8 ms·

Europe Plans To Ban Petrol Cars From Cities By 2050

66 points by pwg 16y ago

dot 16y ago
I'd hope so. 50 years ago a gallon of gas cost $0.27, the average yearly salary was just over $5,000 and Ringo hadn't yet joined the Beatles. 50 years is a long time. And so is 40 :)
- cryptoz 16y ago
  I think your dates are a bit off. 40 years ago the Beatles had been together for years and then broken up; 40 years ago is 1971. We did land on the moon more than 40 years ago, though. Our last trip there was 39 years ago.
- monochromatic 16y ago
  Adjusting for inflation, the gas price 40 years ago was startlingly close to what it is now.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    because a gallon of fuel/oil is the real unit of value in the economy, convertible across the world, and compare to gold it isn't confined to narrow segments of economy/population. The paper/electronic money is just reflection of it.
SePP 16y ago
It should be by 2020.
quattrofan 16y ago
Yeah except in Britain apparently because the Tories buggered up our rail system so badly in the 90's we won't have a decent other option, even by then.
- rlivsey 16y ago
  BBC news has more detail on why the UK are rejecting this proposal: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566 "It is right that the EU sets high-level targets for carbon reduction, however it is not right for them to get involved in how this is delivered in individual cities"
- calpaterson 16y ago
  The conservative party isn't solely to blame. The 11 year stint with labour didn't exactly lead to a host of improvements. Furthermore, normally people banning cars in cities are in favour of improve internal city travel via local buses, metros and bicycling. It's not really about the kind of services that National Rail provide.
  - quattrofan 16y ago
    I would agree and disagree with that. The Tories DID bugger up the rail system and Labour partly put it right by bringing the infrastructure back into public ownership but they should've finished the job. I would argue though that Labour were far to pro-airline and the Tories did at least can the 3rd runway at Heathrow. Lets face it like a lot of things Britain sits half-way between the US and Europe. We want European rail travel but we aren't prepared to pay the taxes to support it.
epenn 16y ago
It's a good idea in my opinion, although if possible I'd rather they be more aggressive with their time frame. By 2050 we may already have reached Peak Oil. If that happens we may not have enough left to run cars in the city anyway.
- david927 16y ago
  Peak Oil is about an inflection point after which the expense of extracting oil rapidly accelerates. It's a cost issue. And those concerned with Peak Oil are afraid that acceleration will be faster than our ability to switch to alternatives, causing a period of cramping where energy jumps from being dirt cheap to tremendously expensive, until we can build out the alternatives (a process that will most certainly take decades). There will always be oil; we just won't be extracting it after a certain point anyway. 2050 is an easy target for that.
  - epenn 16y ago
    Very true and an excellent point. Even so just taking the cost of production into account, if us would-be buyers are unable to afford what's available then we've still run out as far as being able to drive our cars in the city is concerned. I just hope we can expand our use of alternative energy forms quickly enough so that we don't still have all our eggs in one basket.
thecoffman 16y ago
I'm surprised to see the comments here are overwhelmingly positive. Usually I feel like the hacker community tends to have a somewhat libertarian bent in a lot of ways, but I guess not here? I don't particularly understand why the government needs to step in and do this. If we've reached the peak oil inflection point by that time as some of the commenters here have speculated, would that not force essentially the same action anyways by driving the price of gas sky high? Additionally, it would provide a gigantic monetary incentive for whichever companies want to pursue alternative fuel sources. To me this seems to be something that will be sorted out by the market in time, rather than forced at the barrel of a government gun.
- riobard 16y ago
  This is such an easy straw-man target that will keep tons of politicians appearing to be busy and working on something really important. It will win them votes and by the time it actually starts to work nobody would really care about it anymore (because of what you say). Isn't it a dream thing if you are a politician?
- cryptoz 16y ago
  > To me this seems to be something that will be sorted out by the market in time, rather than forced at the barrel of a government gun. The purpose of this type of legislation is to save the planet Earth from our polluting ways. What if peak oil never happens for some reason? Are you just going to sit there and let rich people pump out poisonous gasses?! For hundreds of years? No! Let's say that again. NO! Even the most intense libertarians must realize that if there is zero financial incentive to help out the Earth, perhaps government intervention is a very smart way of going. If we know that we're changing our atmosphere so quickly and so negatively (for us and our fellow animals, anyway) and it's cheaper to keep doing it, you already know humans will keep doing it unless it becomes illegal. Legislation is necessary and good here.
  - ugh 16y ago
