Plan now for the flight from oil

Downward trends in car travel and surging public transport usage mark a turning point in history and a challenge for policymakers and politicians.

For the past 40 years or so, the game has been to plan for more car traffic and less public transport use.

Oil may have taken a back seat in the headlines amid the global economic downturn, but black gold is still the substance our economy depends on — and it’s about to get more expensive.
The combination of high oil prices and the global recession have exposed the sectors of the economy most dependent on oil, such as airlines and the car industry. General Motors and Chrysler are now bankrupt and the Australian car industry is expecting a sharp downturn in sales for 2009 — from just over one million vehicles in 2008 to about 850,000 this year. Once thriving, the international airline industry predicts it will lose $9 billion this year, doubling last year’s loss. Air France is even looking to run a train service from London to Paris.

It is no coincidence that

oil-dependent industries have faltered as oil prices have risen. Once a view held largely by doomsayers, oil depletion and peak oil are upon us, and acknowledged widely in the oil industry. Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association chairman Eric Streitberg recently said we were only three years away from oil beginning its terminal production decline. Others say the decline has already begun. This means less, but more expensive, oil.

The Age