I think whoever put this together is missing the obvious. Being confined in an uncomfortable smelly vehicle with a bunch of strangers can be less than fun. Personally I would rather walk or have the flexibility of a car. It's a judgement call that we all make. "Efficiency" is but one of many variables when deciding how we get around.

so look at the mess that kind of attitude makes (regardless of global warming)

I just think it's selfish to make that judgement call unless you have a good reason, like being a midwife or something. I know in some cities it's not really practical, but you should at least support the idea even if you don't sell your car. And if rich people were all taking the bus too, it wouldn't be crowded or smelly or late, you know that.

I walk, and it would be nicer if i didn't have to breathe the fumes or hear the noise or risk being run over.

believe me i would not promote the idea to ban cars and leave buses the same. I think restricting the private car would do much more good than harm.

just a guess though, i aint a scientificalist!

Bikes are good 2 but the man wants to keep you down so he buys big cars and smelly trains and busses. You running late is good for the corporations because then you have to buy stuff out of desperation,

totally agree with you MINK,
In the variables people have to weigh before choosing a commute method, I would add to efficiency "stress" and the inevitable "economics" involved. I can deal with smelly peeps(some chicks smell so good though!`;) )if I can avoid the induced stress of driving and the price it costs to have a car in the driveway.

I have nothing against someone living in the boondocks needing a car to commute.

All in all, considering the CO2 effect, I believe it has to do with the dangerously increasing battle between social responsability and personal rights.

I was a public transport person last few years and I would get a car if I could afford it. I've met so many crazy and dangerous people on the bus that it doesnt feel at all safe. Generally intimidating behaviour by gangs of young men seems to be the norm (I'm one too, so I can only imagine how older people feel), not to mention they are filthy, smelly and bus drivers often take ignorance and "dickishness" to new levels.

Is protecting the enviroment worth getting your head kicked in?

You live in Philly moodonia ??
The kids in my city are a minor nuisance on the bus, no more.
There are of course a few creepy stories that make the news once in a while, but never enough to dissuade people from commuting in public transports.
I will agree though, some bus drivers are quite despicable...

The bus system in Orlando is worse then horrible. It would take me two to 2 1/2 hours to get to the area where I work. It doesn't help that there is a bus stop like every 100 feet. I can drive it in 30 minutes. Which is better for the enviroment? My 20 mpg car for 30 minutes or a diesel smog belching half filled bus for 2 1/2?

Plus given the commute distances many people make these days most don't have access to mass transit.

so the point is, if the bus was good, and the car was restricted, then everyone would be happy imagine cities without traffic jams, that's a big big big big benefit. nice

Too bad I have to commute 35 miles (one way) in L.A. area and none of them go from east to west and reverse directly. It would take about three hours if I used public transportations.

To be honest Mink I don't think rich types are ever going to travel with other people in a way that reduces their autonomy. But it's not just "rich" people, there are plenty who just need to have their own transport for whatever reason.

I have the pleasure of living in South London, England and the bus system here is despicable (I hear you Moodonia) and expensive. The only good development has been the retirement of the antiquated Routemasters - but the downside of which is that every other bus is packed with prams and screaming kids. One new development is kids who like to broadcast music from their phones so everyone else can hear. Unless it's over 2 miles or a tube isn't nearby I won't go near a bus.

And overcrowding is another reason; it's not as though people don't use these systems. Sadly this city is just too overcrowded.

I read once about personal public transport, someone proposed and built a demo of a monorail style system where you got your own little pod and it ferried you to your destination. I'm waiting for that and practical jetpacks.

so.... as you keep saying ... public transport sucks now.
and... as i am saying... cars all over the roads suck also.

so the solution is.... GOOD BUSES.

And rich people would HAVE to go on the bus if you banned cars. So there.

As for 35 mile commutes... well, yeah, currently the system allows that and even encourages it. but that shouldn't be the case in most circumstances. That's town planning, that's not the fault of "smelly buses".

