We could solve the security problem with the stroke of a pen - just abolish the TSA. It is a horrendous waste of money, a ludicrously expensive tax on our time that we choose to pay out of pure paranoia. Is it really worth building an entire hugely slower alternate infrastructure to avoid this tax, when we could just opt to stop paying it?

Contrariwise, if we are that committed to TSA, whatever brain-dead political calculation forced us to waste an extra hour in the airport before every flight would almost certainly cause us to do the same before every train trip.