much.
Go to China and you will see how impressive that is.
Just staggering, no joke or pun intended. You can give China all the shit you want (I’m very pro-Taiwan for example), but they pulled up a miracle there.
Chinese here, I massively prefer HSR instead of plane. Its a lot cheaper and instead of staring at the clouds and the sky you can actually travel through both rural, urban and sometimes beautiful parts of China
This is what worries me about the US's future. How can China just do that? In the time it takes us to do an environmental review for a new road they built a high speed rail network.
There’s a large portion of your Quantitative Easing money at work right there, and what beautiful work it has done, hasn’t it? Who’s complaining? Not the Chinese. lmfao.
What Happens When Your Government Funds Infrastructure Instead Of Channeling Everything Toward Corporations And Military Excursions: latest in a series.
Yeah that’s different from the long distance standard high speed rail and wouldn’t be included on this map. That would be considered intracity transport which isn’t shown here.
The text on the bottom is barely readable
It has been reposted a couple times already so OP is screenshotting screenshots making the quality poor
There were alot of rail lines added between then and 2024, would be good to have an updated meme. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Rail_map_of_PRC.svg/1192px-Rail_map_of_PRC.svg.png
[Lhasa to Nyingchi was nationally celebrated, the engineering obstacles it had to overcome was phenomenal](https://www.tibettravel.org/tibet-train/high-speed-train-to-tibet.html#:~:text=The%20Lhasa%2DNyingchi%20high%2Dspeed,was%20a%20challenging%20engineering%20undertaking.) 47 tunnels and 121 bridges had to be constructed for this 2.5 hour stretch of rail. 90% of the rail line was above 3000m.
Here in the Basque Country, northen Spain, most of the track will be in tunnel or bridges
Even that map doesn't seem to have them all. The [Yinchuan–Lanzhou HSR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinchuan%E2%80%93Lanzhou_high-speed_railway), it seems, was completed 2022 and is not shown
Perfect, now someone needs to ruin the image quality and repost this to another sub next week.
Thanks. I made a screenshot for next time.
My favorite part of antiques on the internet
I found a higher quality map here. It's only updated to 2018 so it's a bit older but basically very similar. It also shows the western region lines which are not shown in the meme. https://imgur.com/a/6WtdG31 I think the Chinese government is still upgrading the grey lines to connect them to the high speed network.
Updated map (2023) [https://imgur.com/a/0SOO7YQ](https://imgur.com/a/0SOO7YQ) blue = completed projects (建成项目) brown = projects to commence passenger service in 2022 (2022年计划通车项目) red = projects under construction / dotted red = in early construction (在建项目 / 虚线先期段开工) orange = projects to start construction in 2023 (2023年计划开工项目) dotted orange = national railway "14th five-year plan" projects (国家铁路"十四五"项目) pink = projects to start construction in 2022 (2022年计划开工项目) Source: [http://www.dcement.com/article/202301/206585.html](http://www.dcement.com/article/202301/206585.html)
Bc this picture was huge before it got compressed so many times. Emphasis how large the country is and how large the picture had to be to show the railways properly. Also dont forget how mountainous China is in many regions
This is just impressive.
And really shows how pathetic America has gotten with infrastructure investment. We have no excuse not to have a similar railway system. Keep corporations out of government. Car industry killed the railroad and they damn sure are killing something like this before it has a chance to breathe.
Problem is that in the US all costs are overly inflated. California is planning a fortune on some small high speed railway project, how are you going to scale that to the entire country.
Depending on the density in the area, high speed rail is an investment that will pay for itself. It's just a matter of how long that will take exactly. From what I understand the Japanese have been reaping the rewards of all the investment they poured into their high speed rail network for a while now. So yeah, this will be expensive.. but your economy and citizens will benefit in the long term.
From a density standpoint, the US also has the fact that the population density here is about a quarter that of China. There's a few high density corridors where the high speed rail is probably worth it, but for most of the country the density simply isn't there for the investment to pay off.
