Comment by komali2

I don't want to play no true Scotsman, but I do disagree that Europe is for the most part nowhere near the modern safety standards you find in countries like the PRC, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. The USA rail infrastructure is a joke that writes itself, surely we can agree that their safety "standards" are practically useless, if ever actually enforced? I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to NYC but my god those platforms are death traps.

> Talk about colossal $$$$$ for tracks running outside of urban centers.

Well, that's the opposite of what I mean, I'm talking about urban centers. Which, really the actual solution is just stop letting cars into cities where they can drunk drive crash into people and streetcars, which they do so often you'd think it's their hobby. Anyway, plane infrastructure is still more expensive, still a worse experience, and still has a higher environmental cost. There's just no sensible justification for maintaining all this plane infrastructure. It's an accident of capitalism that it's gotten this far.