I saw the image below on Treehugger today and thought they made an excellent point for the power of an image.  We can talk and talk about the differences between transportation types, but these pictures clearly illustrate the advantages.

In the comments, a few readers have made a good case for a fourth image to represent walking, which I agree, is a very valid position.  Wouldn’t that be nice, a clear street with just people?

Obviously, I would argue the first picture would look much different with Passenger Energy.  If each car carried 3 passengers with a driver instead of the typical single occupancy vehicle, then we could remove 75% of the cars.

The story goes on to mention an article that the author, Michael Graham Richard, wrote 4 years ago.  The story titled: Have You Reduced Your Dependence on Cars? is a very good read, again with some great comments.

We all need to make a concerted effort to move away from cars as our primary source of transportation.  Car pooling, mass transit, biking and yes, even walking are wonderful alternatives.  You don’t have to sell your car, just use it less.

photo credit: Press-Office City of Müenster, Germany

We need to ease the burden on troubled bridges and roads

When the Minnesota bridge crossing the Mississippi River collapsed during an evening rush hour, it caught the Nations attention.  Considering there are over 600,000 bridges in the US, it should serve as a real wakeup call.  Unfortunately there currently are not sufficient funds to perform all the necessary maintenance and repairs to prevent this from happening again.

photo credit: Mordac

This bridge disaster is a prime example of our crumbling infrastructure.  Recent studies found one quarter of the nation’s bridges have been classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.  Building new bridges is extremely expensive and the National Highway Trust Fund is severely under funded at present.

Weakening bridges and deteriorating roads could all benefit from reduced traffic through Pay4Rides.  It has been over a year since this tragedy, but have you seen any real action to adress this serious issue?

Need clean routes to respond to calls

photo credit: confidentjohn

How are ambulances, rescue vehicles, police and fire engines going to respond to emergencies in a timely manner if they are stuck in traffic?  Leaving cars home will help lighten traffic and ensure fire and rescue vehicles can make their calls as fast as possible.  How would you feel if your house was on fire or your family was in desperate need of an ambulance only to find out it got stuck in traffic?

One other issue, is the rise of some motorist ignoring sirens.  Drivers are less aware of the sirens and flashing lights on emergency vehicles because of cell phones and loud stereos.  Passengers could help alert drivers to any critical situations.

Our traffic volume exceeds our capacity

Congestion is a state of excessive accumulation or overfilling or overcrowding. Traffic congestion occurs when the volume of traffic exceeds the capacity of a roadway.

Census shows 282 million people in the U.S. during the year 2000 with a projected increase to 309 million by 2010 and 335 million by 2020.  This situation will only continue to worsen.

The 2007 Urban Mobility Report compiled by the Texas Transportation Institute estimates that traffic congestion costs Americans over $63 billion a year.  In 2003, the total amount of delay reached 3.7 billion hours, and 2.3 billion gallons of fuel were lost as engines sat idling in traffic.  “The congestion invoice” as it is called by researchers climbs drastically when you factor in current fuel prices.

How long are we going to wait to do something about it?

photo credit: rogerwp