Originally Posted by Mike Jacoubowsky

I am so spoiled by European airports and transportation infrastructure in general. I just assumed... silly me... that the Metro would take you right into the terminals. Even our own BART comes pretty close to doing that. BART/SFO and METRO/DCA are pretty similar (maybe a bit less walking for BART). Even CDG got its act together with their inter-terminal rail system. If CDG can do something right, anybody can.

Someone else made the argument about luggage being a disincentive for the biz traveler taking mass transit. I dunno... if it fits as a carry-on, how tough can it really be?

Maybe FTers enjoy long taxi rides for some reason? I wouldn't mind so much if I could be guaranteed a smoke-free experience, seatbelts I could find, and a feeling that I wasn't being taken for a ride sometimes. An ironic metaphor.

Transit systems built almost-right are usually a result of cross-agency turf battles. Was that the case in WAS? One of the great crimes in the SF Bay Area came about when BART punished the SF Peninsula for voting it down back in, what, '62? So they intentionally didn't connect with the then-highly-used SP rail commute line (3rd & Townsend at the time?). That commute line actually functioned very well. Not as sexy as BART would have been, but it worked. Cannot imagine how much opportunity cost involved in that decision.

For IAD & DCA, an efficient means to getting from one to another would open up all manner of possibilities. I would think.