为什么中国如此擅长建设高铁，而美国却不擅长

Michael Feely, Avid rider on the rails

Places where there’s enough population density, close enough together, it’s too insanely expensive to acquire the rights of way and build the thing.

Places where the cost per track mile are tolerable don’t have enough people to pay the project off.

Connecting two sets of the former places? Too far - air travel will still be faster.

Connecting two sets of the latter places? Why would you do this?

The closest you get in the US to the kind of European style population density that makes high speed rail attractive is the Northeast Corridor. Which, coincidentally, is the part of the Amtrak system that has the Acela - the thing closest to high speed rail.

But say, Boston to Chicago? 980 miles. I can fly in 2.5 hours. The fastest HSR routes in Europe and China average +/- 180 mph, so the same trip would be 5.5 hours, and that only if we don’t stop in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and Toledo. And the train will be more expensive, because we have to pay for almost a thousand miles of all-new track, whereas the airports are legacy infrastructure already.

这些地方的人口密度足够大，距离足够近，获得道路权和建造房屋的成本太高了。

在每英里轨道费用不太离谱的地方，没有足够的人流来支撑该项目。

连接前面两个城市群？太远了，搭飞机更快。

连接后面两个城市群？为什么要这么做？

在美国，最接近欧洲式人口密度的地方就是东北走廊。巧合的是，这是美国铁路系统的一部分，它拥有阿西乐特快-最接近高铁的列车。

但若要说从波士顿到芝加哥？980英里。我搭飞机2.5小时内就能到达。欧洲和中国最快的高铁线路平均时速为180英里上下，所以同样的行程需要5.5小时，而且还是在不停靠奥尔巴尼、锡拉丘兹、罗切斯特、布法罗、克利夫兰和托莱多的前提下。而且列车票价会更贵，因为我们必须支付将近一千英里全新铁路的费用，而机场是现成的基础设施。

Rita Loy, I have my knowledge from my experience in transportation.

The reason why it is so hard to implement high speed rail in the US is due to the size of the United States and the population density of the United States. Places where there is enough population density in the United States the land is to expensive to build a true high speed rail system. This is why subways are built underground in major cities is due to the fact that it is less expensive to build tunnels and tracks underground that it is to build an elevated or surface system. The true cost of building a true high speed rail system completely underground would be in the trillions of dollars. There must be the political will to build a high speed rail system on the national level. There presently no political will on the national level to build a true high speed rail system.

在美国很难实施高铁的原因是美国的广阔和人口密度。在美国，人口密度足够大的地方，建设真正的高铁系统要花很多钱。这就是为什么在大城市地下修建地铁是因为建造隧道和轨道比建造高架或地上系统更便宜。建造一个真正完全地下的高铁系统的真正成本将达到数万亿美元级别。必须在国家层面上提出建立一个高铁系统的政治意愿才行得通。目前，国家没有建立真正的高铁系统的政治意愿。

Adam J M Richards, Train "nut"

Because those places that have built major large-scale infrastructures for markets that aren’t immediately highly profitable have always done so with government dollars and mandates that allowed building to overcome individual property rights.

The US is not prepared to do this for new rail - although it did/does so for interstate highways and airports and so on.

The argument that high-speed rail is uneconomic and/or slower than air would (and did) apply to high-speed in China or many of the longer European routes - but those governments decided that investing in this infrastructure was a national priority and built it anyway.

因为那些已经为市场建造了大型基础设施的地方并没有迅速获得高额利润回报，这些地方都是通过政府资金和指令来完成，这些资金和指令才能让建设解决私人产权。

美国没有打算为新的铁路这么做，尽管它确实为比如州际公路和机场等等做过。

高铁不经济且/或比航空慢，这种论点适用于中国或里程较长的欧洲高铁，但那些政府认为投资建设基础设施是国家的优先事项，排除万难进行建设。

Joan McKniff, worked at U.S. Department of State

Lack of political will. No effective high speed rail lobby in USA. Strong lobbying by trucking, auto and airline industries. Most people in USA have no experience with trains, let alone high speed rail. Conservation/environmental ovements have totally failed.

Follow the money. Our lack of passenger rail infrastructure is a national disgrace.

缺乏政治意愿。在美国，没有有效的高铁游说团体。卡车、汽车和航空业都有强有力的游说。美国大多数人对火车没有体验，更不用说高铁了。保护/环保措施完全失败了。

一切向钱看。我们缺乏客运铁路基础设施，这是国家的耻辱。

ZsaZsa Salle, J.D. Law & Accounting, The John Marshall Law School (2011)

Infrastructure…

Need….

Support…

A high-speed rail requires a track that is continuously welded, the land to put it on and the trains to run on it. To obtain those resources you need money or the potential to make money.

The US has several trans that would have been considered high speed when built. The northeast corridor has the Amtrak line that runs from Philadelphia to Boston. In the Midwest, there is the Milwaukee Chicago Amtrak that goes up to 100 mph. There is talk of making high-speed rail, but only after the current projects have been funded.

Construction has already commenced in the central valley on the California high-speed rail that will connect LA to San Francisco. Also being planned or discussed are projects in Florida, Texas, and Washington state.

基础设施…

需要…

支持…

高铁需要无缝焊接的轨道，需要铺设轨道的地面，需要在轨道上运行的火车。为了获得这些资源，你需要资金或赚钱的可能性。

美国有几列火车在建造时曾被视为高速交通工具。东北走廊有从费城到波士顿的美铁线路。在中西部地区，密尔沃基至芝加哥的美铁线路达到100英里每小时。有人讨论建造高铁，但只有在目前的项目获得资金之后才可能开始。

加利福尼亚高铁的中央山谷已经开始建设，这将把洛杉矶和旧金山连接起来。正在计划或讨论的还有佛罗里达州、德克萨斯和华盛顿州的项目。

外文链接：https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-so-good-at-building-high-speed-rail-but-the-United-States-is-not