idk man, at least for germany i have the opposite impression: it is a integrated system and if you dont live in a large city it would be very usual to combine high speed legs with regional trains. heck i even mostly cross the dutch-german border on regional trains. in germany at least there has been a huge jump in accessibility of regional and interregio trains with the introduction of the “germany-ticket” which grants access to all public transport which is not high-speed across all germany for 50€ p/m (which unfortunately will already rise to 60€ with the start of ´25 which i am so mad about). I dont see high speed rail as a problem in germany.
Reminds me of this article from the Low Tech Magazine.
idk man, at least for germany i have the opposite impression: it is a integrated system and if you dont live in a large city it would be very usual to combine high speed legs with regional trains. heck i even mostly cross the dutch-german border on regional trains. in germany at least there has been a huge jump in accessibility of regional and interregio trains with the introduction of the “germany-ticket” which grants access to all public transport which is not high-speed across all germany for 50€ p/m (which unfortunately will already rise to 60€ with the start of ´25 which i am so mad about). I dont see high speed rail as a problem in germany.