[ablium]

Danezia,
You are absolutely correct that China can not follow American way of transportation.

In US, people usually drive car if the traveling distance is shorter than 500 km and take airplane if the traveling distance is longer than 500km. American way of short-term long distance travel is typically accomplished with following steps 1) Drive car from home to airport and park the car in the airport parking lot; 2) take the airplane to the destination airport; 3) Rent a car in the destination airport and drive to the final destination. Hence, American airports generally have huge parking lots for cars of travelers and rental companies besides runways and terminals.

When I was young, traveling by train from Shanghai to Beijing took me about 24 hours. Right now, it takes about nine hours by non-stop train. The high speed train will need only five to six hours. The maglev train will further reduce to two to three hours, which will be more convenient than air travel because airports typically are located 40-80 km away from the city center and airport security check also takes some time.

When I was in Europe, I traveled with Orient Express train (starting from Turkey to London) from Bucuresti to the West European countries. Actually Orient Express was pretty slow and it also had to stop in every country border. I think EU should consider building a high-speed train across the whole Europe so that Romanians working in the West can easily come home for weekend.