To be efficient mass transit needs to be more fully utilized.  Too many buses and trains run on empty (no passengers or few passengers).  The taxes necessary to make mass transit viable would be much less if people adjusted their lifestyles to use mass transit.  Another problem with mass transit is the separate budgeting for capital outlay and operations.  Our local light rail system is adding a not much need and very expensive tunnel under the river when they do not have enough funds to operate existing routes. To make this a sound conservation practice requires greater use of existing routes before investing in routes that are detrimental to the environment. Marketing mass transit to the masses is the only way to make it true to name.
Another much overlooked conservation measure is walking to get to places less than 5 miles away from home.  Walking also reduces the resources needed for health care and weight reduction programs.  Walking also slows the individual down enough to become aware of the earth as a living, breathing organism.

Bob loves you means he is doing all that he can for the less fortunate and the earth.

of the space you've devoted to hybrids and ethanomania to mass transit?  What a good idea!  Or how 'bout reversing the ratio?

lightrailnow.org is a good place to start too ...

The British rail system was privatized during the Thatcher years, and has been disintegrating ever since.

Government should get out of transit altogether, including highways. Truly private, competitive systems, free from government interference will serve customers best, because to be successful, or even to survive, they will have to do so.
Oh dear. Not that old canard again. "only private enterprise is efficient, yadda yadda" There are just so many examples to the contrary, especially in the realm of transportation. Here's just one: the UK used to have a great nationwide, government-owned rail network - reliable, safe, fast, efficient. By any standard it's gone to hell in the last ten years or so since it was privatized for political reasons.

Transportation, any kind, is an infrastructure issue that properly belongs in the public realm, either by enactment or regulation or both. Public ownership doesn't need to be exclusive, but it needs to be part of the picture.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Mass transit works in places like NYC and Boston due to the density of the development.  Most American cities grew up AFTER the invention of the automobile.  And that is why we are blessed/cursed with the space/sprawl we have.  Mass transit will never work successfully in places like Houston or LA because the rail lines face an unsolvable problem.  You make the lines go really fast and stretch out the stops, or otherwise you won't be able to cover a large area.  Of course, if you focus on a small area, you can have many stops, but then you don't get the stops that people need in a large metropolitan area.  So, designers put high speed in lines in that go long distances between each stop, but then you are forced to walk long distances to get back to where you needed to go.  So what do you do, you say to hell with it, and hop in your car.  If mass transit is going to ever work in the US, it will be with dense urban development.  Focus on that, and the mass transit will follow.

Taxes on passenger rail tickets paid for the construction of the interstate highway system.  So there's no inherent reason the playing field can't be levelled.  I'm not sure where to start, though, personally.

Oh, and David, I would like to point out that your title is sexist and heteronormative and reinforcing of cliches that damage the self-esteem of geeky girls.  Not that I expect you to care.

And yeah, I think Libertivini's assumption that "old  Jewish ladies" are somehow the only ones who will benefit from the NYC project--and that that's an unacceptable thing for taxpayers to subsidize--is also totally out of line.

...Public transportation produces 95 percent less carbon monoxide (CO), 90 percent less in volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and about half as much carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx), per passenger mile, as private vehicles.

Well, according to a NASA study of NYC Transit buses...

The study found that conventional diesel buses are comparatively fuel efficient, but produce nitrogen oxide pollutants that can contribute to photochemical smog as well as large amounts of fine soot and sulfate particles, which are suspected to contribute to heart disease and lung cancer.

buses tested included diesel buses with pollution controls called soot particle oxidation traps and without controls, new compressed natural gas fueled buses...measurements showed that the CRT technology for diesel buses did reduce fine particle emissions as expected, but increased the fraction of nitrous oxides emitted as NO2, rather than the less toxic NO, from 5 to 40%.

The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) powered buses also emitted much less particulate matter than diesel buses, but emitted troubling quantities of methane and formaldehyde.

