If either of these things were actually the factors blocking high speed rail in the US, Europe wouldn’t have trains either. Eminent domain exists, and US infrastructure only feels old because we never spend money on it.
That's not exactly accurate. Western Europe installed its high-speed rail decades ago. They could not do it today. The US also could have done it in the 1960s or 1970s and made a disastrous decision not to.
You can see proof of that in the fact that Western Europe is barely maintaining its infrastructure properly today. Their spending on such has frequently fallen below US spending levels as a share of GDP.
That's even while having the ability to raise incredibly cheap - often negative yield - debt. Germany refuses to spend and it is starting to badly need infrastructure spending.
EU infrastructure spending as a share of GDP is at 1.8% - 1.9%. The US is at 2.3% - 2.5%. In Greece it's 1.1% (it used to be over 2%). Italy is seeing a similar problem right now as its infrastructure crumbles and they have to fight over spending rules constantly.
From the World Economic Forum's competitiveness report looking at 1998-2017 infrastructure spending and results:
EU and Eurozone spending on infrastructure has widely been below proper maintenance levels since the great recession a decade ago. The EU as a whole needs to spend a lot just to catch up to where it should have been right now with its basic infrastructure.
They aren't doing that, and they would build high-speed rail today? There is good reason to be skeptical of that premise.
"Europe’s spending on infrastructure at ‘chronic’ low level"
"Spending at 20-year low threatens region’s prosperity, EIB report warns"
"According to Statista, the percentage of GDP spent on infrastructure for UK, France and Germany ranged between 2% and 2.2% in 2013 marginally below USA who has been spending 2.4%."
Note: it's not good to be marginally below the US on infrastructure spending in any regard.
