Decisions from the Oil Crisis

I was chatting with a researcher for a YouTube channel recently and they asked why transportation in the US is different than other cities around the world. Obviously that’s a long and winding discussion and I have a bookcase full of answers that lead to our current auto dependence.

I recommended starting with Peter Norton and going from there but I’ve also always been interested in the times when countries decided to go a different direction than the United States for whatever reason.

I think another inflection point in the rise of autocentricity was during the 60s and 70s when many places around the world including our favorite examples of positive active transportation policy in Europe and Asia were starting down the path of motordom.

But then a series of events such as the oil crisis led to different outcomes and decisions. For example the Dutch and Danes chose to invest heavily in bikes and transit while at the same time people here in the US started buying smaller vehicles which led to more imports and better fuel efficiency.

That conservation didn’t last long as we ended up with the SUV boom of the 1990s and early 2000s. But the investments the Dutch made have been long lasting.

Another interesting example of a decision made during this era was shared in detail by S(ubstack)-Bahn. Facing declining transit ridership and in desperate need of capital investment, the French embarked on a long term transit investment program that has led to their current impressive network of transit in cities around the country. Part of this change was the implementation of a regional payroll tax that supported transit investment.

Of course the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the next best time was now. We can always change course and make better decisions that impact the future. We see other trees and transit networks. If we decided to do so, we could eventually get there too.