Have You Driven a Bus or a Train Lately?

Image via Wikipedia

THE federal government is giving General Motors, Ford and Chrysler $25 billion in low-interest loans, and the companies are asking for up to $25 billion more. These same companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying against federal fuel-economy standards and are suing to overturn the emissions standards imposed by California and other states. In exchange for the loans, Congress should first insist that the automakers stop fighting these standards. But it should also make sure that better outcomes will result from these billions than just fuel-efficient cars.

The Obama administration should ask the companies, as a condition of financial assistance, to begin shifting from being just automakers to becoming innovative “transportmakers.” As Barack Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, recently said: “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do important things you would otherwise avoid.”

As transportmakers, the companies could produce vehicles for high-speed train and bus systems that would improve our travel options, reduce global warming, conserve energy, minimize accidents and generally improve the way we live.

This better way forward has been kicking around Washington for more than 35 years. In a prescient 1972 article in The Atlantic, Stewart Udall, an interior secretary under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, warned of America’s excessive dependence on cars and called for this approach.

At a time when almost no politicians and industry leaders were paying attention to this problem, Mr. Udall made a bleak but accurate prediction. He wrote that “the oil needs of the other industrialized countries are growing faster than ours” and that this “surge of demand will soon begin to send shock waves through the American economy and transportation system.”

Read more . . .

Random Posts:

• Simple, Low-cost Carbon Filter Removes 90 Percent Of Carbon Dioxide From Smokestack Gases
• Climate Change May Mean Slower Winds
• Can Innovation Save the Economy?
• Implantable Silicon-Silk electronics could mean LED tattoos
• The Forums are Now LIVE!

Related posts:

1. Driven to Distraction
2. Economic Slump May Limit Moves on Clean Energy
3. AlterG M300 Anti-Gravity Treadmill: train or rehabilitate weightlessly
4. A Future That Doesn’t Guzzle
5. Making Electric Cars Cheaper Than Gas Cars

Tags: american economy, barack obama, fuel economy standards, high speed train, Innovation, low interest loans, rahm emanuel, shock waves, stewart udall

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Innovation, NY Times, Project Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.