Here are a few answerswe mostly went for no ridership though Megaregion theory is wrong Norway disproves and

d its a good test case

Wadhwa, 11 [6/14/11, VivekWadhwa, Columnist @ the Washington Post, Industry clusters: The modern-day snake oil
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/industry-clusters-the-modern-day-snakeoil/2011/06/19/gIQAMtx3EI_story.html]

A recent analysis of 1,604 companies in the five largest Norwegian cities underscores whats missing from this prescription for a knowledge economy: people. The prerequisite for a regional innovation system is knowledgeable people who have the motivation and ability to start ventures. To succeed, these people need to be connected to one another by information-sharing networks. Basic infrastructure is always needed, but fancy science parks and big industry are just
nice to have.

The study,

conducted by Rune Dahl Fitjar, of Norways Centre for Innovation Research at the International Research Institute of

found that the key drivers of innovation in Norway are the communication channels that local entrepreneurs maintain to the outside world and their open-mindednesstoward foreign cultures, change and new ideas. Companies that are regionally minded that maintain ties only with players within the same cluster are four times less likely to innovate than the globally connected. The study found that regional and national clusters are irrelevant for innovation. Norway is a well-suited test bed for the success of cluster theory because it has a high-quality education system, well-developed infrastructure and a uniform distribution of highly skilled workers with access to quality research centers and universities in all parts of the country. The same dynamics at play in Norway give Silicon Valley its advantage: It is a giant, globally connected network in which sharing information and risk-taking are the norm. So, rather than obsess over clusters, we need to start obsessing over people. We need to remove the obstacles to
Stavanger, and Andres Rodriguez-Pose of the London School of Economics and Political Science, entrepreneurship such as knowledge of how to start companies, fear of failure, lack of mentors and networks, government regulations and financing. And we need to repair our university research commercialization system so that research breakthroughs translate into invention. Thats the correct formula for nurturing regional growth.

HSR doesnt solve their megaregions advantage more comprehensive changes are key

Freemark, 10 [8/13/10, YonahFreemark is an urbanist who has worked in architecture and planning and who has written for
a number of media outlets, Overselling the Benefits of High-Speed Rail, http://www.cahsrblog.com/2010/08/in-defense-of-richardflorida-on-hsr/]

a commitment to high-speed rail may change the way Americans get between their cities, but it will not do much at all in altering the way they move within them and the vast majority of travel is between destinations within a dozen or so miles, not several hundred.Without a comprehensive change in the way the entire transportation apparatus is funded in the U.S., high-speed rail will result in few of the spatial fixes Florida highlights as his future goal. Indeed, there is no immediate connection between intercity rail use and giving up private cars; I have argued before that fast trains do not automatically mean an increase in public transportation use to and from stations, in the same way as different airports have different percentages of commuters using cars to get to
Moreover, them depending on the travel offerings available.

While there will be increasing dense development around stops, the fact of the matter is that fast train systems by definition have few stations, certainly notenough to encourage the brunt of overall nationwide development, even if implemented at a vast scale. Thats because, unlike the auto and single-family home model of the previous century, high-speed rail assumes dense, walkable development that falls off after a mile at most .One high-speed rail line cannot produce the same amount of geographic development as one highway. Yet most problematic about Floridas argument is his inability to identify improved fixedroute urban transit as the more efficient promoter of the anti-sprawl. While they are not as sexy as

rapid transit in the form of buses, subways, and light rail more directly allows for the creation of dense urban zones that do challenge the hegemony of the automobile and single-family home. If Floridas intention were to do the most with a limited amount of funds to increase the number of livable, walkable neighborhoods, for instance, he would do best by encouraging the construction of these inner-city lines, combined with a focus on dense construction around their stations . From that perspective, high-speed rail is of secondary importance.
fast trains,