Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron38
$3 a gallon gasoline started changing a lot of minds, and $4 a gallon will change a lot more. The change will probably be sooner rather than later.
When a critical mass of people start using transit regularly because it's cheaper, they'll start screaming for it's improvement, and the politicians will take notice.
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No, they'll scream for more fuel-efficient cars and/or substitute energy sources for their cars. Do you remember huge increases in transit mode share from 1973-1980? If oil gets prohibitively expensive, people won't give up cars, they'll just give up oil-guzzling cars. The biggest driver of transit mode share is land use, and until the country starts running up against significant scarcity in developable land (whether naturally or by government urban growth boundary laws), transit will be a niche market for almost every city. That's not to say that well-funded transit can't obtain a somewhat improved mode share and provide many more rides, but the instructive comparison here is Europe, where transit is very well-subsidized but most European countries still have national transit mode shares in the 10-15% (obviously the major cities are a bit higher). Even in Europe, except for the urbanite population, transit is the exception. And of course, Euros have coped with their different cost structure with substantially more fuel-efficient cars.