I'm inclined to favor mass-transit, but there's some disturbing
research on why Americans tend not to use it.  I grew up in a New York
suburb, and the train was a fabulous means of transit.  For all those
Dads who went in to work and came home.  But now we have lots of
two-earner homes, where *both* adults work.  You can get on a train or
a bus if you need to go to work and go home.  If you need to drop your
kids off and go to work, then leave work, pick up your kids, and go to
a grocery store, you need a car.  Public transit works well in
ultra-dense places, where you can pick up your kids, drop into a shop,
and get on a bus.  But that's New York City, Paris, London, etc.
There are perilous few U.S. cities that are constructed in this way.
I live in a very dense part of the city, but even I can't use the bus
to deliver kids to school and do shopping simultaneously.  Note that
the decline of neighborhood schools (or the redefinition of
"neighborhood" to cover very large areas) is part of the problem, but
not all of it.

-- 

Robert P. Goldman
ECCO
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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