The Aviation, Automobile and oil industry is in chaos right now. The lobbyist from those industries are financially weak. Stop bailing out those that fail. Pump money for the construction of the rails. Construction industry revitalises and tonnes of jobs created immediately.
The Chinese strategy, build more when things are looking bleak to normalize, less during boom times. US tends to do the opposite.
Solve that problem by increasing the denominator faster than the numerator. Build more high-speed rail. Compared to air flight rail is super efficient.
USA bums rides to International Space Station because we can't build a space ship, what makes you think we can build high speed rail?