Has the Industrialized World Reached Peak Travel?

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Has the Industrialized World Reached Peak Travel?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Saturday January 1, 2011 @07:12AM from the i-blame-the-lack-of-flying-cars dept.

Harperdog sends this excerpt from Miller-McCune: "A study (abstract) of eight industrialized countries, including the United States, shows that seemingly inexorable trends — ever more people, more cars and more driving — came to a halt in the early years of the 21st century, well before the recent escalation in fuel prices. It could be a sign, researchers said, that the demand for travel and the demand for car ownership in those countries has reached a saturation point. 'With talk of "peak oil," why not the possibility of "peak travel" when a clear plateau has been reached?' asked co-author Lee Schipper ... Most of the eight countries in the study have experienced declines in miles traveled by car per capita in recent years. The US appears to have peaked at an annual 8,100 miles by car per capita, and Japan is holding steady at 2,500 miles."

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Far from it... by RobertM1968 · 2011-01-01 07:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

We simply either cant spend the money, wont spend the money or cant/wont approve new infrastructure projects that will ease the traffic burden. One prime example was ripping down the West Side Highway in NYC (instead of fixing or replacing it), and then "wondering" why congestion increased when "suddenly" the drivers who used to use the WSH are now on surface streets or migrating to the FDR drive.

--
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
1. Re:Far from it... by AliasMarlowe · 2011-01-01 07:23 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Furthermore, the paradigm of "peak $thing" is not necessarily applicable to every fashionable $thing.
  Travel is constrained by the carrying capacity of roads and junctions. If investment in these does not keep pace with demand for capacity, then the demand is throttled by the negative effects of congestion. As population density increases in some region, it becomes harder (disproportionately more expensive) to increase the carrying capacity of roads in proportion - the number of choke points increases and congestion increases. The low density exurbs have no such problem, except when it comes to commuting to a high density downtown...
  
  --
  Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
2. Re:Far from it... by cduffy · 2011-01-01 07:50 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  As population density increases in some region, it becomes harder (disproportionately more expensive) to increase the carrying capacity of roads in proportion
  This is true. However, a conclusion that sprawl is cheaper to maintain would be wildly inaccurate.
  I spent some time reviewing alternatives for the Austin Comprehensive Plan -- discussing zoning, city layout, pollution levels, cost to build and maintain roads, man-hours and funds wasted by commuting, and the like for several different development scenarios. The high-density, compact city was not only environmentally preferable -- it was by far the most economically efficient way to manage our anticipated growth.
  Increasing capacity of existing roads (while still keeping them focused around single-occupancy vehicles) is inordinately expensive, yes. On the other hand, planning a compact, high-density city that puts people in walking or cycling distance of their work, schools and shopping avoids creation of those vehicle-miles altogether -- and creates a more livable, healthier city to boot.
3. Re:Far from it... by TooMuchToDo · 2011-01-01 08:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Which will work fine until oil is at $120-150/barrel, and you're spending a non-negligible amount on fuel for commuting and can't afford your mortgage and food.
  There are billions of people between India and China who are going to be driving soon. And who will be using oil to do so. Don't kid yourself, the suburbs are unsustainable.
4. Re:Far from it... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-01-01 08:27 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Europeans do compressed cities just fine, and since you're in DC, i'll say that Ballston and Courthouse are a really good example of high density living.
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
5. Re:Far from it... by Scott+Wood · 2011-01-01 08:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You claim to speak for all Americans and Europeans?
  I would much rather live in a proper city (they're not all slums) than a suburb or exurb. I hate being tied to a huge hulk of oil-gobbling pollution-spewing metal that I must take everywhere I go (and always be sober to do so), with so much land being dedicated to the storage of said hulks of metal at every destination (you say you don't like concrete -- do you like asphalt?). Unfortunately, the city I live in (Austin, but it applies in much of the US) has zoned mostly low density and thus high density areas are expensive due to limited supply relative to demand, and jobs are scattered in the suburbs, so I'm stuck with the car.
  If you like your exurb (but apparently not the one you work in, since you feel the need to commute), fine, but don't complain about gas tax increases or other driving charges to pay for your highways and to keep CO2 and oil consumption under control. Don't complain if you get charged higher utility rates than urban customers because you need more pipe/wire distance per person. Don't complain if more of your local taxes have to be spent on police and fire coverage to cover the same number of people. Don't complain if state/federal tax money is spent on the more efficient population centers, particularly for things like transit. Don't complain that natural gas/electricity has to be kept cheap so you can heat/cool your large detached house.
6. Re:Far from it... by arkenian · 2011-01-01 08:39 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  and a decent yard between us and noisy neighbors who don't share my sleep cycle. Much better to sit in traffic a bit than to live in some city center.
  I feel obliged to note here:
  while most apartments are cheap as hell and you don't notice this, it is perfectly possible to design apartment buildings so the noise factor (from neighbors) is not an issue. While I've lived in a lot of worse places since, when I lived in Boston, one of my neighbors was a professional violin player, who practiced a great deal, but his playing could only be heard in the hall, not from neighboring units. It was actually almost a problem.... the noise insulation was so good, that the FIRE ALARM went off in the hall, and I could barely hear it in my bedroom.
  Sadly, the noise insulation from the outside was not as good, but that was because it didn't have modern windows (which is an easy thing to do in a modern building)
  Don't get me wrong, I mostly agree with you. But I felt obliged to note that it IS possible to make an apartment building which gives its tenants privacy, even if only so that people would know to look for one if they're stuck in the city.
7. Re:Far from it... by cduffy · 2011-01-01 08:58 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Unfortunately, the city I live in (Austin, but it applies in much of the US) has zoned mostly low density and thus high density areas are expensive due to limited supply relative to demand, and jobs are scattered in the suburbs, so I'm stuck with the car.
  Howdy, neighbor!
  I recently moved from up around Lamar and Rundberg (still own a house there -- renting it out until the market gets better) down to the new (built in 2005) condos on East 6th and Pedernales.
  It's a great place -- big gated courtyard (the dog has more room to run than he did in the backyard of the house), cheap to maintain ($176/mo HOA fee includes everything but electricity -- Internet, gas, water, waste, maintenance, etc -- and my electric bill is down by more than that $176/mo)... and the walls are thick enough that when I ask my neighbors if my dog barking annoyed them, they tell me they couldn't hear a thing. (I'm inclined to believe them -- they also own dogs, and I never hear their pets bark except from the hall... so either everyone but me has a silent pet, or we have really good noise insulation). Right now I commute by bicycle (or the train, if I'm feeling lazy) to work up around Northcross and Anderson (~9 miles each way), but I have a few friends with jobs in the middle of downtown, so there's a very good chance that next time I'm looking for work I'll be able to find something with a short east-west commute.
  More to the point, though -- it was cheap. Sure, the new square-downtown highrise buildings are as expensive as you'd expect -- and sure, East 6th used to be the ghetto -- but it's totally possible to buy a place "downtown enough" for under $150K.
  Of course, I don't know your circumstances -- for me, it was resigning from Dell that freed me to move here -- but the point is that if you haven't even looked at whether there's anything downtown because you're expecting everything to run $400K+... go ahead and look again. You might be surprised.
8. Re:Far from it... by cduffy · 2011-01-01 09:02 · Score: 2
  
