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So do we need light rail? No, we don't need it, but what makes more sense -- 3000 automobiles or, say, 50 train cars? Anyone who drives that route on a daily basis -- including my wife -- would tell you in the most graphic terms imaginable just how badly some alternative is needed.

Is the train going to pick you up at the door? Is the train going to drop you off at your office door? Won't you still need your automobile to take to the station, take you around town, or to take you anywhere else the train doesn't go? Are you going to carry your groceries home from the train-accessable grocery store every day in your backpack?

Or are you going to continue to do things the way that is most efficient for you?

Apparently you've never lived in a city or an older rail-connected suburb where you can walk from home to the station and walk from the station to the job. There is no need for us to be slaves to our cars if a meaningful public transportation alternative is available.

Is the train going to pick you up at the door? Is the train going to drop you off at your office door? Won't you still need your automobile to take to the station, take you around town, or to take you anywhere else the train doesn't go? Are you going to carry your groceries home from the train-accessable grocery store every day in your backpack?

I only have one car because I ride a train from a station 1/2 mile from my house to my office, which is 2 blocks from the center city station. My wife uses the car for errands, as she doesn't work. In much of the built up area of Philadelphia and its suburbs where I live, it is difficult to find a house more than 2 mile from a commuter train line. And the commuter trains go places with roughly 1/3 of the regions jobs readily accessible, mostly Center City and local business districts in Philly, but also certian major suburban office parks, like Radnor and Conshohocken.

Its an extremely pleasant and much more affordable lifestyle (no 2nd $5000-6000 per year car to pay for), and my only gripe is that my property taxes and gas taxes go to subsidize big whiners like you who would never dream of supporting $4 per gallon gas taxes to get cars to pay their true costs, rather than mooching off gas taxes derived from local road mileage, said roads being paid for by local property taxes, and not gas taxes.