Actually, when we got to our RER destination, the RATP line still wasn't running. In Paris, at least, they really meant it. NYC, though, has a real problem at Grand Central, and the parallel Metro North (rough RER equivalent) line is not useful for local transportation. That's why they need the Second Avenue Subway, the one that's been mired in political corruption for, oh, the least 60 or 70 years, bonded several times and still not finished. It was even worse when they were running four-car trains to 'save money', as the platforms became packed and dangerous; maybe that's when you were working there?

An hour or two? And trains are to be our transportation salvation? What do you do with your evening plans when you're two hours late getting back home? Who gets the kids fed and off to baseball practice?

Heck, I hate waiting on a PLANE that's 2 hours late once a month, let along a train that I'd use daily.

To be fair, mass transit in general and people on trains (especially shared rail) would have to get a lot better, but that shouldn't be THAT hard to do.

Testimonials, good or bad, pale compared to statistics, but my limited experience on public transit is:
- airport trams are slow and bumpy, but reliable and fairly deterministic
- the Metro in DC works pretty well, if you plan your hotel properly. Every public place (conference or tourist site) I needed to go seemed to be easier by Metro than by car. If I lived there I don't think I'd have a car, but I'd choose my situation carefully.
- the subway/train in Atlanta works fine from the airport to downtown and the mall area up north. Wandering off the tourist part of downtown was kinda scary at night. Otherwise it worked fine.
- buses in Atlanta are slow, late, and crowded. They fit for "adventure" and "vacation" but I'd prefer not to depend on them daily.
- street cars in SF are fine for where they go. The passengers are the most interesting in the world, so far as I can tell. I've never had more fun walking a city than there. BART seemed to work fine for the one time I rode it, but it was just for fun. If I lived in SF I don't think I'd even have a car.
- the NO buses and street cars I rode were just for sight-seeing and fun, and they seemed unobjectionable.
- trains in Europe (the low countries) seemed business like and efficient. That was a long time ago, though.

All in all, I like trains for leisure trips, and sometimes even for simple business trips (like conventions, where you have the airport and a convention center, and maybe some local dining). Usually there is always a sales guy with car if you need a ride, anyway.

I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable having my sixteen year old daughter take a sibling or two across town on a bus or train, though. I've had enough weirdos next to me that I can't imagine what life as a cute girl would be like. Ditto with walking in some downtown areas.

I think dedicated rail, or passenger trains get priority, a firm commitment to timeliness (better than the airlines, for sure!), clean trains, and highly visible security would be important to me. Surely this is all possible?

I've often wondered if designers in the past really built stuff to last rather than that it was just more economic to build simple, low-precision designs that have the side-effect of being more durable. I remember seeing on TV a couple of years ago a documentary that said that, during the introduction of railroads to America the American trains used steam boilers based on the designs from the initial British designs rather than the latest, more efficient designs being used in Britain. The reason wasn't backwardness in the Americans but that given the lesser quality of American iron smelting compared to British iron smelting at that time the simpler designs were more reliable and cost effective to produce. The point is that clever designs adapt themselves to the available manufacturing capability. For example, I wonder if design for repairability will become more important than brute force durability?

Don't have the link, but there was a recent story about the cost of dealing with waste or decomissioning... forget which... had gone up to 98 billion or something....

Ah... here it is. How does this change the kw/h?

Cheers

Nukes would have miserable EROEI if the energy required to babysit the waste for millennia is factored in.

Why? Sealing it in dry storage casks doesn't take much energy, even if you have to reseal them every couple of centuries. In a couple of centuries I'd expect we'd start using the stuff for fuel (and fission platinum group metals like rhodium) again anyways, so it sort of takes care of itself. The fretting about waste is a nonsequiter popular in the press, but theres precious little evidence that its an actual problem.

My favorite solution that I've heard is to bury nuclear waste under the billions of tonnes of chemical waste no one cares about.

Solar energy doesn't make liquid fuels (nuclear reactors don't either) but solar energy doesn't generate ultrahazardous materials that pose proliferation threats, require police state surveillance and poison your great-great-great-great-great grandchildren.

No, theres no toxic materials involved in solar energy production at all. And mercury eventually becomes less toxic after time to I imagine.