Interesting question... why indeed did mass transit fade away? At least in a number of cities (East San Francisco Bay, San Jose, Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles), it was because the automotive industry did to the rail industry, what the rail industry had done to the canals in the East - they bought them up and closed them ...

Regular readers of our letters column may have noticed a discussion about people movers and mass transit. To some, mass transit seems like a good way to conserve energy and fossil fuels. A few writers have argued that properly engineered mass-transit lines would be more energy efficient than even hybrid vehicles. There have been ...