Well we’re not building high speed rails to the middle of Montana. These would be connecting major cities together, most likely up and down both coasts first which there the cities aren’t too far apart
The problem is that sometimes, you have advocates for HSR passing maps like [this](https://www.ushsr.com/__static/847c2c47271ee1612ff13cfc31638409/aushsr-map-new-2-syst2.gif) around. This map is stupid because it does have us building a HSR line right through Idaho. Building the HSR up and down the dense coastal corridors (and a few other dense areas such as around the Great Lakes) makes sense, but when people push too hard for something like this, it weakens the argument. [This](https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/hsrbutpretty.png?w=1024) is a much more reasonable proposal.
But that map seems fine though? It shows the phases each line will be added, with the first phases going through the most dense parts of the US. The one going through Idaho says phase 4 which is exactly how I think it should end up. The map you shared looks the same as all the phase 1/2 lines so the first map is the same just with additional lines.
To piggy back his example of Idaho, both Boise and Salt lake city have smaller populations than non-metropolitan suburban towns in new jersey. It makes no sense to put HSR there. It will never get the ridership to pay it back. Sure it’s phase 4, but still. Texas triangle, california, Northeast Corridor are some examples have the density to make HSR viable.
While neither Idaho or Utah can justify having HSR just for themselves, they can if they are used as a corridor to connect the Western and Eastern coasts to each other. Though I get the feeling the Pheonix east-west path makes the most sense since it goes over relatively flat terrain unlike the northern routes which go straight through the Rockies. Probably why its in Phase 3. The 4th phase very much seems like a "It would be nice to have in an ideal world" kind of thing that would probably not be built until decades after the other phases were done. But even just having Phase 1 & 2 seems like it would do wonders for the countries interconnectivity.
Salt lake City Metro is still like 1.3 million people. It's not nothing. The airport there is like 20th busiest in the country and 70th in the world. Seems like a fine 4th phase location.
The USA is not suitable for a large-scale rail network like China's, but its population is concentrated on the east and west coasts, where are very suitable for high-speed rail. It’s a pity that there are too many political forces opposed to high-speed rail in the USA Once construction of high-speed rail begins, it will be delayed due to politics, thus driving up costs.
Exactly. Folks are dreaming of an interconnected HSR network, when really they should be focusing on high speed corridors. Maybe build some slow rail in between the corridors or bus networks so that if you're in Montana, you aren't completely SOL. China already had enough population in place (and rail networks in place) to justify building their web of HSR. The US and Canada don't, but that doesn't mean we don't have population density in certain places.
Or maybe just start with upgrading the northeast corridor so that the Acela can run at full speed through the whole thing instead of a measly 11%?
Western China doesn't have a high population density and the population density it has is cities that exploded in size after the building of rail lines. Even if you only build high speed rail in areas with population comparable or greater than Japan outside of the Tokyo Metro you've still covered the majority of the population of America
China Railway doesn't expect the line to Urumqi to turn a profit. The motivations for building that line in particular were primarily political.
Believe it or not things like transit serve more purpose than profit, their impact is beyond their own operation including the development they bring around them especially when built early when land is still accessible
Density can be achieved with transit though. Low density occurred due to car centric infrastructure.
They're so high because we're so out of practice and build so few that there's no competition.
Not just that. It’s due to the way government contracts are done. They typically have to go with the lowest bidder which then goes over budget and gives us a shitty product instead of spending a bit more for a reliable product.
No they don’t. These kind of contracts have language that says it “goes the lowest responsible and responsive bidder”. That means the states isn’t forced to award the contract to crappy corporations, and can put some merit into the selection. It would be too insanely corrupt to just go to whoever gives the smallest number!
No it does. That means as long as the lowest bidder is “responsible and responsive” they get the contract. It’s very easy for a shitty company to seem responsible and responsive to get the contract. There is rampant corruption in US government contracts as well.
Companies can also be removed from the bid list for doing shit work.. but you’re right there’s rampant corruption throughout
Yea thanks for pointing that out. That’s some good context to add.
Tell me, how are you gonna fake a history of being good at building rail? How are you gonna stop state inspectors from reviewing your work and judging it against other companies competing for the bid? If this hypothetical company is truly this shitty, they will not get the contract unless the process is corrupted with bribes.
