Stats, rats and future wars and worldwide impoverishment - or make public transport a real alternative to the private car - the huge challenge

QUOTE "Worldwide, sprawl stands as a serious threat to a sustainable future. This is in good part due to the fact that sprawl creates near total dependence on the private car. Between 1980 and 1995, the global fleet of cars, trucks and buses grew 70%, with a third of the increase ocurring in developing countries. The ability of planet earth to absorb astronomical increases in the population of cars and distances they travel, in terms of both fossil fuel supplies they consume and green house gas emissions is worrisome. Only 8% of the world's population presently owns a car. The 700-million motor vehicles worldwide represent just 10% of potential market saturation. The spread of U.S. auto ownership rates (750 vehicles per 1000 residents) to the citizens of Russia, India, and China (where fewer than one in ten own a car) would wreak havoc on the globes finite resources".



Robert Cervero (Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California (Berkeley) in  "Transport and Land Use; Key Issues in Metropolitan Planning and Sustainable Growth"