So i will repeat, for those of you that hate buses, so do I (also lived in south london)

but i advocate restricting private cars and IMPROVING BUSES UNTIL YOU LIKE THEM

a small step towards the future:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Best-Public-Transport-in-the-World

Restrict cars? You'd have to kill Jeremy Clarkson first of course...

Politically and economically it's a no go. Motorists do contribute alot of dosh to the Exchequer. I know there is a cost/benefit analysis to be done but people want their cars and that's that. I guess we need to make more environmentally friendly cars etc.

I don't own a car myself, I walk and use the tube to get around. When i was slim and fit I used to cycle though with my crap eyesight now I wouldn't trust myself to avoid accidents, And I'm all for improving buses! I actually like the long bendy buses that have been introduced though some have caught on fire and other road users have been complaining that the drivers don't know how to drive them properly.

Still, more buses and make them cheaper. Overcrowding is a bind - I hate it when I see a bus with people literally pressed up against the doors.

ahhhh there was a time when abolition of slavery was politically and economically a no go, ya know?

(down vote for loaded, leading, leaning title)


MINK, that comparison is somewhat valid, there were a lot of folks, who depended upon their cheap labor-we in the U.S. have been groomed for the current dilemma of immigration, systematically, in premeditated genius strokes, by the shapers of this clusterfuck. How can we do without illegals, now that they are such a necessity for economy. Larger cities, L.A., Houston, whose city planning did not include an efficient model for expansion with relation to economy, are feeling the pain of continual retrofit and addition of roads to keep pace with influx-(illegals, being the biggest problem, with regard to congestion and crap cars)

We use cars, because the current paradigm of fossil fuel dependence, is forced upon us by those who would control the worlds economy-Free energy is like garlic to a vampire, to these assholes.....but they do want to control that as well.


Guess what??? It is already here, and has been here, for quite some time...one has but to see how hard they crush the most innovative and visionary of the planet. The fellows that tinkered with a carburetor long enough, to get 100 miles to the gallon in their Chrysler Imperial....they disappear, or join the ranks of the insane, because of a patent buy-out, or their untimely demises. They did it to Nikola Tesla, his backer Charles Westinghouse, and the public, they laugh at the very idea, because it is not part of their programming to believe anything other than what the group says, what the spin, disinformation, and propaganda says, and because humans follow each other to the mob pep-rally, cause they are fearful, predictable meatbots-

WE USE CARS, CAUSE THAT IS THE TOOL THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN US.

NOT EVERYONE, IS AS....Privileged TO LIVE WHERE THEY CAN WALK, BUS, or bop-along in their own, idyllic, fantasy bus, to work their politically-correct, Starbucks job, in their fucking "Made by indigenous people, with earth-friendly materials." These same idiots, hold in their own farts, to cut down on their, guilt-ridden contributions to "Wobal Glorming"

Shall we go on, with the CARS SUCK type folks, who, if they had to grow from seed, their own food, eating sprouts and purifying water to drink until the first harvest was available, would most likely, walk into a government rescue camp, before putting shovel to earth, then finding out they don't have the proper university credentials to operate such a complicated device?? Yeah why don't we.

You have inspired this sifter, to shove the pathetic idea, that humans have a goddamn thing to do with the earth's warming up...(CYCLICAL, YOU FUCKING MORON FOLLOWER FUCKS)

....right up the asses, of all who will venture to remove their
own, swollen, heads prior.


One of the best ways to understand the world one is in, is actually be a part of it.......

California could drop off the map tomorrow, and we could all eat grits and bacon, since the Frosted flakes were too soggy, and salty....

WEll, I live just outside Vancouver B.C. If you happen to live IN Vancouver (close to downtown), public transportation make sense when you factor in $5 parking, rush hour, and the fact buses run every 15minutes to every block.

