Brent

There's an interesting documentary at 8:00 PM tonight on PBS about the future of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. Miles O'Brien looks at three cities -- Denver, Portland, and NYC -- with different strategies for dealing with population growth. In addition to the broadcast, the documentary is streamed online here:

Road to the Future ~ Video: Full Documentary | Blueprint America

stopcrazypp

Very good documentary. A few of the things they didn't point out is the gas prices aren't high enough yet for most Americans to feel the squeeze and the fact we have so much land relative to population compared to Europe also contributes to our slow movement in adopting transit alternatives.

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Because there are tons of crazy people in this world...

TEG

The 'experiment' with high gas prices last summer proved that consumers will quickly switch to buying more fuel efficient vehicles (and seek more alternative transportation) when you get past $4/gallon.

I expect gas prices will zoom up again once the US auto companies are ready with their new crop of 40MPG+ vehicles.

I wonder how much of these things are random and how much are planned events? There are a lot of people out there turning a lot of 'control knobs' trying to direct our future.

doug

Also showed how people can't do math. Apparently, a good number sold their newish SUVs at huge losses. The loss they took was significantly more than the difference they would have saved with a more fuel efficient car. But that price at the pump has a huge psychological impact. An interesting issue to study for behavioral economists like Dan Ariely (Predictably / Irrational » Book).

Tdave

Math can be funny like that...

Getting 19 mpg instead of 12 mpg on a truck...

... saves THREE times as much gas as ...

Getting 45 mpg instead of 30 mpg on a car.

vfx

Loved that book!

The show had some good points though I wanted a more optimistic end. (Yes I'm a "happy ending" guy) (I mean at the movies).

I liked the "two reporters" approach to storytelling and that Portland came off really smart, and really wet.

I kept screaming at Denver NOoo..Don't become LAaaaaa...

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TEG

For SF bay area folks - this is showing on KQED Friday at 9PM.

Blueprint America: Road to the Future | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

dpeilow

Youtube please

Re gas prices: people will get used to it. We were paying $10 per gallon here last summer and people kept driving. There is a psychological element: I'm sure the switch to litres in the UK (and the consequential lower numbers on the pump) had a lot to do with changing peoples' perceptions of the cost of fuel. When it gets too high in the US, you'll go metric

vfx

Three dollars and fifty cents.

That was the point where US citizens had enough. They stopped driving, took public transit and carpooled. They also stopped buying SUVs and demanded Electric options.

When gasoline goes back up to $4 a gallon I would imagine after a precipitous drop in drivership that it would slowly creep back up a bit but never reach previous levels.

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The world loves to be deceived.

SByer

I read a recent article (USA Today?) about a study that $2 was the beginning of the tipping point - when the national average went over $2/g, the car size trend lines correlated.

But then, if gas is crossing $2/g at the bottom of a recession, with the Tata Nano coming online soon, well, my guess is that within two years $4/g will be a happy hindsight...