|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Jordan Hayes
|| (...)
||
|| Europe doesn't want it:
||
|| > The government's announced bias towards rail flies in the face of the
|| > European trend to reduce rail-track (down from 170000km in 1970 to
|| > just over 150000km in 1998) and increase motorways (up from 2000km to
|| > 5000 km over the same period).
|| (...) I'm no rail expert but what I can see is that Europe's trains get better all the time. No rails are laid perhaps but rolling stock is certainly improved. They may be snipping off some financial blackhole local lines, but when you consider the number of people comfortably commuting in trains - and socialising there - instead of burning hydrocarbons and accumulating aggression and stress on the roads, there are huge cost benefits that are not immediately visible. I feel rail and other forms of public-transport commuting, when they are as comfortable as in most of western EU, are an effective remedy for anomie as well. And what could be better than the transport philosophy of Dutch railways: park your bike at the station, hop on the train, pick up a bike at your destination (not necessarily from a dope fiend who just ripped it off :-) ?
Hakki