  I'm familiar with the details of the bond issue you spoke of -- "familiar with the details" meaning that I actually went down the line items and read up on exactly what they propose. Your third paragraph has a few half-truths -- but is mostly full of outright lies. Example: Nothing in the bond issue creates bicycle-only streets -- for that matter, even the failed "bike boulevard" plan wouldn't have created bicycle-only streets.
  A bit more accuracy in your future flaming would be appreciated.
9. Re:Far from it... by cduffy · 2011-01-01 09:11 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Huh. See, I'm sitting here in a high-owner-occupancy-percentage gated condo in downtown Austin with 14-foot ceilings, outstanding noise isolation, a big courtyard to play with the dog, a enjoyable daily workout by doing my commute by bike... and I'm pretty damned happy with my quality of life.
  "Slum"? I don't see it.
10. Re:Far from it... by c6gunner · 2011-01-01 09:14 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Which will work fine until oil is at $120-150/barrel, and you're spending a non-negligible amount on fuel for commuting and can't afford your mortgage and food.
  Nonsense. Oil already hit $120 a few years back, and I don't know anyone who had to chose between commuting and traveling. Even if it hits $200 per barrel 5 years from now, my car will be ready for replacement, and I can buy another one which uses half as much fuel.
  
  There are billions of people between India and China who are going to be driving soon. And who will be using oil to do so. Don't kid yourself, the suburbs are unsustainable.
  Yes, billions of people in India and China will be able to afford $150/barrel fuel, but people in first world nations won't. Nice logic there.
11. Re:Far from it... by AK+Marc · 2011-01-01 09:18 · Score: 3
  
  But we Americans and Europeans don't want to live that way.
  
  You've obviously never been to Europe or any major American city. They already live like that and like it. There are about two million people living on the island of Manhattan. Obviously, your opinion presented as fact is wrong.
  
  City planners never account for quality of life.
  
  Again, you are asserting your incorrect opinion as fact. They do take it into account, and your lies to the contrary won't change that.
  
  I don't like tight spaces or concrete.
  
  Ah, the typical Neo-Con. Anything you like is what everyone else should like. Everyone else is wrong. Anyone who hold another opinion is wrong and should be dismissed. Just because you don't like city living doesn't mean no one else does, as you asserted. And you lie about city planners in order to further push your agenda.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
12. Re:Far from it... by dr2chase · 2011-01-01 09:39 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"?
  
  A non-trivial number of us must want to live in cities, else real estate there would be cheaper. If you look at census data for blobs-O-people (50K units, or larger), a minimum of 1/3 of the US population lives in density greater than or equal to 2000 people per square mile. (This is a minimum, because the 25,000 people living in my town, are not counted, nor are people living in nearby, dense, sub-50K towns.) 2000 per square mile is Lexington, MA, complete with office parks etc. It might not be that dense. It is, however, the density of Assen in the Netherlands, where they manage a bicycle trip share of 40% -- so it's clearly dense enough for many people to get out of their cars.
  
  Charts, pointers to data, here.
  
  You can also find other versions of this data at gapminder.org. Their claim is that we are less dense that quite a few countries (UK, Japan, France, Germany, South Korea) but that a higher fraction of our population is "urban" (82%, seems high, like to know how they define "urban").
13. Re:Far from it... by dr2chase · 2011-01-01 09:59 · Score: 2
  
  The reason city planners are less enthusiastic about self-driving smart cars, is that these have not actually been shown to work in the field (e.g., Boston), and "smart cars" don't do that much for reducing GHG emissions, nor do they do that much for parking problems (*), nor do they do much for the constraints of "peak oil" (or rather, expensive oil). (*) When you're the one guy with a smart car that knows where the empty slots are, they help you with parking. When everyone has a smart car, all the parking is used, always, and there's not enough spare capacity in places like Boston, San Francisco, or New York.
  
  The biggest possible win I predict from Smart Cars, will be if the cars facilitate carpooling and access to transit. Doubling up in a car gives you double the per-passenger efficiency. 50mpg is easy with one passenger now; 100mpg is hard.
  
  In contrast, bicycles, and a bicycle-transit mix (bike to train, e.g.) are deployed already in many other places, and they work -- they address high oil prices, they address GHG emissions, they address parking, and their use, like almost all other forms of exercise, is correlated with a much lower mortality rate. There's little difference between Groningen and Cambridge/Somerville/neighboring, except that Groningen has 50+% bicycle trip share.
  
