No. The car hit the train and killed itself. Trains are *not* at fault when dumb Florida drivers ignore signals and drive in front of them.

Those “small cities” have millions of people in them and are growing. It made sense to build through there. Maybe someday we can build another line along the more direct route, ideally replacing a highway lane or two.

Yes there is. It used to take a lot less time to travel between LA and SF. Now people don’t do it as often because there’s so much traffic, including terrible truck traffic. I’d rather be on a train watching a movie on my laptop than stressed out between a bunch of trucks on a boring polluted and overcrowded highway.

Gen X gets ignored because it rejected politics and decided apathy was cool and protesting was “so last decade.”  Politics is power, and policy is what makes a lasting difference in society, so ignoring them means your generation will be ignored. You did it to yourselves.