[ardecila]

Throw this in the face of anybody who says rail won't work in the US because we're just not dense enough.

Of course, this may be true on the local level - we'll never have the pedestrian-oriented stations and town centers of Europe when the majority of population lives in anti-pedestrian, low-density subdivisions. But there's no reason rail has to be dependent on pedestrian environments. Stations can be built in an auto-oriented form just as easily. Plus, we've got pedestrian environments around most rail stations - they're called Main Street (usually).