And on the Answers.com website about the NYC subway:

Trivia
According to the United States Department of Energy, energy expenditure on the New York City Subway rail service was 3656 BTU/passenger mile. This compares to 3702 BTU/passenger mile for automobile travel.  

The Bureau of Transportation shows transit bus energy expenditure between 3576 and 4415 BTU/passenger mile.

With that slight of an overall efficiency increase between cars and transit, the reduction claims appear to be...generous...

Common sense is an oxymoron...

Public transportation, walking and bicycle use all demand and require compact and relatively dense development, automobiles demand and require the opposite. So it looks like we're back to that old city/country thing again.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Commuting on light rail could be encouraged thusly:  Let people start out their first hour and do their last hour of work on the train.  Via internet and phone.

Trains would need to have wireless internet and be cell phone friendly.  Employers would have to cooperate too.

Oh and trains that you could use exersize machines on would help too.  And how about a way to bring your bike with you for the commute from the train to work.

"Government should get out of transit altogether, including highways."

Halliburton own US highways?  Naked cheerleader pyramids of pulled over drivers along the freeway?  Torture by Halliburton highway contractor patrols?   That would cut down on driving for sure!  Good plan.

But could taxpayers afford it?  And 50 dollar toll booths every three miles?  I guess Halliburton execs could still afford to drive, but they all take hellicopters and corporate jets.  Except in Iraq, the ride in specially armored vehicles.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Too bad bio-d.  What would be easier to electrify than buses?  In fact a lot of development has been done on this, various hybrid and pure electric designs.  Fuel cell, microturbine, zinc air batteries.

I haven't seen any quick charge nano tech li-ion bus projects yet.  That would seem to be the best though.  A 20 minute break for driver and bus every few hours would allow for a quick charge up.

Another charging option would be an inductive strip under the road surface and a pickup coil.  Buses could recharge in transit in special lanes.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

would also go a long way to reducing transportation energy and emissions costs.

I agree with earlier comments that transit needs to be affordable, quick, and comfortable for mass-use.  Designing communities around transit hubs and incorporating transportation into city planning is essential.

Locating residential areas close to commercial and industrial amenities helps in a huge way to create more sustainable and livable communities.

I live in Vancouver, Canada, in the downtown core, which is one of the densest neighbourhoods in North America.  I walk to work, have all the shops I need on the way home, and generally park my car for days at a time because I don't need to drive anywhere.

Cities with suburbs that are purely residential end up having huge commuter traffic - this is still an issue in my city as well.  

New Yorkers actually have one of the smallest environmental footprints in the US, because its better for many to walk or take the subway to work than to sit in traffic.  

If everyone who drives to work took a bus instead, there would be fewer roads and fewer vehicles to maintain: less $$$ into roads, less impermeable surface (easier on stormwater management), people actually moving their asses a bit (walking a few blocks to the bus instead of a few paces to the car). What's not to like?

It is hard to believe those DOE figures- public transport should be far more efficient than private. Each car carries the weight of it's own engine and breaks it's own wind- a bus or train has one engine, one wind-breaking surface. It depends totally on ridership, which varies from place to place and time to time.

The biggest problem IMO is the lack of interest in taking public transportation. Anyone seen a survey of the number of people willing to switch? In the South, people commute in huge SUVs and trucks (diesel 6-wheelers are very popular), all alone, because their personal space, convenience, and freedom is far more important than perceived environmental impact.

