I think the best use of taxpayer money would be improving the airport experience.
The high speed rail initiatives suggested cost many billions of dollars per city served. Suppose that, instead, we spent those billions to remake our airports.
For instance, imagine moving the "terminal" to the city center, with a high speed rail line (inside security) that takes you directly to the runway. There must be some way to use a billion dollars for significantly faster baggage service, and another billion for faster security.
Hopefully this would cut a lot of time from the average flight. Airports would get much smaller because people wouldn't be waiting around in them.
The high speed rail initiatives suggested cost many billions of dollars per city served. Suppose that, instead, we spent those billions to remake our airports.
For instance, imagine moving the "terminal" to the city center, with a high speed rail line (inside security) that takes you directly to the runway. There must be some way to use a billion dollars for significantly faster baggage service, and another billion for faster security.
Hopefully this would cut a lot of time from the average flight. Airports would get much smaller because people wouldn't be waiting around in them.