Reminiscing back to electrification in the 1930s overlooks a larger problem: cost disease. The US couldn’t afford to build any of the infrastructure we built back then. NYC can barely afford maintain its subway. Just extending the existing 120-mile long network by less than 10% will take longer than it took to build the whole to work in the first place.

People perceive it as a political problem, and in a sense it is, but they’re viewing it too narrowly. The US has enormous trouble building all sorts of infrastructure that other developed countries build relatively cheaply.