For example; my city just started a commuter rail, using existing tracks to minimize costs. Funding was so low, a local bank saved the project at the last moment with a big loan. They decided to charge $10/day for the commute (justified by assuming we all get 15 mpg and pay for all day parking); and it only runs during the morning and evening rush hours. There is no transit to the train station, so you must own a car, buy insurance and gas, drive to the station, park, wait for the train, ride, transfer to a bus downtown, and finally, (about 90 minutes total) arrive at work. The commute by car takes about 35 minutes, and uses <1 gallon of gas (at 30 mpg- $2.20 today). Worse, if your work schedule doesn't match the train schedule, you're out of luck. This project was designed to fail- it's expensive, slow, and inconvenient. A huge waste of money that will justify people's resistance to spending any more money on public transport.

a liberal in redsville

Let us not forget that outside the older American cities such as NYC, mass transit exists for mainly one purpose:  mobility for those who cannot drive a car.  This would principally be the poor, the diababled, and the elderly.  The system was never intended to make any money, save on fuel, reduce air pollution, or solve any congestion woes.  Mobilty is a term that relates to moving people around who lack that capability.

There have been some interesting results when this paradigm was changed to include an expanded "commuter" service, such as with trolleys, buses, light rail, and so forth.  In my experiencem yes mass transit ridership does increase but not at a level to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, or fuel consumption because overall, people are driving more.

Highways, thar symbol of sin, was never even intended to move people and we are seeing that problem today even more.  That's right, the Interstate Highway System was not designed for us commuters.  It was designed (1) for the military and (2) for interstate commerce - mainly the larger trucks.

Which leads to the question, what on Earth are we supposed to do?

I find people who think they know the answer to be rather boring and have some political motive.

Onward through the fog

Okay, where to start, Libertyvini...first of all, I'm not familiar enough with NYC to say for certain, but I somehow doubt that every person who benefits from the project you spoke of is an old Jewish lady who gets her hair done.  Second, if, as a society, we can't bring ourselves to shoulder the costs of essential transportation for the elderly, what kind of society are we really?  Third, the whiff of anti-Semitism (not to mention sexism and ageism) was unmistakable, and not only distasteful but wholly irrelevant.  

If you want to be an ignorant bigot, fine, whatever, just don't expect it to be a convincing argument.

Willa, do not worry, you are right.  And why LibertiVini is so upset, and why he has to make his arguments in so offensive a manner, are quite mysterious.

Anyway, if he is going to wield an offensive stereotype, to no purpose so far as I can see, he should at least go the whole nine yards: "Jewish ladies who want to get their hair done" do NOT take the subway.  Either they take a cab, hailed for them by their doorman; or they get the beautician to come to their apartment.

There are many people in NYC of all descriptions who have long wanted a 2nd Avenue line, including many working people traveling between parts of Queens and Brooklyn who would prefer not to have to loop all the way around to Times Square or Grand Central Terminal.

And regarding taxes: NYC pays a huge amount more in federal taxes than it ever receives.  And it is generally true that the blue states are the payers-out, and the red states are the receivers.  Anyway, it is not by relying on federal funding that this line will be built.

On intracity transit: The problems of the newer, more spacious and sprawling cities are not insuperable.  There are engineers who specialize in transportation systems; we should be confident that they can come up with practical solutions.

On intercity transit: Amtrak deserves to be subsidized richly.  (So does the train system in general.)  Regional inefficiencies should not be allowed to vitiate the excellent principle of the thing.  This country should commit itself to restoring its passenger trains.  Here along the Northeast corridor, many people rely on Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and a number of regional bus lines.  It is a pity that Amtrak has never got an entirely satisfactory high-speed line off the ground, along the lines of the 3-hour train between Toronto and Montreal that the Canadians are building.  Metroliner and Acela are OK, but could be better.  But that is not entirely Amtrak's fault.  Serious funding, and serious government support, would make it work.

I have traveled a number of times on the Western Amtrak trains, originating in Chicago and going to LA, Oakland and Seattle.  For a certain kind of traveler, for whom timeliness is not a high priority, they are very satisfactory.  I was impressed at the number of passengers getting on and off at the smaller stops, for example along the High Line in Montana.  One little but not trivial problem, which could be easily focussed on and fixed, was that the dining cars sometimes ran out of some provisions in the course of the trip.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!