But if you live even 10km away from the core central district then public transportation fails. It runs once on the hour (and many times is late, or doesnt show) and depending on where you are going to and coming from, there could be up to a 30minute walk to the bus stop, and even 30minute walk to your final destination from the final bus stop. When it takes 1hr 15min's to get to the location that takes you -30- minutes to drive to, and $5 to take the bus each way (Welcome to Vancouver Pub. Transportation!) owning a car doesn't seem all that bad.

so... improve public transport.

choggie, even if cars ran on fairy dust they would still take up too much space, unless you invent one that can shrink humans and their luggage.

i am not really talking about "the envirerment" here, i just don't like cars all over the city. it would be much nicer if they weren't there so much.

automating cars might be one answer, so they can't go fast or crash and you can be drunk in them if you want, and they can drive closer together.

but anyway we built cities around horses, then put cars in them, and now they are full of traffic jams, that's gotta be wrong.

I haven't had bad experiences with public transportation. I used to ride the metro buses around the Puget Sound region 7 years ago...they were these articulated almost double length type deals and they hooked up to wires when they got to downtown Seattle.

I've seen/felt quite a bit (people sitting next to me falling asleep on my shoulder, smelly armpits from people standing on a crowded bus and grabbing the overhead rail, scary homeless guy talking (quite loudly) to himself, loud headphones, guy almost starting a fight with the bus driver because he almost shut the door on him.) It's not like anything that can traumatize you from riding a bus again (unless you're OCD or social phobic, I suppose).

Course society wasn't as fragmented as it is today and I don't know how much public transportation's changed.

I've always thought that a private (:exclusive) transport system could be an interesting idea for people who all live in one area and work nearby in another. The system would have to have 'zip' cars (or a taxi service) available to users in the area of their offices for emergencies. Businesses would of course cover the cost per employee using the service, and could be subsidized for this cost, at least at first.

The actual 'buses' could then be as classy as the area and businesses want them to be; think first class on airlines. ... and this system certainly addresses the problem of cheap public transport being full of rowdy kids or smelling like a homeless shelter.

Addressing the point of many time-consuming stops (a big problem with rail and most city buses), the private system could employ a park-and-ride two-stop system, and seperate business district specific alternatives for the last couple of miles depending on the passengers destination point and $.

A) Crowded public transportation (like the one in this video where the bus is assumed to be absolutely full) run the risk of promoting contagious disease epidemics. B) I'd much rather get hit by a car with 1.4 people in it than a bus with 160 people on it. C) Did you hear how fucking loud that thing was as it went by? It sounded like a train.

http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/facts/social_effects.html

http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/facts/commuter_contest.html

Th information above may be a little out of date, it's relevant, and so is this:


http://reactor-core.org/energy-and-equity.html#chapter2

J-Rova - you think 170 cars would be quieter?

I'm glad to live in Toronto where I have a public transit system that, despite it faults, rocks hard. The city shuts down without the TTC.

And the government is actually opening its eyes and realizing we need more mass-transit lines... the future could be bright for Toronto if they don't screw it all up.

As for smelly people, random hobos on the streetcar are rather rare. I encounter one maybe every year or two. Not a bad rate - I see more on the street!

choggie wtf- you're fucked bro. Hard to argue against- I'm going to have to get back to you on this one. I like your style, and feel like I should adress some of yer points, and ignore some of them, and match yer rant with an equal rant.

...

but it's 2:30 am and bed is calling me. so... perhaps tomorrow...

woh I've never seen so many terrible arguments on Videosift before.

Fact is, cars make the world an uncomfortable and smelly place.

Driving a car to avoid the uncomfortable smelly bus (or avoid doing a bit of exercise) is pure lazy selfishness.

Get your head kicked in on the bus?? Maybe if you lived in Johannesburg... but really your kidding me right. It's mostly old ladies and 12 years old.

Yes some city's have terrible public transport systems, but that's no argument. Vote for local government that will make a change. Take a stand against dumb bosses and dumb supermarkets and adjust your lifestyle. You'd be surprised how easy it is no matter where you live.

thanks acl. anyone else want to come on here, ignore the possibility of improving public transport, and say "buses are crap today so let's not invest in them for tomorrow" one more time?

