Americans drive more than any other society, using automobiles for 88 percent of all trips. This is a major reason why we contribute 30 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming.
Meanwhile, America has taken almost all of its trolley systems out of use. Subway and light rail services struggle to cope with budget shortfalls, while Amtrak constantly raises prices and while providing passengers with sub-par service. As anti-sprawl author James Howard Kunstler
says, "We have a railroad system in America that the Bolivians would be ashamed of.
There isn't one thing we could do in this country that would have a greater impact on our oil use than restoring the American rail system to something like a European level of service."
http://www.americanprogress.org/issu...k_transit.html
The goal of the program is to use the four T’s to slow the growth in congestion,” Bell said. “
In 2003, traffic jams in the nation’s 85 largest urban areas cost Americans 3.7 billion hours of wasted time and 2.3 million gallons of wasted fuel.”
http://www.metrocouncil.org/directio...grantAug07.htm
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