Trains, planes, & pains: what's the best way to get from point A to point B? Amtrak's high-speed rail takes on the airlines

Sierra, Nov-Dec, 2003 by Blair Tindall

Commercial jet engines also deposit pollution in crucial areas near the ground. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a single jet landing, taxiing, idling, and taking off can cause as much pollution as a car traveling 5,600 miles; the EPA estimates that commercial aircraft will generate as much as 10 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions from mobile sources in cities with heavy air traffic by 2010. And in an odd twist, some of today's quieter, more fuel-efficient aircraft engines generate an average of 40 percent more smog-forming nitrogen oxides than the engines they replaced.

Jet exhaust is just one source of air-travel-related pollution. Airport maintenance, baggage, and catering vehicles also spew gases. Car traffic swarms around terminals. Deicing fluids lace groundwater with poisonous glycol, and wildlife habitats are lost to new tarmac. According to the World Health Organization, airport din can make you deaf, mentally ill, and unintelligible. Ready for the train yet?

I glance at the video screen, which says we're flying at 416 mph, 16,000 feet up. The jet may be pouring emissions into the troposphere, but it's four times speedier than the Acela's average 90 mph. "No contest, the shuttle's much faster," says Robert, a New York broker. For him, the Acela's only winning route is its 91 miles from New York to Philadelphia, which the train can cover in just over an hour. We compare notes. When Robert left his office at 9:30, I'd already been on the train a half hour. I was nearing Providence as he started his 11:30 meeting in Boston. And as I arrived at South Station, he was done with business for the day.

Tossing back our Heinekens, Robert and I pick at sparse, grayish shreds of chicken atop our tiny romaine salads. The disappointing food aside, Robert wins the plane-train race. But he was lucky today, as his trip time could've been increased by rush-hour traffic, delayed ticketing, orange-alert security, and weather snafus, which cause nearly three-fourths of airline delays. High-speed train systems can avoid these obstacles. Japan's bullet train averages delays of only 24 seconds, while France's TGV is so efficient its trains can run four minutes apart.

Airport slowdowns add to operating costs, noise, and emissions--and the wrath of passengers. Figuring that major delays will soon plague 20 airports, the Federal Aviation Administration recommends some $4.6 billion annually in airport expansions and technological improvements to alleviate the problem. Yet, three-fourths of projects have been held up, with noise, land-use, water, and air-quality issues the primary culprits. San Francisco International's runway expansion, expected to fill a substantial area of wetlands, has been tabled indefinitely. Los Angeles International downsized a $12 billion runway expansion largely because of local pollution. Environmental groups also put the brakes on expansions for Seattle-Tacoma and Chicago's O'Hare.

For the air traveler, time spent aloft is just a piece of the puzzle. Increasingly, planners consider linking trains, planes, and buses. Such "intermodalism" is proven in Europe, where travelers use planes for longer flights and transfer inside the airport to high-speed trains. In some cases, these trains have eliminated short-haul air competition. Germany's InterCity Express (ICE) trains shut down Lufthansa's Hanover-Frankfurt flights permanently, while the international Thalys train eliminated Air France flights from Paris to Brussels. At Paris's Charles de Gaulle, transferring passengers pick a plane or train to Lyon, with an arrival time difference of just three minutes. (Air ridership between the two cities has dropped by half since arrival of the TGV in 1981.)