Transportation Ideals in a Changing World

Whenever you turn on the TV, you are always bombarded with commercials for conflicting products – this soap is better than the other, this shampoo smells like Ireland while that one smells like Scotland. What worries me the most is the continued promotion of huge trucks, or the newest sports car, especially in the current environmentally conscious times we live in. While there are commercials that promote the green aspects of products, they aren’t focused on the biggest contributors to the greenhouse gas problems – cars. One of the biggest hindrances to implementing sustainable transportation is the attachment people have to the status quo and the negative viewpoint many people have towards new methods. Two examples of this problem are public transit and electric vehicles.

First, public transit is hindered significantly by lingering public opinion. Many previous generations viewed using public transit as a symbol of being poor; if you couldn’t afford a car then you weren’t successful. Even when the environment is such a popular topic and people say they are committed to changing, they still do not want to be seen on the bus. Younger generations do not seem to hold this same stigma, instead we utilize public transportation as a means to get where we need to go, as a convenient service that enables our mobility across the city for significantly less than the price of purchasing and insuring a car. This negative stigma held by older generations must be changed if public transit is to receive the funding and support that it requires to be a viable method of sustainable transportation. As long as people get angry about the delay of getting stuck behind a bus, instead of recognizing the benefits of the service they will not fully support the technology.

Second, electric cars are limited by the hold-over ideals from traditional fossil fuel vehicles, particularly speed and horsepower. Cars have always been ranked on their top speeds and acceleration.  Commercials traditionally talk about how a car can go from zero to sixty in so many seconds and how a car can reach an outrageous top speed. My question is; when are these stats of practical use? How often do you need to accelerate away from a stop sign in the middle of the city fast enough to melt the tires on your car? How many roads apart from the Autobahnen allow such incredible speeds?

People need to change their attitudes when it comes to travel if electric cars are to succeed, they need to realise that cars don’t need to go 200km/hr if they are being used in the city for commuting. Greater research and investment will allow the maximum speed and range of electric vehicles to increase, and the battery life to improve. However, all of these advancements require high capital investments and the support of the general population in order to convince the huge automakers to abandon traditional designs and focus on electric vehicles instead.

In both of these cases the key to change, to embrace new technologies, and accept the future, is education. Maybe education is the wrong term, considering that the problem does not seem to be as apparent in younger generations. We have grown up hearing about issues like water quality, pesticides like DDT, holes in the ozone layer, and other horrible disasters that are really not the consequences of our own actions, but the actions of the generations before us. So I think re-education is a better term, because that is what is required, a true paradigm shift in the ideals and motivations of the general population. Until people can let go of the dreams bred by generations of consuming fossil fuels and pursuing the next better, faster, sleeker, car, we really don’t have a chance.

Changing people’s opinions and preconceptions is one of the most difficult tasks for implementing sustainable transportation, but it is necessary for future change. Of course there will be huge obstacles to implementing this worldwide paradigm shift, and the biggest contributors with be oil and gas companies. How do you tell a multinational, multi-billion dollar corporation to stop producing oil, lay off all its employees and shut its doors forever? Then there is the influence these corporations have on the governments of the world – try introducing a law to mandate a change and just watch how fast that bill is shut down.

Car manufacturers have the greatest opportunity to change and drive a market shift, as they really are only reliant on their own designs, not the gasoline companies. If the production of oil was to suddenly cease completely, car manufacturers would initially be thrown into a state of chaos – but then they would adjust. The manufacturing would shift from gasoline powered engines to electric – employing the same number of employees, and probably more for research and development.

Around the world we still have choices when it comes to the future of transportation. Putting the necessary money into public transit would cause one of the biggest and quickest impacts, by immediately decreasing the number of vehicles on the roads, and showing that people are committed to change. The shift in driver ideals will be the hardest challenge for the future.  How do you change the minds of the people who are in control of the media, industry, government and every other traditional means of educating people? It is horrible to think that these necessary changes will have to wait a very long time before the people in charge are actually willing to do something, and hopefully haven’t been corrupted in the mean time.

So in the end it all comes down to our own choices and how we present ourselves to the world. Don’t make a decision based on what others will think, base it on what you believe in and what you want the future to be. Don’t forget the fact that we will have to bear the burden of previous generations’ mistakes, let’s try to find the necessary solutions – and avoid at all costs adding our own problems onto the pile. To the future of the world!