Train Travel Loses Out in the U.S.

The number of miles that Americans are covering in airplanes has risen sharply since 1960, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, with a major dip caused by the coronavirus pandemic almost compensated by 2022. Bus travel has also picked up in recent years as more companies entered the U.S. market. Even though the total number of miles traveled by Americans has increased, miles traveled on the train have remained almost stagnant in the last decades, likely because of high prices and too few as well as slow connections on the Amtrak network.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has called a U.S. high-speed rail network a "no-brainer" in the past, but considering the limits of the existing U.S. rail system, it's baby steps for now. Amtrak is planning to introduce the next generation of its high-speed train, the Acela, later this year, but the train type will remain limited to Amtrak's busy Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington D.C. via New York and Philadelphia. Construction started in April on a high-speed project by private company Brightline that is looking to link Las Vegas and Los Angeles starting from 2028.

Meanwhile, individual road transport is still the major way for Americans to get around. In 2022, the latest year on record, cars, trucks and motorcycles clocked in around 4.3 trillion passenger miles (miles traveled per vehicle multiplied by number of passengers). The number has been consistently high since the 1990s, but no comparable long-term figures exist.