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I'd say they're better than merely on parity, to the degree that construction techniques and materials science in the '00s and '10s was better than it was in the '60s and '70s. Questionable quality control might offset that a bit, though.
HSR is kind of a meme in the US because its hybrid private-public transit infrastructure, which takes up a significant amount of space (every building has a station beneath it that usually stores at least one bus per tenant), is already so good that they don't really need it. Mandating the speed limit on the highways be increased to 100 mph would probably be just as time and cost-effective if not more so (yes, it burns more fuel, but the cost of that is just as much a tax as raising revenue for HSR would be).
Sure, the HSR might technically be faster, but now you're dependent on public transit to do anything, which is generally so slow that the time lost to driving still arguably makes sense (or you have to rent a car to get where you're going). Air travel has the same problem, actually- its average speed is about HSR-tier thanks to the TSA- but air travel has no need for rails, which means zero infrastructure spend, zero public upkeep beyond ATC, zero need to level the terrain, zero need to acquire terrain, and nearly zero ability for hecklers to veto via environmental complaint.
There are corridors where city-to-city HSR makes genuine sense in the US, especially with technology that actually exists. The Great Lakes region, the west coast.
Anglo eminent domain just can’t handle it though. There’s a reason that if you look at the 5 Anglo countries, none really have functioning HSR. Canada has regular railroads for freight and tourism, New Zealand largely dismantled its network, Australia has some lines for freight and tourism but not many, and the US (or California specifically) and UK, who are the only two to have actually tried, have both poured hundreds of billions down a bottomless hole of eminent domain and environmental law that seems never-ending. Common Law in the 21st century just isn’t compatible with this kind of infrastructure project.
Agreed with, via edit. In the 21st century, you either have to travel above the hecklers and their vetoes (by air), or below them (by Hyperloop). One's cheaper than the other.
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