This article is about an article run in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "The American car culture is running out of gas," by John Timpane. The author says that higher gas prices, longer trips due to traffic congestion and that putting roads in have wrecked the environment and man's motivation to drive. That the high gas prices and traffic has caused people to start riding mass transit in greater numbers. I agree that higher gas prices do make people more concerned as to how much gas their car guzzles and keeps people closer to home so as to use less gas, for now. I agree that if you build a road its only time before traffic develops and more roadways is needed to keep up with automotive use.
I agree that putting in roads does take away land that would normally be used by plants and animals. What I don't agree with is that we will always have to worry about high gas prices. Even now car companies are coming out with higher mile per gallon cars and in a few years there will be cars that only use gasoline to power a generator to produce electricity for electric motor cars. The Volt is one such car. It will be able to be plugged in to a normal electric outlet and its batteries would be charged to give it a range of 40 miles and then the generator would kick in and produce power to recharge the batteries for further distance. Most car use is within 40 miles of the house. And even if it isn't, using a gasoline generator just for electricity charging, has a higher mile per gallon use then today's cars. So I believe eventually we will have cars that are more environmentally friendly and better for the environment then today. And of course in the next 15 - 20 years we should have a hydrogen car which takes high priced gasoline out of the equation all together.
Then he talks about traffic, how bad it could get. I think traffic could be reduced altogether if we made some highways pay for use. Not much but enough to scare off the Sunday drivers who love to go slow and have no need to be out on a major highway except for joy riding. Also, tolls would raise enough money to be invested and made to make more money to build better and higher capacity roads. The problem with California highways even though they have high capacity you have traffic due to too close exits and entrances and way too many people driving on them then need too. What you need is dedicated highways. Say a highway built on the NJ Turnpike example where there are only exits for major highways. You don't' have major exits for regular roads. Leave getting to your door step to secondary or thirdary highways. But even on the NJ Turnpike you have traffic. But this is because NJ has a growing population and you will always need higher capacity to meet demand. This is true anywhere. People will drive less with tolls but will get where they need quickly because of higher capacity and sensible exits and entrances.
Finally, he writes roads destroy the environment. I have one word for you. If you care so much about the environment what about the land your house sits on? Or that your apartment building sits on? Would you be willing to give up your house or apartment for the environment? As far as I know the environment is doing fine. It's been around 4 billion years, survived volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, earthquakes, hurricanes. Trust me the environment is doing fine. And for all we know one day will have the technology or the laws to keep all the crap out or suck all the crap we have put into the air out of it. So let's not go overboard with the thinking that we are destroying the environment by driving our cars or paving roads for them, and let's not falsely believe that we have to give up the car. Traffic may die down due to higher gas prices but I am sure there is an executive at each major car company with a plan C, D, E, or F, to keep us driving.
