WHY DOES THE RIDE HAVE TO BE OVER SO FAST?:

Fast, eco-friendly trains to connect north and south Taiwan (Keith Bradsher, January 3, 2007, International Herald Tribune)

The sleek, bulbous-nosed new bullet trains here look like they are designed to whisk passengers across wide-open spaces; but on this congested island, they represent the start of a 300-kilometer-per- hour commuter train system.

After a quarter-century of planning and construction, the system is finally scheduled to open Friday. It will tie together cities and towns holding 94 percent of Taiwan the island's population, offering an alternative to clogged highways and the air pollution they produce.

For some urban planners and environmentalists, the project is an example of how Asia may be able to control oil imports, curb fast-rising emissions of global-warming gases and bring a higher standard of living to enormous numbers of people in an environmentally sustainable way.