Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
How essential is flying to most people? We may have become used to getting anywhere in the world in a day, but I'd guess that there are very few people who actually NEED to do so. Eg, you can get pretty much anywhere in Western Europe on the train in a day (24h); I'd guess that the same would be true in the US, too, with modern high-speed trains.
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That really isn't the case in the U.S., at least not without several tens of billions of dollars invested into creating a high-speed rail infrastructure that just doesn't exist here. You can get anywhere in the Eastern seaboard in a day by rail, but that's just about where our efficient rail system ends. Rail was never seen as very practical in the U.S. for passenger transport after flying became popular just because of the distances involved, and flying became the de facto standard here for distance travel long before high speed (~200km/h) rail was developed. If aviation came to a halt in the U.S., it would be several years before high speed rail here could come close to replacing it, especially when you get west and south of, say, Detroit or Chicago. It would be pretty devastating to our economy, no doubt.