If there's one thing I don't trust my fellow citizen to do, it's drive.  There are more than 40,000 reported deaths in the US from car accidents every year, probably a lot more actual deaths, and millions more injuries. Just picture the Twin Towers speeding towards one another on the freeway, and you begin to get the idea.

Fortunately, Detroit is in its death throws. Unfortunately, the American public and government are masochists who want to subsidize the further production of their beloved iron maidens. What if, instead, we subsidized busses and trains? California has already taken a great first step by voting for a bullet train that will link Los Angeles and San Francisco (a more fuel-efficient and time-efficient alternative to flight). 

Consider that we need a army of skilled workers to build our new luxury and environmentally friendly busses and trains -- workers with a skill set resembling that of the workers about to get laid-off en masse by GM and Ford. Perhaps we could give those freshly laid off workers some of that trillion dollar bailout money so that they can get by until we get our act together with this whole public transportation overhaul. 

Think about the real cost of the automobile. First, forget whatever notions you have about private wealth; America sinks billions into their cars, which is money that could be funding something -- anything -- else. Not to mention the space cars consume. What if we reclaimed some of those roads and expanded usable public space? That would be expensive, but then again we need the jobs such projects would create and we could begin to fund the work with all the money we were no longer spending on cars and roads.

If you're troubled by the inconvenience of public transportation, remember that you currently live in a country with inconvenient public transportation. If car traffic were thinned out, busses would move more quickly. If more people took busses, they would have more funding and would therefore be nicer. Considering how vastly more efficient a bus or train is than a car, they wouldn't even need to be crowded. Everyone could have lots of leg room, comfy seats, etc. To me this seems like the most harmless and achievable form of social equality.

Public transportation also increases worker efficiency. You can work on a train, but not while driving. That's simple enough.  

Of course taxis and car share programs would be available, as would trucks. And, of course, there will always be remote areas where public transportation simply doesn't make sense.  But if you consider the cost of moving people around using public transportation, you will quickly realize that it's cheaper to provide regular service to even somewhat sparsely populated areas than it is to provide those areas with roads and cars.  And that's not even considering all the intangible benefits of freeing up road space. 

The American public loves its cars. We have a rich history of muscle cars, motorcycle gangs, and Batmobiles. The car is romanticized in our culture, primarily as a symbol of independence and freedom, but it has come to embody the opposite.