(To keep the threads sort of clear, I've cut this one from the "and they're off" thread. Feel free to do this with other threads in the future too, or to start new ones.)

Okay, so my previous answer was rude. Or absurd. That doesn't mean I don't mean it. There are far too many cars around and people use them far too often.

The environment suffers, the thousands of traffic-related deaths need to be buried, and pretty streets get polluted with the sight of hundreds of parked cars.

I'm not saying cars should be outlawed, but I am saying that the average driver doesn't even consider thinking about another way of transport. And that's a shame. If not a disgrace.

Trains aren't that great either, but when you've got to travel from city A to city B and you can choose between a 1 hour trainjourney (late or not) and a 2 hour trafficjam, what would you choose?

Train? You should, yes, but when you already own that car you probably won't. Thousands of Amsterdam commuters don't, anyway. Instead of taking the half empty train, they prefer the daily trafficjam. Now who's the idiot here?

-- Rien (public1@xs4all.nl), June 08, 2001

Answers

I live in a close-in suburb of Washington, D.C. and work downtown. Traffic in the metropolitan D.C. area is pretty horrendous, certainly much worse for many than for myself. I am fortunate in that I have a number of transportation options. I have walked, biked, cross-country skied, and even inline-skated the six miles into work, along with the more common modes of taking the bus, subway, or, yes -- even my car when I must.

But I hate taking the car. Besides the $12 a day it costs to park, and even with my off-rush-hour working hours, my relatively short commute home can put me in the most awful mood. Sometimes it take me 20 minutes just to go the first half-mile.

When I think about the poor sods who commute the 25 to 35 miles up and down I95 between Woodbridge, Virginia and D.C., it is a vision of hell. These folks must leave at 5am to have any chance at all to not get stuck in gridlock. What kind of life is that? And I don't think that there is a viable train alternative for those guys. We really could use a european-type mass transit system here.

-- Dan Radovsky (dradov@aol.com), June 28, 2001.