More mass transportation would help solve a trinity of horrors rising from our car culture -- global warming, sprawl and obesity.

But if it's so great.... why do so few people take the train or bus, even when they can?

Matt Welch, assitant editorial page editor of the LA times, wrote an essay on the LA Times.com website about his determined efforts to commute to work on the subway and buses.  It should have taken about 10 minutes, but it took almost an hour.

His conclusion:  "People who can take their cars will take their cars, particularly if they're in a hurry or need to make multiple stops. As (Los Angeles) Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa explained his non-transit commuting to The Times in November 2006, 'I'd like to do more, but my problem is I have to go all over the city. It's very tough because of my schedule.' Sure. And it turns out many of us have hectic schedules as well."

Now, to be fair, Los Angeles' mass transit system is inferior to that of other cities, like those in New York, Chicago, Washington or Boston. Los Angeles is more like Baltimore, which had a system of streetcars that was ripped out in the 1950's as part of a conspiracy by GM (yes, conspiracy, it was proven in federal court) to sell buses to cities.  So the inconvenience of mass transit in LA doesn't really mean that mass transit, by its very nature, will be rejected by the public.  It just means that cities that were stupid enough to blow up their rail systems a half century ago still have lousy rail systems.  Buses aren't a replacement for rail, because they get stuck in the same traffic that car commuters hate.

When I lived in Boston, I loved to take the train to get around.  I enjoy reading on the train, looking out the window -- and just wallowing in the peaceful zen feeling of avoiding of fatal car accidents and the nightmare of parking.

But the last point is critical.  The reason trains work so well in Boston is that the streets are hellish to drive, and there is nowhere to park in many neighborhoods.   In Baltimore, by contrast, parking is relatively easy (although some people still grumble about it.)  You can park downtown to watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade, you can park near Patterson Park to watch concerts.  All this easy parking makes mass transit less appealing.  Plus, on top of this, the train lines go from downtown to -- where?  Like two places.  What good is that?

(Memo to Gov. Martin O'Malley: Please, please, PLEASE extend MARC train service from Baltimore to Washington to the weekends.  How are we going to keep attracting Washingtonians to live in our fair city if they can't even hop the train to DC on a Saturday to show the kids the Smithsonian?  Yes, Baltimore's half-century-long population loss has finally ended....kudos.  Now let's keep the momentum going by creating an affordable weekend train service from Baltimore to Washington.)

Baltimore's train system badly needs expansion.   Sure, it would be expensive ....but so is the environmental nightmare of highway construction, like the Intercounty Connector, which keeps roaring along with its multi-billion dollar price tag. But perhaps people won't call out for more train service here until their parking and traffic gets worse.  I know: let's jam up the streets with increasingly huge vehicles.  Wait...we're already doing that. 

Any more bright ideas?

READER JESSE responded by saying that my assertion of a GM streetcar conspiracy was "dubious."  He referred me to an article that argues that many other factors, such as suburbanization, were critical to the demise of streetcars.

MY RESPONSE is that there was, in fact, a conspiracy. The federal courts confirmed this conspiracy, although they declined to fine GM for this violation of the U.S. antitrust laws. In the 1948 court case, United States v. National City Lines Inc., the judge convicted GM of conspiracy to acquire control of transit companies that replaced streetcars with buses built by GM.

Would the street cars have disappeared anyway?  Well, they didn't disappear from Boston, Chicago and New York, for example.  These cities managed to keep their rail mass transit, despite suburbanization.  If Baltimore had resisted the GM bus ploy, I don't see why the trains couldn't still be running down Guilford Avenue behind my office. 

JEESE RESPONDS: Would the streetcar have disappeared anyway? Read the "http://www.btco.net/bthist.htm" of Baltimore's streetcars. Their decline began long before the GM story took place.