Richard’s Real Estate and Urban Economics Blog: If the Walt Disney Company ran LA Metro…: “If the Walt Disney Company ran LA Metro…
People would pay $80 a day to leave their cars in a garage, and then walk from one mode of rail transit to another.  And the rail trips would leave you where you started.”

Donald Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek does not like government subsidies: Crony Capitalism 101: “Save for the one transcontinental line that received virtually no subsidies (J.J. Hill’s Great Northern), the building and operation of the other three lines were contaminated with graft, fraud, and corruption – of which the Credit Mobilier scandal is only the most famous instance. And on top of these shenanigans that predictably happen when government doles out subsidies were other, equally predictable results: shoddy construction, bloated costs, and inefficient and unsafe operation of the lines.”

Toyota debuts plug-in Prius Hybrid and hopes to sell plenty of them – SlashGear: “The new cells will give the plug-in Prius a driving range on the battery only of 14.3 miles at 53 mph.”

[This is obviously not much use on Intercity trips, but covers more than half of all local trips (which according to the NHTS average under 10 miles, Table 5 http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf).]