George Vandervoort Wilmette, Ill. . I have a particular problem with the suggestion that air travel is our solution for intercity travel. I would hazard a guess that he hasn't had to travel between New York and Philadelphia, Baltimore or Washington, D.C., recently. Doing that by plane is sure a lot more of a hassle than taking the train. The beauty of rail travel is that it can penetrate the core of the city in a way that even small airports never will.
Planes are great if the distance is such that the inconvenience is offset by the time savings.
But within 300 to 500 miles, trains are a much better way to travel. And it's surprising how many of our major cities are within that range of each other. This doesn't suggest that all suburbanites are going to have easy access to the train, but there are plenty of people who do. As our cities grow and our airports get even more congested, let's not put all our eggs in the airplane basket. We tried that with automobiles 50 years ago, and look where it got us.