  I am genuinely curious, what is it about the US, that makes us so certain that we're different? Consider Groningen, vs Cambridge. Both places have snowy cold winters, both are dense, both have intermingled housing and shopping, both have a mess of students. Parking in Cambridge is a horror. Why aren't more people on bikes? Judging by what I see and hear, the reason is that we're lazy and we're scared of cars. If that's what's so special about being an American, pardon me if I think we need to change.
14. Re:Far from it... by Grishnakh · 2011-01-01 10:49 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  As I just posted to someone else,
  Manhattan is a case study of a city full of rich people. If you're not one of the rich people working in the fashion or finance industries, and instead have to work a working-class job like cleaning the toilets for one of the nice Manhattan offices, you're relegated to a slum in one of the other boroughs and have to commute in by train every day.
  It's not that hard to have a really nice, dense, and safe non-slum city when you move all the poorest people (who do all the shit jobs) out of the city and force them to commute.
15. Re:Far from it... by pstorry · 2011-01-01 12:09 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Nonsense. Oil already hit $120 a few years back, and I don't know anyone who had to chose between commuting and traveling. Even if it hits $200 per barrel 5 years from now, my car will be ready for replacement, and I can buy another one which uses half as much fuel.
  Just so I'm clear on this... Your solution to "Fuel is getting more expensive, at some point I may not be able to commute" will be "I need to buy a new car".
  Hmmm.
  I think I'm beginning to see why America has such a large deficit...
16. Re:Far from it... by hairyfeet · 2011-01-01 12:20 · Score: 2
  
  The problem with your logic is this: Those billions in India and China are A.- In the third world where anything more powerful than the moped powered quadracycle will cost more than a year's wages, and B.-Due to all the jobs being in highly packed urban centers it will be cheaper and more efficient for them to simply take the bus/rail which a good portion of the USA simply doesn't have and is doubtful they will be getting any real public transport anytime soon, since we are big on "government is bad" ATM and pretty much the only way to make rail and or busing affordable in the vast areas of the USA would be to subsidize them.
  Then you figure in that most inner cities are hellholes and you can see why urban sprawl won't be going anywhere. I live about 45 minutes from the capital, by having that amount of distance between me and the major population center I have a nice large apt in a nice neighborhood and can walk to the local Walgreen's at 3AM and the worst I'll encounter is someone asking if I have a cigarette they can bum. Compare that to when I lived in the capital where 4 times what I'm paying now got me a dinky apt where the sounds of gunfire and sirens were pretty much an every night occurrence, where you sure as hell weren't walking or riding a bicycle anyway, not unless you liked taking your life in your hands, and where if you didn't pay extra to have your vehicle stowed in a secure car park when not in use you would come out to find it on blocks with the stereo and battery gone to boot.
  So even if the price hits $200 a barrel I'll just borrow a relative's beep beep car for long trips and keep my nice paid for 14MPG Ranger and my nice bullet free apt, thanks ever so much. You may like living in a place where "Welcome to the Jungle" is the theme song, but it isn't for me or the multitude that live outside our decaying cities. Thanks anyway.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
17. Re:Far from it... by PopeRatzo · 2011-01-01 13:38 · Score: 2
  
  The trend here is the exact opposite, and our fuel costs more. I dunno what the average income is in Chicago, but if a 30% increase in fuel prices led to a 70% decline in suburb property values
  As I said, the decrease in property values is not inside Chicago, but out in the 'burbs. The average adjusted gross income in my zip code appears to be about $75k according to incometaxlist.com. The mean is much higher I think, since there are nearly 700 returns (none of them mine) filed here where people have incomes "above $400k" according to that source. Since we're only about 10 blocks from downtown Chicago and several major universities, I doubt that many people commute very much. Single-family housing prices here have actually gone up since 2004. That's good news for me because I retired in '07 and I've got more than a decade before I am eligible to draw a social security pension. Outside Cook County, on the edges of the city area, housing has been taking a severe beating. People just don't seem to want to live over an hour's drive from downtown any more. Lots of middle and upper-middle families are moving back into the city proper.
  The high taxes have not prevented large corporations from moving their headquarters to Chicago, nor have the high gasoline taxes. The property taxes continue to jump, but I don't mind too much. With a homestead exemption and a kid who got a great education from the public magnet schools, I figure it's a pretty good deal.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
18. Re:Far from it... by Grishnakh · 2011-01-01 14:17 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, simple economics have driven the poor people out. But to proclaim Manhattan as some kind of shining example of a perfect city is just wrong, when all the people needed to support the city don't even live there. You need to look at NYC as a whole, and not just the one district where all the millionaires live. There's slums in NYC, just not on Manhattan island.
19. Re:Far from it... by spike+hay · 2011-01-01 17:19 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  In the last couple of decades inner cities have become pretty nice for the most par. Most major citiesl have clean, low crime cores nowadays due to redevelopment and the fact that people don't like to drive an hour or more to get to work or anywhere with more culture than a Supercuts in a stripmall. Of course, that goes along with high rent. Where I am (Seattle) it's the suburbs that are trashy and have crime problems. I can certainly walk out my door at any time of night (and I often do) with no problems.
  
