Why We Drive

(Or, why mass transit and land-use changes probably won't help our problems very much).

Breakdown of 2001 household vehicle miles traveled in the United States by purpose. Source: Table 6 of Summary of Travel Trends: 2001 National Household Travel Survey.

I think most of us on this site would agree that figuring out what to do about this terrible trio:
  1. The need to accomodate peaking or plateauing of global oil supply.
  2. Carbon emissions contributing to global warming
  3. Dependence on oil from politically unstable, especially Middle Eastern, sources
is our major generational challenge.

Although reasonable people can differ over the timing and shape of the oil peak (#1), only fairly unreasonable people now believe that we can continue to increase our CO2 emissions without severe consequences in the future (#2). And almost everybody agrees that we have a serious near-term problem with #3, since so much of global oil supply comes from parts of the world at risk of "regional conflagration", to use our new Secretary of Defense's term.

So what to do?

There are a variety of answers out there: more efficient cars, better land-use planning, more mass-transit, consuming less, switching to alternative forms of energy to name a few.

Recently, for reasons that will become clearer in future posts, I've been trying to come up to speed on transportation issues. I'm tentatively coming to some conclusions that I know a lot of people on this site aren't going to like. I thought I'd start putting them out there and see what holes in my argument folks can find.

Specifically, it seems to me that neither changes in land-use, nor changes in transportation infrastructure (transit etc), are terribly promising as approaches to the terrible trio.

To put this in more concrete terms, I mean that these possibilities can only be very "thin wedges" in the pile of wedges that need to be stacked up between the declining oil usage or carbon emissions we would ideally like to have, and the accelerating usage/emissions we would be likely to get with continued business as usual. Roughly speaking, it appears to me that we need 6-8% of wedges (meaning enough things to get us from 1-2% annual increases down to 5-6% annual decreases in either emissions or oil usage). 5-6% is a reasonable number for illustrative purposes: it's what Hubbert linearization suggests for eventual global decline rates, it's the decline rate achieved in global oil consumption from 1979-1983, and it is also what the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests we do to carbon emissions to have high confidence that global temperature rise will not exceed 2oC. It's in the range of "pretty painful but probably not impossible". So in that context, a big wedge is a 3% or a 5% wedge. A small wedge is 1/2% or less.

The following figure illustrates the general idea (which can only be seen as a rough approximation, but good enough to be useful).

Illustration of the idea of large and small wedges making up the difference between a 5% decline over the next twenty years, and 2% growth over the same time period (in any relevant quantity, such as oil production, oil imports, or carbon emissions).

Firstly, let me, for the sake of completeness, justify why one would focus on transport, and specifically autos, if worried about any of the terrible trio:

In the US, transportation represents 2/3 of our oil consumption:

Breakdown of US oil usage by sector, 1949 and 2005. Source: Figure 5.13a of EIA Annual Energy Review 2005.

Of that usage, the majority (a shade under 2/3) is used by light vehicles on the highways. Similarly with carbon emissions. For example, here in California, where we just committed to cut carbon emissions 25% below business-as-usual by 2020, over half of the problem is transportation.

Breakdown of 2000 California carbon emissions by purpose. Source: California Energy Commission.

And then there is the energy dependence problem. 96% of US transportation is oil powered, and a large fraction of global oil supply comes from the following mix of less than ideally stable exporting regions.

Proportion of global oil supply coming from various regions of less than ideal political stability. 1965-2005. Click to enlarge. Source: BP.

As you can see, dependence on the unstable regions peaked in the 1970s, and then declined as North Sea and Alaskan oil were developed. However, now that those are declining rapidly, dependence on unstable places is worsening again. Since the only possible source of much new oil from stable places is now Canadian tar sands, and growth in that source is expected to be relatively slow, this situation is all but certain to get worse unless demand for oil can be shrunk.

