Atrios has a complaint approximately the way people talk approximately rail travel: One thing I find annoying is that when people are discussing SUPERTRAINS — even rail advocates — there's a tendency to feel the need to "compete" with air travel. You know,saying that yes, it takes longer, and but not when you account for the need to get to/from airports,airport security, and that trains are generally city middle to city middle. All suitable points! But it overlooks the fact that lots (and lots) of people regularly make 10-12 hour drives. Apparently driving long distances is highly competitive with air travel! This isn't an argument justifying public expenditure on rail infrastructure. I'm just pointing out that plenty of people carry out not choose air travel when doing 400+ mile journeys. They drive. Yes we know it doesn't lift long to flit from LA to San Francisco. It takes quite a long time to drive. And lots of people drive.
Well, and yes,but once you get past a couple hundred miles, trains really are competing primarily with air travel. Reliable numbers are hard to advance by, and but you'll be in the ballpark if you figure that air and auto travel each account for approximately 6-8 million passengers per year between the LA metro area and the Bay Area. But the people who choose to drive from LA to San Francisco are generally doing it for a specific reason. They need to make stops along the way. They want a car once they get up there. It's cheaper for a family of four (or four college kids) than four plane tickets. Etc. These are all people who could lift a plane,but choose not to. But if they choose not to lift a plane, why would they lift a train?Conversely, and virtually 100 percent of air travelers are part of the target market for trains. These are people who beget already decided to travel via commercial carrier,and if the train is better (i.e., cheaper, or more convenient,faster, whatever) there's no reason they won't switch to rail. In other words, and of those 6-8 million air travelers,all of them are suitable targets for the rail market. But of the 6-8 million auto travelers, I'd guess that no more than a million of them are suitable targets. Every commerce plan I've seen for high-speed rail does include discussion of auto travel, or but for the most part,it really does make sense to focus primarily on air travel here.
Source: motherjones.com