Trains: Because I suddenly care.

Is it weird that I'm like super-excited--one might even say stoked--by the Administration's infrastructure investment plan's provision setting aside $85 with a "B" billion for public transit? Wait, don't answer that, because yes. The answer is yes. But I mean:

Is uh...is it hot in here? Mercy me...

The victim in Murder on the Orient Express
was killed in his own private sleeping cabin.
You don't get that kind of comfort on a plane.

Yeah, Amtrak, the sort of public, sort of private company that operates public train routes, produced that map in response to the plan and I don't mind admitting to you that it set my heart aflutter. The company also posted a list of benefits to an expanded and improved rail system including reduced emissions, more jobs, less traffic, and even social equality. One thing they left off however was that trains are just a classy, comfortable way to travel, or at least they used to be. Just look at old movies, they weren't all about murder.

Although if the in-flight movie
options include 22 Jump Street, it
may be time to call The Hague.

Look, flying is objectively miserable. And I'm not saying this just because of my crippling fear of plane crashes. Between the post-9/11 rules trying to protect us from shoe bombs, the TSA, the crapshoot that is bag checking, and the increasing ticket prices air travel is the literal worst. Especially for those of us over 5'0" because goddamn, thirty inches of legroom is a--ok, I want to say warcrime, but that feels somewhat hyperbolic. So let's say regular crime. Charging $800 to be crammed in a flying metal death tube for five hours in the middle seat with zero legroom is a regular crime. 

Pictured: Our problem.

And sure, I know what you're thinking: "Trains? What is this, the middle ages?" And that's fair, but it's also nonsense. Shame on you for trotting out such a specious argument. Why do you hate trains? Admittedly trains were first introduced in 1804, but in Japan where it's actually the future, they have a train that goes 224 miles per hour. There are even faster ones in China. What's our problem? Wait, don't answer that either, there are only so many hours in the day, the point is trains are great and the future.

Again, I'm as surprised as you are that I suddenly care so much about trains, but something about that map just made me yearn for a future with free-healthcare, a liveable federal minimum wage and reasonable gun laws where we all take trains and listen to NPR. And it's a future that's entirely achievable if a certain conspiracy addled lunatic fringe political party whose name sounds like schmupulbicans would just fold under the weight of their own hypocrisy and ideological bankruptcy and let us get on with our lives.

Pictured: the COVID-free alternate timeline 2021 where we abolished
the electoral college and Episode IX was Dual of the Fates. What?
I mean, if we're talking best possible timeline, why not go all out?