> Yes, I’m aware of this. And if you have enough population density, which most of Europe does, you can have frequent train service because enough people will have overlapping trips at the same time that they can share a rail line.

If you are in a low density place you don't need high frequency to have a useful system.

I used to live in a place that had only villages of a few 1000 people with lots of farmers around. Having a 1hly small rural train is perfectly useful and a great thing to have.

And you only basically need a single rail line with a few crossing places to provide that kind of frequency.

The idea that trains are only useful in a super dense place is just one of those myths the US population has been brainwashed into.

> The advantage of a highway network is that a single vehicle can simply take the fastest route from point to point all by itself even if relatively few people are traveling that route.

Wrong. Highways has intersections that are spaced out. Each intersection requires a huge amount of cost to set up.

Highway intersections also take up a gigantic amount of space and are horrible places for humanity.

Train stops and intersection on the other hand can be small and efficient. They are often beautiful places and you can even have shops and development there.

New towns pop up on important rail intersections and stations, but not near highway intersections.

> Germany is about the same land area as Montana or New Mexico. Those states have populations of about 1 and 2 million, respectively. Germany has 84 million. Texas has twice the land area of Germany and a population of 30 million.

Now you are just making ridiculous arguments. I can't actually believe that you are making those arguments in good faith. But I am going are as if you were in good faith.

Nobody is making the argument that Montana or New Mexico should have a train system like Germany. Literally nobody. But they also don't even need full highway either. Normal roads of maximum 1-2 per direction and normal intersections should be perfectly enough for that kind of density. You can then still have excellent public transport with buses for much of the state.

But even in a place like Montana trains still make sense. There are still town like Billings or Bozeman and friends that are easily large enough for a train. Maybe not a high speed train. Where I live having a single village of 1000 people not be connected by regular trains is considered strange. Billings is significantly larger then the largest regional city here and that city has an S-Bahn system with multiple lines of 15-min interval trains.

So while Montana as a whole doesn't need a huge system, each town still can use trains and trams in a number of ways.

That said, and the reason why I think you are arguing in bad faith, is that if you actually look at a density map of the US. You comparison fall completely on its face.

The reality is, the US actually has very nice locations for trains. You brought up Texas. Yeah Eastern Texas is mostly empty, but Western Texas isn't. So instead of just taking arbitrary political boarders, you need to actually look at the regions where people actually live.

https://ecpmlangues.unistra.fr/civilization/geography/map-us...

And when you actually do that, you realize that the US has a number of urban mega clusters that are actually perfectly placed for trains.

Basically, Bay Area, Southern California, Great Lakes, Texas Triangle, Northeast Coast, Florida.
Are the most important ones, there are few other depending on how you look at it. If you do your density analysis based on those actual regions were people actually live, you will see that your 'density' argument falls flat on its face. And those regions actually mater, not arbitrary state borders.

For example, the very successful train line from Paris to Lyon. Turns out that Dallas to Houston is actually about the same distance. Oklahoma City, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston have plenty of population and are in optimal distance for a rail network.

The Great Lakes region has more population THEN LITERALLY ALL OF FRANCE and isn't much bigger. Arguable its actually better for rail then France is.

So please for the love of god spare me the 'its all about density argument'.

Basically 80% of US population will live in such a urban region soon. So your argument is simply wrong. Local density does matter for ridership and things like that, but that is very much a DELIBERATE DESIGN and has NOTHING to do with overall density of a the US or individual states.

This is a video that goes threw the US and shows them visually:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lupWYQdDgQ

> I live within a 15 minute drive of just about everywhere I need to go on a regular basis. Why would I wait that long for the train when I could just be there already?

Of course, for places you go regularly, you don't need a train or a car. I live in a place I can walk everywhere in 10 min or less. And with 15 min on my bike I can literally be on an actual mountain/natural trail.

Have you considered that trains are also useful if you don't use them regularly? Do you never want to drink or smoke weed? Do you never go to another place where you don't have a car available. Do you understand that there are people in the world who can't drive for various reasons.

And you don't actually wait for a train for 15min, you just do literally 5s of planning by looking at the clock. Even with 0 planning the majority of the time you would wait 7min or less.