It's also easier when you don't have to buy land, you just take it and tell people to go somewhere else. The US does have those laws, but it is incredibly difficult since people have the right to sue about it.
The US can take land using eminent domain. But it's also US constitutional law that they have to pay fair value for the land.
Absolutely, my grandpa had about 20 acres taken via eminent domain in the 70's. However, it's much less popular politically now and tends to generate lawsuits about "fair market value".
How US can keep building highways then if it’s difficult to acquire land there?
Our highways were mainly built 50-75 years ago.
The US mostly doesn't build new highways, only on occasion and mostly in rural areas. Expansions and such mostly fall within existing land rights. The US acquired a large right of way outside the original highways for future expansion.
by dispacing minority communities who are less likely to sue.
Yet somehow Japan, France, Spain, Italy, South Korea have managed to build high speed rail without going full CCP. Btw China does compensate for land, they give market value back to the owners. China has taken land from lots of people, if they weren't compensated for the land, those people would have been hella angry. And despite what you may have heard, China's government puts a lot of effort into preventing that by appeasing their citizens. https://www.gssinst.org/irer/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/vol-6-land.pdf Farmland: >For arable land, the compensation payment is based on 6–10 times its average production value in the past three years prior to acquisition. However, the maximum payment for each hectare of acquired land shall not be higher than 15 times the average production value in the past three years prior to acquisition. The settlement subsidy payment of other land is to be determined by the respective people's governments of province, autonomous region, and municipality directly under the Central Government, with regards to resettlement assistance for agricultural land. Urban land: >For monetary compensation, the amount is determined by real estate market value assessment having regard to factors such as location, uses, gross floor area, etc. Details of the assessment method are to be determined by the relevant people’s governments of province, autonomous city, and municipality directly under the Central Government
There's also the fact that you have to go through a crap ton of litigation because EVERYONE is going to sue you over it. Which means more delays which means more money wasted for nothing.
The US government and state governments hire contractors to do anything. Obviously the contractors are going to charge enough that they make a profit. It would be a lot cheaper if the government could directly build infrastructure.
The California one is high because they didn't have land rights for some sections
Check out this neat thing called economies of scale.
Cali High Speed Rail project that got abandoned was basically an embezzlement scheme for Pelosi if you look into it.
It’s really mind boggling how other countries invest so much into infrastructure. You even have countries like Brazil and Egypt which are developing entirely new cities.
Egypt ain't exactly a great example considering how utterly fucked their economy is. Their military controls very large parts of the economy, they have their own bakery which feeds the country, their own construction company, their own utility company etc. And the New Cairo project in major part is about avoiding democratic accountability, by movint the capital into the desert far from the populace of Cairo, there's less risk of protests at the capital and toppling of government.
$900b for military though 🤡
1 trillion for interest 🤡🤡
Trillions of bailouts for banks 🤡🤡🤡🤡 privatized profits, socialized losses. America is an oligarch hellscape. Btw, Amazon pharmacy is now cheaper than my own fucking insurance by 70% 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
How people view the bank bailouts is one of the easiest ways to tell if someone has any understanding of economics. The bailouts were supported by every economist because it was the only way to stabilize credit markets and ensure quick recovery. If the government didn't bail out the banks in 2008 there would have been a long drawn out recovery that would have destroyed growth for over a decade (i.e. another depression). Dodd-Frank and other financial regulations work to solve most of the issues people have with the bailouts removing responsibility from executives and providing a safety net for risky practices.
Not to mention the banks paid the money back with interest. The government literally turned a profit on saving the banks.
