I don’t like flying.

I’ve read “Lord of the Flies.” I’ve seen “Lost.” I am an extremely picky eater and possess very few practical survival skills. If my plane goes down on a deserted island, I am giving myself about four days — and that’s generous.

This is among the many reasons I have spent years waiting for America to finally embrace high-speed rail, a dream I am about ready to give up.

For years, I have watched videos of Japanese bullet trains with the same mixture of awe and resentment normally reserved for people who own homes before the age of 30.

There is one clip in particular of a reporter standing beside the tracks in Japan as a Maglev train rockets past him at 310 miles an hour. He is completely stunned. It brings me so much joy.

I have watched this video approximately 400 times.

Every time, I have the same thought: Why can’t we have nice things?

It’s particularly irritating because, from what I’ve learned in history class, America used to be really good at trains.

Railroads quite literally helped build the country, carrying people and goods across distances that had once taken weeks or months to traverse. By the middle of the 20th century, though, Americans were increasingly choosing cars and airplanes, and the government was making massive investments to accommodate them.

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 kicked the Interstate Highway System into high gear. The federal government agreed to cover 90% of construction costs, authorized $25 billion through 1969, and created the Highway Trust Fund to provide a dedicated source of money for the project.

It is difficult to imagine the federal government making that kind of commitment to passenger rail today.

And to be clear, I am grateful for the highways. Although it pains me that even after nearly 60 years of investment, it seems that there is always a new massive construction project congesting whichever direction I need to travel in, I can’t imagine my life without the MassPike (is that sad?)

But sometimes, when I’m stuck in traffic because a lane is closed, or I’m too busy focusing on the road to stare out the window and imagine myself in a movie, I really wish things were different.

I recently drove eight hours to State College Pennsylvania for a swim meet. Do you know how big Pennsylvania is? Because I do now.

When I was planning my trip, I looked into my travel options. The flights were either expensive or inconvenient, and the only available train options had me arriving three days before I needed to be there or three days after at the cost of my life savings.

Somewhere around hour six, I began thinking again about the Japanese reporter.

Japan’s first bullet train began operating in 1964. It was no Maglev, but it went 130 miles per hour.

For comparison, even the Acela has an average speed of about 70 in the year of our Lord 2026.

At this point, though, I don’t even need a bullet train.

My dreams have gotten smaller.

Give me a regular train. It can go a perfectly ordinary speed. I would just like it to cost substantially less than $700 and arrive at my destination sometime before I would have gotten there if I drove myself.

Because America’s problem isn’t merely that we haven’t built a nationwide network of futuristic trains traveling 200 mph. Even the decidedly non-futuristic passenger rail system we already have is working with one hand tied behind its back.

Meanwhile, every few years, somebody announces that American high-speed rail is finally coming.

There are, admittedly, reasons not to be completely hopeless. Brightline West is under construction between Las Vegas and Southern California, with plans for trains capable of roughly 186 mph. California is still trying to build its much larger high-speed system, although years of delays and ballooning costs have turned that project into its own cautionary tale.

I hope one of them will prove me wrong, though I have lowered the bar considerably.

I no longer require a train that travels 200 mph. I don’t need champagne in the dining car. I don’t need to glide silently across the countryside while marveling at American engineering.

I would like to buy a reasonably priced ticket, get on a train, and arrive somewhere faster than I could have driven there myself.

And if we ever do get a real bullet train, I will happily stand beside the tracks and let it blast past me at 200 mph.

Someone can film my reaction.

I already know exactly what I will say.

“Why the hell did that take so long?”

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