When our daughter lived in Japan, their home was in the Aomori Prefecture, at the northern end of the main island. We had the joy of visiting her and her family there twice. We purchased Japan Rail passes for both trips, allowing us unlimited train travel on many different lines. We boarded the train at Tokyo Haneda Airport for a short ride to Ueno, where we boarded the Hayabusa Shinkansen, the fastest train in Japan, reaching speeds of 200 mph. Before reaching Hachinohe, it is a smooth and comfortable ride with brief stops at over a dozen stations, including Fukushima, Sendai, and Morioka. From Hachinohe, it is a short train ride to Misawa, where our daughter lived.

With train travel so easy in Japan and our rail passes allowing us to travel freely, we were able to visit much of the island from Aomori all the way to Hiroshima. Wherever we traveled, the trains were on time, the stations were clean and easy to navigate, even for tourists who do not speak or read Japanese. Whenever I talk with friends considering a trip to Japan, I recommend planning a 21-day trip, the longest time of a combined East-West Japan Rail Pass that can be purchased at a discount in the U.S. before departure. The pass allows freedom of exploration wherever a tourist wants to go.

Returning home after both of our trips involved driving from Seattle on the first trip and Vancouver, BC, on the second trip back to South Dakota, which generally took us three days. As we drove in our car on interstate highways, we reflected on how much simpler it was to go long distances in Japan, a much smaller country than the U.S.

The U.S. has 340 million people, 71 interstate highways, over 5,000 public airports, and no high-speed railways. Amtrak will begin operating Acela trains on its Northeast Corridor route between Boston and Washington, D.C., later this year. However, only about 50 of the 457 miles of the line can support speeds exceeding 150 mph, which is the minimum speed of a train to be called high-speed. California’s San Francisco to Los Angeles high-speed route is due to be completed by 2033, and a line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is expected to begin service in 2028.

There is much talk and planning about extending the California high-speed lines to eventually make a train run from San Diego all the way north to Vancouver, BC. That line would be very convenient for us, with stations within an hour’s drive. However, no date has been set for the beginning of construction in our area.

By contrast, China has a high-speed rail network that will exceed 31,000 miles this year and approach 40,000 miles by 2030. The Shanghai Maglev has a top speed of 268 mph and will offer regular service at speeds nearing 250 mph. When the right tracks are in place, Maglev trains are capable of speeds of over 600 mph. There are over 5,000 miles of operational high-speed rail in the European Union. Spain leads the EU with nearly 2,000 miles of high-speed rail.

Building high-speed rail lines is a complicated task. The lines have to be designed without intersections, often running on elevated bridges in urban areas. In order to run at maximum speeds, the rails must have long, straight sections. While high-speed rail can follow interstate highways in some areas, the logistics of obtaining land for the tracks and building appropriate bridges, overpasses, and underpasses are daunting.

In the United States, high-speed rail is not a priority for governmental spending. The current U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has described high-speed rail as a “waste of taxpayers’ money.” The White House has pulled the plug on federal support of the planned high-speed line between Houston and Dallas in Texas, which had been slated for a federal grant under the previous administration. Further complicating the current situation in the U.S. is that Amtrak, the government-owned passenger rail service, is currently without a director after Stephen Gardner resigned last month under pressure from the White House.

It will take a significant shift in federal priorities for high-speed rail to become common in the United States. We are addicted to private automobiles, and high-speed rail projects have not produced enormous profits for billionaires anywhere in the world.

Fortunately, Amtrak Cascades operates regular low-speed rail service with new trains entering service next year. With stations in nearby Bellingham and one even closer in Surrey, BC, it is convenient for us to board a train that goes south to Eugene, Oregon, and connects with trains going all the way to San Diego. They don’t operate at high speeds, but riding the train is much less stressful than driving. The train is quicker than driving through the Seattle area due to traffic. We may not be able to go high speed, but we can travel through beautiful scenery, with twelve trains running each way between Seattle and Portland each day. Buses connect riders from the Bellingham station to connect with trains that terminate in Seattle.

I still love driving, and a road trip is a joy for me, but there will be more times when taking the train will make sense in terms of cost and safety. But I’m not holding my breath for high-speed rail. For that U.S. travelers will have to visit other countries during my lifetime. The teaser is that we have traveled to Japan and enjoyed the convenience of high-speed rail. We know that a good way to transport large numbers of people across significant distances is with convenience and safety. It is easy to imagine how much high-speed rail would benefit the U.S. if we had the political will to prioritize it.

In our case, we have a daughter who lives in South Carolina. Our priority is visiting her and her family, which means traveling by air for the foreseeable future. I enjoy flying, but I do not like long lines at security checkpoints. However, I’m willing to go through quite a bit to visit family. While I can dream of high-speed rail, I plan to go by air.