high prices are the only thing which will bring about overall positive changes.

it's worked in amsterdam and paris. see below.

Paris:
http://www.commoncurrent.com/notes/2008/06/bike-share-the-future-of-carb...

Ams:
http://www.commoncurrent.com/notes/2008/06/europe-dispatch-eu-green-capi...

Governments now get most of the profits. After nationalization I guess that they will get all. There is no end to greed.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23178.html

There is nothing quite like walking 50 miles for medical care.

http://www.fistulatrust.org/new_centres.html

Long before I knew what Peak Oil was, I decided I'd live a life without a car. It was due mostly to a spat of accidents I had (none my fault). I sold my car, rented an apartment near downtown and started living car-less (Lived in Waterloo, Canada, POP: 300,000). The transition was difficult at first. I had to do things like "time" out my life..if the bus came at 5 15, you had to be there at 5 15.

After some time I discovered life wasn't really that bad without a car. Over the 6 years I lived without a vehicle, I saved in excess of 30 000 dollars. I worked in IT and managed to travel for work. While co-workers would rent a car, I'd take the train and use city transit (you get some weird looks in HR submitting a bus transfer to recoup your 2.50.

Living without a car was probably the best thing I ever did in my life. I learned that one gets to know their community MUCH better on foot. You live and feel your neighborhood, something you can't do in a car. You also eat better. Fast food restaurants tend to locate where ease of access for cars is priority 1, so when you're living in a walkable neighborhood, you're more likely to sit down and eat & eat healthy. I think I lost something like 40 pounds in the first year of being car free. Vacationing took on a whole new meaning. Travel to a city that was 100 KM's away meant taking a train or bus but I discovered the riches of the city that I'd have never seen in a car.

The only times I needed a car was when I'd travel into the country just for a drive so I would rent one. Getting groceries was a little inconvenient but I learned to shop every few days rather than in massive bulk. This lowered my food costs because nothing went bad. You bought what you could carry home & that pushed me to plan my meals versus eating on the fly.

I've since bought a car that I use for work (oil industry IT consultant). I drive it for a living, but off work, I rarely use it, drive only to the gym and live in an urban neighborhood in Calgary, Canada. It was interesting that the minute I bought a car, all the bad habits returned...eating fast food (gained weight), traveling all over to buy things or just driving aimlessly wasting gas. I no longer save as much as I did before & I'm not sure I'm actually better off. The convenience of a car forces me to demand a higher income to pay for the car.

Perhaps rather than asking people to walk everywhere or ride a bike, we could ask them to think about the benefits of life without a car. When I didn't drive, most people assumed I had been charged with impaired or was just poor or a hippie. We need to change the mindset of automobile ownership and show the positive sides of car free living without getting too "granola bar" in the message. Apparently, the trend in Japan is to live car free...perhaps we should export that to North America.

Rather than saying "stop driving to save the world" how about saying if you stop driving so much, you'll save 10's of thousands of dollars, improve your health & have far less stress you would if you drive. Compare it to smoking where the positives (saved money, better health) probably did alot more than threatening people with the fear of lung cancer.

Just had a chat with my neighbor who happens to be an airline pilot and pilot trainer. I had just come home from grocery shopping at the supermarket, I had walked there and back. We chatted about the building around the corner which has been empty since about two years ago when it was foreclosed upon.
Very nice building, excellent location the developer ran out of money, the apartments were supposed to be on sale for a mere $450k for a two bedroom apartment. Well the pigeons are roosting there now.
My neighbor still doesn't get it. Well, his job depends on him not getting it. It's not up to me to break the news to him, so I didn't.

Ride a Bike or Take a Hike!

I agree. It must be a grassroots response. It won't come from government edict, no matter how positive they make it sound.

Sure, it sounds fun to walk and enjoy the great outdoors, but frankly, except for a few regions with mild weather, the outdoors suck. Someone in San Francisco or coastal Los Angeles could comfortably walk outdoors 11 months of the year, but try telling that to someone in Buffalo or Phoenix or Houston. That's why we have cars with air conditioning. I agree as anyone else here about needing to get out of cars, but the problem of weather protection is intractable as long as driving and air conditioning remain affordable. All I can say is, I've lived in New York before. New Yorkers get out and walk in all weather. People will just have to get used to being sweaty and cold and wet and all the other discomforts of the great outdoors.

The problem with this is most unenlightened people will just give the response "I'd rather not". How do you overcome a response like that? It seems useless trying to convince people who have already decided they won't be convinced. Unfortunately it's the people who understand science the least, so explaining it to them in scientific terms is meaningless to them, they lack the ability to understand the problem, and don't think they can affect the solution.