Yes; federal regulations don’t make it affordable to build tracks to the current high-speed standards. That’s why I keep saying that the feds need to get out of the way and stop micromanaging.
The “near monopoly” never existed; that’s propaganda. And it’s the federal government doing the “competing” against the railroads rather than private industry building highways and airports. Trust funds have to go; the highways and airports never should have been public works projects, because that gives the government power it doesn’t deserve, never mind inducing the public that accepts federal highway and airport control to call for public passenger rail on a greater scale too.
“The “near monopoly” never existed; that’s propaganda.”
That’s simply not so. American railroads enjoyed a monopoly on long distance travel for at least 50 years, from the Civil War until well after World War I.
There were very few paved roads outside of major cities in 1919 when Captain Dwight Eisenhower led a military convoy across the United States. This at a time when passenger trains were able to travel at over 100 mph between major American cities.
What existed were primitive auto-trails that began to be replaced by the US highway system only in the mid to late 1920s, with much of the construction being done during the Depression. Intercity bus lines then began to rival railroads for passenger traffic.
“Yes; federal regulations don’t make it affordable to build tracks to the current high-speed standards. “
Federal regulation has little to do with it. High speed roadbeds were economically rational when railroads had the passenger traffic to pay for them. With passenger traffic gone and likely never to return railroads are not going to invest huge sums on roadbed that freight traffic doesn’t require.