&#62; If you could get from Dallas to Houston in an hour on a train, why would you want to drive?<p>Because once you got there, you'd need a car again.<p>Texas is a bad example though.  I think public transportation can work just fine if you look at where it's being applied.  It's insane, for instance, that the BART stuff in the bay area (which <i>is</i> fairly densely populated) doesn't go down and around through San Jose.