Many European and Asian countries use high speed rail trains as means of mass transit. They make traveling easier and can also help make the country more accessible. High speed rails can transport you from city to city in a timely manner.

The speeds of high speed rails can surpass the 124 mile per hour mark. Using travelmath.com, to travel from Columbus to Cincinnati, the travel time is approximately 41 minutes via airplane and an hour and 30 minutes via car. There are 100.20 miles between Columbus and Cincinnati. After doing some simple math, a high speed rail that goes 125 miles per hour can get citizens from Columbus to Cincinnati in roughly 48 minutes. (Although this doesn’t account for any turns in a rail track, this is also a baseline speed of high speed rails. Many of them can travel faster than 125 miles per hour.)

Additionally, traveling by air can be costly. If we maintain the same example from before, airfare from Columbus to Cincinnati can cost around $300. In fact, the average domestic airfare for the first quarter of 2016 is $361. Believe it or not, that is actually the lowest since 2010. On the other hand, the costs of train tickets such as Amtrak can be anywhere from $20 to $400. It is usually lower if the cities are close, but a cross country trip can be on the pricier side of the spectrum. Riding high speed rail can save on travel costs. Another cost benefit comes from rail maintenance versus road maintenance. Less people driving on roads means there will be less wear and tear on the roads and there won’t be as much construction needed to keep the roads in good condition. Less road maintenance means less of a cost burden put on the people in the United States.

Not only is traveling by rail cheaper and quicker, it is also safer than driving. In 2014, 255 people were killed in train accidents (The Daily Climate), whereas 32,675 people were killed in motor vehicle accidents within the United States (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Rails are safer because they reduce the dangers of traffic, drinking and driving, weather, human error, and they are much more predictable than the ordinary car driving on the road. Essentially, having more trains in the United States could lead to less deaths.

Economically speaking, investing in rail trains can boost the economy while also decreasing carbon emissions and traffic. Urban congestion wastes people’s time, it wastes gasolene and money, and it takes up space that could be used for other activities like walking or biking. Additionally, High Speed Rails (HSR) are reliable and operate in all weather conditions according to the United States High Speed Rail Association (USHSRA). HSR fosters economic development for lower-tier cities that have stops along the lines. President Barack Obama said, “Everybody stands to benefit” [from high speed rail]. He is correct because HSR can bring in $19 billion a year in new businesses and add 150,000 jobs to the country.

According to Distance Between Cities, when the average car travels from Columbus to Cincinnati, Ohio, their carbon footprint is 0.91 lbs. of CO2 per mile. That is almost a pound of Carbon Dioxide per mile! Having personal cars gives us freedom to drive where we want, but it comes at a cost. It not only costs money to pay for gas, but it is also a factor of air pollution.

Although trains have carbon emissions, they are still better than cars per capita. Essentially, because more people can fit into one train than one car, it is more efficient to have trains as a means of travel. This can lead to cleaner air, which can lead to a healthier United States population.

The nation’s health is another benefit of having more people ride trains. If trains are used more often, traffic jams will be reduced and less road traffic means it is safer to walk and bike. If more people are walking and biking, that makes for a healthier society.

Trains come in many variations and styles, so the United States has options. For instance, they could look at using Maglev trains for transportation. Maglev comes from the words “magnetic” and “levitation”. The trains are not in contact with the track so there is reduced friction. Shanghai uses a maglev train and it can reach a top speed of 270 miles per hour. With that technology, a train ride with a straight shot from Columbus to Cincinnati would only be a little under a half an hour long. Maglev trains move more smoothly and more quietly than most other mass transit systems. Also, they aren’t affected deeply by weather unlike cars and planes. Currently, South Korea, Japan, and China are the only three countries that use active maglev transit systems.

In Shanghai, 67% of the fares from passengers went towards energy while very little went towards maintenance of the Maglev train. This is because the train doesn’t require very many moving parts and instead, it requires energy to move it. Although maglev trains require less track maintenance, they still cost about the same as other HSRs because of the energy costs. Maglevs are a quiet and speedy option that the United States could choose to invest in.

The picture above shows the difference in rail lines in Europe, Asia, and finally, the United States. According to Wikipedia, the United States is second in the world when it comes to using rails for freight transportation; however, the U.S. ranks 22nd in the world in passenger rails. Clearly the United States has had it figured out that rails can be used to adequately transport freight and other materials, yet we haven’t figured out that it can also be used to transport people effectively.

However, there is still hope that the U.S. can catch up. Between 2001 and 2013, there was a 51% increase in train travel within the United States according to CNN. Amtrak also reported a recent boost in the number of passengers for the recent years. In fact, more people, traveled with Amtrak last year than with all of the airliner companies combined. In India, train travel is abundant. According to Quora, almost 24 million people ride a train every day in India! Maybe one day, the United States will be able to boast a similar statistic.

For that to happen, more people need to get exposure to trains. In two separate polls taken on twitter with a total of 161 participants (76 and 85 respectively), only 14% of people picked train as their favorite means of travel and 46% of people voted that they have never ridden on a train in the first place!

Jim Mathews, the president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers said, “I think if people stop flying over our country and start seeing our country and how large it is and how beautiful it is, they'll get it...It's hard to have a train ride across the country and leave that and not be a patriot." Jim is on to something. As Americans, there are some people that haven’t really traveled the United States and expanded their knowledge of everything it has to offer. If more people travel by rail, they will get to see that America has a lot more to offer then they thought. That is something that you can’t obtain by traveling in the air when you’re above the clouds.

Currently, there is a rail line between Boston and Washington D.C called the Acela. The Acela Express in the Northeastern United States can travel at speeds up to 150 miles per hour, but its average speed is only 65 miles per hour. It was designed in 1992 to meet the objective of reducing the travel time in the Northeastern Corridor of the US, but after some contracting issues and fighting through the US’s railroad regulations, the train’s result was 24 minutes slower than the target time. Supposedly, the United States has heavy railroad regulations that prevent some growth within the railroad industry.

Although it didn’t meet the target time, the line still provides faster means of transportation than simply traveling by car. According to a friend who is from Massachusetts, driving from Boston to New York takes almost eight hours. An alternate route is to drive to White City and take the train to Grand Central Terminal.

California and Texas are currently front runners in the high speed rail industry within the United States. Within the next few years, the first high speed rail should be built and functional in California. Details about that project can be found at the following website: http://www.hsr.ca.gov/. In Texas, there is also a push for a HSR to be built and connect the major cities together. Those details can be found at the following link: http://www.texascentral.com/ .

Imagine a United States where you walk out of your house or apartment and you walk five or ten minutes to a train station to go to work. You could travel to an entire different city for work and still make it in a reasonable time. HSR makes it easier for cities to grow and develop without spreading out because it creates easier transportation in and out of cities. High speed rail and train transportation in general needs more support and research within the United States. Transportation improvements can be made in the train industry, but more people need to know about it. I encourage you to do more research and support trains and updates. Hopefully over the next decade, the United States will see the benefit to using trains and it will help not only the economy, but also our standard of living.