  --
  If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
20. Re:Far from it... by Scott+Wood · 2011-01-01 18:28 · Score: 2
  
  Oil consumption will at some point be self-regulating by insufficient supply -- but simply letting that happen on its own schedule would be more disruptive than gradually weaning ourselves off of it, using the revenue raised to accelerate development of alternatives and mitigations, saving more of it for the most important uses later on. Who are you to tell future generations (or the less wasteful members of the current generation, for that matter) that it's our right to suck the oil out as fast as we can?
  CO2 is not self-regulating in this manner. We can take explicit action to reduce emissions, hope it magically falls on its own, or endure the consequences. Who are you to tell the rest of us to twiddle our thumbs while you crank out as much CO2 into our atmosphere as you want?
  If you live in Aliso Viejo, I'm sorry that you have (or had) idiots in your local government (if you don't live there, then congratulations on the cherry picking), but we are not going to abandon the notion of trying to find collective solutions to collective problems just because someone makes a mistake now and then, or because a few people make grandiose claims of self-sovereignty.
21. Re:Far from it... by drinkypoo · 2011-01-02 00:08 · Score: 2
  
  OK, I have an objection. Why do all these planned communities cost so fucking much? Europe got cities that are inhospitable to cars by building them before the invention of the car. We want to get them by spending even more money than you'd spend on cars, and designing them for cars.
  The basic root problem to me is that living in the city implies a lower quality of life than living in the country. I need more space to swing my arms. I feel stifled by the masses of asses coated with toxic perfumes and filled with a sense of entitlement. I really just can't live with a bunch of selfish fucks, sorry. And that's what most people are, so ultimately, I just can't live with a whole bunch of people not of my choosing.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
22. Re:Far from it... by cduffy · 2011-01-02 05:29 · Score: 2
  
  Well -- I wouldn't call the noise isolation wasteful; much of the effort and construction cost put into having thick walls and quality windows also helps to keep the heating and cooling costs low. Moving from $400/mo peak summer utility bills at the house to $110/mo in the condo was rather enjoyable.
  Regarding the gate -- if I'd had parking behind a gate in my house up north, I maybe wouldn't have had broken windows and radios/CDs/whatnot stolen out of vehicles in the driveway so much. If we're comparing to the real alternative for city-dwellers -- suburbia -- crime is there regardless, and a gate thus a desirable feature in any event. (Also, the gate has a more practical use -- making it safe to let our dogs off-leash in the courtyard without worrying about a squirrel or cat leading them into the road).
  On the other hand, detached houses have plenty that's obviously wasteful about them. A separate, separately watered-and-maintained lawn for each person rather than a single, larger, shared lawn with shared maintenance costs? Check. More utility lines/pipes/infrastructure (and more miles of road) needed to reach the same number of people? Check. More externally-exposed surfaces bleeding heat in the winter and taking it in in the summer? Check. As a condo, we have group-buying power to purchase fast Internet, trash disposal, and other services cheaper than you could do as an individual, and because we're all in one place those utilities also cost less to deliver. So -- talking about "waste" is perhaps the wrong tactic to take if your intent is to argue against high-density living.
One wonders... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-01 07:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

How(if at all) they are factoring in all the trucks delivering the stuff that I would historically have had to drive a car to the store to obtain...

A shift in the US from suburban material culture, where car transport is essentially necessary, and that necessity is self-perpetuating through the cultural and infrastructure spending priorities it creates, would be big news.

A shift from buying at bestbuy to buying at bestbuy.com might well drive down the number of car-hours/year; but would be fairly uninteresting. Ditto with things like Netflix and Amazon and pay-per-view cable movies and whatnot...
1. Re:One wonders... by Sir_Sri · 2011-01-01 07:51 · Score: 2
  
  Well there's also a point where you can only spend so much time in a day travelling before you move to reduce travelling. I think on an individual basis that may vary a lot, but there's probably a plateau'd statistical average (maybe 2 hours? not sure). Since speed limits haven't increased dramatically (and as congestion increases traffic speed overall goes down), the distance travelled will eventually peak, until you alleviate congestion or otherwise increase the speed of travel. That would be for sort of day to day work. Then you get into vacation time and so on, and again, you only get so much vacation time (which hasn't magically increased in the last few decades), so you pretty much cap your driving vs flying distance. You can only drive so far before it becomes preferably to fly, even if you make flying unpalatable (longer security check ins etc..) you only increase the driving > flying radius so much. If you have to go from New York to London (either the london where I live in ontario or the good london in the UK), and extra hour or 2 at the airport doesn't make it better to try and drive. New York to washington D.C. maybe though. So your total distance travelled in a year (via car) is going to be the sum of normal everyday driving + vacation driving. Even if you want to count total distance travelled, well, again, airplanes are mostly capped towards the speed of sound, so unless you get more time to travel, you aren't going to go much farther until we see more regular super sonic air travel.
  I suspect G.M. figured this peak travel thing out when they designed the Volt. They figure ~80% of all driving is done in 1 day, and less than 100km or whatever the exact numbers are. That pretty much tells you the cap. We've been at 100% of the north american population that wants a car has one for about a decade, so the only growth there is population growth, unless we can start to increase the average speed of road travel (which, beyond reducing congestion seems unlikely), we're not going to change the max distance any time soon.
  Naturally smaller, and more dense countries could travel less, (something like 20% of japans population is in the greater tokyo area, which overall is about 3.5% of the total are of the country, or so wikipedia tells me).
2. Re:One wonders... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-01-01 08:43 · Score: 2
  
  Japan has better transit, so you could, for instance, spend most of your travel time on a train, and it's possible that japanese people largely use cars for weekend trips (far out modders also push the average down - if you've added a 10 foot fiberglass rear bumper to your van (no lie!), you probably don't drive it much).
  I'd like to look at it as a holistic transport problem - how do you move people in volume with the minimum time per passenger? This is different from GM's thing, as cars are not required, and really, good subway networks in cities and mid distance trains could give an 80% solution. Hell, even a 50% solution that means we don't need to build bigger roads is probably a financial win.
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
3. Re:One wonders... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-01 09:03 · Score: 2
  
  In sufficiently dense areas, you basically face the choice between building "mass transit" for cars or mass transit for people. (Obviously, the cars don't literally get put onto trains or anything; but bridges, tunnels, overpasses, underpasses, specialized high-density parking garages, and the like are, in terms of capital expenditure, urban planning, use of eminent domain, and so forth, more similiar to 'mass transit' than they are to your ordinary suburban road system).
  
