Graham Buxton Wrote:
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> What counts is total trip time, beginning to
> endpoint. Time spent traveling to the airport,
> time wasted at security lines (including
> allowances for longer than normal lines), and
> traveling from the destination airport to your
> final destination are all part of the trip. Odds
> are that the airports are out of the way compared
> to the train station, usually near downtown.

Therein lies the rub. Who's to say that future security regulations at train stations wouldn't have to match the security regs at airports? A terrorist bomb on a train would be just as deadly as a bomb on a plane.

The reason so many ostensible air users will opt for Acela instead is one of a cultural entitlement that seems hardwired into the collective psyche of Northeasterners. The Northeast corridor is their baby which we all pay for year after year, and we should be happy that we all subsidize their giant toy train set. Remember a few years ago when Senator Patty Murray tried to introduce legislation to make the Northeast states take over all payments for the costs of the Northeast Corridor via a regional compact? All hell broke loose from Boston to New York City to Washington DC. How dare we try to make the Northeast states pay for something only they have access to!

Trying to emulate the Northeast corridor elsewhere only accelerates the wastefullness of such pork projects, a bizzaro reverse-Robin Hood mentality if you will, in that the areas of the country which will never see the benefits of HSR (e.g. the "red" states/counties) will be the ones forced to pay most of the bill for such things. Of course, that is a microcosm of the goings on in DC right now in which blue states/counties are being bailed out while red states/counties see their tax bills rise (and which will eventually lead to another civil war if it keeps up), but of course that's beyond the scope of this forum!

I'd prefer that HSR make it's way into the nationwide psyche via free market demand and government deregulation/tax incentive of such capital-heavy ventures, not political pettiness and payoffs. But I guess I'm alone in that desire.