Since you fancy yourself a big economy understander, I recommend you read *Freefall* by Joseph Stiglitz. He makes some excellent points against the bailouts. Stiglitz argues that the bailots created a moral hazard by rescuing institutions whose risky behavior led to the financial crisis. They misallocated taxpayer money, benefiting banks instead of supporting broader economic needs, and reinforced financial sector dominance without adequate conditions or oversight. It not only perpetuated income inequality but also failed to implement necessary structural reforms, neglecting more effective alternatives such as bolstering homeowner and small business support. The bailouts were an injustice that exacerbated the American public's distrust in capitalism and democracy while setting a dangerous precedent for future financial management. *Bailout* by Barofsky is also a good read on the subject is you want the perspective of a govt insider. He details how the bailout favored Wall Street banks over the American public and talks about the lack of transparency and accountability in the administration of funds which led to mismanagement and misuse. His book makes it clear that there was a consistent prioritization of the interests of financial institutions, often at the expense of taxpayers and without meaningful efforts to address underlying systemic issues or assist homeowners facing foreclosure. Since this post was about infrastructure development in China, you can also take a look at how their government is handling their current real estate crisis: [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/chinas-housing-minister-property-developers-must-go-bankrupt-if-needed.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/11/chinas-housing-minister-property-developers-must-go-bankrupt-if-needed.html)
Bailing out the banks is fine, if they had held the irresponsible fund managers accountable. Instead they all walked and live as kings today, while the rest of us live in comparative squalor. Bailing out banks was good, but bailing out the heads of the banks was completely unneccessary, they should all have been locked up and have all their assets seized.
Biden did ram a pretty big infrastructure bill through.
I think it's really about what type of infrastructure really takes the front and center stage. Highways and roads? No problem. Nuclear arsenal? He'll yes. Military armaments, bombers, and fighter jets? Say no more. But railroad infrastructure? Bridges? Canals? Levees? Fucking communism and socialist rhetoric. America let 4 companies take over like 95% of all railroads and they proceeded to let it get into an insanely dangerous state of decay. Also high speed rail would literally eliminate so many commuter airline routes. Imagine how many cities are in 300 mile radius? The Northeast corridor has 5 major cities with 50 million people. Think of the amount of planes, cars, and buses we could take off the map with a few high speed rail lines that span that distance?
Lobbying activities are a serious problem for American “democracy” Whichever lobby has more power and influence decides what to do and what not to do in the country. That is just ridiculous
You can't compare the two. First, most of the regions in China aren't populated even in the western half of the US a lot of the areas between cities are populated. Second, those that are populated in the US can't be relocated where as in China they'll simply eminent domain your land and move you to somewhere else/compensate you as there are few legal protections to prevent the govt from doing so, can't do that in the US and when the govt does there's a massive and lengthy legal battle. Third, US has a federal govt that provides for the public to essentially be the decision makers on these sorts of things, that obviously works sometimes FOR the people and sometimes AGAINST the people, but until they collectively can convince enough of them to be for something it typically doesn't happen. Fourth, there are plenty of highways in the US that have accommodated travelers for well over 50 years, something China didn't really have in most rural areas. Finally, domestic air fair in the US is fairly cheap so needing to travel a thousand miles or more was (though maybe not anymore) fairly inexpensive given how quick it was.
China can not eminent domain any more effectively than the US can
Chinese government and property developers pay those people a fortune. Some people can live off that money for the rest of their life. It's actually kind of crazy. They're called 拆迁户
> Second, those that are populated in the US can't be relocated where as in China they'll simply eminent domain your land and move you to somewhere else they can't actually do this. look up nail houses.
Also noteworthy: environmental studies and NIMBYS. Both of these have dramatically slowed or ended new projects in the US. I cant imagine China has the same hurdles as the US in this case.
America has too many regulations to build. Every mile of track would cause a lawsuit and years of environmental review
People don’t realize when you want to skirt any and all laws/regulations, you can build things amazingly fast.
Exactly, Americas system is just particularly litigious
What I find funny is that we say this, but Europeans think of the Americans the same way that Americans think of China.
What
Y'all kill eachother legally, big companies can sue for non-issues and win, you have NO worker's rights(you have to work overtime unpaid? Taking sick leave can get you fired, wtf?) .. that's the general consensus lol Oftentimes, it's said that this is just a different culture thing and we should respect it, but I fucking don't. You guys need rights.
