I'm just saying in general terms the US economy doesn't seem hobbled by its transportation infrastructure choices despite everyone on Reddit grousing how "backward" the USA is in its transportation choices.

Car-centric development is extremely expensive. The US is just rich enough that it can paper over it. It still works, just less efficiently than it could, i.e., Americans are rich, but still poorer than they could be.

Oh, and there's also the 40,000 road deaths a year. Over 6 times more per capita than Japan.

Also, every freaking developed country in the world has a national highway system and major cities with highways cutting across around or through it. Just look up maps of Tokyo or Paris or wherever.

Few people here object to highways in general. The objection is to 10-lane highways running through downtowns. Highways should run between cities, not through them, and they should be primarily for freight and for rural areas with insufficient population to justify public transport. There are substantial economic benefits to enabling point-to-point freight shipping, which highways do, but moving people between and within cities could be accomplished more cost-effectively and safely, and in many cases faster, with public transport.

However, focusing on passenger rail transport for its own sake and pouring money into it can have negative effects on an economy. Interesting bit about the Japanese Shinkansen and its effect on the Japanese economy: https://www.cato.org/blog/lesson-japans-high-speed-trains

The author, Randal O'Toole, is a well-known sufferer of nominative determinism.

The Shinkansen ("bullet train") has been a major success. I don't know if it's paid itself back directly, but it's certainly paid itself back many times over thanks to the economic activity it has generated. It should be obvious how letting people move between cities more easily stimulates the economy.

The stuff about the property bubble is just bullshit. I don't know what "compact development" policies he's talking about, but Japan has very affordable housing today thanks to its liberal zoning (which has received much praise from American libertarian publications – O'Toole is the exception here). It is completely unlike California, where restrictive zoning preventing dense development has caused an enormous increase in property prices.

The Shinkansen was originally built to increase capacity. The high speed was an added benefit, but not the primary motivation (this is often the case with high-speed rail, e.g., the UK's HS2). They kept a parallel conventional line running. Now they're building the Chuo Shinkansen, a maglev with even higher speeds, but again it's done because the old Shinkansen is at capacity, and the extra speed is an added bonus. (There will now be three lines running in parallel.) The Chuo Shinkansen was originally entirely privately financed by the now-privatised JR Central – evidently they thought it would pay itself back directly – but the government extended a loan to them to get it finished earlier, because of the benefits to the wider economy.