Trolleys, trains and automobiles - great editorial from the Birmingham News (Alabama)

From the editorial:

Jefferson County officials are pushing ambitious ideas for streetcars and commuter rail. Let's hope those plans fuel a serious push for a true transit system. Talk of a trolley system through the proposed Red Mountain Park in southwest Birmingham and of a commuter rail from downtown to Bessemer only illustrates even more the critical need to revamp the city's troubled transit system.

The light and heavy rail systems envisioned by two Jefferson County commissioners need a well-functioning transit system to make either idea practical. And an expensive elevated toll road along overburdened U.S. 280 shouldn't even be contemplated without a commitment to improve the public transit system. But all the talk lately of rail systems and elevated roads clearly demonstrates our leaders recognize there are transportation problems in the Birmingham region - and at least some of them want to do something about them.

Birmingham's current transit system is in dire need of an extreme makeover. In fact, calling what we have in the Birmingham area a transit system is a stretch. What we have is a bus system that is underfunded, requires the few passengers who use it to wait too long and goes to too few places to be of use to most people. The bus system doesn't even run in most of the county.

That leads to an overdependence on the automobile for basic transportation, even in Birmingham's inner city.

Fortunately, more leaders - from county officials to Birmingham's mayor and City Council members to the mayors of several suburban cities - realize the problems caused by this overdependence as well as the plight of people in the area who can't afford a car or don't drive... Of course, a commuter line between the two cities in no way lessens the need for a comprehensive transit system. Instead, it amplifies that need.