I believe that one of the basic rules of brainstorming, which this is, I think, is that you don't sneer at suggestions because they are only half way there, but seize on them as good. They're half way there! You have assembled a very good list of concepts here. Mostly, however, there are too many words, and they need boiling down a bit. Maybe others can get boiling.

"Safety is dangerous" is promising. It says something very important, and it may prove good at sucking opponents of what it does say into nitpicking about how, literally, safety is NOT dangerous. Thus, it draws them into a verbal swamp, and every flail serves to draw attention to the basic truth that the soundbite does draw attention to.

Oh, and just in case anyone asks what the truth is that "Safety Is Dangerous" asserts, it is (e.g.): shutting down a railway for three months to make it (even more) safe is likely to kill many more people on the roads than it saves on the railway.

So: 1 out of 38. Not bad!

... and, I've just done a posting on Samizdata saying the above. Follow the TrackBack if interested.

Roads are (probably) the future? I think they're already the present. Besides, somebody is going to have to figure out how to transport more people in less space as population grows.

rj3,

Assuming that population does indeed increase, there is a lot we can do to make roads run more efficiently ie move more people. Buses, coaches and jitneys could all play a part here.

I am not sure there would be a problem with less road space. As more land gets developed so more roads get built. The only problem might take place in cities in which case in the first instance (as we are beginning to see) the above scenario would apply. In the second instance? Well, that's where (I assume) your trains would come into play.

My trains? I should be so lucky. Still, I think there is a maximum commute distance, which people in America are starting to reach with developments 80-100 miles away from the city center. Adding more lanes in the periphery where there's room won't make this any more bearable.

The only other solution would be to make cars far faster than they are now, which doesn't seem likely, given the fact that modern drivers don't drive much faster than their parents, jokes about old drivers aside. Perhaps there's an upper limit on how fast average people are comfortable driving, given reaction times.

I don't think people will become more spread out than they are now. Even though we already have videoconferencing and home high-speed internet, the best paying and most desired jobs are in cities. Why? Because while it might be cheaper to set up your e-commerce business in the middle of Nebraska, you could never get quality talent to work there.

Add to that the fact that people generally look down on bus riders, and you have a problem. Eventually, more highways will have trains running above them and more train lines will run NYC-style local and express lines. I'm not anti-car, I'm just pro-capacity.