And low-speed, even. Just rails.
Air travel took off because of its novelty and efficiency, moving large numbers of passengers over vast distances in a somewhat timely manner. Certainly faster than anything that came before.
To get rail back in vogue, this blogger thinks the immediate benefits will have to become obvious, if we’re to create and sustain a demand that justifies a supply. So, how to achieve that demand? How to make rail cool?
We could start by connecting regional hubs served mostly by short-stint flights now, eliminating the hassle of air travel, parking, commuting to airports, checking luggage, and the like. High-speed rail can get a person from (sorry to trot out this tired example) San Francisco to Los Angeles in around three hours at about half the cost of air travel. When you factor in the time it takes to get to and from the airports, the duration of travel really isn’t that different. An hour or an hour and a half, tops.
Making that same trip, say, a quarter of the cost (and the savings would ostensibly be funded by some sort of federal subsidy) would be key. But you’ve got to make that initial investment.
When demand rises, perhaps a nice, healthy, free-market industry will rise up to offer competition. That would require some expansion of the real estate tracks live on, but ultimately, train tracks take up a lot less space than freeways.
In sum, invest in building the infrastructure and subsidizing (thereby sustaining) demand, and you might just give birth to a new era of travel. One that’s kinder to the environment and land, and that would clear the skies for longer-haul air travel.
Yeah?










No, I don’t know a damned thing about economics. So, here goes: