View Single Post
Old 01-09-14, 08:07 PM
  #228  
genec
genec
 
genec's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: West Coast
Posts: 27,079

Bikes: custom built, sannino, beachbike, giant trance x2

Mentioned: 86 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 13658 Post(s)
Liked 4,532 Times in 3,158 Posts
Originally Posted by jon c.
In that 100 years, the world has changed pretty dramatically. The widespread use of internal combustion engines had a great deal to due with that change. The US had a tremendous advantage in the post war years in that the infrastructure was spared the destruction that was visited on much of the western world. While other nations struggled to get back on their feet, the US vastly expanded its transportation infrastructure and in the process became the world's leading economic power. It is arguable that without the tremendous economic expansion that centered around the growth of automotive transportation, the rest of the technological advances we enjoy today would not have happened. The vibrant economy created in part by the automobile created an environment where other technologies could flourish. A great deal of the post war growth was facilitated by the ability to move goods and people quickly and efficiently.

In retrospect it's easy to see areas where this growth could have happened in better fashion. There was certainly for a time a concerted effort on the part of automobile manufacturers and oil interests to kill public transportation. But even that is a bit of a double edged sword, as these industries were a substantial factor in the growth of the economy and the creation of a large middle class. This doesn't justify the planning errors resultant from influences of this cabal, but it does offset at least in part whatever economic detriments stemmed from them.

That era of growth is now seemingly on a downward slide as the advantages once enjoyed over the rest of the world have begun to disappear. Whether or not the use of automobiles is sustainable, the economic boom they once provided certainly is not. But absent a total economic collapse, I don't see us ever returning to a world of carts, trolleys and bicycles as the dominant forms of transportation. New energy sources will arise and other forms of transit will be developed, but transportation will remain substantially mechanized. I enjoy the notion of returning to a simpler time, but I honestly don't wish to live to see that as I think it would come only as a result of economic devastation so severe that our world would be a pretty grim place for quite a long time.
Sure we took the ball and ran with it... but again... now that the rest of the world is catching up, and we no longer have the advantage of that headstart... what hath we wrought.

I want to touch just for a second on your line of "I don't see us ever returning to a world of carts, trolleys and bicycles as the dominant forms of transportation...." and at the risk of cross posting point to this concurrent thread...
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ystem-possible

Just pop in there for a moment while your mind still has "carts and trolleys" still ringing inside... and look at the OP.

Then let me throw this tidbit at you... google cars... self driving cars that will in all likelihood not be owned by individuals (this will of course happen over a long period of time) but will come and go on demand. We may just find that the ever trusty bicycle is a bit handier than ordering and waiting for the car to show up... just to go down the road a 1/2 mile or so to grab a beer.

The mind just reels in the irony of the bike being the key to individual mobility in that future scenario.
genec is offline