Cars, Trains & Hurricanes

In the last few weeks, a lot of middle and working class Americans have arrogantly thought I'm in no danger from a major disaster like a hurricane because I have a car. If my city is threatened by some sort of catastrophe, I can simply jump in the car and drive to Uncle Bob's house in Des Moines. I won't get caught in misery and danger like those poor wretches in New Orleans.
That comforting illusion has been destroyed by Hurricane Rita. Hundreds of thousands of middle and working class Texans hopped into their cars and headed north to escape the hurricane. They found themselves trapped on gridlocked highways, many of them without any gas and empty gas tanks. The state sent out tanker trucks to bring gas to the stranded and many still didn't gas. Many people found themselves camping out in the night in their cars as the hurricane approached.
Obviously, automobiles wouldn't be a very efficient or effective method of evacuating large cities as the exodous from South Texas proves. Passenger trains on the other hand would be a very effecient and effective method of evacuating a large city. Even commuter trains would be handy, if disaster struck say Los Angeles, the city could move large numbers of people out using the Metrolink Commuter trains which can operate over the freight railroad tracks.
Now this doesn't mean that we should keep investing money in Amtrak, Amtrak as even many rail backers concede is a miserable failure. It means we should invest in a modern passenger rail network taking advantage of the latest high technology, perhaps electric powered high speed bullet trains like they have in France or Japan or maglev literally trains floating on a cushion of magnetims which is even faster and more effecient. These trains should be operated by private companies, perhaps the geniuses behind Southwest Airlines or Jet Blue could be given tax breaks or government subsidies to operate the passenger trains. The high speed trains could haul freight and packages which would generate vast amounts of income. Since they run on electricity rather than oil such trains could save a lot of money and give us a transportation system not dependent upon the Middle East.
Yes this would take years and cost money but it would benefit average Americans and it would be money we'd get back. If we could make our transportation network more effecient we'd make our economy more effecient which would benefit all Americans. More importantly Americans would have an effective means of getting around their country which wouldn't rely upon gasoline and imported oil. I wonder how many more people will have to suffer in disasters before we start thinking this way.