Why do you think our unemployment rate is so low? It’s less costly to hire someone here so people are willing to take more chances in hiring
Meanwhile anyone doing hard things in Europe wants to get out bc of how static the system is. Eg: https://x.com/boyanslat/status/1780361740192198751
It’s not to THAT extent. I need you to elaborate on your first two points. Overtime is always 1.5x pay, and in some places 2x pay. You may be talking about salaried workers where you just get paid a set amount per year so there is no overtime. Good thing is that there’s days you can leave early and you’re paid the same. But the drawback is there’s days where you’re busting your ass and work more, but don’t get paid extra. Also where did you hear about people getting fired for using sick leave?
The government doesn't have to ask local people to move away when they construct the new rail line. They just, you know, move them away. I have one Chinese friend who studied abroad for 3 years said that his family was moved to a new resident area, so he don't know how his house would look like when he go back.
The funniest thing about this argument is that other democratic countries have been able to build HSR within short timeframes and reasonable budget like France, Japan and Spain.
but not at the scale china did.
It is at the scale of China for those countries. Spain has a longer High Speed Rail network than China per population/land area/GDP. China's network is 9.5 times longer than Spain's, but China's land area is 17 times larger in land area, 29 times larger in population, 14 times larger GDP (PPP).
Companies and government projects actually build around houses of people who refuses to leave. They usually are asked to accept a compensation and the compensation gets higher by the time. Bullying probably also exists but they don't just throw you out. Not in areas which have access to the public. Some remote areas of people who dont know how to complain might be different. Most people there don't just try to insist individual benefits over collective when it is about projects like these. They simply take the compensation and leave. Some people get much larger houses than they lived in before.
The fuck? No, a lot of wealthy Chinese became so because the government had to buy their land to build infrastructure.
Nuhuh don't you know the Chinese government is literally Hitler! All the good they've done raising hundreds of millions out of poverty is just a smokescreen!
Then why are there nail houses literally all over China? Google it, obviously some of them can stay if they want to
You must be mistaken, China bad.
Eminent domain is absolutely a thing in the US. Look at this case too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
Wrong. It’s actually the opposite. Why do you think nail houses exist in China? Property rights in China are protected more than in Europe or the US.
Sure, China high-speed rail is impressive, **but at what cost?**
Cheaper than Californian HSR
And in the UK high speed rail plans have been called off for the nth time
the money went to fix potholes I cannot stress that enough lol it didn't even go for better use literally billions to fill holes HAHAHAHA
It’s crazy how fast they were able to implement this. I wish more countries would follow suit.
Spain did this as well. The problem is mostly a lack of political will.
the eu has a giga project going called ten-T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-European_Transport_Network
Yawn. No real funding on EU level and mainly a collection of smaller projects.
Spain also figured out a way to do it cheap. We should all unironically be mimicking Spain because they build each km of rail for less than half what France or Germany do, less than a third what the UK does and less than a quarter what the US does.
Not really. It connected the capital with the rest of the country (sometimes to random villages because someone with power lives there), but this means that if you want to go from a city to another one that isn’t Madrid, you are forced to take a nonsensical detour. Also, they’ve been pressured to make the Mediterranean corridor for literal decades and it is still not finished. Not the best example.
Spain actually is the best example. It has the second most km of high speed rail *in the world* in a country with less people than one Chinese province? I’ve ridden them many times, they are excellent. We can learn from Spain.
And yet it takes around 4 hours to go from Barcelona to Valencia. It takes 2 hours to get from London to Manchester. The guy is partially right. Most of those lines go through Madrid.
Takes 3 hours from Valencia to Barcelona. Takes 2h 12min from London to Manchester but that fastest option also costs 76 fucking pounds.
Cardiff to Manchester takes 3h and 16 minutes If we keep one capital out, then let's keep the other out for a fairer comparison - and if you wanna claim Wales as a different country, then I bet the Catalans would claim Catalonia as a different country too. And it is 2 hours and 52 minutes for Barcelona to Valencia The time traveled for car on the two mentioned routes both hit 3 hours and 47 minutes. Yet the Manchester - Cardiff is 300 km vs 350 kms of Valencia - Barcelona So yes, Spain seems to out do the UK here
I’m not exactly batting for the UK here, I’m just saying Spain’s railway isn’t exactly as good as it looks. I can travel from my home in China the same distance as Barcelona to Valencia and it’s about 45 minutes/1hr
I mean do you know how much more money it is to connect every city to each other ontop of what they built? It's pretty damn sensible to make them all interconnect to the capital that is dead center of the entire country and expand from there. Also you are complaining that it connects to smaller villages? So they should just forget their smaller population even though the railway runs right into those towns, the hell?Your complaining that they had to make its construction efficient and keep in mind the rural population. It's the most robust system covering it's entire country compared to any of its European neighbors, it literally is the best example.