  In lower density areas, cars are much more natural(if potentially problematic in the longer term).
  
  The compromise that somtimes works, for the standard "urban area with lots of suburbanites commuting in" setup is to have a few rail lines going in to the city, with combination parking lot/train stations set up in the suburbs at locations that offer the right combination of 'near commuters' and 'relatively low land value'. Since the land is cheap, you can economically offer parking for peanuts, and the trains can dump people right into the core mass transit system, keeping their cars out of the city; but not requiring the expensive(and often not terribly efficient) expansion of higher density public transit coverage into the suburbs and exurbs...
4. Re:One wonders... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-01 12:13 · Score: 2
  
  At a population level, the behavior of idiots is one of the most vital factors to consider...
Oh dear... by Quiet_Desperation · 2011-01-01 07:22 · Score: 4, Funny

Is "peak" the new "-gate"?
1. Re:Oh dear... by hedwards · 2011-01-01 07:30 · Score: 2
  
  I don't know, have we reached peak -gate yet?
Telepresence and remote by hajus · 2011-01-01 07:25 · Score: 2

A lot of work that used to require physical presence can now be done remotely. Not necessarily from home, but from computers at an office that doesn't have to be located at the site where the machine is. So offices move to where the people are rather than making people move to where the materials are. So you don't have to move groceries for those people as far either. Facetime, remote, telepresence will take over travel per capita as tech improves.
1. Re:Telepresence and remote by Roblimo · 2011-01-01 08:02 · Score: 2
  
  Here in Florida, the trend seems to be to move offices away from areas close to most office workers' modest homes, to office parks near areas with McMansions and golf courses for the richies at the top -- and no place affordable for the bulk of the workers to live. Then come demands to county officials to widen roads and put in new ones, add bus lines, etc.
  With a major job shortage right now, the richies aren't worried about workers leaving them. And never forget: lots of people in Mumbai will happily commute an hour each way to earn $2/hour.
2. Re:Telepresence and remote by LordNacho · 2011-01-01 08:15 · Score: 2
  
  A lot of work that used to require physical presence can now be done remotely. Not necessarily from home, but from computers at an office that doesn't have to be located at the site where the machine is. So offices move to where the people are rather than making people move to where the materials are. So you don't have to move groceries for those people as far either. Facetime, remote, telepresence will take over travel per capita as tech improves.
  Some of the stuff you're talking about can indeed be done remotely, but there's always a need for actual face-to-face meetings. People still go to conferences instead of just posting on a website, deals are still struck with a handshake (requiring a long flight) rather than just exchanging emails/videochat. There's certain things about doing business that are hard to turn into a stream of bits, chiefly the attainment of trust. People are reluctant to trust someone they haven't met, even if all the relevant information and legal framework are present. Perhaps it's some kind of evolutionary throwback...
Define "Industrialised" by AndGodSed · 2011-01-01 07:25 · Score: 2

"Industrialised World" - The world is changing so quickly that the definitions of what is first world, third world, emerging markets, industrialised and so on are not clearly defined.
If that definition can be made accurately there can be concurrence as to if the peak travel levels have been reached or not.
Also, there has not in recorded history been any similar trends, except maybe for the peak and decline of rail travel - maybe a parallel can be drawn from that?
Given the above, the conclusion can only be "It looks like it, but we cannot be sure. Yet."

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Travel time maxes out by Animats · 2011-01-01 07:26 · Score: 5, Informative

Few people spend more than 1 and 2 hours a day traveling, unless their work itself is moving themselves or stuff around. So as speeds max out, so does travel.
Both car travel and air travel have slowed down. Even subsonic jets used to fly faster, but the fuel consumption goes up as Mach 1 is approached. Airport time is much longer than it used to be. Road capacity maxes out at 35MPH; faster, and the cars are spaced out more, so vehicles per minute drops. (California uses metering lights to try to keep freeways at 35MPH under heavy load. Japan just sets low speed limits on urban expressways.)
And, of course, we have such good communications that going somewhere merely to talk to someone is rarely necessary.
1. Re:Travel time maxes out by hedwards · 2011-01-01 07:41 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  There's that, but I think the bigger issue is that the transit options really haven't grown proportionally to the growth of the population.
  
  Here in Seattle, for example, we still don't have a real mass transit system. Metro insists on taking half of it's bus routes through the down town corridor for reasons which make sense to nobody outside of their planning committee. Meaning that if you're not going downtown you're almost certainly going to need to make a transfer. Good luck going east or west or around downtown.
  
  We were going to get a subway system several decades ago, but antitax nutters talked us out of it. More recently we were going to get a monorail system, but after several yes votes the nutters finally managed to get a single no vote to kill the project. Over the next decade we're finally going to be getting a single light rail line which goes from the airport pretty much to Everett.
  
  The point there is that we haven't seen any improvement in mass transit, traffic itself is at least as bad as it was when I was a kid. No wonder folks aren't wanting to spend time traveling about on a daily basis.
Re:The word "peak" must be a hard one by Pharmboy · 2011-01-01 07:27 · Score: 3, Informative

FTFS: "...why not the possibility of "peak travel" when a clear plateau has been reached?' "
They are saying a possibility of it being a peak, and clearly said the evidence points to a plateau right now. Would appear what they are doing is speculation, but they got the terms right.

