By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
According to recent figures rail journeys in the UK have increased tremendously pointing to the fact that people leave the car at home more because of the cost of fuel going up, and up, and up.
Bicycle usage also has risen rather greatly from what I can observe on a daily basis and more and more people seem to join the throng of those riding through our parks on their way to work or from work, or to take the children to school, or to go to the stores.
With the equivalent of US$8 and more for a US gallon of ordinary gasoline this change in choice of mode of transport really is not surprising. What is surprising that not more bikes are about on the commuting trail and the school run or the trip to the stores for the pint of milk or the loaf of bread.
The way people are and have been using the car is not really sustainable and nor has it ever been. We clog up the village and town centers, the roads to and fro, and we pollute the air. Short journeys cause much greater emissions than the loner runs and vehicles idling are the biggest cause of automobile air pollution.
While most readers of this journal will know the facts as to pollution caused by idling cars and such like very well indeed already it is, nevertheless, interesting and, dare I say, encouraging, to see that rail journeys are going up and, as far as I can see, the use of bicycles too is very much on the increase, for commuting as well as for taking the kids to school or for the run to the shops.
Let us just hope – and, those who do, pray – that this increase will not just dissipate again if and when oil and gasoline become cheap again. Not that I, personally, think that this is going to be the case again, ever.
And if it is indeed the case that the era of cheap and abundant oil has come to an end everyone best prepare for a return to mass transport, such as, especially, rail, for the longer journeys and to the use of the bicycle and walking for the shorter journey. Unless, that is, you can afford to keep and maintain (no, not a musket, silly) a horse and cart.
The problem though is that this fact is not, as yet, really sinking in with the majority of the people who still think that they are entitled to a car and to be able to be running it.
I don't know about such entitlements. Even the Constitution of the United States of America does not make mention of any of that. There is no right to have access to cheap gasoline enshrined in that document, not even in any of the many Amendments to said Constitution.
© 2011
