If you're old enough, there was a time before the airport experience was so broken when you could show up 15-20 mins before your flight.
I remember the times before September 11, 2001, when I could show up at the airport about 30 minutes before my flight, get through security (which was locally operated -- no TSA), get my boarding pass at the gate, and board. It was great!
People could also meet you at the gate when you arrived, instead of outside the security area. There would always be peoples' families and loved ones there waiting for them.
If you are flying within Europe, without checking a bag, and have the QR code from your boarding pass, it always takes less than 30 minutes to get to the gate. Allowing an hour is more than safe.
The airport experience is why, even though I enjoy actually flying, I avoid doing it to the greatest degree I can. Everything that happens from the time I arrive at the airport to the time the airplane leaves the runway is awful.
The real difference now is that flying is too affordable. It used to be, only the rich could fly.
What we need to do is make air travel much, much more expensive, out of the reach of most people except on special occasions, and we can go back to having (1) less unnecessary carbon emissions from people flying to Disneyland or whatever shitty resort they spend their vacations at, and (2) very short waits at the airport for people who need to get somewhere in a hurry and can afford it.
Environmental and efficiency problem solved.
wish that were true, but the variance of wait time, even with tsa precheck, etc defeats the purpose. needs to be reliably consistent (and short) for me to take advantage of a 30min show time.
No, it assumes you care about reducing air travel more than equality of access to it
> forcing most people to become vegans because meat becomes too expensive
Sounds...effective? It isn't what is happening, but taxing the hell out of meat would be a great lever to pull if you want to drive consumption away from it.
Outside of cost the only possible lever is rationing. Good luck with that one.
Show up, hop on, tap your credit card to pay, and the plane takes off while you're still wandering down the aisle looking for a seat.
/fire suit on
From the bay area, there is nowhere you might want to go that a train would make less stressful.
Want to go to LA? That's 1 hour in the air for around 100 bucks. Or it's a 10 hour ordeal involving transfers between coach bus and train in more than one location. All for the low price of 60 dollars.
Want to go to New York? That's 6 hours by air or 80+ hours by rail. Where realistically you are going to book a roomette ($$$) and not just sit in coach for 3 days straight.