Dion the road again:

As a rule I can't stand all politicians but so far I’m a fan of Stephane Dion and I would vote for him. He said a few smart things today. One was that he wants emissions caps with tradeable credits. The second was that there should be fast trains in Canada, for example a 3-hour Montreal - Toronto train. If there were, a lot of people would take it rather than flying, or even driving that route. By the way these trains should definitely have a piano car like the old days. That's a decent idea but it's public transit within cities that is the big thing. It doens't seem very effective to try to browbeat or guilt people into getting out of their cars. Instead, buses and subways and so on should be made a lot more attractive. There should be dedicated bus lanes throughout cities (just as there are bike lanes). If people are sitting in their cars stuck in traffic and they see buses go whizzing by because they have their own lanes then people might be enticed to take them. Also people's experience of taking transit should be taken into account. Taking the bus can suck sometimes. I'm sure if someone actually did a field study of people who take transit to find out what they liked and didn't like about it we could come up with some good improvements. Although to an extent the number of people who will get out of their cars is limited anyway because most cities themselves are built for cars.
Back to Dion, he at least understands that environment and the economy shouldn't have to be in opposition. Still I haven't heard anything really creative from him yet.


P.S. Also he looks like a muppet. I can imagine him giving a speech and those two grumpy old men muppets who sit in the balcony making fun of him.