How the U.S. high-speed rail plan compares to China’s high-speed rail plan

Interest in high-speed rail is exploding in the United States, and some parts of the country are building ultra-high-speed rail, but the United States is catching up with many countries, especially China.

In April, construction begins on America’s first high-speed rail line, which will carry passengers between Las Vegas and Southern California along 348 miles of track. Many other projects have been proposed, including a high-speed rail project linking Dallas to Houston and Fort Worth, Texas.

These developments are sure to fuel aspirations for similar projects in other major hubs, such as Chicago.

But the United States’ high-speed rail network remains a minnow compared to its main geopolitical competitor, China, which boasts more miles of high-speed rail than any other country.

According to Statista, in 2021, China’s high-speed rail network will stretch to 25,000 miles, and in 2019, 2.3 billion individual trips were taken on its routes, representing about 63% of all passenger rail trips in China. Masu.

In contrast, the United States has yet to open high-speed rail lines, generally defined as tracks that carry passenger trains at speeds between 194 and 320 miles per hour.

Construction of America’s first high-speed rail line is not expected to be completed until 2028, when Los Angeles will host the Olympics.

The line is being built by Brightline West, which says trains can travel at speeds of 300 miles per hour from Las Vegas to Cucamonga in Southern California, with an estimated journey time of at least 2 hours and 10 minutes. According to a Fox 11 report, each train should be able to carry 500 passengers.

newsweek We reached out to Brightline via email for comment and clarification.

Unlike the United States, where private industry plays an important role, almost all of China’s railway network is controlled by the China National Railway Group (formerly China Railway General Corporation). The state-owned enterprise recorded a net profit of 4.8 billion yuan (about $664 million) in 2021, but it has not yet returned to pre-coronavirus levels.

The speed of China’s high-speed railway construction is astonishing. CNN reported in February 2022 that about half of the network was completed in the past five years alone. The network is projected to nearly double in length by 2035, reaching approximately 45,000 miles. Trains reaching speeds of up to 347 mph are already in operation on many lines.

Olivia Chan, a researcher at the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, told CNN that the network is not only connecting existing settlements, but also creating new ones. “His plan is grand in that it doesn’t just connect existing towns, it connects existing towns with new megacities that are being built from scratch,” he said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Many of the proposed high-speed rail lines in the United States are in the very early stages of development and have not yet received final approval, but some key details remain unclear.

The proposed Dallas-Houston line is intended to use Japanese Shinkansen technology to run trains at 340 miles per hour. According to the developers, travel time between the two cities will be reduced to 90 minutes. It currently takes 3 hours and 25 minutes by car and more than 4 hours by bus.

The development, which received approval from President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April, is a joint development between U.S. national passenger rail company Amtrak and Dallas-based company Texas Central.

Separately, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) is working on a high-speed rail project between Dallas and Fort Worth, but they are still looking for a commercial partner and are not anticipating the completion of the National Environmental Policy Act. do not have. (NEPA), the process by early 2025. dallas morning news.

House Democrat Mike Quigley also wants to build a high-speed rail link between Chicago and St. Louis, but plans for such a route have not been formally submitted. Notably, there are no immediate plans for construction on any of the proposed lines in the United States, other than the line between Las Vegas and Southern California.

talk to newsweek, Professor Ian Savage, a public transportation expert at Northwestern University, suggests that high-speed rail makes more sense for densely populated China, but says there is no strong case for building a network in parts of Texas. He also claimed that there was.

“Like many transportation economists, I was skeptical of the case for high-speed rail in a geographically large and widespread country like the United States,” he said. “But there is a stronger case in Texas. I feel that way,” he said. More than many other parts of the country, the Triangle (Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio) is approximately 400 miles long, making it nearly perfect for rail travel.

“So while Texas may be considered a car-centric state, rapid population growth and increased truck traffic in recent decades have congested our highways to the point where there is a market opportunity. There’s a bit of a paradox here: High-speed rail has transformed central Texas from a vast area into a densely populated area.