Roger: You neglected to mention that your plan is not workable without a major movement back to the urban centres.Mass transit and dense living arrangements are pretty well inseparable.

BrianT,
Buses, bicycles and carpooling to train stations from park and rides would work as an interim measure. People would squeal, but not as loudly as the will if they have to abandon their homes.

What we're lacking in the US is leadership with a clear plan. Peak means we've used about half the crude and we're going to have a decline in supply, not that we're immediately falling off a cliff into the Olduvai Gorge. Even the Export land hypothesis is a slope over 10 years.
Bob Ebersole