It’s for the party bosses. People on time means more economic production

HSR is for long distances, nobody is commuting 250 miles when you can live in the city becayse rent is <300/mo. But you are correct in that party bosses interests are selfish; they’re graded by economic development, human health, veggie prices, etc, and at the end of each 5 year term can get promoted to a bigger area, demoted from being able to run anything, or literally thrown in prison depending on their performance.

Let’s see the rural infrastructure and collapsing tofu dreg bridges

The buildings in less economic areas aren’t as nice, but that’s true literally everywhere. As for collapsed bridges and other infrastructure, I’ve literally never seen that.