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Sheesh, trends don't == natural law. by RyanFenton · 2011-01-01 07:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

1. Improved communications, including the Internet has helped make some forms of travel less necessary.
2. Optimized analysis of usage patterns have allowed businesses to minimize travel costs better.
3. A general drastic shift in income towards the more wealthy at the cost of growth in other income levels has minimized the ability for most folks to have the opportunity for leisure travel (time as much as money).
Those create a trend - but there's no inherent "peak travel" there. Start electing folks who will tax wealth in order to give meaningful freedom to everyone else again (see: 1940's to 1970's US), and you will see more frequent travel again as people have resources to start businesses, engage in leisure activities, and do more than just go to WalMart every long once in a while, rather than a few rich having exponential increases.
Ryan Fenton
1. Re:Sheesh, trends don't == natural law. by commodore64_love · 2011-01-01 07:52 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Disagree.
  People have more leisure time then they've ever had. When they were farmers they worked 6 days a week (minus sundays) and often from sunup to sundown. Now they work just 5 days a week and 8-10 hours a day. Hence they have free time to watch TV in the evenings, or to travel to the beach on the weekend, something our pre-1930s ancestors never dreamed of.
  If driving has hit a plateau since 2000, maybe it's because people simply don't want to. I know I have no desire to hop in my car and drive to the store, when I can just click netflix.com to watch a video, or shop amazon.com and have it delivered to me. I don't even visit the bank now - I just do it all on the internet from the comfort of my chair.
  If I didn't have to buy food, I'd probably never leave the house.
  
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2. Re:Sheesh, trends don't == natural law. by hot+soldering+iron · 2011-01-01 09:45 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  This rant (most definitely a rant) is USA-centric and brings up several points that people don't want to think about. If that distresses you, you may wish to skip it.
  Sorry, but a government that taxes the wealthy for the benefit of the majority is not going to happen. I'm afraid that sociologically, we may have hit a "tipping point" where the wealthy elite have taken control of the government/energy corporations (Illuminati for all you conspiracy theorists out there), and are driving the economy and public policy in such a way that it will separate the poor and what used to be the middle class from the wealthy, and reduce them to a point where it's all they can do just to survive. They're being driven into economic slavery, and when you're hungry enough, you'll gladly give up these "freedoms" to stay warm and have a good meal.
  Yeah, I know it sounds very doom and gloom, but think... How many families do you know that still go on Sunday drives? Still have vacation homes in the country? Still have vacations, period? How many people now have advanced degrees, and aren't able to do much more than high school drop outs? Remember how our parents could travel all over the world on a moments notice, without being molested and intimidated by our own government "to protect us"? We used to protect ourselves, now we're not even supposed to do that. We've just supposed to be good victims, or be arrested and forced into slave labor in the privatized prison system.
  The majority of our population is talented and skilled enough for factory work, which creates wealth from raw materials, but some traitors convinced us that getting rid of the factories and moving to a "service-based" economy was a good thing. Not for us, it hasn't been. The industrialization of the factories brought wealth to the majority of our population, and now that it's gone the majority of our population is living on the thin edge of poverty and living off the taxes of the fraction that are skilled enough to be valuable in a global arena. Yes, being on an even footing with the rest of the world meant we had to give up many advantages we enjoyed. The government quit being "for the people" a long time ago, and became "for the people that pay and/or scare us legislators".
  They couldn't legally take away our rights overnight, like they would have wished, so they did it slowly, over time, making it seem reasonable, and they kept increasing the costs of our liberty. So it's "fiscally responsible" to stay home, watching the stupid reality shows, thinking that the boogey men are going to kill us if we don't hide behind our wonderful governmental overlords.
  Quick side-note: According to many students I know studying for a law-enforcement career, you are automatically ineligible if your IQ measures too high on their standardized tests. "Too high" is approx 90. Still less than average. They want morons with a desire to be in charge, and a taste for violence against the majority of the population. They don't have the high intelligence required for one of the remaining occupations, and aren't normally curious or smart enough to realize that the government and policies that they are enforcing are causing a majority of the problems they are "fighting" every day. They just know what they've been told to do, and they think that they are good heroic boys and girls for doing what they've been told.
  These trends aren't "natural law" in the slightest. They've been carefully engineered. You think that the shambles our economy and government are in is just poor planning? That we don't know enough about economics, or good management practices, to set good policies? The original founding of this country was so well thought out, that it's taken over 200 years to subvert and twist it from the inside, by controlling the weak, greedy, and power hungry.
  The worst part is that they aren't even trying to hide it anymore. The elite (Bilderburgs, Tri-lateral Commission, Illuminati, whatever name you want to give them) seem to operate on the principal that
  
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3. Re:Sheesh, trends don't == natural law. by drsquare · 2011-01-02 05:51 · Score: 2
  
  Interesting how you go from the pre-30s straight to today, conveniently missing out the era when people had working hours similar to today yet before women were expected to work the same as men. I wonder what it'd look like if you plotted a graph of hours worked per year per household over the last century.
Traffic Volume Trends by cliffiecee · 2011-01-01 07:32 · Score: 5, Informative

Ever since the time that gasoline hit $4 here in the US, I've been keeping an eye on the DOT's Traffic Volume Trends. It seems to me that, once Americans realized how much gas could cost (and will permanently cost, eventually), they also realized how much auto travel is superfluous. In particular This chart of the 12-month average for all roads shows a clear pullback in miles driven. Perhaps some of this could be attributable to people being more efficient in their travel; taking care of multiple errands at once, using public transportation much more, etc. Certainly the downturn in the economy has an impact, too.
The short answer is no. by Mashiki · 2011-01-01 07:35 · Score: 2