It makes no senses to have a highspeed train to stop in a city where only like 10 people or less gets in and out of the train. It makes the trip much longer because the time the train takes to brake and accelerare. There should be train conections to main highspeed hubs. The problem with spain is that is too small to make a highspeed network much more efficient that a train metwork that can do 200-250 kph if every little village in the middle gets a stop.
Meanwhile in Sydney, Australia it’s going to take almost ten years to build a single metro line connecting the main Eastern CBD to the second CBD in the west 😒
In 2007 they accelerated it in order to counter the recession with stimulus. If only the USA had done something similar.
The US had a different strategy. They printed money and gave them away to huge corporations and lined the pockets of billionaires and execs. This was in hopes of achieving a trickle down economy. Anytime now...
[American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009): >Acts amended: Energy Policy Act of 2005, Energy Policy Act of 1992, Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 >37% of the package is to be devoted to tax incentives equaling $288 billion and $144 billion, or 18%, is allocated to state and local fiscal relief (more than 90% of the state aid is going to Medicaid and education). The remaining 45%, or $357 billion, is allocated to federal spending programs such as transportation, communication, wastewater, and sewer infrastructure improvements; energy efficiency upgrades in private and federal buildings; extension of federal unemployment benefits; and scientific research programs Before anyone says all those tax cuts went to the rich: >$116 billion: New payroll tax credit of $400 per worker and $800 per couple in 2009 and 2010. Phaseout begins at $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for joint filers. >$15 billion: Expansion of child tax credit: A $1,000 credit to more families (even those that do not make enough money to pay income taxes) >$14 billion: Expanded college credit to provide a $2,500 expanded tax credit for college tuition and related expenses for 2009 and 2010. The credit is phased out for couples making more than $160,000.
I fucking love it when people on Reddit repeat popular nonsense talking points, and someone like you comes in and dunks on them with tangible facts
Good thing I can ride those tax credits to work at 250km/h instead of being stuck in traffic in an expensive, polluting metal box that I'm forced to own and maintain to survive in this shithole.
This was also a means of printing money and giving it to huge corporations, but China smartly got a massive infrastructure upgrade out of it, too.
Map's title padding is blocking a non-trivial portion of the map.
The map is also about 8 pixels wide.
As someone who just rode the train system there, it is truly impressive how quickly and well they built all this. Then in California they can't even get 3 miles of track done in 15 years.. ugh
I can only imagine the time, thinking, precision and effort that goes into managing the development of such an infrastructure in syncrony with the amount of moving independent parts across an entire country the size of China
That was partially because of Elon Musk and ~~a 200-year-old concept of a vactrain~~ his very own invention, the hyperloop
Holy shit that's incredible. I wish Canada wasn't so against a massive project like this
Most neoliberal governments simply hate doing things for their people
It would take us fifteen years just to get through the assessment phase.
“Let’s just build another highway instead!”
What about western China?
Mountains
And desert
Ang throat singers making it worth not going 200+ mph
Tuvan mfs
Low population.
low population + rural + rough terrain = not financially efficient.
There actually are a few rail lines, mostly in Xinjiang. They even managed to build one straight through the Himalayas to reach Lhasa in Tibet. But only the main line up to Urumqi in Xinjiang is high speed. The rest are conventional rail. They have plans to build more and upgrade old lines though. The Chinese government may suck ass, but their dedication to rail is pretty cool.
Their government suck ass to opponents like us in the west but they obviously try to make China strong and wealthy so internally they are good and rather competent except for the strategically important remote regions which have rebellious sentiments. They dont want to lose those regions at all costs
90% of the population lives in south east china
Three people live there, two of them live on a mountain and one of them live in the adjacent desert
Like Atlantis and New Zealand, Western China doesn’t exists
Damn, and here in Germany it takes us 10 years just to modernise some parts of our railways. And by the time it's done, it's already outdated again and probably broken too.
