Travellers easily whiz from city to city on high-speed trains in many parts of South America, Asia and Europe. Since the first high-speed lines began operating more than 50 years ago in Japan, they have become an essential part of transportation worldwide.
Yet the U.S. has never built a single strech of high-speed rail, which is generally defined as accommodating trains that go at least 200 mph (321 kph). And proposals to do so have been thwarted for decades.
So what's holding America back?
For starters, a much larger land mass, longer distances between major cities and the high cost of construction. Other factors include efficient air travel, relatively low prices for gasoline and a car-based culture.
"The challenge in America is the scale of America," said Robert Eckels, chief executive of the Texas Central High Speed Railway, a private venture that is planning a bullet train between Dallas and Houston.
In recent decades, political pressure against bullet trains has come from conservatives who argue that such systems should acquire private financial backing and prove that their operations will at minimum be cost-neutral. It's a burden state and federal governments do not place on other huge transportation projects such as freeways and airports.
For now, the best the country can do is Amtrak's Acela, which reaches speeds up to 150 mph on a busy route between Washington and Boston.
In an effort to jump-start high-speed rail, the Obama administration in 2009 awarded $7 billion for projects in California, Florida and Wisconsin. Republican governors in Florida and Wisconsin rejected the funding and backed out of high-speed rail plans, sending more of those dollars to California.
The list of other proposals for faster-speed rail includes: linking Las Vegas with greater Los Angeles; Chicago with St. Louis; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with Pittsburgh; Oklahoma City with Tulsa; and upgrading track on a medium-speed line between Miami and Orlando.
Despite the political resistance and financial hurdles, two projects have moved beyond the conceptual phase. One is California's $68 billion plan for a high-speed rail network connecting Northern and Southern California. The other is the privately financed plan in central Texas.
California's long-term financing plan relies heavily on federal money that is unlikely to materialize in a Republican-controlled Congress. But Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown remains a strong supporter, negotiating a dedicated funding stream through a separate program that raises money from businesses as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"There are some people in California who think of high-speed rail as a mysterious, very expensive, exotic technology," Brown told reporters last month as Japanese Prime MInister Shinzo Abe demonstrated Japanese train technology in California.
The Texas project has received much less publicity than California's, yet it could become the nation's first operating bullet train line.
Private-public partnerships in construction may be the best way to mute political criticism as well as kick-start the projects, said Andrew Goetz, a professor and faculty associate at the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver who studies high-speed rail.
Rail proponents argue that American companies would be among the biggest beneficiaries, arguing that the lack of high-speed rail has hurt American competitiveness. The typical U.S. business traveller spends two days of travel to attend one meeting, said Andy Kunz, president and chief executive of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association.
"We're stuck in traffic for hours. We're dealing with horrible airlines as it deteriorates," he said. "The whole country is getting shortchanged by this."
This content appears as provided to The Globe by the originating wire service. It has not been edited by Globe staff.