Faced with global warming, suburban sprawl, loss of natural habitat and an economic crisis, I propose one primary solution: no more roads! The continual effort to expand and widen our network of roadways encourages our dependence on automobiles and fosters an excessive use of fossil fuel. At the same time, these ribbons of concrete facilitate the suburban lifestyle, pushing out our city limits and chewing up our natural ecosystems.
The use of Federal funding to develop light rail, commuter rail lines and high-speed rail between major cities would create jobs and, hopefully, encourage a radical change in American society. Inner cities would be revitalized, oil consumption would drop, CO2 emissions would fall and open space would be preserved. At the same time, investment in clean and renewable forms of energy would further stimulate the economy and provide the means to power these mass transit networks.
Of course, roads, cars and trucks will not be disappearing any time soon; it would be impractical to suggest that we can stop maintaining and repairing our current transportation system. But we can easily decide to stop building new roads and widening the old ones; otherwise, we will never take a major step toward the mass transit model. Unlike Europe, the U.S. has so much open space that we often lose sight of its value.