Not only is transportation critically linked with both oil and carbon emissions, but the quantity of transportation used (which can be measured by vehicle miles traveled) has historically been extraordinarily inelastic. It tends to increase inexorably year after year. Even the 1970s oil shocks produced only tiny 2% reductions in annual vehicle miles traveled.

Year on year percentage changes in US vehicle miles traveled, with GDP for comparison. Major oil shocks occurred in 1973 (Arab embargo), 1978-80 (Iranian revolution and Iran-Iraq war), and 1990-1991 (first Gulf war).

All in all, highway transportation is both the most important and the most intransigent aspect of our energy problem, so it makes sense to focus on it. We really love to drive. And I should say, since much of this piece is about the downsides and externalities of driving, that in my opinion, mobility is actually a good thing and a thing critical to a developed economy. There's a reason that kids can't wait to drive when they turn of age, and there's a reason poor countries use mules while rich countries use cars. It's the same reason why GDP and miles driven are highly correlated in the graph above. Being able to drive, or otherwise get around, allows workers to choose amongst more jobs, it allows contractors or salespeople to reach more clients, it allows employers to choose from a larger set of workers. In general, mobility promotes improved division of labor and economic efficiency, and thus wealth. Conversely, wealth allows more people to pay for more mobility, which they do with great enthusiasm all over the world.

We also just like the convenience of driving, as well as the aesthetic experience of piloting a couple of tons of steel with a few hundred horsepower of motivation.

So the question is how to have the upsides of getting around freely while cutting the downsides.

A popular answer with many Oil Drum readers, environmentalists, and a significant fraction of the urban planning community is mass transit. This has historically made intuitive sense to me since certainly these modes require less energy per passenger mile when operated at a decent fraction of capacity (and I commute by Caltrain many days myself). However, it doesn't take long with the data to make this look like a very unlikely solution to our terrible trio.

Firstly, as most people are aware, hardly anyone in the US is using transit:

Passenger-Miles of Travel by Mode: 2002. Source: Transportation Statistics Annual Report 2005, Figure 1-1.

As you can see, railroads, light rail etc are less than 2% of passenger miles. Buses are another 3%. Cars and trucks are almost the entire picture, with air transport the main long distance mode.

Not only is the share of transit ridership tiny, but it's been falling over recent decades.

Source: Transportation Research Board: Commuting in America III.

Ok, but maybe this is because, due to the evil car companies and oil companies, we underinvest in railroads and transit? Well, a few hours digging around in government statistics suggest otherwise. For orientation, here is the fraction of GDP that is expended on investment in transport infrastructure.

Investment in transportation infrastructure as a percentage of GDP by mode. 1977-2000. Source: Transportation Investment and GDP 2004: Table 6.6.

As you can see, we mostly spend a little less than 1% of our GDP on investment in our transport infrastructure, and that mainly goes on highways. However, look at this next graph. It shows the proportion of all transport infrastructure investment going on each of the non-highway modes.

Investment in non-highway transport modes as a percentage of total transport investment. 1977-2000. Source: Transportation Investment and GDP 2004: Table 6.6.

What becomes clear to me is that the proportion of investment on transit and railroads is completely disproportionate to their ridership and has been for decades. Far from underinvesting in these modes, we are overinvesting. We invest comfortably over 15% of our total transportation infrastructure national budget into railroads and transit, and yet they are carrying only 1.5% of passenger miles. So each of those modes is roughly a factor of 10 worse than highways and airports in terms of the return (in actual useful movement of people) on the investment (in transport infrastructure spending). That's appalling and suggests that transit projects, at least taken in the aggregate, are basically a giant black hole for dollars that deliver little value. (Caveat: the long-haul railroad spending may have a stronger justification in terms of freight, but I didn't analyze that).

Ok, well why won't Americans take the train? Well, the rough answer is that it takes nearly twice as long to get anywhere (36 minutes versus 21 minutes for an average metropolitan area US commute according to The Road More Travelled). More specifically, transit critically depends on high population densities. There have to be enough people close to the station at one end of the ride, and enough interesting destinations at the other end of the ride, to make the ridership viable. It also helps if population density is high enough to make roads very congested. The following graph makes it amazingly clear:

Transit and private vehicle share as a function of census tract density. Source: Commuting in America III.

And, again as most of us know, America was not developed with high density in mind. The number of places with densities in excess of 10,000 people/sq mile is extremely small:

US Population Density by County. Source: US Census Bureau.

Thus as a result, transit share is extremely small except in the very largest cities, and then only in the city core:

Transit share as a function of metropolitan size for both central city and suburbs ringing it. Source: Commuting in America III.

So in short, transit is quite simply never going to work to reduce auto VMT significantly at any reasonable cost in the present pattern of US urban development.

Ok. But we should start fixing all this, right? It may have been that American sprawl is "the most destructive development pattern the world has ever seen, and perhaps the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known" in Kunstler's memorable phrase, but we can fix it, no? We can promote Transit Oriented Development, and all will get better?

Only very slowly. The core problem here is the longevity of the housing stock. Here's the number of new housing units completed each year as a fraction of the existing housing stock:

Annual housing unit completions as a percentage of total housing stock 1970-2003. Source: HUD, US Housing Market Conditions, Aug 2006 (Table 4 and Table 25).

As you can see, we only add a tiny and dropping fraction to the housing stock each year - now well less than 2%. Thus any changes we start to make in where we put future housing units will only make a very small difference each year. To get another look at the same things, here's the age distribution of US housing units:

Age distribution of US housing units (Y-axis is cumulative percentage of houses younger than the age on the X-axis). Source: US Census Bureau, American Housing Survey for the United States: 2003.

The median housing unit is 35 years old, and many houses last a century.

To put this in wedge terms, consider the following thought experiment. Suppose, by politically draconian measures, we insist that all new housing development henceforward occurs such that the average driving of residents of those new units will only be half of the resident of existing units and we insist on retiring old units at the same rate we build new ones. That is, we basically force all new development to occur next to transit or in places of very high density. For this inconceivably herculean political effort, what do we get? Well, since about 1.25% or so of units turn over each year, we get a 0.6% wedge - not a major factor in our solution.

Contrast this with the situation for cars and trucks, which have a median life of only 5-6 years. Thus a herculean car replacement policy that insists all new vehicles are twice as fuel efficient as the old ones will create about a 4% wedge (ie something that makes a real difference). And this is why fuel economy responses were the leading demand-side response to the 70s oil shocks, and will probably be even more important going forward.

Age distribution of US light vehicles (Y-axis is cumulative percentage of vehicles younger than the age on the X-axis). Source: Transportation Energy Data Book, Table 3.6.

Finally, let me close with one last graph, which I finally tracked down: what are we all doing out there on the roads?

Breakdown of 2001 household vehicle miles traveled in the United States by purpose. Source: Table 6 of Summary of Travel Trends: 2001 National Household Travel Survey.

As you can see, the largest share of miles go in commuting, but social and recreational mileage is very close behind. Miles on personal errands and shopping are also significant contributions. So we would need to attack several of these categories to have much of an effect on vehicle miles traveled. More on that next time.

Well, I've changed my driving habits, again. Working out of my house was nice, but we couldn't scrounge up any sort of health care. So I just took a job in Charm City. For the first few days, I got in an hour early and walked the neighborhood until I found an 'apartment to let' sign only five blocks away. I moved in yesterday.

The problem around here is what to do with the car. I still must travel on some weekends, and as Stuart mentions above, the train and bus service take over seven hours for a three hour drive, and leave only once per day.

I also need a car for occasional business meetings. The local garages all have waiting lists for monthly parking, and you can get ticketed for feeding the meter in the same spot. Three of those tickets cost the same as monthly parking at a garage a mile away, so I guess I'll stick the car there and ride the Xootr over when I need it.

Why don't you hire a car when you need it?

I lived in Montreal for a year before I got a car, I only got one after I got married.

Montreal is rare amongst North American cities in that it is centralised enough that one can live without a car.

Amongst cities where one could live (maybe) without public transit: Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco...

mostly eastern cities, all densely populated, mostly Canadian cities.

Even in Toronto, which has an extensive public transport system, it's basically no good if you live outside the 416 area) ie only half the population of the GTA (2.3 million/ 5.0 million) and I can tell you if you live more than 2 miles off the subway line in Toronto (most in the north of the City do) then transport is a nightmare.  There is a reason the 401 Highway is one of the widest in the world.

I would add pre-K New Orleans in certain neighborhoods.  Close enough to walk to major employers, food, shopping, services, etc.

Pre-K, 3 of the 5 apartments occupied in my "house" did not have cars.  One bicycled to work, one was retired and one was an artist.  Each made limited use of public transit.

Best Hopes for walkable enighborhoods,

Alan

That's crazy talk.  The guy lives 5 blocks from work.  When we sold our car we told ourselves that we'd rent a car if we needed one.  In over a year, we've never needed one.

Do we live in a densified coastal city?  No, we live in public-transit-hostile Louisville, Kentucky.

I probably would if I didn't already have a car that was paid for years ago.  Renting a car three times a month costs more than the parking garage.
Why don't you join a car sharing program?  I've never done it but the idea of having a car sit in your parking spot for days on end just depreciating would drive me crazy.  
 
Would it be better if you kept it company while depreciating?
They do more than just depreciate, they rust pretty bad if you don't drive them as I found out when my disk brakes needed to be replaced after 3 years and 5K miles.  
Hello SS,

That is why I purchased a used, cheap, small scooter.  It drastically raised my gas mileage, but retains my 'mobility freedom' here in the Asphalt Wonderland.  Obviously, the climate, no mass-transit, too few buses, and lack of urban density make this a good solution for me.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Ohhhh how I hate scooters.
They spew out MORE pollution per minute than a fuel
efficient car.  When I ballparked the figures a while ago my Chevy Sprint (52hp, 1L, 3 cylinder engine) put out less pollution than my 3hp lawn mower!  It only takes around 10hp to cruise the highway and scooters, lawn mowers and other machines of that ilk have no pollution control equipment.  A scotter also doesn't get much better milage than my Sprint (still on the road and gets >60mpg on the highway).

Of course we now use a push mower; but that's mostly been done away with by planting clover, wild strawberries (keeps the kids busy for many hours each summer) and using a neighbours electric push mower when we decide to hack it back.

Of course not using a pollution spewer unless you need to can make a big difference.  In the case of our car the cost of purchase, maintaince, licensing, insurance and plates is many many times the cost of fuel (aprox 6,000 driving km/yr) and, for us, we'd not be able to move the kids on a scooter (the reason to have a car is to get the kids/family somewhere).  I wonder what the cost of a scooter is?  I'm cynical enough to think that the cost of insurnace would swamp the cost of purchase, fuel or maintaince.

Neighbours rent a car only when they need it - but now that they have a second child they're looking at buying a car.  We thought about car sharing - but it doesn't work unless it's local - really local - as you can't just leave the kids behind while you go get a car ...

Cynically I think that when the #@$@$ hits the fan - that small changes like this are irrelevent.  We'll be making big changes and fast.  I'm just too cynical about rising debt, lack of savings and generally being overextended.  Peak oil will deal a nasty blow when it's acknowledged and there is some panic.

There are some decent electric scooters around.

This place in DC has a few:

http://www.skootercommuter.com/

Hello Praetzal,

Thxs for responding.  Agreed, old two-stroke scooters are bad news--I would never own one of those smokers that is too underpowered to ride on city streets.  The recent 4-stroke models are very much improved with computer-controlled programmed fuel injection and other emission goodies:
---------------------------------
Honda's Silverwing is powered by a 582cc DOHC parallel-twin, liquid-cooled motor, putting out a claimed 50hp (@7,500 rpm) and 37 ftlbs of torque (@6,000 rpm), Vibes from the 360-degree crank are kept at bay with twin balance shafts, fuel is injected, emissions are reduced by an exhaust air-injector and catalytic converter, and final drive is by CVT.
----------------------------------

400-600cc Scooters are tiny compared to the big Harleys and Honda Goldwings in engine displacement and acceleration performance.  But if one just needs acceleration superior to most traffic--these scooters are sized just right.  The big bikes and crotch rockets can accelerate like missiles--most car drivers have no appreciation of the unbelievable "get-up and go" these high power machines are capable of achieving.  It is not necessary to have a big bike or crotch rocket unless every now and then you wish to 'goose it' for a thrill.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

A photo of the parking lot at the factory I work. There are both 2 stroke and 4 stroke engines. Almost every engine is 125cc or less. Probably not enough cc's for the current average American, but they preform fine for the workers here.

Click to enlarge photo

Hello Oilfall,

Cool picture!  Looks like about 500 bikes--compare with the acres of real estate required to park 500 cars.  Glad to see all the helmets.  Covered parking is a smart incentive too.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

I get a login request when I try to enlarge the photo.
i agree that vehicles are a major problem, but land use is an equal problem

found this today at the united nations website, its not just transport!!

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

Livestock a major threat to environment
Remedies urgently needed
29 November 2006, Rome - Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent - 18 percent - than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO's Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Long shadow

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the FAO report, Livestock's Long Shadow -Environmental Issues and Options. "The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level," it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Land and water

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth's increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock's presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

Remedies

The report, which was produced with the support of the multi-institutional Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, proposes explicitly to consider these environmental costs and suggests a number of ways of remedying the situation, including:

Land degradation - controlling access and removing obstacles to mobility on common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods and silvopastoralism, together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; payment schemes for environmental services in livestock-based land use to help reduce and reverse land degradation.

Atmosphere and climate - increasing the efficiency of livestock production and feed crop agriculture. Improving animals' diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure.

Water - improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.

These and related questions are the focus of discussions between FAO and its partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock production at global consultations in Bangkok this week. These discussions also include the substantial public health risks related to the rapid livestock sector growth as, increasingly, animal diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector growth can also lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets.

"Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface" and yet the FAO are projecting meat and milk production to double in the near future? And the environmental problems associated with spiralling livestock numbers are going to be helped with those feeble "remedies"? Why can't we just encourage people to reduce their gluttonous consumption of meat and milk?
If you are talking about scooters with 2 cycle smoke belching engines, then I would agree with you.

My scooter is an e-max and it runs on electricity generated by wind power from the grid. I also have 4 small solar panels that I use to recharge the batteries in the summer.

The only bad thing about the scooter is that I do not use it much in December or January because of the weather here in Utah. When the weather is bad I drive the Prius to work. If they start selling a plugin version I will be first in line to buy one of those.

The black and decker electric mower is a good solution for the lawn duties along with an electric trimmer.

 I always liked the looks of the Chevy sprint, to bad GM does not still build new ones.

Hi Stuart

If we can't get the suburbs back to town, why not bring town to the suburbs? In my estate in Coventry ,UK, I notice we have very few amenities within walking distance. This is because the town planners who designed it didn't believe in mixed-use. I think there might be some mileage (he he) in building small local centres at strategic points in suburbia with shops and workplaces. It'll mean that people have the option to live closer to work and have a walk or a much shorter drive to their local shops. These centers could maybe be linked together by freeway, tram or rail.
 This might be a way to avoid Kunstler-burbs, basically by bringing some granularity to existing low density suburbs. These new "town centres" might contain higher density housing and may attract locals to live there, abandoning the most hard-to-reach 'burbs in an energy shortage.
 I think that this will be the cheapest and easiest way to the future. It gives people ways to localise.

I second this motion. It wouldn't be too difficult to develop a town center in many suburbs.  Seize a block by emminet domain and develop a grocery, a few offices, a train or trolley station, ground floor retail, etc.  It would look like a traditional American small town.  People could then walk, bike, scooter, or what have you the few miles to their town center instead driving 30 or 40 minutes as they do now.
Great post. Personal automobile use is the "low-hanging fruit" of conservation. The main questions to be answered are:

  1. What will stop people using personal automobiles for commuting purposes
  2. What will stop people using personal automobiles for social and recreational purposes
  3. What will stop people using personal automobiles for shopping

The obvious, but politically nigh-on-impossible, answer is to tax gasoline to a level that is so painful that people have no choice but to use the bus, train or other (where such exists) to commute, reduce their social and recreational motoring, and plan their shopping trips to buy as much as produce as they need for as long a period as economically practicable.

Aside from the difficulty of finding a politician to back such a vote-losing proposition, another problem with the obvious solution is that it is a burden borne foremost by the poorest people first, and thus may be seen as a tax predominantly on the poor. Arguably, this is not in itself a problem as long as alternatives are available at a reasonable price and utility.

It may therefore make sense to use a significant proportion of increased gasoline taxes to create and subsidise a more efficient, reliable, pratical, cleaner and cheaper public network of buses, trains etc. In this way, people get financially squeezed out of their cars but ultimately benefit financially and otherwise from a better transport system than previously existed. In turn, richer people who elected to continue to use private transport would essentially be directly subsidising the poorer masses who are forced into using public trasnportation.

These are just some knee-jerk thoughts to Stuart's post. Interested in thoughts about practicality or otherwise of the above, as well as ideas about the sort of public transportation required. As an example, I believe that local networks of buses (similar to school bus system) would be required to deliver people from home to station and station to place-of-work.

High gas taxes are practiced in Europe for decades and they work just fine. They are not a burden on the poor at all because everybody can reduce their consumption simply by buying a smaller car, which is exactly what happens. So the only ones put out of their misery are oversized cars. People still commute. They still drive for fun. They just move less sheet metal.
My point exactly (I am English, living in UK). As you stae our private car fleet is more efficient (in MPG) than that of the US as a result of higher taxes on gasoline.

I believe that even higher taxes would force people out of their cars and am not in principle opposed to this, as long as a substitute service is provided with the taxes raised. This means more bus, train, tram and underground services operating more efficiently over a wider area (such that door-to-door service is almost available as with private cars) at a lower cost than at present.

However, on the whole, you are right, the LOWEST hanging fruit in conservation in the US is a transition to smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles. That would however necesitate a change in the non-negotiable way of life.

Only people who have six figure salaries talk about non-negotiable lifestyles in the US. Most everyone else has to fight daily for a minimum of security and luxury. I don't take any of that crap talk seriously. Market forces and taxation work in the US just as well as anywhere else. The difference is that political parties in Europe do their job (to govern) reasonably well, while the current political establishment in the US is a hopelessly ineffective, broken system.
I live in the UK. Petrol tax is high here compared to almost anywhere, but I think this dates from pre-North Sea days and was designed to limit the economic damage of imported oil at a time when the car was not seen as a birthright. It must have been very easy to keep this high tax in place after N Sea oil had been discovered. The US seems to have the opposite problem, in that domestic oil was abundant in the early days and people now violently resist the notion of taxing it heavily.

The point I'm making is that high or low taxes are just a matter of historical expediency, not sound economic management by the government. In the UK so called "green" taxes have actually fallen since Labour came into power 9 years ago and the pre-budget speech by Gordon Brown contained just a couple of pathetically mild measures which will make no difference to anything. The US political system might be broken, but no more so than in the UK. Economic growth is still seen as the number 1 priority vote winner and the environmental is more of a lip service thing.

