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Notes -
I've long been wondering whether a better application of HSR wouldn't be to urban centers directly, but to major airports. Ideally, the airport already has transit options into the city available, are generally on the outskirts of town where routing rail travel would be easier, and, while airlines might be unhappy about losing short flights, there are lots of short connections to hubs that could probably be faster by train than an extra connecting flight. Austin and San Antonio to Dallas or Houston, Chicago to Milwaukee, Oklahoma City to Dallas, Phoenix to Tuscon. All these flights are about an hour, and fly more than half a dozen flights daily each way, many of which are, I assume, to take a much longer flight from the larger airport, because driving would take a similar amount of time and solve getting around at the destination.
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