[NeoPeasant]

The are local governments all over the world diligently working to collect hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and hand them over to road construction companies in order to expand traffic carrying capacity to far above what exists today.

I just attended a "Governor's Transportation Summit" last Friday in Utah. It included appearances from the Governor, both our senators, our entire congressional delegation, and numerous mayors, county commisioners, and state legislators. I sat and listened to about 6 hours of speeches. The main message was that vehicle miles traveled in the state were going to most assuredly double by 2030 and that billions needed to be raised and spent to build the required traffic carrying capacity. Never once was there voiced any concern about whether the supplies of energy for transportation would be adequate to sustain all this projected traffic growth.

I did manage to pose a question near the end of whether there were any contingency plans within all these highway plans to deal with a worldwide energy supply crisis. The road advocates sat silently for a while, finally the question was fielded by a Utah Transit Authority official. He explained that large numbers of retired busses, and surplus light rail cars bought from other cities (still bearing their old paint jobs) were sitting in lots available to be put into emergency service.

I am thinking that I should buy me a cheap suit and take time off work to attend these roadbuilder's public input rallies. It would be an excellent time to introduce peak oil to the public and explain how it implies that hundreds of millions spent on highway expansion would be hundreds of millions wasted.

Has anyone else attempted any anti road activism based on the premise that peak oil will soon make additional traffic capacity redundant?

[Elfstrom]

The anti-sprawl campaigns of some non-governmental organizations in Ontario are starting to introduce peak oil as one of the arguments against future highway expansion plans.

[IanC]

Recently, here in Oregon, our Dept. of Transportation had one of these public input sessions. There was a good discussion about not only peaking oil production and the fact that overall traffic volume might level off and decline within the 20-30 year time frame they were talking about, but the fact that we can't depend on taxing gasoline to pay for the expansion as gas prices increase.

I was happy to see that PO is slowly getting into the debate. Now I'd like to see some talk about rehabilitating our rail system. In the Willamette Valley, there is a wide network of old rail lines that could really help move people and goods over the next 100 years. Hopefully, we'll get leadership in the State to look into investing in rail....yeah right.

-IanC
Portland, OR

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', '
')Has anyone else attempted any anti road activism based on the premise that peak oil will soon make additional traffic capacity redundant?

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'I') am thinking that I should buy me a cheap suit and take time off work to attend these roadbuilder's public input rallies.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '
')Have you followed the antics of The Yes Men?

They parody businessmen and economists sometimes been mistaken for the real thing.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I') attended a Central Texas (Austin-San Antonio) corridor meeting recently. While their agenda includes implementing high-speed rail between SA and Austin eventually, that particular meeting was largely about toll-road construction and basically amounted to a circle jerk between DOT executives, mayoral officials and state reps. Grossed me out completely.

[jaws]

So what? It's their money to lose.

No wait...