Add innovative ideas like the electric 'super bus' developed at the TU Delft, which will use its own road track, and we're off for a very efficient future.

Electric cars too are the way forward.

Electrifying mobility not only means we can plug in carbon-neutral renewables like wind or solar, we can even go carbon-negative via biomass. Each time we were to use this carbon-negative energy in our car, bus or train, we would be actively removing historic CO2 from the atmosphere!

However, the most important task ahead is designing dirt-cheap electric cars for the developing world. If we don't succeed, we will see flex-fuel Tata Nano-like cars by the tens of millions over the coming decades. And that means ethanol or biodiesel, mixed with oil and coal-derived liquid fuels, which are all pretty inefficient. Much better use the biomass for the production of carbon-negative electricity to power EVs and towns. We need an ultra-cheap electric Nano (at least if we assume that we can't persuade developing middle classes not to buy individual cars - for the foreseeable future they will buy cars, simply because they are the ultimate symbol of the 'modernity' they are beginning to experience.)

So this is really an important challenge our engineers must take and they must succeed: develop hyper-cheap EVs for rapidly developing nations.

Else, the climate benefits of us in the wealthy West switching to mass transit or EVs won't make much of a difference.

The bulk of the growth in transport energy and mobility over the coming 50 years will occur in 'developing' countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa and many other countries of the Global South.

Something rich countries could certainly help developing countries with: set up trains, light rail, bus rapid transit, etc.  No offsets, trading credits, just help the countries build the things so that they need less cars -- and it's much more efficient, anyway.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

In another case, I read how Ohio is looking into rail service between Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.  It is great that this is finally happening, but all of these cities are huge metro areas that are so interdependent.  How on earth did we get here?

I hope we can finally get some sense and make projects like this happen once and for all.

I'm a big advocate of suspended monorails and PRT schemes simply because I had to live through the massive disruption caused by installation of BART and other light rail schemes. With monorails you drop pylons and hang rails and with standard rail you tear up every inch of road along the route and reroute all the subsurface infrastructure. It's not pretty.

PRT schemes offer not only widely distributed passenger rail but distributed freight delivery that could automate delivery of pallet sized loads to local loading docks. This could mean a great deal of savings in road maintenance as it is the larger vehicles that cause the majority of wear.

Unless somebody comes up with a bio-asphalt we are soon going to discover that our federal, state and county governments cannot afford to lay down miles of crude oil asphalt as a driving surface and all of those electric car schemes will suffer accordingly.  They all like nice smooth roads as much as your basic SUV does. Luckily they provide a nice resource of recyclable steel that can be used for track and rolling stock on the new rail we have to lay.

The big question is going to be "how much of our world are we going to tear up to lay down new railbed?" Unless we look again at monorails the answer is quite a lot.

Put the Carbon Back

the proposals for PRT, because they're very light cars, use very light structures. we find ourselves building a great deal in the imagination and it starts adding up, much of it using metal or concrete, and building new elevated rail corridors inside cities or between, for full-weight trains, might be too much, considering. elevated bustransit, like at airports, shuttling people to important places from city-limits intercity depots, might be better -- loop service with elevated stations and various entry/exit ramps for returning to street-level -- might be less resource intensive and allow greater route flexibility.

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/prtquick.htm

I wonder though about cases where it'll be less about tearing up the ground for new rail than about unearthing lines that have gone unused for a while and refurbishing them. Oh, and converting all those rail trails back into transport lanes? That could be unpopular. Around here, there aren't a lot of commuters that use the rail trail to get to work, but there are some. Mostly it's about exercise.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

This is the way to go to replace car and even airplane travel and eliminate their GHGs.  With light commuter rail that "flys" in the tube on an air cushion.  These high speed rail cars are built more like aircraft than trains.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

@jrynn: density is excellent. sustainably building, what, 12–15 NYCs to house america would be pretty tough.

And the problems you note in terms of mode change is very important, but I think it can be at least ameliorated with high-quality public transit.  In NYC, seniors take the bus as opposed to the subway -- but it's much better than being stuck if you really shouldn't drive and you're in the suburbs.

I've often wondered why public transit is not made so that it's easier for packages and strollers (believe me, I have not enjoyed taking a stroller with two little children on a bus).  The key, I think, would be to 1) have the buses/light rail at street level, 2) have a place for packages/strollers spread throughout the vehicle, and 3), ideally, some sort of standardized shopping cart that would fit into some sort of standardized slot on the bus or light rail.