On US infrastructure

I fly into Dulles International airport. I have been here many times before, but this is the first time in just over a decade.
In the summer, planes always hit turbulence in the last 30 minutes before landing at Dulles. I have been told it I because of the heat and humidity encountered as the plane descends, but I have always been a bit dubious, because it doesn’t happen with such regularity in other hot and humid airports. But the last minute bumps are the least of Dulles’s, or DC’s issues.
Dulles is the main international airport for the capital of the United States. It is one of the countries busiest, and it reflects much of what is wrong with American infrastructure- or the lack thereof. The airport was built in the Kennedy era, and has failed to evolve adequately over time. The facilities are truly pathetic, the duty free’s selection is worse than a 7 Eleven, and the “restaurants” are basically all hideous fast food chains. When you land, the passport control, as in increasingly all US airports, a disaster. The passport booths are understaffed and those who turned up for work are grumpy. After waiting in the passport queue for over an hour, I get hauled over by customs and quizzed about my bag, which they suspect is too small. I point out that I will be there less than a week, and they are still suspicious. I add that 1) I am a small person (unlike everyone else about- but I don’t say that) 2) it is 40 degrees outside and therefore multiple layers are not going to be needed 3) it is not a work trip so I don’t need much anyway. They persist in their integration until I finally open my bag and demonstrate that I actually do have one pair of clean pants and one clean T shirt for every day I will be on US soil, as well as folding travel toothbrushes and hairbrushes and regulation sized travel cosmetics. Finally at that point they give up and let me go, but by this stage I feel about as grumpy as they do, but at least I didn’t have to wait for my luggage, since I travelled with carry on only.
But it doesn’t get easier. Dulles has no public transport running to central DC 40 kilometres east, and no cab will take me to the Virginian city I need to go to (120 kilometres south). I had anticipated this, and therefore took a cab to the centre. Arriving at 8pm, I had missed the last train of the night (!!) to where I was going, and had to spend the night in a hotel near Dupont Circle. The trains might have finished for the evening, but life in Dupont Circle hadn’t. I checked in to the (unimpressive) hotel on Embassy Row and went for a stroll. The place was packed with young people, all of whom seemed noticeably more fit, smily, and well-dressed than the US standard. The packs of 20 somethings crammed into the outdoor cafes and bars had me slightly puzzled, until I remembered it was indeed the dreaded Summer Intern Season. Every year, DC fills with overly earnest people hoping to be the next generation of congressmen. I sat down on the terrace of a café and the conversations around confirmed it was indeed Intern time again as the guy next to my moaned "dude, its like just so hard to break into politics, you know what i mean?" others around him seemed to be frequently quoting either their fathers, or the congressman they were interning for. i wanted to ask a few of them if they would promise me to do something about the airport if they actually got elected. A train connecting it to Union station, efficient immigration procedures, orderly check in and some duty free shops would be nice. alas, however, i was too tired from jet lag to bother.