    I think you are using the wrong vocabulary for libertarians. This legislation is more about climate change than about peak oil. It is possible that peak oil hits just when we also want to limit our CO2 emissions but the two are unrelated. (Some non-libertarians would probably add that peak oil is also a good reason for legislation, they will say that without it the transition will be very rough, too rough to be handled only by the market. But that’s only non-libertarians.) There are no incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior because of climate change. It’s a good old tragedy of the commons. The incentives have to be created outside of the market and a typical way to do that is through legislation. Here are the three assumptions that might lead even a libertarian to support such legislation: 1. Climate change is an example of the tragedy of the commons and doesn’t create (enough) incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior. 2. It is possible to create such incentives through legislation and the proposed legislation is a good way to do that. 3. The costs of climate change are lower than the costs of preventing or slowing down climate change. Those are also the three assumptions (and there might be more but I think the list is pretty complete) you have to argue against if you do not support this legislation.
enko 16y ago
My first thought is that it may not be necessary. Petrol will be so expensive by 2030 that only the rich will fill their collectible cars with it, and they are about as likely to drive them around the cities as the Baron Montagu commuting in his Rolls Royce Phantom. I reckon we have about a decade of reasonably affordable petrol left before we hit the wall in a big way. 2050 is way past crunch time. By 2050, nanotech should be in full effect. This idea is a gesture, nothing more.
- ceejayoz 16y ago
  > By 2050, nanotech should be in full effect. And flying cars!
  - enko 16y ago
    If nanotech is in full effect then yes, flying cars all around, in fact we shall have to do all we can do stop those lighter than air buggers drifting off willy nilly.
- griftah 16y ago
  > I reckon we have about a decade of reasonably affordable petrol left before we hit the wall in a big way. Citation needed. We have at least two decades of cheap oil ahead.
  - sorbus 16y ago
    > We have at least two decades of cheap oil ahead. [Citation needed]
    - griftah 16y ago
      http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2010.pdf http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_u...
rmc 16y ago
No, The European Commission is suggesting banning cars from city centres.
donnyg107 16y ago
I don't know if the EU is taking the right approach. I don't personally see how this kind of deadline will nudge anyone along. Perhaps it will let car manufacturers know that their Britain division will not do as well in 2050 if they do not develop now, but I doubt that's what they were going for. I think the EU needs to provide consumer incentives to buy EVs, such as designated lanes or parking, or tax rebates. Companies producing electric cars are really going out on a limb right now, and until they know that there's some kind of serious demand beyond the environmentally minded, who simply want AN electric car to exist, they can't understand their demographics or create a sense of direction for their R&D. Quite simply, If governments want electric cars to catch on, they need to turn the project into an industry, not a charity effort. And for the industry to catch initially, the companies need to understand the demands of their first customers, those who are most willing to buy. They can build from there. The idea of creating a deadline turns the prospect into more of a charity effort toward the environment, not a self regulating, consumer rich industry. Environmental aspiration is important, which is why the governments need to press the gas pedal in the first place, but the companies need real paying customers to grow, not deadlines. That, or I'm missing something having to do with the logistics of this whole thing.
sp332 16y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZlpRdQlRI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZlpRdQlRI I think there should be some exceptions.
TheSOB88 16y ago
2050 doesn't really seem to be soon enough to cause any action. There will be people hemming and hawing, and by the time 2050 rolls around, the deadline will be 2100.
tybris 16y ago
Usually I'm skeptical about European plans, but this time I think they might just get lucky and petrol runs out just in time.
protomyth 16y ago
Does this include delivery trucks?
dotcoma 16y ago
big deal, there's gonna be no petrol left by 2050 anyway...
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
How much oil is left? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves... How about natural gas? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_reserves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_reserves If all gasoline engines are replaced by natural gas engines, we would have fuel for a hundred years more.
lefstathiou 16y ago
I view this as a disturbing assault on individual liberty and freedom. Automobiles and the mobility they offer communities have played a monumentally positive role in the shaping of modern society. In many ways they serve as a form of checks and balances. With automobiles, we can put our kids in better schools, even if they are further away, we can learn about different communities that offer benefits relative to our own (for example lower taxation, more open-minded, etc) and move to them. They give us the ability to fulfill the innate human desire to explore. You may think this is silly but i know with 100% certainty i am far less inclined to take a road trip to new places if it entails connecting on 4 different forms of public transportation. I own a car in the city now, but if i'm not allowed to drive it, where do i put it? The reality of how this will play out is that it will only further increase the perceived and actual separation of wealth with no descernable improvement in environmental conditions. Property prices are going to sky-rocket since this is essentially government mandated urbanization. Poor people are going to have to live further, commute longer and now wont have access to simple "luxuries". Their employment options will be more limited as will their leisurly activity. Owning a second home, something many people in europe do, becomes that much more difficult. All because the government wants to control how you get to from point A to B. I hope they fail.
- rfrey 16y ago
  My goodness, why is this being downvoted? It's a rational presentation of an unpopular position, with some thought-provoking assertions of unintended side-effects: who here is punishing such comments?
alanh 16y ago
Is there going to be oil left in 2050? Serious question.
jerf 16y ago
The time value of money is also a statement of our exponential decrease in our knowledge of the future. If you knew the future precisely, the time value of money wouldn't decrease into the future. This statement is worthless. The politicians who would be responsible for actually telling people that yes, its actually time to get these things off the road are teenagers now, and those making this pronouncement today are going to be dead. Anything past about 2030 is worthless, and any statements about where a government will be ten years from now is very, very suspect. Especially a (putative) democracy, since it's a claim about what the populace of forty years from now will be willing to do. Please. If you could plan that well and accurately we would live in a very, very different world.
hammock 16y ago
Even though you see those buses spewing black smoke from the top, and even though a lot of them run with just a couple people some of the time, in just about every American city, if you net it out they are saving gas (and therefore emissions, which are directly proportional) by a factor of 15-20x. It's a fact that 30-45% of traffic [1] in urban centers is caused by people cruising around looking for a parking spot. With more public transportation, not only do you reduce this traffic, you reduce regular traffic (less cars), and perhaps most importantly, you increase the economic productivity of the city since instead of erecting giant parking garages, they can erect giant office buildings and condo buildings - which, by the way, has the small added side effect of putting you closer to your job anyway since now you don't have to commute across five parking garages just to get to work. Taxation and skewed incentives are bad, but let's be honest that's the reason why we have too many cars and roads to begin with. more public transportation in cities is a good thing. The reason the suburbs blew up is because of skewed incentives. They blew up because everyone and their mother was able to take out a loan on a car they couldn't afford, and fill it with gas that costs half as much as what the rest of the world pays. It's not a good thing, and I'm not sure why you would try and argue that it is. Suburbs aren't where we ought to be and I'm happy to expand on why if you'd like. Furthermore, electric vehicles and the like don't help the situation. If your car suddenly gets 60mpg instead of 20, it's only going to ENCOURAGE you to drive all the way across the state to get that special jar of peanut butter you like, instead of walking down the block to the corner store. as a result, we need to build more roads to get you to your precious peanut butter; and the new roads in turn invite more traffic, etc. The solution is urban development with appropriate public transportation. Now, people hear the word "public" in public transportation and instantly think that it has to be funded by the government in an inefficient way. But I have been saying for a long time that that's absolutely not true. What we really mean to say is mass transit. The New York subway system, which is one of the first and best subways in the world, were originally run by a couple of different private companies. Most cities in the world (outside the US) have free-market taxi systems that are 10x cheaper than what we pay here. and the private el trains and streetcars that used to be all over NYC before the government did away with them were even better. Here's another interesting line of reasoning to chew on: banning cars in the city would go a long way to making public transportation more profitable for the city. think about it this way, the reason public buses need such huge subsidies to survive is because every person that rides a bus is freeing up space for someone else on the highway, actually making it MORE desirable for that other person to drive rather than ride the bus. but if you remove the option to drive, then you get around this problem and you don't have to pay extra (subsidy) for that person who looked out his window and saw that there was one less car on the road. Also note that I'm taking about commuter-distance travel and less- intercity rail is a whole other story to go into. If you live in a sprawl area like Tampa, naturally that's what you will think about, but Tampa is not the future. Tampa is a fine place, but it grew up as a result of bad policies and incentives. The future is cities like Shanghai, London, Hong Kong - these are the cities with the largest GDP growth over the last 25 years and projected for the next 25. Coincidentally, these are also the cities with the best mass transit- London is widely regarded as having the best bus, rail and metro system in the world; Shanghai has the longest and fastest-growing metro system in the world; and of course 90% of all daily journeys in Hong Kong are on public transport. The smaller, newer cities that are "hot" in terms of growth are also mostly in China, and where there is no mass transit yet developed, bicycles are the main mode of transport. The 20+ year historical trend of the US pop is towards urbanization, and that's not stopping. In 2000, 58% of the US pop [2] lived in cities of 200,000 or greater. The WORLD's population (yes, think of even the nearly one billion rural Chinese) is expected to be 70% urban [3] by 2050. The future waits for no one! Another note: We don't have to transplant people; it happens naturally. That's the power of markets. Just look at the changes in population of Detroit vs. New York over the last 20 years. See also The Great Migration [4] [1] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/08/parking-fact-of-the-day.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/08/par... [2] http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm [3] http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/Urbanization.aspx http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_%28African_American%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_%28African_Amer...

66 points by pwg 16y ago

dot 16y ago

I'd hope so. 50 years ago a gallon of gas cost $0.27, the average yearly salary was just over $5,000 and Ringo hadn't yet joined the Beatles. 50 years is a long time. And so is 40 :)

cryptoz 16y ago
I think your dates are a bit off. 40 years ago the Beatles had been together for years and then broken up; 40 years ago is 1971. We did land on the moon more than 40 years ago, though. Our last trip there was 39 years ago.
monochromatic 16y ago
Adjusting for inflation, the gas price 40 years ago was startlingly close to what it is now.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  because a gallon of fuel/oil is the real unit of value in the economy, convertible across the world, and compare to gold it isn't confined to narrow segments of economy/population. The paper/electronic money is just reflection of it.

SePP 16y ago

It should be by 2020.

quattrofan 16y ago

Yeah except in Britain apparently because the Tories buggered up our rail system so badly in the 90's we won't have a decent other option, even by then.

rlivsey 16y ago
BBC news has more detail on why the UK are rejecting this proposal: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566 "It is right that the EU sets high-level targets for carbon reduction, however it is not right for them to get involved in how this is delivered in individual cities"
calpaterson 16y ago
The conservative party isn't solely to blame. The 11 year stint with labour didn't exactly lead to a host of improvements. Furthermore, normally people banning cars in cities are in favour of improve internal city travel via local buses, metros and bicycling. It's not really about the kind of services that National Rail provide.
- quattrofan 16y ago
  I would agree and disagree with that. The Tories DID bugger up the rail system and Labour partly put it right by bringing the infrastructure back into public ownership but they should've finished the job. I would argue though that Labour were far to pro-airline and the Tories did at least can the 3rd runway at Heathrow. Lets face it like a lot of things Britain sits half-way between the US and Europe. We want European rail travel but we aren't prepared to pay the taxes to support it.

