[sustran] henry ford's dream

[Farheen Mukri]

I was forwarded this and was amazed at the $$$$ amount.
FYI
Farheen

> 	Europe spent ---=== $10 000 000 000 000 ===--- on new
> transportation systems..!!!!! That's incredible.
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> Published Thursday, May 27, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News 
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> VOICES OF OUR TIME
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> Henry Ford's dream has hurt the Earth
> Rod Diridon
> Public-transit advocate
> From your perspective, what have been some of the most important
> developments of the 20th century, and how will the world be different 100
> years from now?
> 
> Henry Ford's dream of mobility has had a staggering impact. The nation has
> been provided mobility, jobs, exports and an auto-worship that carries us
> physically and mentally from puberty to the grave.
> 
> Now Henry's ``car for every working family'' has grown to three or four.
> His dream is a strangling nightmare of fouled air, hopelessly congested
> highways and a massive balance-of-trade deficit caused by the need to
> import more than half the petroleum those cars use each year.
> 
> We've become so physically and emotionally auto-addicted that we
> viscerally oppose any restrictions on their use, especially the gas taxes
> that every other country in the world uses to build fine multimodal
> transportation systems. The result: During the past decade, the European
> Community has spent nearly $10 trillion on new transportation
> infrastructure based primarily on clean, energy-efficient, 150- to 200-mph
> high-speed trains. Our governments have quarreled over a relatively meager
> couple of trillion dollars invested primarily in more highways that become
> long parking lots the moment they're opened in our urban areas.
> 
> Other nations have fine rail, bus, bike and pedestrian systems that offer
> environmentally sensitive alternatives to the automobile. Because we're so
> wedded to our cars, we've not developed those systems and, indeed, seem
> determined to invest our mobility dollars into the latest and greatest
> gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles.
> 
> Well, that will sure be more comfortable for our families now -- but how
> about their children's children? Will there be anything left when our time
> as custodians of Earth is past? Are we being good ancestors?
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