You don't need on-the-fly re-routing (and I think it'd be a royal pain to implement). Just take a look at how Berlin does their subway. I'll admit that I've only used it as a tourist, not a commuter, but I don't think I've ever had to walk more than two blocks in downtown berlin to find a subway station, and I don't think I ever had to change lines more than twice to get from point A to point B. And they run all the time, at least during the day. Needless to say, travel times are very manageable.

Or even how Göteborg does its tram lines. I've used those as a commuter and damn they are good. Cover everything they need to cover, the trams run all the time in the daytime and every hour or half-hour during the night (depending on how far into the suburbs you need to go). Car? Pffft. Bus? Yeah, it's there - and the coverage is very good, actually, but it's not like you need it.

And it's not like Göteborg is a big city - about half a million people in a semicircle with a 20 km radius or thereabout. Half the area of Denmark has that kind of population density. We could cover somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of our population with light rail service to their local city/high-speed rail hub.

A little intelligent planning and a big check to a couple of German train factories and we could cut our personal car fleet by at least 50 %...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.