If you don't like buses, the answer is to improve them.

" A) Crowded public transportation (like the one in this video where the bus is assumed to be absolutely full) run the risk of promoting contagious disease epidemics."

either that, or our immune systems are strengthened by actually meeting other people once in a while. you think offices should be replaced by pods in the desert?

"B) I'd much rather get hit by a car with 1.4 people in it than a bus with 160 people on it."

Except that buses go slower, the driver sits higher, and the driver is a qualified professional and probably not drunk. So in the real world, outside your statistical anomaly, you're at danger from cars not buses.

"C) Did you hear how fucking loud that thing was as it went by? It sounded like a train."

Did you hear how silent it was in between buses?
Do you think it is impossible to make quieter buses?

kthxbye

bigboomer is right, the quality of public transport drops vastly as soon as you leave a city.

prolly in a good place to enter this, seeing as i took a bus to work every day for the last 10 months and just got a car 8 weeks ago. My route was from a town center to a place basically out in the fields.

maybe in other places its better, but the bus system *does* suck here.

- Its often late, (sometimes by a bit, sometimes alot), i very nearly got in serious trouble when it was snowing and the bus i wanted was 2 hours late, then cancelled 1 mile up the road from me. I ended up walking 6 miles to a hotel in the snow, and snow in the uk isnt like the US, it's usually total mayhem. Least if i had a car i could have slowly made my way home or stayed in it overnight, or at least not got soaked head to toe in snow water in freezing conditions.

- it takes *ages* to get to where your going due to taking longer routes (19 miles instead of 12 for my route for example), (and 1 hour 15 mins opposed to 30 mins)

- you dont avoid roadworks due to having to pick people up during / after them

- you try standing in the pi**ing rain for 45 minutes a few days in a row (alot of stops have no cover) and see if you still like busses.

- you do get idiots on the busses, as they attract people who cant drive, which includes (kids, usually throwing stuff around and at each other) people who are basically stupid and lost their driving licence for whatever reason (example, me and my partner had some girl at midday trying to pick a fight for just looking in her direction)

- at least the busses we get here are really cramped, even when not very full. I cant even get my knees in the seat without sitting at 45 degrees or inventing some routine to cut off the blood supply to my feet.


now that said; where i live (the uk) prolly has a much worse system than the US due to lack of space, so it might be more viable in other countrys, but i took my licence and got a car to get away from the busses. I hope the public transport improves, but for now its useless for me.


lot of the arguments seem to be "on this here paper, busses are better" or "but cars are better because x,y,z".

In the real world from my experience i'd say cars win hands down. Now, that doesn't mean i want to see the planet go down the drain, but i think the best bet for the future is much cleaner / smaller cars. Maybe individual cars (as in, for 1 person) but then you have to transport your kids, so its not easy to find an new form of transport. Either way, busses sucked for me. I used to really really hate that part of everyday. Now i quite enjoy my journey home, i'd never go back to the busses and it's worth the extra money for the car.

No matter how much you improve busses, i dont think they'll ever be suitable for the vast majority. (i mean, you cant even get on a bus in the uk with a paint can as it's flammable), and god help you if you need your car for work.

If your not going somewhere 160 other people are going, you're usually screwed.

Sirex, I really think you've made the wrong choice.
If you think there is only one argument for public transport you really, really need to do some more reading.
I suggest a good start is Googling "climate change", "road toll" or "health benefits of exercise".

By the way, if you live 12 miles from work, you should be able to get there on a bike within 40 minues or so. Only ten minutes more than your car and the benefits are ten fold over buses even.

trust me, you can't get there by bike (realistically anyhow). i did try it once, the number of hills and etc are killer and you drop to just a few mph. -- Besides which a lot of the route is on 60 mph roads and many of the corners are blind. One of the local homes used to have a sign outside saying "welcome to death valley" (till the local council told them to remove it) due to the statistics of the last bunch of cyclists that decided to try it. I wouldnt want to do it in summer, let alone in winter in the dark.

