The argument is that building train lines isn't the answer because the transport needs in the U.S. are different than Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Russia, etc. Having a cookie cutter "trains are the answer to everything" answer is shortsighted.
Have you ever been to Japan, Germany, etc? Cities there are shaped completely differently to cities here. The article uses the Vienna Metro as an example of what not to do, and in a way it is. But it’s that way because Vienna is almost entirely low density sprawl, with homes sitting on a quarter of an acre or so. The whole DC metro area is shaped that way, and that drove the structure of Metro. The DC Metro area has 6 million people, about the same size as the Berlin metro area. But 3.7 million Berliners live in the city itself, while just 700,000 Washingtonians do. Berlin and DC are similar of a similar density, but almost all the DC Metro population lives out in the low density suburbs. A lot of the jobs are out there too. A lot of tech jobs are in Reston and Dulles, 20-25 miles west of DC. Do you know what’s 20 miles west of Berlin? Nothing, it’s farm land. The kins of transportation network a city like DC, where the population and jobs are spread out among low density suburbs, and a city like Berlin, with population and jobs concentrated in the core city, needs are completely different.
Primarily: the need to get around in whichever city/area you are in once you get there. In all but the most dense cities (NYC/SF/Chicago), you have to have a car to get around. If I had a high speed train to get between Kansas City and Houston it still wouldn't do any good because you need a car to get around when you arrive. This is true for nearly every area of the USA. We tend to build out, rather than up, making public transport impractical and expensive. Building out does have the advantage of keeping land/home prices relatively low, though.
Many Americans prefer the freedom of being able to go A to B at any time without needing to wait at a bus/subway stop or hoping the transportation system is still running for the day. The amount of money it would cost to get the entire country walk able or reachable by public transit would be astronomical.
> Primarily: the need to get around in whichever city/area you are in once you get there. [...] If I had a high speed train to get between Kansas City and Houston it still wouldn't do any good because you need a car to get around when you arrive.
That's probably true (modulo taxis, even if you rule out public transport), but it's just as true when you fly from Kansas City to Houston. Which is why airports always come with car rental, and it works out for those who want a car. If a car is really needed at the destination, arrangements could and should be made to have car rentals available at the train station.
