Public Transportation and Smart Growth

"A smaller share of total travel time is spent cruising in the plane; more is spent getting through security, waiting to board, taxiing, taking off, and landing."

Say what? After getting to the train station you don't have to wait on the train to arrive just as you do for the plane at the airport?


"Rail is also easier to locate nearer the core of dense metro populations (where people usually ultimately want to go), something airlines can’t really do with their huge geographical footprint and noisy planes."

Ridiculous. Planes don't have many tracks that must lead into and out of a single terminal in a highly dense metropolitan area. To locate a railroad terminal into an existing metropolitan area would be a monumental task.

"Where city-pair distances and populations warrant rail travel, pressure is taken off the airlines to provide these shorter, less profitable domestic routes." Actually automobiles are far more time and fuel effective for shorter distances than rail.

Railroad infrastructure is expensive to build and maintain. Do we need rail? Sure. But is it a viable replacement for other means of transportation? Not necessarily.