High speed rail doesn't actually provide the eco-benefits over planes that proponents think it will. And high speed rail is only competitive against planes and cars at distances less than 500mi. Unfortunately the US is too sparsely populated and the big cities outside of the coastal corridors are too spread out for high speed rail to be economically and ecologically sensible.
http://www.newsweek.com/why-high-speed-trains-dont-make-sens...