epenn 16y ago

It's a good idea in my opinion, although if possible I'd rather they be more aggressive with their time frame. By 2050 we may already have reached Peak Oil. If that happens we may not have enough left to run cars in the city anyway.

david927 16y ago
Peak Oil is about an inflection point after which the expense of extracting oil rapidly accelerates. It's a cost issue. And those concerned with Peak Oil are afraid that acceleration will be faster than our ability to switch to alternatives, causing a period of cramping where energy jumps from being dirt cheap to tremendously expensive, until we can build out the alternatives (a process that will most certainly take decades). There will always be oil; we just won't be extracting it after a certain point anyway. 2050 is an easy target for that.
- epenn 16y ago
  Very true and an excellent point. Even so just taking the cost of production into account, if us would-be buyers are unable to afford what's available then we've still run out as far as being able to drive our cars in the city is concerned. I just hope we can expand our use of alternative energy forms quickly enough so that we don't still have all our eggs in one basket.

thecoffman 16y ago

I'm surprised to see the comments here are overwhelmingly positive. Usually I feel like the hacker community tends to have a somewhat libertarian bent in a lot of ways, but I guess not here? I don't particularly understand why the government needs to step in and do this. If we've reached the peak oil inflection point by that time as some of the commenters here have speculated, would that not force essentially the same action anyways by driving the price of gas sky high? Additionally, it would provide a gigantic monetary incentive for whichever companies want to pursue alternative fuel sources. To me this seems to be something that will be sorted out by the market in time, rather than forced at the barrel of a government gun.

riobard 16y ago
This is such an easy straw-man target that will keep tons of politicians appearing to be busy and working on something really important. It will win them votes and by the time it actually starts to work nobody would really care about it anymore (because of what you say). Isn't it a dream thing if you are a politician?
cryptoz 16y ago
> To me this seems to be something that will be sorted out by the market in time, rather than forced at the barrel of a government gun. The purpose of this type of legislation is to save the planet Earth from our polluting ways. What if peak oil never happens for some reason? Are you just going to sit there and let rich people pump out poisonous gasses?! For hundreds of years? No! Let's say that again. NO! Even the most intense libertarians must realize that if there is zero financial incentive to help out the Earth, perhaps government intervention is a very smart way of going. If we know that we're changing our atmosphere so quickly and so negatively (for us and our fellow animals, anyway) and it's cheaper to keep doing it, you already know humans will keep doing it unless it becomes illegal. Legislation is necessary and good here.
- ugh 16y ago
  I think you are using the wrong vocabulary for libertarians. This legislation is more about climate change than about peak oil. It is possible that peak oil hits just when we also want to limit our CO2 emissions but the two are unrelated. (Some non-libertarians would probably add that peak oil is also a good reason for legislation, they will say that without it the transition will be very rough, too rough to be handled only by the market. But that’s only non-libertarians.) There are no incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior because of climate change. It’s a good old tragedy of the commons. The incentives have to be created outside of the market and a typical way to do that is through legislation. Here are the three assumptions that might lead even a libertarian to support such legislation: 1. Climate change is an example of the tragedy of the commons and doesn’t create (enough) incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior. 2. It is possible to create such incentives through legislation and the proposed legislation is a good way to do that. 3. The costs of climate change are lower than the costs of preventing or slowing down climate change. Those are also the three assumptions (and there might be more but I think the list is pretty complete) you have to argue against if you do not support this legislation.

enko 16y ago

My first thought is that it may not be necessary. Petrol will be so expensive by 2030 that only the rich will fill their collectible cars with it, and they are about as likely to drive them around the cities as the Baron Montagu commuting in his Rolls Royce Phantom. I reckon we have about a decade of reasonably affordable petrol left before we hit the wall in a big way. 2050 is way past crunch time. By 2050, nanotech should be in full effect. This idea is a gesture, nothing more.

