"Petrol" is British for "gas."

Want to be a little bit more depressed about the United States? Try this article from the Economist about our national transit policy. Highways grow ever more congested, passenger trains shamble slowly along freight lines, and flying gets more difficult and more expensive at the same time. And we fund projects stupidly:

The federal government is responsible for only a quarter of total transport spending, but the way it allocates funding shapes the way things are done at the state and local levels. Unfortunately, it tends not to reward the prudent, thanks to formulas that govern over 70% of federal investment. Petrol-tax revenues, for instance, are returned to the states according to the miles of highway they contain, the distances their residents drive, and the fuel they burn. The system is awash with perverse incentives. A state using road-pricing to limit travel and congestion would be punished for its efforts with reduced funding, whereas one that built highways it could not afford to maintain would receive a larger allocation.

Formula-determined block grants to states are, at least, designed to leave important decisions to local authorities. But the formulas used to allocate the money shape infrastructure planning in a remarkably block-headed manner. Cost-benefit studies are almost entirely lacking. Federal guidelines for new construction tend to reflect politics rather than anything else. States tend to use federal money as a substitute for local spending, rather than to supplement or leverage it.

It's hard to imagine transit funding structures becoming a popular issue, so I guess we have to offer this one up to the lobbying process. A friend recommended looking at Transportation For America, a transit lobbying group, for a comprehensive national transit program.