[AnotherUnixGeek]

"The only solution is more freeways."

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

"Automobile traffic will expand to fill all space provided to it." - Buckminster Fuller

This sounds like a prediction of unlimited and endless population growth, which is not credible. If there is adequate roadspace, traffic will move. We're driving on a freeway system designed for traffic capacity in the '70s. Build enough road capacity for the current traffic and for projected traffic in the next 50 years. People will not start breeding like rabbits to fill up the new freeway capacity.

Another earlier poster was right: we have to get people out of their cars.

Who is "we"? The people have made their choice - they overwhelmingly prefer cars. They've also paid and continue to pay for the roads they drive on. Politicians and would-be social planners can talk about public transportation all they want - they can't make anyone use it.

Rapid rail works, and very well.

For the other guy to use, usually. I see the empty light-rail cars going by on occasion and so does everyone else in the traffic jam. We'd all still rather be in our cars.

[ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY]

"...The people have made their choice - they overwhelmingly prefer cars."

In most American cities they don't HAVE a choice.

Look, no one is trying to take anyone's car away from them, like some have implied. What some of us are saying is most of us would not need them to commute to work, if we had a viable alternative. Our big cities are rapidly becoming unlivable because of automobile induced sprawl, and spending hours every day sitting in a metal box sure isn't good for anyone's physical or mental health either.