I agree, climate change sucks, the bus is meant to give better exercise and etc etc, but we get out way more than before so my exercise is actually higher and enjoyment of life is certainly better due to the freedom to travel when / where you want.

when you have a car busses look like the real answer, but when you fully rely on them day in / day out they suck hard. Still i guess european cars get like 45 miles to the gallon which might be higher than a US car ? (dunno, is it?)

i didnt really want to get into a specific example of someone's daily route and such, but for me it really *is* the best answer, for now anyhow. The point was to say that public transport in the form of busses is lacking and always will be lacking in its current forms.

like i said though, i do agree that a better form of transport than the car is needed, and soon. But busses isn't it. At least for out of city communting.

Sure, the world would be a better place if we improved things. Life = solved.

Buying> downvote.
Not for the political banter in the comments, but for the stupidly simplistic view of the clip itself.

In the USA the problem with public transport is that most people live outside the citys. Going into New York form CT. is a nightmare that public transport will never solve.Why? Because 1.) there's no willingness to expand the highway system that was concieved and built 50 years ago without the foresight for the future. No politician will get elected by making the hard choise (ie-being a "leader") and saying that we must build new roads through local neighborhoods, ect. 2.) the cost of public transport is far less efficent to transport the masses, regardless of the nice viedo. In CT the cost for mass transit is 47% of the transportation budget that costs $400,000,000 yet only 4% of the population use it (and it's at 90% capacity). Why? Becaues it's inconvient to use and get to, dosen't take you where you want to go, and takes more time than a car. Cars are here to stay. Mass transit has it's place, especially in big citys, but with the populations growing, its ignorant to believe otherwise. And no its not because of the "man" or "big oil" keeping us down.

OK, I've been thinking about this a little more, and here you go: The title isn't totally wrong- it only got it half right. It would be more correct to say, cars suck, cars rule, it's not quite so obvious as you think.

It is difficult to overstate the transforming effect of motorised transportation on humanity as a species. It's not for nothing that Douglas Adams joked in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that Ford Prefect thought that cars were the dominant species on the planet and nearly got run over when he first tried to make contact.

Cars affect how and where we live, how and where we work, play, raise our families, design our cities, get our food- the effect has been so enormous that it would not be an exaggeration to say that they have transformed us as a species. I've been trying to imagine what it would be like to live in the country before automobiles, and it is very difficult to do. When a trip in to town suddenly takes several days rather than a half hour, this represents a very different sort of living. Forget about a commute to work.

Urban centres are bigger and bigger as cars allow for sprawl to take place. Produce has to travel further, and is able to travel further- pretty much anything you can point to exists because humanity is motorised.

ANY technology that is so universally transforming will have its downsides. We have paid an ENORMOUS price in blood, tears, and geopolitical enmity. Traffic Deaths, Globalism, Middle East Conflict, Urban Sprawl, Road Rage, Greenhouse Emissions, Noise Pollution, the list of what's WRONG with cars is almost as long as the benifits that they have brought.

Arguing about that is completly moot however, and I think that's the problem in this thread, and, by extension, with this video.

I think that many of the people in those cars may very well have been douchebags. Dudes, that bus totally just PWNED all of you. Figure it out.

But I bet more than one of them was headed somewhere the bus doesn't go. Halifax has one of the worst transit systems EVAR, but they do have one feature that i think is, in principle at least, very clever. They call it park&ride. Don't take your car from the rural community where you live all the way to downtown halifax, where parking is 1.50 an hour at a meter, or more in a parkade.

Instead, just drive to a parking lot maybe a 15 or 20 minute drive away from the city centre, then grab a bus in. It reduces traffic in the crowded downtown, you never have to search for a parking spot, and you pay less for gas.

Brilliant idea, but I suspect that not many people take advantage of it. Because they love their cars. Heck, I probably would too, had I a car. I grew up downtown, and hope to live downtown my entire life. I want a car for going on trips, hauling gear to a gig, and getting groceries.

