My junior year in Marburg, I never had a car. The Studiengebühren included a Semesterticket that was good on the entire RMV network, from the city buses to the regional buses, AND the train as far as Kassel and Frankfurt (up to IR only). Car? Who needs cars? Though I was glad my professor was kind enough to pick me up in his car because the bus from my assigned Wohnheim wouldn't get me to the mountaintop in time for the 7:30 lecture. (The 3 went up and the 2 went around. The 3 would have gotten me there around 8. The 2 got me to a bus stop on his way in, which was convenient and useful. Herr Doktor Professor Paul Knochel, fak Chemie. Nice guy.)
It's true that the US is much less dense than any European country, because we have SO MUCH SPACE and wide swaths of nothing in parts of it, the desert southwest, for example. (Beautiful scenery, but so empty.) But the eastern seaboard, Richmond to DC to Boston, and Raleigh to Charlotte to Atlanta, is fairly dense, and would be served well by high speed trains. There's already Acela between DC and Boston, and it's comparable to the ICE in price (though not speed...), and there's a planned high speed corridor between DC and Raleigh, with plans to extend to Atlanta. So maybe by the time I'm moving to Germany (10 years? if I do) there'll be construction happening.
Cars have always been sold in America as the key to freedom, because you can hop in your car and go wherever you want. It's part of our cult of individuality. Europeans had pretty decent train systems long before cars were invented, and I guess it was a harder sell. Also, your gas prices are much higher than here, making there be even less incentive to drive.
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It's true that the US is much less dense than any European country, because we have SO MUCH SPACE and wide swaths of nothing in parts of it, the desert southwest, for example. (Beautiful scenery, but so empty.) But the eastern seaboard, Richmond to DC to Boston, and Raleigh to Charlotte to Atlanta, is fairly dense, and would be served well by high speed trains. There's already Acela between DC and Boston, and it's comparable to the ICE in price (though not speed...), and there's a planned high speed corridor between DC and Raleigh, with plans to extend to Atlanta. So maybe by the time I'm moving to Germany (10 years? if I do) there'll be construction happening.
Cars have always been sold in America as the key to freedom, because you can hop in your car and go wherever you want. It's part of our cult of individuality. Europeans had pretty decent train systems long before cars were invented, and I guess it was a harder sell. Also, your gas prices are much higher than here, making there be even less incentive to drive.