It's bizarre how U.S. makes driving at 70mph "faster" when the rest of the world has 200mph trains.
If you put in high speed rail from my small town in the Sierras down to a nice beach, I'd be all over it. As you probably know, there's really not much in the way of point to point mass transit needed. Vacations are well served by air and car, commutes are everywhere to everywhere within urban and suburban areas.
In addition, there's the personal security angle. The US ain't Japan.
I figure if people wanted mass transit to be a thing, they'd start by heavily subsidizing comfortable buses. Super scalable, pretty quick, relatively cheap.
Train carriages are wider, taller, and can be much much longer, so you can have plenty of space. It's like a business class flight, but for economy price and arriving in the city center.
Even "slow" trains can travel at speeds exceeding highway speed limits.
In many European countries rail networks are better built than highway networks, so you can take a train from some Shitshire village to a nice beach.