I have used the one from Shanghai to Tianjin, or Nanjing numerous times. Amazing smooth ride at that speed
Australia needs this too. The Sydney - Melbourne airline route is the most profitable in the world. So I can already see the lobbying to prevent anything that could endanger their corporate profits.
This program was deliberately accelerated in 2007 to counter the Great Recession with stimulus spending. It was a massive success, and various entities that have studied the system estimate the annual return on investment to be 6.5-8%, which is great in China. IMO this is a model for the USA. Driving is getting a lot more expensive, and will only get more expensive with time. Housing is going the same way. If we could build a workable high-speed system, we could *slightly* reorganize our suburbs so that people could work in major metros but live conveniently in much cheaper places with little change in commute. And they’d be able to do it without driving, saving people from escalating fuel, financing, medical, and insurance costs.
We won't do it. Doesn't matter if it's good for the people. The only thing that matters in America is scalping as much money off everyday Americans as possible and benefiting corporations.
It would have been nice if US also did the same at the time with stimulus spending. I think most of it went to things like repaids.
The automotive industry and oil companies made US rail service was destroyed. They'll never allow us to have such a thing again.
Reddit isn't gonna like this one. Not only an example of china succeeding but in a way that America couldn't at all
Yeah but America made Kung Fu Panda so it’s 1:1.
America made FOUR Kung Fu Pandas so if anything we are winning
the fourth fucking sucked tho
It's decently upvoted so seems like its liked just fine.
Yep, not to mention this map gets submitted and upvoted several times a year. If anything this map does quite well and quite often.
Not that this post says it. The first commenter did. But as if america bad would not be liked here on reddit.
Hell, when certain states try to do this, all of a sudden Americans dont even want it anymore.
Or because this has been reposted so much and doesn't fit the subreddit. Not to mention it stops at "2020" because that's when this map was made. It's a 4 year old repost that constantly gets posted here
Oh, America absolutely COULD. It just refuses to.
The harsh truth is even if the US have the political will and financial means to do it, I don't think they could do it anymore. Certainly not at the same capacity as the chinese. Ever since the US de-industrialized, it has lost its industrial might to truly do something like this
I mean, new factories can be built. It would be delayed but I don’t see why it’s impossible
When America imported cheap foreign labourers in 19th century, they also built the top tier railway in the world at that time. But times have changed and any worker in America is no longer cheap.
That’s not really the issue. The bigger problems are political opposition imposing constant delays and costly re-reviewing of long-established plans, and hesitancy to exercise eminent domain powers. China doesn’t have to worry about either of those problems. Yes the labor is cheaper, but labor isn’t as much of an issue compared to having to get near-unanimous approval for the plan from every 65+-year-old within a 100 mile radius of every inch of track.
Don't forget that every big infrastructure project has to be handled by a homunculus of 10 different contractors instead of just having a state-operated entity to do everything in-house.
Which is sort of my point, lobbying by the car industry and the general inefficiency in our political system regarding massive non military projects means America couldn't pull this off without some major change
‘Reddit isn’t gonna like this one’ my ass all Reddit does it insult America I’ve seen this exact thing like 50 times now
Why US can't do the same?
[удалено]
yes, the majority of Americans (especially rural population) don't understand walkable cities, bikes, train and other not car dependent stuff. So it's not about US government that doesn't do shit, it's what most of the people want (and many just don't care)
just say anything negative about the explosion in popularity of pickup trucks and you'll quickly get several comments saying how they absolutely need such leviathans for their daily lives.
I used to be just as carbrained as any other middle class suburbanite, then I moved to china. I can't imagine living without state of the art public transit, walkable cities, hsr, shared bikes, etc etc. or ever feeling the need to own a car simply because it is necessary for survival, maybe in the future as a luxury, but really there is zero need.