In the US and Canada for example, driving will peak based on how far you need to go to get things done. Two things have changed on that front, first being that things are closer. An example, 10 years ago if I wanted to go to a store like walmart I would have had to drive 30mins, it's 3minutes now. Same with a Canadian tire, but the size of my city has only grown by 5k people. The thing that really throws a wrench into this of course is if live out in the middle of nowhere Canada or US. In which case driving 2-4hrs twice a month to buy your groceries is still the norm, that's providing it's not dropped off by plane. Even having things dropped off by plane is getting scarce however, it's cheaper to do 5 months of deliveries by truck in the dead of winter for remote cities.
In most other places, notably japan unless you have the money to pay for private parking when you go to work you'll live the life of the 2hr rush, and be packed in, and leave your car at home. But everything you more than likely need is in walking or biking distance, and when it isn't you can get just about everything sent to your home. Sure that's happening in north america albeit at a slower pace. Japan can't dedicate space to roads, we can. Which leads japan to having more dedication to public transportation.
Personally to me it comes down to the whole space vs no space issue. We're not short on room in north america not even close. The only upper limit you have to that here, is the amount of space you can dedicate to roadways to ease conjestion.

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1. Re:The short answer is no. by DeathSquid · 2011-01-01 13:17 · Score: 2
  
  In most other places, notably japan unless you have the money to pay for private parking when you go to work you'll live the life of the 2hr rush, and be packed in, and leave your car at home. But everything you more than likely need is in walking or biking distance, and when it isn't you can get just about everything sent to your home.
  Hardly anyone drives to work in Tokyo. Not because they leave their car at home, but because most people don't have or need a car.
  In my apartment building there is no car park. But there is a bicycle park. This is typical for central Tokyo. People ride their bikes everywhere. Guess what the obesity rate is like?
  This is an extremely pleasant way to live. There are three supermarkets and dozens of restaurants and bars within a ten minute walk of where I live. I can get anywhere in central Tokyo within 30 minutes by bicycle. Work is about 20 minutes away. There is no "2hr rush", whatever that is.
  I used to live in a typical American style city with a 1+ hour commute by car each way in heavy traffic. Never again. Not only is it ecological vandalism, but it is a waste of the most precious resource you have: time.
Apples-Oranges by olsmeister · 2011-01-01 07:38 · Score: 4, Interesting

They reference miles traveled by car per capita. The US population grows by 2.5M people every year, which would lead me to believe the total miles driven is still increasing.

When I've seen peak oil discussed, usually they are talking about total oil output and not per capita consumption.
Travel has purpose. by couchslug · 2011-01-01 07:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

We travel to see stuff. Modern media has made much of that superfluous.
We travel to get stuff. Having stuff show up is less time wasted. Instead of going to buy tools, for example, I shop online and they show up. I can mix Ebay, Craigslist, and new vendors while I fap to pr0n and surf Slashdot.
We travel to see people. It's now more convenient to chat with a world of friends without bothering to meet in person very often.
We travel to learn stuff. Now information is at our fingertips.
Travel was a hassle before the TSA fondle-fest. Fuck travel.

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1. Re:Travel has purpose. by genner · 2011-01-01 07:56 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  We travel to see stuff. Modern media has made much of that superfluous.
  We travel to get stuff. Having stuff show up is less time wasted. Instead of going to buy tools, for example, I shop online and they show up. I can mix Ebay, Craigslist, and new vendors while I fap to pr0n and surf Slashdot.
  We travel to see people. It's now more convenient to chat with a world of friends without bothering to meet in person very often.
  We travel to learn stuff. Now information is at our fingertips.
  Travel was a hassle before the TSA fondle-fest. Fuck travel.
  You definitely need to get out of the house more often.
2. Re:Travel has purpose. by 0123456 · 2011-01-01 08:41 · Score: 2
  
  We travel to see stuff. Modern media has made much of that superfluous.
  And globalisation means that even if you do travel, when you get there you find it's just like the place you left except they speak a different language in McDonald's.
Awaiting next revolution by eagl · 2011-01-01 07:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

Peak travel is an interesting concept but it applies only to a given technology level. My own situation is an example. I live in Texas and have family on both the East and West coast of the US. I would also like to vacation in Florida, Maine, and Northern California. But with 2 small children and the TSA increasingly repressive, I simply don't travel much beyond a one-day driving distance.
That would change instantly if fast, harassment-free transportation were available. That used to be the airlines, and it could be fast rail if it weren't for the fact that excessive govt regulation and problems getting right-of-way means that it will never happen. But we're one transportation revolution away from me making coast to coast travel plans fairly often, because that is where I would want to go if there were reasonable transportation options.
I can't be the only one who doesn't go anywhere beyond a 1-day drive anymore, either. If we're at a transportation peak, it is because of artificial suppression of travel due to airport harassment and because of other concerns that could be addressed by the availability of fast and easy transportation. Note that I don't mention cost - I'd be willing to pay quite a bit for quick and hassle free transportation around the country, but it simply can't be done right now.
As a nation, we're quickly heading towards loserville when we can't even manage to use available technology to let people travel freely without harassment. Car, train, and aircraft technology are all available to allow for reasonably rapid transportation, but our car speed limits are where they were 30 years ago, there is still very limited train service in most central and western states, and the govt is doing its best to harass people out of flying commercial air. We suck, and we're doing it to ourselves.
1. Re:Awaiting next revolution by careysub · 2011-01-01 12:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ... it could be fast rail if it weren't for the fact that excessive govt regulation [emphasis added] and problems getting right-of-way means that it will never happen...
  Come again? Since every high speed rail system in the world has been built by using large government subsidies (just like the original U.S. transcontinental rail system), and usually at least a government partnership if not as an outright government-run project, how is "excessive government regulation" to blame for the lack of high speed rail? Note also that those rights-of-way can only be obtained only through the government exercising its right of eminent domain.
  
