I want some more of what you're smoking. You're saying that if you got everyone to go to a train station and got all the trains there and loaded them all up that this would be faster than people leaving from their houses with their cars packed full of stuff?
> I am really surprised that nobody pointed out how fucked the
> so called transportation "system: in this country is - and it
> is not just NO or the Bush admin fault - it is the entire
> fucking country except NYC.
Lower Manhattan got emptied on 9/11 by footwork, not trains. But also: they were largely going HOME from WORK and not AWAY FROM HOME FOR DAYS.
> If anyone doubts that this country has no transportation
> system I suggest trying to travel between any pair of medium
> size cities, say, Baltimore and Pittsburgh ... In any civilized
> country, you take a train and a few hours. In this fucking
> rathole - you are basically on your own.
You can fly the 210 miles between PIT and BWI in about an hour; you can drive it (closer to 250 by car) in about 4.5->5 hours. It's true that a train takes forever on this route, but no fancy TGV trains would help: the geography of Pennsylvania just doesn't allow it. Meanwhile in fancy-pants Old Europe, Amsterdam to Frankfurt is about the same by air (216mi?), and is a similar enough geography for our purposes here. If you take the ICE ($130 one-way, "high speed" and no connections) it's about 4 hours. However: Greyhound in the US is marginally slower -- 4.5 -> 5.5 hours, depending on the connection, but it's about $45.
I don't see your beef; it's not nearly as bad as you think it is.
/jordan