[nerdbert]

> why is rail treated so differently?

Because there's a huge ecosystem that is substantially dependent on private use of roadways - car manufacturers, sellers, insurers, storage facilities, cleaners, and repairers; petrol extractors, refiners, transporters and sellers; and so on.

Each of these parties has a vested interest in maintaining the perception that driving is the baseline mode of transport and anything else is a deviation from that which requires extra consideration before it should receive any resources.

On the one hand that's also a lot of jobs and profits, but on the other hand if all this activity is in service of a mode of transport that causes considerable short and long-term damage, and is less efficient for many journeys, then it means we're wasting labor and resources that could be put to better use.

[zdragnar]

There's also a large percentage of the country that simply wouldn't benefit from rail in their day to day lives, because most of the country doesn't have the population density to make rail make sense. It would at best be an alternative to flying, assuming it didn't take longer.

These are the same people for whom owning a car is an essential part of life.

[pfdietz]

And all those people are going to look at proposals for rail spending and say "what's in this for me?" This will produce strong headwinds to any rail expansion proposal.