The Puget Sound area, particularly Tacoma, used to have a wonderful commuter rail system, but ripped it all out when they brought the buses in. Meanwhile, places like Japan just used the buses to expand the reach of the already existing rail systems. Some of those train stations there date back to the 1920s.

Suburban/rural areas here are just as conducive to bikes as they are in places like Japan. Actually, though, the suburban sprawl you speak of is probably why buses are a better solution for us right now. I think that eventually the business centers will start to revolve around the rail stations, but that’s decades away as our rebuilding of the rail systems is still in the fledgeling stages. Bus systems don’t have to follow the rails so they are better able to adapt to a community’s changing needs.

Either way, a good public transit system, whether is be Asia’s rail/bus systems or our bus/rail systems, would do much to keep commuters flowing smoothly without adding yet another lane to each of our freeways.

As to mass trans, I am all for a train system that makes sense. The east coast cities do it right, while the Puget Sound is terrible and bus reliant.

Asian countries may “burn everything they can” but they are well known for their public transportation systems and heavy use of bicycles for commuting.

A President can say “find a new source of energy” at anytime, but it does not mean a thing if the science is not there, even with unlimited funds.

In 1962 we already had rockets and some understanding of space travel and the physics involved. After billions we are no where closer to new fuel source than we were in the 80′s.

Apparently the board monitor is attempting to deal with the clone poster…

On September 12, 1962 when President Kennedy said we would send men to the moon and safely return them to the Earth we didn’t have the technology then.

Seven years later we did it!

Less coal would be easy with more nukes.

And as to the oil companies, with all of our govt restrictions on supply, we (govt) drives the price up, in fact helping them. If we could produce more domestically would we really use that much more? Of course not. We would import less helping our security and stop the wealth transfer to evil regimes that hate us.

On top of all that we produce oil cleaner here and would save on transpo costs.