This article is completely flawed. Where I live, I can take a one hour ferry to save an eight to ten hour drive through the mountains (if the roads are even open in the winter). So most ferries are about replacing either massive infrastructure (like undersea tunnels), or drives far longer than the actual boat trip.

Another flaw in the article is that road planning is always trying to catch up with demand.

Finally rail systems are not locked into today's technology--- in fact they are far more SCALABLE (in their "greeness" ) than vehicles. Just upgrade the source of the electricity and you magically have a greener running system. This can be done incrementally at points all over the grid--- without interruption.

The "problem" is no problem at all---- rail "future-proofs" the transportation system by creating a very flexible infrastructure (from an energy perspective)--- but the issues are at the source.