I love automobiles.  I get in and go.  I can go anywhere because there are so many intersecting streets and highways.  One major problem with automobiles is the subtle and not so subtle pressure to buy a new model each year. With care cars can last decades. Costs are high because most cars run on gasoline and we are not in control of the supply.  We had a mass transportation system in place at one time.  Once there were the tracks and train systems that cris-crossed the country.  Early street cars were pulled by horses and when electricity became common, overhead lines powered the street cars.  While the electric lines were on poles overhead and were unsightly, there was very little pollution.  In fact, when the horses were no longer needed, the pollution from their wastes disappeared. It should be obvious that the massive flow of individual driven cars that speed too fast and consume too much fuel is too costly. That system is broken and we are reluctant to change it.

We need an alternative to all the single individuals, each driving a car that consumes gasoline.  Using alternative fuels is a good idea but you know why no one is buying them in significant numbers.  The lust is to own and use huge machines to move a single person from one place to another.  It is oxymoronic to think that we can continue to buy huge fuel consuming vehicles and make them more efficient – think Chinese: they want them too.

 Think about all the tracks that once crossed America within cities and between them.  Those locations are mostly derelict today but they connect point A to point B and we have the brain power to construct modern and efficient machines to pull many people to places they want to go quickly and at much cheaper prices than owning and using gasoline consuming vehicles.  These choke the streets and our air.

Think about the buses that are still on the streets of our cities.  They carry many people and stop conveniently at places people want to go.  They are relatively inexpensive.  Increasing numbers of single cars with single drivers crowd the roads and need places to park. This is not using reason or just plain common sense.

Mass transportation is in trouble in the air as well as on land.  You no longer get the services that your ticket once paid for.  Airplanes get you there faster but you are jammed in and must pay the fare which has gone up: they don’t feed you and make you feel like a very important person anymore.

The alternative to the automobile is mass transportation. It will get you there. It will unclog the streets and open up parking for necessary vehicles for real purposes for driving from point A to point B.