American Dream

From Raleigh, NC to Atlanta, GA and out to San Jose, CA, rail projects are seen as too costly and not likely to attract the needed ridership to justify building them.

Atlanta GA: Panel Doubts Beltline Transit Goals

San Jose CA: Tough Transit Times Ahead

Raleigh NC: TTA wants more time - Estimates for rail ridership too low

CA: A Jump in Transit Ridership? - most still aren't willing to part with their cars.

In The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler argues that "peak oil" will soon lead to apocalyptically high energy prices that will destroy the suburbs and put Wal-Mart out of business. "Finally!" says one anti-auto group, cheerfully.

Kunstler's peak-oil theory may be no more than wishful thinking. His case critically depends on four strong assumptions:

1. We are running out of oil;
   
2. There are no substitutes for oil;
   
3. Higher prices will lead people to drive less; and
   
4. Less driving will force people to return to the cities.

If any one of these assumptions is wrong, Kunstler's argument falls apart. I think all four are questionable.

1. While extraction costs may moderately increase fuel prices, the world has sufficient known reserves to last for many decades.
   
2. Substitutes include solar, nuclear, and coal, but the first "substitute" will be the use of more fuel-efficient cars.
   
3. Americans will respond to sustained higher fuel costs more by cutting back on other transport costs, such as by keeping their cars a little longer or buying less luxurious cars, than by driving less.
   
4. To the extent that people do drive less, they could actually accelerate the suburbanization and exurbanization trends that the New Urbanists oppose.

Government policies based on a presumption of peak oil are likely to do far more harm than good to our cities and our economy. For more information, see Does Peak Oil Spell Death for the Suburbs?

About 2 percent less, to be exact. This New York Times article says that, at previous prices, analysts would have expected Americans to buy about 9.0 million barrels a gas a day. Instead, they bought 8.8 million barrels a day. "It's a big decline," the Times quotes an analyst saying. But is less than 2.3 percent really that big?

The Times notes that the main way people are cutting back on driving today is by making fewer trips to visit friends and relatives. While transit agencies are reporting increased ridership, a transit system that carries less than 1 percent of travel can have a huge ridership gain without having any significant impact on driving.

The Times also notes that Americans who used to drive 5.1 miles per shopping trip in 1990 increased this to 7.0 miles per shopping trip by 2001. "Blame urban sprawl," comments the writer. Yet urban sprawl was not significantly greater in 2001 than it was in 1990 (most "sprawl" took place between 1945 and 1990). The reasons for the increase length in shopping trips are the increased diversity of shopping opportunities fed by the declining cost of driving.

If previous gas shortages are any indication, changes in people's travel habits due to high gas prices will be short lived. If prices don't go back down, people will buy more fuel efficient cars and then go back to driving as much as before. In 1983, Americans drove 26 percent more than in 1973, yet used only 5 percent more fuel. From 1973 to 2003, fuel economy has increased by 42 percent and there is obviously room to increase it further if we are motivated to do so by high gas prices.