ceejayoz 16y ago
> By 2050, nanotech should be in full effect. And flying cars!
- enko 16y ago
  If nanotech is in full effect then yes, flying cars all around, in fact we shall have to do all we can do stop those lighter than air buggers drifting off willy nilly.
griftah 16y ago
> I reckon we have about a decade of reasonably affordable petrol left before we hit the wall in a big way. Citation needed. We have at least two decades of cheap oil ahead.
- sorbus 16y ago
  > We have at least two decades of cheap oil ahead. [Citation needed]
  - griftah 16y ago
    http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2010.pdf http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_u...

rmc 16y ago

No, The European Commission is suggesting banning cars from city centres.

donnyg107 16y ago

I don't know if the EU is taking the right approach. I don't personally see how this kind of deadline will nudge anyone along. Perhaps it will let car manufacturers know that their Britain division will not do as well in 2050 if they do not develop now, but I doubt that's what they were going for. I think the EU needs to provide consumer incentives to buy EVs, such as designated lanes or parking, or tax rebates. Companies producing electric cars are really going out on a limb right now, and until they know that there's some kind of serious demand beyond the environmentally minded, who simply want AN electric car to exist, they can't understand their demographics or create a sense of direction for their R&D. Quite simply, If governments want electric cars to catch on, they need to turn the project into an industry, not a charity effort. And for the industry to catch initially, the companies need to understand the demands of their first customers, those who are most willing to buy. They can build from there. The idea of creating a deadline turns the prospect into more of a charity effort toward the environment, not a self regulating, consumer rich industry. Environmental aspiration is important, which is why the governments need to press the gas pedal in the first place, but the companies need real paying customers to grow, not deadlines. That, or I'm missing something having to do with the logistics of this whole thing.

sp332 16y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZlpRdQlRI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZlpRdQlRI I think there should be some exceptions.

TheSOB88 16y ago

2050 doesn't really seem to be soon enough to cause any action. There will be people hemming and hawing, and by the time 2050 rolls around, the deadline will be 2100.

tybris 16y ago

Usually I'm skeptical about European plans, but this time I think they might just get lucky and petrol runs out just in time.

protomyth 16y ago

Does this include delivery trucks?

dotcoma 16y ago

big deal, there's gonna be no petrol left by 2050 anyway...

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

How much oil is left? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves... How about natural gas? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_reserves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_reserves If all gasoline engines are replaced by natural gas engines, we would have fuel for a hundred years more.

lefstathiou 16y ago

I view this as a disturbing assault on individual liberty and freedom. Automobiles and the mobility they offer communities have played a monumentally positive role in the shaping of modern society. In many ways they serve as a form of checks and balances. With automobiles, we can put our kids in better schools, even if they are further away, we can learn about different communities that offer benefits relative to our own (for example lower taxation, more open-minded, etc) and move to them. They give us the ability to fulfill the innate human desire to explore. You may think this is silly but i know with 100% certainty i am far less inclined to take a road trip to new places if it entails connecting on 4 different forms of public transportation. I own a car in the city now, but if i'm not allowed to drive it, where do i put it? The reality of how this will play out is that it will only further increase the perceived and actual separation of wealth with no descernable improvement in environmental conditions. Property prices are going to sky-rocket since this is essentially government mandated urbanization. Poor people are going to have to live further, commute longer and now wont have access to simple "luxuries". Their employment options will be more limited as will their leisurly activity. Owning a second home, something many people in europe do, becomes that much more difficult. All because the government wants to control how you get to from point A to B. I hope they fail.

rfrey 16y ago
My goodness, why is this being downvoted? It's a rational presentation of an unpopular position, with some thought-provoking assertions of unintended side-effects: who here is punishing such comments?

alanh 16y ago

Is there going to be oil left in 2050? Serious question.

jerf 16y ago

The time value of money is also a statement of our exponential decrease in our knowledge of the future. If you knew the future precisely, the time value of money wouldn't decrease into the future. This statement is worthless. The politicians who would be responsible for actually telling people that yes, its actually time to get these things off the road are teenagers now, and those making this pronouncement today are going to be dead. Anything past about 2030 is worthless, and any statements about where a government will be ten years from now is very, very suspect. Especially a (putative) democracy, since it's a claim about what the populace of forty years from now will be willing to do. Please. If you could plan that well and accurately we would live in a very, very different world.

