The perfect – the enemy of the good?

So, Yglesias went to Geneva, saw a trolleybus and wrote a post:

…whenever I see a low emissions modification of a bus (trolley bus, bus powered by natural gas, etc.) I worry that forests are getting missed for the trees. Even if you take the dirtiest bus imaginable, two dozen people taking the bus to work every day creates much less pollution than two dozen people driving two dozen cars.

Well, incidentally the local government here in Geneva seems to be slightly obsessed with replacing bus routes with rail lines (trams) wherever possible. If we already know this will be the next step in the evolution of urban public transportation, why not at least try to skip the ‘dirty bus’ phase and jump directly to the trolleybus/tram phase?

That seems to be the main advantage of following someone: the opportunity to avoid mistakes of the guy who is leading.