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2. Re:Awaiting next revolution by careysub · 2011-01-01 18:46 · Score: 2
  
  By excessive govt regulation I am talking about the mounds of paperwork required by a variety of different government agencies, none of whom coordinate with each other, in order to get approval to do anything.
  Don't take this as being anti-environment, but the example of environmental impact assessments alone is enough to kill most projects that take up only a single location, let alone a rail or road project that will cut through maybe hundreds of different environmental regions....
  First off, it is debatable whether U.S. regulations are actually more onerous than in other nations where fast rail actually get built given that supposedly anti-regulation, corporate friendly administrations been in charge 8 of the last 10 years, and 20 years out of the last 30. Nations outside of China have these sorts of regulations and agencies also (much, much worse in fact to hear Republicans talk about them) yet fast rail gets built there.
  The absence of a government-orchestrated national scale project to provide the funds, coherent planning, and legal muscle as is seen in China, Japan, France, Germany, etc. is the most obvious reason nothing is happening in the U.S. Can you see the Republicans getting behind a project like this? It would have to be bipartisan to fly.
  If you are deeply concerned about this lack of fast rail perhaps you should start promoting an active, constructive long-term government role in building up the United States infrastructure -- like other successful nations, and like the U.S. used to be able to do. The U.S. and its government don't have to fail. Believing that the Federal Government is (for some reason) doomed to failure makes that belief an inevitable reality.
  
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3. Re:Awaiting next revolution by drinkypoo · 2011-01-02 00:24 · Score: 2
  
  The US is in the pockets of corporations and the corporations don't want rail. Big Auto actually bought and shut down profitable, working rail lines, and kept operating only the freight lines; and indeed, they shut down some of those, although those which feed auto plants are all still operating. There is in fact substantial rail which can be compared to dark fiber; a deal of it needs little more than testing before it can be reused. Oh sure, you're not getting high-speed travel on the existing rails, but the beds could be used, so no additional land need be purchased. Instead, rail lines like the one which used to connect Santa Cruz are being turned into bike paths. Now, I like bike paths, but I think it's clear that rail can handle a lot more passengers...
  
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The "If current trends continue" problem by Quinn_Inuit · 2011-01-01 07:48 · Score: 2

A study of eight horse-using countries, including the United States, shows that seemingly inexorable trends — ever more people, more horses, and more riding — came to a halt in the early years of the 20th century, well before the recent escalation in fodder prices. It could be a sign, researchers said, that the demand for travel and the demand for horse ownership in those countries has reached a saturation point. 'With talk of "peak manure," why not the possibility of "peak travel" when a clear plateau has been reached?' asked co-author Jebediah Schipper ... Most of the eight countries in the study have experienced declines in miles traveled by horse per capita in recent years. The US appears to have peaked at an annual 1620 miles by horse per capita, and Japan is holding steady at 500 miles."

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1. Re:The "If current trends continue" problem by nedlohs · 2011-01-01 08:27 · Score: 2
  
  And what are you proposing replaced the car in the last few years?
2. Re:The "If current trends continue" problem by bball99 · 2011-01-01 09:28 · Score: 2
  
  telecommuting?
  i love that i have telecommuted since 1997 by using the 'net; after retiring in 2005, the wife now telecommutes daily - walks to the home office in flip-flops, flips open the laptop, and goes to work in DC next to Union Station near Capitol Hill...
  life is good! and for my marketing, i take my Specialized Rockhopper and messenger bag to the local farmer's market...
  (and zillow has our casa as walk 'unfriendly'! ROFLMAO!)
Re:The word "peak" must be a hard one by mysidia · 2011-01-01 08:19 · Score: 2

Said study authors should learn what a "peak" is and what peak oil means: after the "peak" there is a decline. So "scientists": come back if there is a steady, continous decline.
No.. a peak is just a local high point; there does not have to be a continuous steady decline just a VALLEY. There are different possible results after a peak has been reached.
It could be a flat graph after the peak is reached, e.g. only a small decrease, and then a straight line; indicating a "cap", after some time at the high point.
More commonly a peak followed by a valley and then another peak, the next peak might be higher or lower than the first peak, or it might be at the same level.
A peak does not indicate a top value reached followed by a continuous decline.
"Peak Oil" is a flawed concept. by Belial6 · 2011-01-01 08:32 · Score: 2

"Peak Oil", is a worthless flawed concept to begin with. Gauging how much oil exists based on how much we CHOOSE to pump isn't even starting to take reality into consideration. If there were no huge multinational interests trying to control gas prices, "Peak Oil" would be flawed to the point of being worthless. The fact that there ARE huge multinational interests involved in oil price manipulation means that "Peak Oil" is just a stupid idea.

"Peak travel" on the other hand could have some validity. Depending on what they are measuring for "Peak". If they are measuring it in time spent travelling. Obviously there is a hard limit on the number of hours that can be traveled. Just count the number of people on the planet, and multiply by 24 hours.
Re:The word "peak" must be a hard one by kgrr · 2011-01-01 08:38 · Score: 2

Clearly it stands to reason that if we have hit peak oil (the rate of oil production), the refineries are not becomming more efficient and if the efficiency of vehicles is not really significantly increasing, then the miles the vehicles travel have also peaked. * World oil production - 86 million barrels per day (Mbpd) - This has been pretty flat over the last five years. * US consumption of world oil - The US consumes around 1/4 of the world's oil. Due to the decline in the economy, US oil consumption has fallen some 9%, down nearly 2 million barrels per day (mbpd) from 20.7 mbpd in mid 2007, to about 18.8 mbpd in October 2009 * American Petroleum Institute reports that 1 barrel of oil produced 19.4 gallons of gasoline per barrel based on average yields for U.S. refineries.
Free PDF of original article by mapkinase · 2011-01-01 09:03 · Score: 2

For those who want to read the article before discussing it:
http://www.civil.ist.utl.pt/wctr12_lisboa/WCTR_General/documents/02455.pdf

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