Off the rails in America

By Donald Kirk

LOS ANGELES ― You wonder when you travel around the United States whether you’re really in a first-world country or one that’s already falling behind more “advanced” societies ― like Korea, for instance, or Japan or China.

You realize something’s amiss when you get to Los Angeles International Airport and discover no train links the airport to downtown. I made that discovery years and years ago when there really were no trains anywhere within miles. Then they did build a train that gets near the airport but not actually there. You have to go the rest of the way by taxi or bus, a 10-minute wait and then a 10-minute ride that’s an incredible annoyance when you’re jetlagged and laden with a bag, computer and papers. Generally, after a long flight, you say the hell with it and rent a car.

You have to wonder about the mentality of the people who planned the line to LAX, as the airport is known. What were they thinking when they ordered up a railroad that went nearly there but stopped short of the goal? I have a theory to offer.

I don’t think those who do the planning ever ride trains. They are totally car people. At the top levels, they are car-and-driver people. They have chauffeurs who take them where they need to go. Trains to them are a mode of transportation from an earlier period in history, before the age of expressways and turnpikes, when there actually were trains that everyone had to take everywhere.

Second, these people don’t like trains. Oh, they may ride them once in a while as a cultural experience, but when they have to go somewhere they’re either in their high-end cars or flying biz class to a conference.

Nonetheless, LA planners did agree they needed a metro to alleviate those gargantuan traffic pile-ups. Problem was, they were so accustomed to driving to the airport they couldn’t imagine first-hand what it was to get close to where you wanted to go but still not be there. They were simply not accustomed to schlepping bags those last few miles and minutes in the rush to make a plane.

Had they had a clue what they were doing, they would have looked at Seoul where the subway between Gimpo and downtown ranked as a high priority in the early years of the subway system. Nor was there the any doubt that a train would run to Incheon International Airport within a few years after it opened. Now you have a choice between an express that goes non-stop from Seoul Station to ICN or a slower version that makes a few stops, including Gimpo.

Here in Los Angeles, the brains behind the metro system are asking how they can find the few billion dollars they say it will take to extend the train to the airport. What are they thinking? What is their level of intellect? Why didn’t they say, when they realized the urgent need for rail travel that the train had to have a final stop at the airport, period? Was that not what the train was for in the first place?

Ditto for Washington, D.C. When the planners got the idea of the need for a rail system like that of every other self-respecting world capital, they did build a subway to National, now Reagan National Airport. They said they were sorry the train didn’t stop right at the terminal, but they came close. You can hike on over from the train to one of the terminals.

Then along came Washington Dulles International Airport in the sprawl of northern Virginia traffic. A local giveaway paper editorialized about what a waste it was to build a line out there, and storeowners whined about the impact of those ugly tracks on business. Like the brains of the Los Angeles system, the planners were all too accustomed to going wherever they wanted with second and third cars to spare for wives and kids. Who needs to get to the airport by train, they figured.

Now the people responsible for the link to Dulles are fat and happy. There’ve been reports of outrageous expense accounts, bonuses and nepotism, all of which they have to figure makes the project more than worthwhile. After all these years, the railroad to IAD, that is, Dulles, is on its way to completion. En route to the airport by car, I saw new tracks glistening by the highway. In a couple of years, I may be able to get there by train, better late than never.

Basic traffic by rail is not the only advantage travelers have in Korea. The KTX system is light years ahead of anything we’ve yet to see in the U.S. Try going from Washington to New York to Boston, and you’re caught in a maze of scheduling problems and shifting costs that rocket the price above that of air. And don’t even think about traversing the U.S., east-west, by train. No matter what, you spend a lot for slow connections and the price of a fancy hotel room for a berth in a sleeping car.

American planners might take a serious look at the Korean experience. Electronic gimmicks and gadgets aren’t the only ways Korean society has leapt ahead. And please don’t get me started on the ease of going by bus in Korea compared with the hassles and discomfort of long-distance bus travel in the U.S.!

Columnist Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has sampled transportation systems from Europe to the US and Asia. He’s at kirkdon@yahoo.com.