Yes you’ve got a point. Part of this was an exercise to argue against something I really love and passionate about for the sake of “Change my Mind”.

But that’s part of the thing. If an organization paid for unlimited free air passenger and freight transport system, converting to better alternatives (on monetary cost, the environment and other bases) would be difficult to convince from people and logistics companies alike. If left alone, this sort of system would be unlikely to change until some devastating consequence made it unfeasible to switch at that point anyway. And in such a universe maybe we’d see more blimps in the sky.

So either road has to be regulated fairly and costs that were externalized get properly accounted for and renumerated, or railroad track has to be managed nationally, and provide fair access to communities large and small, in order for rail and wheeled vehicles to be on equal footing. Neither of these things I would expect to happen naturally, it must come from an organized effort somewhere.