Not for going to work. That's what my sneakers are for.

/endrant

park and ride is intresting. i just wish cars worked better with it. (example, this very car i own now was used for park and ride by the previous owner, net result was it never did any long journeys and the first trip i did in it broke down with a flat battery). It's good for big towns where your doing small item shopping.

its a good start. I'd use it for entering a larger city, but then again i might use the train to save car crime worries.

just read your last comment on the above post. -- yea, getting the bus when you play drums isn't too clever, either.

i'm just amazed how many people keep repeating that buses are bad (as if there can be no improvement)

get an imagination! Imagine all your problems solved... buses running all over the place, on time, clean, comfortable. That is possible with our current resources. Whereas improving cars until they take up the same space on the road as buses... well that's impossible.

about the "where you live" argument, well, you made that decision to live there because you live in a car world, but i am talking about a bus world. You live near a bus. It's fast. End of story.

actually, i decided to live where i live due to not hacing a car. I took the job i took because i had to, but anyhow.

until you can improve transport without removing the ability for people to go where they want (any form of mass transport does this) people will use cars. I'd want the solution to be cleaner transport, but i know the solution will be even more use of space (either air or more roads).

No,it's not fast. Keep dreaming of your "bus world" but thats not the world everyone lives in. Like I said in big citys mass transit has its place. But it's enormously expensive. You don't pay what it really costs to ride the bus. If you had to you'd soon relise that it's not efficent - mass transit systems are allways subsidised - but then again no one really looks at the cost. Politicians like mass transit because its the "right thing to do" and can get elected. But it will never "solve" traffic jams because millions and millions of people cummute from places that arn't close or are too remote to bus stops.

svh summed it up nicely, and in so fewer words and less.....emotive fervor, than choggie-When in San Francisco for 4 years, chog had a skateboard, and a MUNI pass...he took the cable car up, and the skateboard down....SF is a model, of an efficient transit system. They have subways, buses,cable cars, electric trains and buses, the tube under the bay, taxis, and.......IT IS ONLY SEVEN SQAURE MILES!!!! Helllooo???!!!

In Houston or LA, you are fucked for one, just being there, even more so without a car.

Again, until fossil fuels are old school tech, in can only get worse. Again, the technologies that would allow this, are controlled, repressed, or unavailable. but...

THEY ARE HERE NOW!! Not available to all monkeys, because of the paradigm we a trapped in, that proclaims, "Me, Mine, More!" Enjoy it, or risk life, limb, and leisure to change it.....or simply wait at a goddamn bus stop....

Choggie will try not to splash water on you, when he whizzes by in his 8-cylidre, pick-up, on the shoulder, around monkeys waiting for other monkeys, text-messaging their girlfriends, or other-wise making life miserably slow.

Alaska is looking better and better, as an alternative to expatriation....deathcow, make me a pallet, on the floor.....

"people will always do this, people will always do that"

yes, history shows us that transport paradigms never shift

yea, they went from mass to individual. Only transport form left in mass mode is air, and i'd be suprised if that dosnt change in x number of years, too. I cant see them going back, as people left mass transport for a reason.

horses were mass transport?

How can a bunch of users who think they're so good at ripping apart intelligent design arguments get it so wrong when it comes to public transport.

SVH: Your argument doesn't stand up. Look outside of America at cities in Japan or Europe where much, much higher percentages of trips are made by public transport/walking or bicycles.

And besides, I think everyone acknowledges that a city can save a few dollars by pushing cars over public transport, but its that type of short term thinking that has left the planet the way it is. People need to evolve a bit and start planning more than a couple of years ahead.

I think also everyone knows that most American cities are f** up the way they're designed now. I haven't spent much time in America but from what I've seen some suburban areas don't even have sidewalks anymore which is ridiculous. How did it get into this mess and how are you going to get out of it??

