Charles --

I do share your "musings". Why do we so easily get swayed by "progress", "new" & "improved"? Even with OSHA & ADA & eco concerns, it feels like we so frequently eschew the simple, proven, reliable solutions in favor of the new & complex. (In the earliest days of the "space race" we spent millions developing a ballpoint pen which would work in weightlessness, while the Russians simply decided to use pencils!)

Isn't this, at least in part, the same "progressive" thinking that resulted in our tearing up streetcar lines and abandoning passenger service, only to now spend billions to re-lay light-rail lines and try to bring our passenger services up to world standards. Meanwhile, Europe just continued to improve its transit & LD trains.

Yesterday, as I was taking one of the last tours around San Francisco's 60-year-old Transbay Terminal (before it is torn down in favor of a spanking new facility), the tour guide pointed out something I hadn't noticed before. The BART rail transit system was just getting organized as the Key System was discontinuing its cross-bridge rail operations, in favor of busses operated by AC Transit. Over the years, wouldn't it have been cheaper & more effective to improve Key rather than what was spent in the early years of BART?