Op's example was underground. Moses built above ground, thereby requiring the ruthlessness. Not sure the same ruthlessness would be needed with tunnels.

I guarantee France have stronger unions and regulations, and still managed the GPE. 3 years late and with 20% cost overrun, sure, but to be fair, they had to deal with floods twice, which wasn't planned and broke equipment and reseted some tunnels.

Funny how every other developed country manages to build more infrastructure cheaper despite having stronger unions and stricter regulations.

One thing that some cities have done where awkward infrastructure is required to get a train to the airport is to, essentially, borrow money to do it, and make the fares to the airport very high to compensate.

Notably, getting to Brussels airport, which takes about 15 minutes from Brussels Nord, costs about 15 euro. For a 15 minute train journey. Hands-down the most expensive train per minute (or per km) I've ever been on. But, at least in theory, it's paying for this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabolo_project

(That's by no means the only one; lots of airports are in awkward places so running rail to them is expensive, and it's common for it to be paid for by special, more expensive services. And people use them.)

I don't see how unions cause any of those problems. Corruption and incompetence comes through administration and management not the average worker wanting a decent pay and 2 weeks of vacation.

There's a free bus to LaGuardia from the subway.

Stockholm with a bit over 1 million people has an express train from Arlanda airport to the center of the city, it goes at ~200km/h making the transit of ~40km in 20-25 minutes.

I don't understand why it would be inefficient for one of the busiest airports in the world to one of the largest cities in the world to have a similar setup.

I always counted 50 minutes from midtown to JFK, taking the E train to Jamaica station and the air train.

But I think GP's point is that it could be done in 20 minutes. The A train is a subway, it's nowhere near the speed of the Heathrow Express.

> where I wondered when will personal (flying) quadcopter vehicles have more annual passenger miles than every passenger rail combined (subways/light rail/Amtrak) in the U.S.?

I had a similar thought a few days ago in respect of Waymos specifically: "Americans take about 34 million public-transit trips a day. Assuming 25 rides per day, that's about 1.4 million self-driving cars to rival public transport's impact. Waymo has "about 3,000 robotaxis deployed nationwide." Doubling fleet size annually–Waymos and non-Waymos, though currently they have no peers–would get us to parity in less than 10 years. (A more-realistic 35% growth rate puts us around 20 years.)"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47915937

I'm very much in agreement. All of the pitches for more passenger rail have a for-the-greater-good tint to them that glosses over the fact that point-to-point private vehicles are better in every other conceivable way, more so if they're autonomous. I'd be comfortable betting that any serious passenger rail projects breaking ground right now today are going to be legitimately antiquated by the time Waymo and/or Flying Waymo and their equivalents are commonplace and cheap. More desirable, more convenient, easier infrastructure build out, less disruptive maintenance, better capacity allocation. I hope I live to see the day I can summon a car to my house, hop inside, and it travels automatically to a designated VTOL zone, docks into a fixed-wing harness and takes me anywhere I'd like to go. I'd get fat as hell.

I haven't done the math, but I wouldn't be surprised if cost/passenger over useful lifetime still shakes out better for the trains, and that's before you consider that people developing and building a train line get to eat and put their kids through schools.

I can't believe seriously arguing for oversized quadcopters as a mass transport alternative.

You state that like decades and billions is a long time.

You have 10000 people who need to do this trip every hour, how will you manage that with this? It can’t scale.

In the end normal people will be stuck without proper transport, while a tiny majority will fly around in comfort.

Other countries with good systems also have such people. America’s crime rate is far lower than the 1990s; the impression that you live in a crime-infested world is likely increased media coverage.

I think the real reason the US has poor public transit is that its transport landscape has been shaped by years of planning and funding decisions that have put the car first, and cities rebuilt accordingly. America’s enormity also makes nationwide PT more difficult (but not impossible).

Then add the meritocratic attitude that if you can’t afford a car it’s somehow your fault, and you end up with little political and societal interest in a good public transit system.

*https://ourworldindata.org/us-crime-rates

People making $50k a year in Manhattan are going to pay $200 to get to the airport while also having access to a helipad anywhere near where they can afford rent?

This suggestion lands like someone suggesting that people making $25 an hour in the most expensive city in America are going to consider throwing away $190 to save 15 minutes. In other words: incredibly out of touch with reality.

As a side note: the Tesla Roadster sales figures completely support the idea that it was a complete flop of a car that didn’t even appeal to impractical rich people or anyone else. 2,450 sold for the entire production run. A failure for any purpose except publicity. The model S is the one that changed things, and it was never widely criticized as impractical or only for rich idiots.

> Helipads are cheaper to build and site than train stations

Is that still true once you control for capacity? A modern single-line station is handling, what, 150 people alighting every 2.5 minutes? How many helipads would you need to match that?

> $200 a trip. Assuming that's only affordable for someone making $50k a year or more, that covers the top 80% of Manhattan

Someone making $50k isn't going to spend $200/trip regularly. They might spend it occasionally for an urgent trip, but how often is that going to be to/from an airport? For someone making $50k any flights they're taking will have been planned and booked months in advance, they can't afford to fly spontaneously/last-minute. (And if 80% of the population did want to use it, would it even be possible to build enough enough helipads? There isn't room for anything like 80% of the population to park in Manhattan, and these things look to be bigger than cars and I don't see anyone putting them in a multi-storey garage).

People making $50K a year are not dropping $200 to save even 2 hours of time, not to mention 15 minutes. Even if they paid zero taxes $200 is an entire working persons day at $50K a year.