Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote:
i was amazed driving down the 101 carpool lane at peak time with several
km of stationery traffic on the other 3-4 lanes, when i realised that
they were not moving because they were not in the carpool lane which
meant that there were 1000s of cars with just a single occupant, all
going to (almost) the same place.
if they were on a train, they'd spend less money, less time, and be able
to read, work, sleep, eat or whatever.
Sure, but that's California (assuming you mean Rt. 101 in Silicon
Valley). There are only 40 million people in California, so there is
plenty of space. A good rail system would be wonderful there. But during
rush hours in Tokyo you can forget about reading, sleeping, working, or
eating. :) The trains are cattle cars. Although I must say, they are
remarkably quiet and clean (and on time) for cattle cars, which is
extremely impressive. There are 130 million people in Japan, and Japan
is the same physical size as California. So, more than triple the
population in California and you'll need trains there, certainly, but
those trains will be very crowded (perhaps not on a China or India scale
of "crowded" but 130 million people in California would make most
Americans quite unhappy).
Jim
--
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
