I wish we had good domestic rail service.
Tons of people travel between New York, Washington D.C., and Boston by plane, even though it takes only slightly longer to drive. The only other options are bus (sucks) and Amtrak. Amtrak only runs a handful of trains per day, so the schedule is unlikely to work out in your favor. And the laughable “Acela” high-speed option is far more expensive than most plane trips and doesn’t even save much time.
Our domestic rail service needs help. Badly.
— Marco
This argument is really making assumptions I don’t feel are valid to make. It’s an 8 hour drive from DC to Boston, 80 minute flight, and taking a train takes about as long as driving.
I understand that there’s more to flying then flight time, but there’s also more to taking the train then just the rail time. For me it takes 10 minutes to get to Washington National Airport; for a shuttle flight I need an additional 15 minutes to get to the airplane. Even if one assumes a 45minute overhead on either side of the flight the time is nowhere near the drive time. The numbers, while not skewed so extremely, are still shifted significantly towards the driving time.
The reason the US doesn’t have, and doesn’t need, a train system is because we are a very decentralized nation. Even the distance between the large cities on the East Coast and New England are significantly further away then many of those in European nations.
Airplanes travel significantly faster then trains, high speed or no, and definitely cars. Right now the cost of rail is comparable to While the cost of travel would go down if the rail infrastructure were improved, it doesn’t change the fact that flight would remain a much faster option at a competitive price.