Reply #221: yet almost all of the country was settled before the automobile was invented

[hfojvt]

there is also plenty of mass transit. I work in an old train station and trains go roaring by in both directions about every half an hour. Yet I cannot take a train to Omaha or Joplin. In theory a couple of passenger cars could be added to all those freight trains.

Another system of mass transportation that most rural areas have - is school buses. They spent tens or hundreds of thousands on buses and drivers to take kids to and from school. Why couldn't the same buses also be used to take mom and dad to work, and then back home? When I was in Germany I took an early train to Siegen and it filled up with schoolchildren. We'd be halfway to a mass transit system if we incorporated the school bus system into it. We already have vehicles and drivers.