hammock 16y ago

Even though you see those buses spewing black smoke from the top, and even though a lot of them run with just a couple people some of the time, in just about every American city, if you net it out they are saving gas (and therefore emissions, which are directly proportional) by a factor of 15-20x. It's a fact that 30-45% of traffic [1] in urban centers is caused by people cruising around looking for a parking spot. With more public transportation, not only do you reduce this traffic, you reduce regular traffic (less cars), and perhaps most importantly, you increase the economic productivity of the city since instead of erecting giant parking garages, they can erect giant office buildings and condo buildings - which, by the way, has the small added side effect of putting you closer to your job anyway since now you don't have to commute across five parking garages just to get to work. Taxation and skewed incentives are bad, but let's be honest that's the reason why we have too many cars and roads to begin with. more public transportation in cities is a good thing. The reason the suburbs blew up is because of skewed incentives. They blew up because everyone and their mother was able to take out a loan on a car they couldn't afford, and fill it with gas that costs half as much as what the rest of the world pays. It's not a good thing, and I'm not sure why you would try and argue that it is. Suburbs aren't where we ought to be and I'm happy to expand on why if you'd like. Furthermore, electric vehicles and the like don't help the situation. If your car suddenly gets 60mpg instead of 20, it's only going to ENCOURAGE you to drive all the way across the state to get that special jar of peanut butter you like, instead of walking down the block to the corner store. as a result, we need to build more roads to get you to your precious peanut butter; and the new roads in turn invite more traffic, etc. The solution is urban development with appropriate public transportation. Now, people hear the word "public" in public transportation and instantly think that it has to be funded by the government in an inefficient way. But I have been saying for a long time that that's absolutely not true. What we really mean to say is mass transit. The New York subway system, which is one of the first and best subways in the world, were originally run by a couple of different private companies. Most cities in the world (outside the US) have free-market taxi systems that are 10x cheaper than what we pay here. and the private el trains and streetcars that used to be all over NYC before the government did away with them were even better. Here's another interesting line of reasoning to chew on: banning cars in the city would go a long way to making public transportation more profitable for the city. think about it this way, the reason public buses need such huge subsidies to survive is because every person that rides a bus is freeing up space for someone else on the highway, actually making it MORE desirable for that other person to drive rather than ride the bus. but if you remove the option to drive, then you get around this problem and you don't have to pay extra (subsidy) for that person who looked out his window and saw that there was one less car on the road. Also note that I'm taking about commuter-distance travel and less- intercity rail is a whole other story to go into. If you live in a sprawl area like Tampa, naturally that's what you will think about, but Tampa is not the future. Tampa is a fine place, but it grew up as a result of bad policies and incentives. The future is cities like Shanghai, London, Hong Kong - these are the cities with the largest GDP growth over the last 25 years and projected for the next 25. Coincidentally, these are also the cities with the best mass transit- London is widely regarded as having the best bus, rail and metro system in the world; Shanghai has the longest and fastest-growing metro system in the world; and of course 90% of all daily journeys in Hong Kong are on public transport. The smaller, newer cities that are "hot" in terms of growth are also mostly in China, and where there is no mass transit yet developed, bicycles are the main mode of transport. The 20+ year historical trend of the US pop is towards urbanization, and that's not stopping. In 2000, 58% of the US pop [2] lived in cities of 200,000 or greater. The WORLD's population (yes, think of even the nearly one billion rural Chinese) is expected to be 70% urban [3] by 2050. The future waits for no one! Another note: We don't have to transplant people; it happens naturally. That's the power of markets. Just look at the changes in population of Detroit vs. New York over the last 20 years. See also The Great Migration [4] [1] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/08/parking-fact-of-the-day.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/08/par... [2] http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm [3] http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/Urbanization.aspx http://www.prb.org/Educators/TeachersGuides/HumanPopulation/... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_%28African_American%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_%28African_Amer...