No petrol taxes were hiked in the 90s by successive Conservative Chancellors, and then by Gordon Brown.

The 'escalator' was a tacit agreement by both parties that petrol duties could be raised by inflation + 3%.

The logic was simple.  It was easier to raise taxes on petrol, than on VAT or income tax.  The UK raises £20bn pa from petrol taxation, a very large sum, and has some of the highest petrol taxes in the world.

In 2000, the straw broke the camel's back.  Petrol crept over the 80p/ litre level.  A group of truckers, farmers, and others blockaded the fuel depots, sparking a popular revolt, and a nearly complete shutdown of the country for 3 days.

Since then, guided by Tony Blair's grasp of what is acceptable to the common man (and the Daily Mail) and in particular the key swing voter 'Mondeo Man', a suburban dwelling, car driving bloke, the Chancellor has not been allowed anywhere near the motorist.

I'm really struggling with this comment, because it seems to me that the problem is more that the American  public simply does not want to be told that they need to reduce their exuberant lifestyles, and the lack of political will to address our problems here is simply a recognition by politicians that to do so would be , well, counterproductive to their reelection efforts. Why is Europe different?  I suppose the people there have different values, and those values are reflected in their policies.
Well, look what we have just done.

Not about cars for sure, but involved in the small problem of transport in general:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/6173795.stm

Aberdeen Airport is to be extended to enable transatlantic flights. Cost? £300 million

Should be ready by 2015.

Will make a nice skate board park from 2020 onwards.

If we look at user fees aka bus fare as a tax then it becomes one of the most regressive taxes ever levied.  In my decades of work in public transit I always advocated the elimination of bus fares.  In total the bus fares brought in a little less than driver wages.  The costs of benefits, mechanics' wages, office salaries, fuel and parts, and other costs were covered by taxes on the whole population.  As a government service we added the tax of bus fares to the poorest people in our communities.
For several years I drove a downtown parking shuttle where people could parked for free and rode for free.  The state provided a per passenger subsidy to the transit system. Ridership was so high on the free shuttle that it was the only route that made a profit for the agency.
Free busses have been tried a few times in Sweden in small or very small towns. The result use to be less walking and bicycling and no difference in the ammount of car travel.

If you want to get people out of their cars onto collective transport the fare matters little here but it helps to have a dense schedule, preferably every 20 min or less, good cleaning of the wehicels, air conditioning and they are for some strange reason more attractive if they run on rails.

The income from fares is usually about 30-50% of the total cost for collective traffic in Sweden. The tax subsidy is large :-( The only collective traffic running withouth subsidy are the main rail routes, private bus companies between some large towns, airport shuttles and air travel from large airports.

About the subsidy - the person most responsible for Karlsruhe having such an excellent and forward looking transit system has always been very upfront in saying the system will always require money apart from the fares, but that paying for the non-monetary benefits of the system is a worthwhile exchange.

Cleaner air and streets not full of cars, for example, or being able to enjoy an evening downtown without having to worry about driving home, or the children who can ride the system for free or a very small fee, or the access to the city for people who live in smaller towns without a vehicle (that one tends to have the merchants support him very strongly, by the way).

In other words, much like the parks and playgrounds, or the museums and theaters, as long as access is broad enough, such things are worth having, even if they don't pay for themselves in a free market sense.

Good questions, but they will be more effective if rephrased:

  • What will attract people to alternatives to using personal automobiles for commuting purposes?

  • What will attract people to alternatives to using personal automobiles for social and recreational purposes?

  • What will attract people to alternatives to using personal automobiles for shopping?

The key is in meeting commuter expectations rather than thwarting them.

One aspect, which has yet to receive much discussion in this thread, is pricing other than fuel.  One of the reason that people in the U.S. drive so much is that