A newly launched bullet train in Japan is delivering passengers from Tokyo to Fukui prefecture (and vice versa) in under three hours, Railway Supply reported.
The roughly $35 billion project began construction in 2019. Now, just four years later, the new line is fully operational. To compare that to U.S. train infrastructure, four years is around how long it takes to travel from New York City to Boston via Amtrak (not really, but it certainly feels that way).
Tokyo and Fukui prefecture are around 300 miles apart, so an accurate comparison would be if we imagine a bullet train connecting Chicago to Detroit — a journey that takes around four hours and 15 minutes by car — in under three hours.
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While a train line like this one would vastly improve the lives of people in many areas of the United States, for Japanese citizens, the new line will register merely as a slight upgrade as it replaces a bullet train that could go between the two cities in three-and-a-half hours.
Japan is among the countries with some of the most impressive modern train technology in the world. While it can't rival the robust 28,000-mile network of China, its trains are among the fastest and most efficient in the world.
The United States, conversely, remains incredibly car-centric — but there is at least some hope that high-speed rail is on the way. It certainly is in California, where the long-awaited California High-Speed Rail project is finally underway, and a little bit in Florida. Elsewhere, planned high-speed rail lines are going through approval and regulatory processes.
Japan has an even more impressive train in the works, operating on magnetic levitation with the ability to exceed 300 mph, but it has been delayed from 2027 to likely no earlier than 2034.
It stands to reason that the more public support there is for high-speed rail, the more likely it will be to come to fruition.
If having a cheap, easy, fast, and environmentally friendly mode of travel available to you is something that you think is important, perhaps consider letting your local government representative know.
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