The oil crisis

The national conversation we are having 35 years after the Arab Oil Embargo is disappointingly shallow and limited on all sides. Why is it not apparent that the solutionto the energy crisis must include a totally different concept of how people move around their neighborhoods, cities and states and how we build communities? Much like the corporate "solution" to long lines at the gas pump in the 1970s being to build bigger gas tanks on cars instead of cars that used dramatically less gasoline, the current thinking of drilling our way out of the high cost of gasoline or finding a silver bullet crop to produce ethanol only delays the solution and increases the repercussions. Other "fuels" have trade-offs as well.

No matter how we power cars, they are still capsules containing one or two people. And no matter what the power source, they will require ever-increasing miles of roadway. That roadway requires all manner of natural and financial resources to build and maintain. And the problem gets greater all the time. By looking only at greater production and alternative fuels, we continue to encourage urban sprawl and discourage lifestyle changes that would make our world a more pleasant place to live. We can cover the earth with pavement and send connecting ramps high into the sky. We can put so many holes in the earth, the whole world looks likeKilgore in the 1950s. But none of this deals with the problems of huge costs to the economy, the disparities in income, and the damage to the environment inherent in our current thinking about transportation.

We must develop communities that connect nearly self-sustaining neighborhoods with each other. Neighborhoods must be designed so residents can get to schools, stores, church, restaurants and jobs by walking, biking or using, non-polluting vehicles. We must connect those neighborhoods with convenient, safe and welcoming public transit. We must connect cities with high-speed, affordable mass transit. That all will involve a lot of planning and will not come quickly. So far, no one has really proposed any solutions that will fix anything quickly, and arguably nothing that addresses the problems of the way we think about getting from one point to another.

Democrats in the U.S. House did appropriate $1.7 billion for grants to cities to expand public transit and decrease fares. That's a baby step in the right direction. But that isn't even enough to help cities with the kind of planning necessary to devise alternate transportation let alone implement it.