It depends whether or not you're talking about a main feeder literally lined with high rise apartments and what have you?

That said, rail has real limitations and needs connectivity like driverless trolley buses running on/in dedicated bus lanes?

These things can use new battery technology and magnetic under pavement magnetic interfaces at various points (dedicated stops) to recharge or top up the capacitor battery combinations; meaning they could be universally (cheaper, quieter, fume free) electric and rerouted or changed up dated or taken out of service, as and when desirable or necessary.

Moreover, pollution free trolley buses with their greater grip and legendary torque, massively outperform and out brake, both trains and trams, particularly when hills feature!

Trains needn't be conventional either, but could be monorails utilizing the green separation corridors on commuter highways?

And given they run on a one way only loop,with storage exit and entry connectors, can be separated and run on (weight load) demand as individual circulating gondolas?

Driverless cars could also feature as shared car pools that transport four or five employees to a common place of work? Thus driving down the usual commuter grid lock congestion by a massive 75%-80%? That's three quarters of current commuter traffic!

Trains would be even more useful if one could legally transport a folding E bike as permitted luggage, to assist with connectivity?

And given fibre to the home is rolled out as a universal E highway, much of our work or study could be better achieved with less time wasted, from home?
Alan B.

This article's based on the false premise that trains are only good for getting people to the CBD. but in reality trains serve many suburbsn destinations too.

I myself am rooting for Can Tram - the Canberra light rail. Can Tram is the project mooted by Greens in Canberra.

Please pronounce "Can Tram" with a really nizal accent, OK?

Can Tram will be a burden on Canberra ratepayers for decades, bless um.

Don't move to CanBra cosa CanTram.

Aidan makes a good point, and in that context, trains could alleviate a lot of inner city overcrowding by enabling long overdue decentralization?

Which by the way is central to the return of genuinely affordable housing with child friendly back yards?

As to working from home or setting up a home based enterprise, let me say, I'm currently road testing Windows 10.

This is a recent and impressive windows application that stores your critical data in the cloud. Making it almost unreachable to the hackers?

Were I setting up a new enterprise at home, I would want fibre to the home, replete with windows 10 as the (lightning fast) operating system, seriously larger and faster solid state memory as the operating guts of the computer, and 4K monitors, that give unparalleled clarity for video conferencing!

Moreover no regional or rural Doctor's office or hospital should be without one, given clarity is essential in arriving at a distant specialist supported diagnosis?
Alan B.

Don't agree with any of that people, your on the wrong track. The future is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEDrMriKsFM

just imagine what $1-5 billion investment into developing this technology would produce?

Go for and plan for future technology, not more of the past.

Still fighting the 60's again. Cars will be totally different in 20 years, once the battery problem is addressed (charge rate and capacity; lithium changes in size during the charge cycle).

Trains will be needed. City "Cars" will be auto-driving vehicles that are light, quiet, SMALL and cheap which means road capacity will double or treble. Most can be 2 seaters, if 4 people then pod them together, mating back to back. Order them up on the phone, they come to you empty and go away on their own at the end to park themselves wherever or next use.

All this is just an extension of car-share (GoGet), Uber, non-rare earth magnets and Google self-drive cars.