Jet Blue may be great, but airports still suck. And unless Boeing's experiments* with bio-fuels pay off, airlines will continue to face increasing fuel costs that make air travel unsustainable, while the American train industry lets Asia innovate and bring the costs of high-speed magnetic rails down.
There's no technical reason that trains can't be an effective, environmentally friendly alternative to intra-region air travel today. The problem is that the government chooses to heavily subsidize airlines, while investing virtually nothing in passenger rail. Shame, really.
I'm not saying that we would be seeing fast, cheap trains between San Francisco and New York -- but it's ridiculous that there's only one train between Seattle and San Francisco, and that it takes nearly a day to get there.
I largely agree about the insanity of our highway subsidy, but I can see some of the logic in it. Cars are more convenient/practical in rural areas, and the US is pretty rural (I think it's stupid and short-sighted to encourage rural development via highway subsidy, but that's another rant).
That said, in most of the developed world, the competition is between planes and trains. Cars are more expensive (probably because they're not as heavily subsidized).
> Cars are more convenient/practical in rural areas
Not really true. It only seems that way because of the development pattern subsidized highways have enabled. In much of the world housing is clustered in dense towns in rural areas. This was the normal development pattern in the US in the 1800s. Rural towns were fairly dense and walkable. The productive land was around the town. The housing was not needlessly spread out through the productive land.
Well, yeah. I think we agree, and that's what I meant when I said that rural development subsidy is stupid.
Still, the US is a lot bigger than, say, France or Germany. It's harder to build comprehensive train systems between urban areas here (particularly in places like the west).
At current fuel prices, regional jets cannot be profitably operated at $40/seat. The spate of recent airline bankruptcies and mergers is partially fall-out from that fact. Virtually all air travel is less fuel-efficient per passenger than a 4-passenger car would be.
Barring astounding developments in technology or major fuel price drops, regional jets are not the future of commercial air travel. We'd do better figuring out how to get good coverage using a smaller number of superjumbo jets.
I took the Bolt Bus (a regional bus line with power outlets and free wi-fi) from New York to Washington, DC this past weekend for $30 round trip.
For travel under 5 or 6 hours, you can hardly beat the price, convenience, or amenities. You can arrive 5 minutes early, pack liquids in your luggage, and surf the web. I expect a renaissance in bus travel if more companies adopt this model.
Airports suck enough that I would still drive anywhere 5 hours away, especially if I can't get around via public transport once I'm there. If I'm in SJ and going to Long Beach for a weekend, it's no more time to just drive (and a 10% chance of a speeding ticket seems high even if you don't count the fact that you can just not speed and reduce it to 0%) and saves me the hassle/expense of renting a car.
It takes an hour or more to get to SFO from almost anyplace in the city, and I suspect LAX is worse. If you're not at the airport at least an hour early these days, you may get bumped. Stress. Security checks. Rude airline people. Delays, cancellation with little or no reimbursement. A bag of stale peanuts. An hour down, and fiddle around more in the destination terminal. Rent a car to get around. That's at least four hours right there, and probably more.
And NO airline is going to be offering $39 flights in California.
Meanwhile, I could take a leisurely drive down 101. Stop for lunch. Enjoy the ocean. Relax. Take a friend or two and save them and you some money. Pull over once in a while and stretch our legs. When I arrive, I'm in my own car. I head right for my destination.
Of course, rail would be even better, and hopefully cheaper. But this is America. We want to make a few people rich at the expense of everyone else
*http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/200...