But I'm not talking about Europe or Japan. Their different. The citys there are older. The streets are narrower and smaller. Therefore the cars are smaller and more compact. Tyr driving an Esclade down a sidestreet and you'll know what I mean.

Sure my argument holds up. It takes proper planning when building roads and bridges. A lot of times the designer gets it wrong and the road/bridge is ineffective from the start. And mass transit is no different. It dosen't allways get you where you want to go. Yes, in the citys it has it's place, even needs. But it woun't work outside the city's in the small towns and country. And limited usefullness in getting into the city, where most people will drive there car in.

And if you want to look to Japan or Europe for lack of traffic your wrong there too. America citys may have problems but a lot of European citys are f**up too when it comes to traffic.

for what it's worth, the reason public transport works so well in japan and etc is becuase their population density is 337/km2, and the united states is 31/km2. My partners old house is 7 miles from the nearest bus route, and my old house had 1 bus to 1 destination once an hour (give or take 40 mins for lateness), but i dont think many are in disagreement of the terrible state of public transport currently.

Like i say, if you live in a city in any country i expect mass public transport is an option, but it sucks hard once you leave and goto the countryside, and it always will (assuming you have to share the transport with people who live elsewhere).

do you live outside a town (as in, beyond what amerians would call suburbs)?

i am not advocating public transport in the desert. just in cities, where it's needed. and between cities. if you want to go visit grandma in the countryside you might have to hire a car. you can still have a car in busworld, just don't drive it into a town centre.

problem is, there's way more people who dont live in cities than do.

why are you confining your argument to only where you live. Noone here is advocating the total banning of cars. The problem is people who drive cars when they have good alternatives and governments that build more roads when they should be building trains and bike paths.

Clearly it is useless for us to say "take the bus" if there is no bus near you.

You don't believe in intelligent design do you?

"problem is, there's way more people who dont live in cities than do."

I would think you should check your facts. I think about 80% of Americans actually live in urban areas. Not sure what how they classify "urban"... perhaps you could give some evidence to support your statement.

in britan the population is around 60 million, 7 million of which are in london (very sharply falling over the next top results, the top 21 citys excluding london combined is around 4 million total). The 21st is actually where i used to live, and its not large by any means, nor has it any really viable public transport.

It depends on your definition of "urban" yes, but really once you go past the few really large places (in the uk at least) your talking about bus services which route through many places, or having to swap services 2-3 times to get where your going.

maybe america has everyone living in concrete jungles and vast expanses of nothingness, but not everywhere is like that. For other places i really cant see any transport working (in terms of efficiency) unless its individual, which brings you back to the traffic problems, but then that's prolly why it's still a problem.

edit: just noticed last line. no, i'm agnostic.

Once a person is in a city there are good alternatives. Subways, taxi, buses, ect...The problem is getting to the citys - for hundreds of thousands,if not millions, of commuters eveyday. While everyone can agree conceptually on the term "intelligent design" the fact remains that some designs are not so intelligent in the long run. Many people advacate building more trains but are not aware of the cost benifits vs. new roads to ease congestion. Again, here in the State of Connecticut, USA, it costs 47% of the state transportation annual budget for mass transit yet only 4% of the population use it. The roads are falling apart while the rich fokes in Fairfield county ride the trains to work in NYC at a subsidised (reduced) rate. And it will only get worse as the population increases. If the Government does not build new roads and expand existing roads there is no way congestion is going to ease up.

why do so many people think it should be perfectly normal to live miles away from your workplace and commute for hours every day in a private car?

you could go live nearer to a bus stop (of which there would be many more without reliance on private cars)

i can't think of many jobs where car commuting couldn't be replaced by a bus.

maybe you want the economic benefits of cities but don't actually want to live there... because the private car pollution is too bad... lol

boy, was my old rant long-winded......I meant to say it , in fewer words....Wobal Glorming: (insert your assumptions here)

The planet, belches 100 times, the gases we do, end a' story

Combined with the former said Earth gasses, Tis the Sun, and our place in the cycle, that is causing liars to bitch-