Is Maglev as important as people make it seem? I live in France and looking at the TGVs it’s plenty fast, or is it just the vastness of the United States that makes it necessary? How much faster is it anyways? The route where I live from Lille to Paris Nord is a total of 251km in 1h05m (232km/h average) while by car it’s 218km / 2h14m in comparison so it doesn’t seem that slow. I also know that there’s a lot of faster routes like LGV Est (which is also where they set the record of 574km/h).