Well, in some European countries (which have much higher population densities than we do) gasoline costs more than twice as much as in the United States. Yet I've read that the percentage of travel by public transport is declining in some (all? European countries. People want to go from where they want to start to where they want to finish. They do not want to take rail that goes only along fixed routes.

Would you rather take rail or take a motorcycle? My guess is that at $10 per gallon gasoline we'll see small diesel hybrid cars and more motorcycles but not a lot more rail.

Check out Peter Schaeffer's numbers on population densities in some European and American cities. He dug out those numbers in the context of a debate about a Paul Krugman NYTimes column about high speed internet connection availability in Europe and America. But the same argument he makes on broadband connections is applicable to mass transit as well.

To increase US population density to European levels to make mass transit a lot more appealing would require massive apartment building construction programs lasting decades and moves by tens or hundreds of millions of people. I'm guessing that's not going to happen. We will shift to lighter and more fuel efficient vehicles (diesel and electric motorcycles in the extreme) before bunching together into high rises.

Of course if regular TOD contributors start reporting they are moving to live next to light or heavy rail stations I'll reconsider my views. Maybe once world oil production starts declining 5% per year that'll happen.

If people do abandon many small towns for densely populated cities then I'm going to find a way to move to one of the ghost towns and live in an enormous mansion (I might have to walk a long way to get there). I'm expecting mdsolar Chris will sell me a roof apparatus to keep my home office powered. Though I might need to hitch up a horse and wagon to go pick it up along a rail line.

If overhead wires could work for cars then I could see their utility. But I'm guessing it makes more sense to just have payable electric plugs in every parking lot and have a few thousand dollars worth of batteries in all cars.