> I agree with your answer A, since more people drive than fly.
That's not clear at all[1], and it's not even the root of my statement.
> my comments about flying was a response to Joanna's posting
> about opportunity costs of flying and taking the train.
Yes, I did actually read your postings :-) and yes, I do actually understand the points you made.
> The idea I argued was that opportunity cost of flying would
> become higher if the train alternative became viable and that
> would change the behavior of some air travelers. That was it.
But you did it in the context of a sentence that started with "No, " .... so in some real sense, you're putting this idea forward as an argument *against* the point you responded to: which is that California HSR would compete with driving rather than flying.
Will "some" people choose to take a (fast) train rather than fly? Of course.
Will enough people do it to negate my point?
No.
Recap:
J: CA/HSR competes with driving, not so much flying W: No, it depends how you look at it J: No, it doesn't depend on how you look at it W: Some people will train vs fly J: Not germane.
"That's it"
/jordan
[1] Southwest *alone* flies from 4 Bay Area airports to 4 LA Basin (5 if you count San Diego) airports every day 160 r/t; United has 15 r/t SFO-LAX, 4 SFO-ONT; Delta has 7 r/t SFO-LAX, 5 OAK-LAX, and 3 SJC/LAX; Virgin America has 6 r/t SFO-LAX; jetBlue has 4 from OAK and 3 from SFO to Long Beach. These are the "major" airlines I can think of off the top of my head: there's a handful of other smaller airlines with various connections. There's about 220 flights per day in each direction, most of them real jets with 120+ seats and most of them full. This is *nothing* like the density of east coast "shuttle" operations like NYC-WAS which has around 100 mostly regional jets (50-70 seat aircraft) making the trip and with airports (LGA and DCA) which are capacity-constrained to limit their growth.