It is indeed a very big place.

But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be.

The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule.

Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?

Where I live in the Netherlands the train quite literally stops in front of my door, as in my building that is ~50 meters from the train station where I can take a train every 10 minutes (15 on weekends) to any other city in the country, and even outside the country to Germany or France.

I'm even planning a Eurotrip by train this summer with some mates, I'd say the distances here are comparable to get from NL to PL for example.

And besides, how is it that the US is "too wide" for trains to work, but apparently building an equivalent highway system is perfectly possible? China is also a massive country, yet they have incredible passenger train options to get cross country.

Recently, on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815395

There are lots of potential high-traffic corridors, and the US is still incapable of serving them.