[lbo-talk] Peak Oil or Oil Bubble?

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Apr 14 11:15:25 PDT 2005


Doug:
> The problem with that is American land use patterns. Public transit
> is almost impossible in huge chunks of this country.

Granted, but the land use is affected by transportation. Cheap driving was one of the key driving forces of the suburban sprawl. The "push factor" behind suburbanization was deteriorating quality of urban life, including inter alia, horrible public transportation.

When I was in Paris, I used exclusively the subway (or suburban trains) which extremely efficient - I never waited for a train more than 2-3 minutes - and goes any place worth going - you can travel to almost any point of Ile de France (greater Paris) by train, including the airports.

By a comparison, NYC which undoubtedly has the beast subway system in the US is not as efficient (wait time can be as much as 20 minutes) and large areas outside Manhattan are not serviced. The metro is not coordinated with the suburban train system, poor connection to the airports (somewhat improved recently by the Air Train and Newark Airport station), and La Guardia not connected by any rail service.

Land use and transportation are interlocked - suburban sprawl would not be possible without cheap gas. I do not think that expensive gas will make people leave their suburban MacMansions, but it will certainly improve public transit in places like for example Baltimore, where it is a true horror story, even by the US standards.

Wojtek



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