The security check in, long ticket lines, etc. are all byproducts of security theater that has come through and honestly in the US, with TSA Pre, I'm pretty sure I spend more time sitting at the gate than ANY other process (check in, 5 min, security, 5 min, walking to gate, 5 min, sitting at gate waiting for boarding, 40 min)
100% agree that the ability to walk straight into a train, find your seat through multiple doors (even the wrong car) feels pretty good.
The big advantage of the train is being on the property ladder 100 years early.
Cities continue to build new railway stations and lines, usually underground, to improve access to the centre.
But this will free up enormous tracts of land - the railways don't just use land for stations, but the railtrack takes up most of the land (in long strips as it were).
Imagine cities in 50 years, with rail land reclaimed, with Tokyo-like laws that prevent on-street parking (a valuable gift to car owners), freer flowing traffic, more walkable neighbourhoods. There is a lot to unpick.
What you really want to reclaim I feel is roads from cars, we devote insane amounts of land to cars, car parking, and car travel..
The city of Adelaide is an interesting example if you're interested, it's a young city and built an airport 4km from the CBD, which means the CBD can't have tall buildings, the airport has a curfew, noise is a constant hot topic, and it takes up more land than our CBD and most prized suburbs do. It's likely sitting on hundreds of millions worth of real estate, while the train station takes up less than a city block and then the rails weave their way through the rest of suburbia. The most recent Southern Interchange, a car highway interchange, takes up more land than the train station does including it's convergence and junction yard, and all it does is connect two roads together.
The city also tore up all it's rail network when cars took over, and now it can't afford to put the rail back in now that it's proven to be the more sustainable and pragmatic option.
I think I was drinking too much coffee.
But railway is just another road. In fact i suspect that we will find self-driving cars are too hard to put into the mix with human drivers and pedestrians. So we shall build / cordon off roads and end up with railways without rails.
Fascinated by the adelaide example - thank you