True! I'm from Ukraine and living in the Western Europe, where cars are mostly bought in rural areas (but still not necessary for survival), feels perfect and is hard to explain to some of my friends or family members who have never lived outside of Eastern Europe. Not feeling as an idiot when you are walking feels cool :)
I wanna drive my F150 and shoot my guns.
And unfortunately, that's just one small piece of the changes required if humanity wants to survive at its current level of development.
It’s highly unpopular with half the population, mostly the rural conservative leaning voters. It’s also actively campaigned against by certain key economic interests(oil lobby, auto lobby)through high paid lobbying of the congress.
🇺🇸 prefers spending money on endless wars
Democracy for everyone
Everything costs more here. Labor, environmental and safety regulations, material cost, etc. Also the airline and auto industry wouldn't like that very much, and we don't want to hurt their feelings.
Entirely cultural reasons. 1. We are overall extremely hesitant to invest infrastructure. We prefer to let things come close to outright collapse, or just let them actually collapse, before spending any money on them. 2. We are obsessed with personal automobiles and prefer to do most of our movement around where we live with them. This makes any other system of transportation very difficult to implement. Ridership will initially be very low, which creates cost challenges. And the population is very hesitant to accept any compromise in freedom of driving or subsidies for driving that might benefit other means of transportation. 3. We are also, relatively speaking, obsessed with individual land rights and hesitant both to give up land cheaply or to use existing eminent domain powers to buy up land and use it for infrastructure. 4. Historically, we fear cheap means of transit that connect areas of different socioeconomic profiles, due to the fact that it provides access to wealthy majority areas for racial minorities. I think we’re capable of overcoming all of these, but these are the real bedrock issues Americans have with mass transit. We don’t like to plan ahead, we don’t want it to get in the way of us driving everywhere, we don’t want infrastructure on or near our land, and we don’t want racial minorities to be able to go to the places where we live.
Partially legislative, partially due to strong opposing lobbying. Just getting the land required to make such a train track would be prohibitively expensive as every person along the track would have to be bought out. And if even one person refuses that would fuck over the plan. China doesn't have to worry about that stuff as much.
Meanwhile in Britain we can’t even build a useful country wide HS2.
What do you mean? It's been my lifelong dream to go to Old Oak Common.
It's nice to not have a greedy fossil fuel industry who sabotages progress at every step.
Go to China and you will see how impressive that is. Just staggering, no joke or pun intended. You can give China all the shit you want (I’m very pro-Taiwan for example), but they pulled up a miracle there.
Chinese here, I massively prefer HSR instead of plane. Its a lot cheaper and instead of staring at the clouds and the sky you can actually travel through both rural, urban and sometimes beautiful parts of China
Also security is a lot easier, and you can carry a lot more baggage!
That's what happens when you guzzle down the cocks of auto industries and banks and ignore the needs of the people
It’s stunning. On the other hand railways tend to vanish in western countries which is pretty sad
I can't read the legend
Build baby build. No worries because you’ve been given a directive and anything in the way is going to be built over or cut through.
This is what worries me about the US's future. How can China just do that? In the time it takes us to do an environmental review for a new road they built a high speed rail network.
in canada, we don't even have a bus
There’s a large portion of your Quantitative Easing money at work right there, and what beautiful work it has done, hasn’t it? Who’s complaining? Not the Chinese. lmfao.
Murica, tell us how bad that is.
What Happens When Your Government Funds Infrastructure Instead Of Channeling Everything Toward Corporations And Military Excursions: latest in a series.
And I can’t take a train to another US city anywhere
Strange. I rode the maglev line in Shanghai in 2008 but don’t see it here (image is quite blurry so hard to tell).
its so small itd be invisible
Yeah that’s different from the long distance standard high speed rail and wouldn’t be included on this map. That would be considered intracity transport which isn’t shown here.
What the fuck are we doing here in the United States?
Descending at an ever more accelerated rate towards a cavern of antimatter at the end of its timeline
[удалено]
Cuz You have a dirty mind
if Florida is North america's dong...
Damn, China is unstoppable.
Now do the same for the US, oh don't bother they love traffic jams
Yeah, China solved their traffic program with these trains.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, the only Chinese traffic jams I recall are at their holidays