After flying from LA to Chicago yesterday we continued on our journey with a plane from Chicago to Boston. The plane left an hour and a half later than it should have and then was further delayed on arrival which meant that a 2 hr journey ended up lasting 4 hrs. In addition to the delays flying involves getting to the airport which can be an hour away from the centre, arriving 2 hours early to go through security and checking in your bag if you have certain items such as shaving cream (what is the risk? I will threaten to shave the pilot's head if he or she doesn't do my bidding). Airports are doing their best to make this process as smooth as possible but its still one of the most complicated ways to travel. I understand that for intercontinental travel we have not yet found a solution but for any travel which does not involve crossing an ocean I wish we could move to generalised TGVs (high speed trains). A fast train could do Los Angeles in 6 hrs as opposed to the 4hrs it took by plane plus an extra 2-3 hours of taxis and waiting time. The cost of building a Los Angeles to Chicago high speed train would be around $100 billion. If the USA halved its military budget it could build 10,000 kms of High Speed Tracks per year while still having a military budget 50% bigger then the next biggest military budget in the world.
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