Can Technology Reduce the Energy Cost of Sprawl?

Fred Bosselman

Fred Bosselman is a Professor of Law at the Chicago-Kent Law School in Chicago, Illinois. This Article is based on material that will be included in Energy, Economics, and the Environment, by Fred Bosselman, Jim Rossi, and Jacqueline Lang Weaver,a casebook being published by Foundation Press in August 2000.

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Shades of the 1950s! People are worried about "urban sprawl."¹ Shades of the 1970s! People are worried about energy prices.² And they are even beginning to realize once again that there is a connection.³ Will we be any more successful in resolving these issues now than we were a generation or two ago? Do advances in technology give us reason for optimism?

This Article discusses how technological changes in transportation can influence land use patterns in the United States. After addressing the energy costs of transportation and "sprawl," the Article focuses on the automobile's role in current U.S. land use patterns and lists several factors that have influenced and continue to support current transportation trends. The Article, however, then addresses a number of factors that have caused growing public dissatisfaction with current land use patterns, and it highlights developments in technology that may alleviate such concerns. The Article concludes that if we are going to reduce our consumption of energy for transportation, we must either begin to reverse these development patterns or find new technological ways of traveling within the current pattern without using so much energy, or both.

The Energy Cost of "Sprawl"

Technological changes in transportation have greatly influenced patterns of land development in the United States. The greater mobility that people obtain from modern transportation technology has led to a dramatic change in the American landscape. Americans are increasingly living in thinly scattered and decentralized locations, with the result that Americans each year expend more energy getting from place to place.

Because of the long lag time involved in planning and constructing transportation facilities, the public has only gradually become aware of transportation's impact on the quality of life:

Transportation planning tends to be oriented to future conditions, because new projects take so long to build. But it is difficult to get the public interested in long-term plans if no problem exists currently. The public generally responds best when there is a crisis. Traffic congestion became that crisis in the 1980s, especially in those new suburban centers that blossomed. . . . The traffic attracted to edge cities and the new fringe beehives of business and commerce quickly expanded to fill up the remaining highway capacity, and caused lengthy traffic delays. Traffic congestion became a media topic, locally and nationally.⁴

Ironically, the construction of those office and commercial complexes on the urban fringe was originally stimulated by the hope of attracting employees who wanted to avoid the traffic congestion that they then associated with the older cities.

At the present time, thetransportation sector uses about one-fourth of all of the energy consumed in the United States. The transportation sector uses over 65% of the petroleum consumed in the United States, and highway vehicles account for 84% of that amount. This means that transportation uses the equivalent of all of the domestically produced oil and 40% of our oil imports.⁵

Studies of alternative transportation patterns employing higher building densities and more mass transit suggest that dramatic savings in energy use would be achieved by changes in land use patterns. Analyses of European cities that use such patterns and model simulations of American cities all suggest that substantial savings could be achieved.⁶ Whether such changes can be accomplished, however, is a serious question.

Automobile-Oriented Decentralization

In modern times, land development has been extending far out into the countryside as residential and commercial developers open up new areas to the driving public. People are driving longer and longer distances and the traffic is continually getting worse. This pattern of decentralized urbanization is commonly referred to as "sprawl."

Modern development patterns contrast sharply with those that prevailed when the country was founded. The cities of the 18th century tended to be small and compact. Horsedrawn vehicles' limitations made it impractical to travel long distances to work on a daily basis. In the 19th century, railroads made it possible to move goods to central locations for consolidation and transshipment. In the 20th century, automobiles brought a new mobility, unhindered by the need for extensive track systems. As the road network grew, buses replaced streetcar lines as the most common form of mass transportation. As more people acquired their [30 ELR 10830] own automobiles, the pattern of urban development began to change.

Many promoters of road construction saw themselves as providing a healthier alternative to the "teeming cities," which they saw as increasingly overcrowded. Henry Wallace, the Secretary of Agriculture in President Roosevelt's cabinet, said that "decentralization properly worked out in connection with concrete roads and electricity will have a lot to do with providing a more satisfactory life for the next generation."⁷ Roads were widened into highways and connected by interchanges that greatly increased the speed of travel, but only for a while. Retailers began to move out of downtown areas into new shopping centers scattered throughout the urban areas.⁸

Meanwhile, the federal government stimulated new housing developments in outlying areas through federally guaranteed home loans. Federal tax laws, which permitted homeowners to take a tax deduction for home mortgage interest, stimulated families and individuals to invest in a home. And if they sold the home, they were required to invest the proceeds in another equally expensive home or pay capital gains tax, thus providing further stimulation to the housing market.⁹

High inflation in the 1970-1985 period further stimulated home ownership as the values of homes went up dramatically. An entire generation came to believe that the best way to keep up with inflation was to buy a home because home prices always went up at a rate exceeding the inflation rate.

Most of the new homebuilding was in outlying areas rather than in the cities. Older housing in the cities was suffering from neglected maintenance during the depression and the war, and urban renewal programs were seen as ways to clear out the slums so that people could move to a better life in new housing. Robert Moses, the master builder of transportation facilities, saw highway building as one element in a desirable program to replace slums with highways, move slum dwellers into better high rise public housing, and open up the suburbs for the middle classes.¹⁰

Office buildings also started seeking locations on the fringes of urban areas where land was less expensive. As traffic generators scattered throughout metropolitan areas, the radial network of rail and road ways that had been typical of early 20th century cities became unsuited to the nonradial travel patterns that were becoming typical. Frequently a "beltway" circling the metropolitan area became one of the most heavily traveled routes. Highways that were built to bring workers downtown ended up carrying their heaviest traffic in the opposite direction as city workers commuted to suburban jobs.¹¹

In summary, current patterns of land development emphasize single-family homes at relatively low densities in developments designed on the assumption that virtually all residents would travel by private automobile. The great amount of space needed to accommodate this pattern has meant that the mileage traveled per household has increased rapidly. And with trucks replacing railways as the primary means of goods transport, the road network has absorbed a growing share of American energy consumption.

Factors That Have Fostered Current Trends in Transportation

In the 20th century, Americans' energy choices have affected every area of production and consumption, but it is in transportation where these choices have most dramatically increased our energy consumption. As David Nye stated:

Most farmers abandoned horses and oxen for tractors, [and] motorists preferred large cars with poor fuel economy; [while the federal government] spent billions of dollars on interstate highways instead of on mass transit. And during the 1970s the federal government signally failed to develop a coherent energy policy. As the result of all these decisions, made by the people or their institutions, the United States became the largest consumer of energy in the world's history.¹²

The reasons why the people of the United States have chosen to expend such a large share of their budgets for transportation are many and complex. Any listing of them would include the following dozen.

[] Automobile Merchandising. The American's reputed love affair with the automobile is often cited as the cause of our increasingly decentralized pattern of development. In comparison with other industrialized countries, such as Japan or the European countries, Americans take far fewer trips by public transportation. Is our lifestyle simply a matter of what the economists would call a "taste" for private transportation? Or are there factors about American society at the turn of the millennium that make our development pattern more efficient than its critics recognize?

[] Growth in Trucking. The trucking industry's powerful political support for federal gasoline taxes to fund federal spending on highways has facilitated the rapid development of the federal interstate highway network. Although automobile drivers must share the network with more and heavier trucks, the network's increased efficiency has made it possible to extend significantly the mileage that drivers are willing to commute, thus greatly increasing total energy consumption.

More recently, the growth of the trucking industry has been facilitated by the deregulation of most shipments and the development of more entrepreneurial management. The deregulation of the trucking industry has brought about significant competition in trucking while railroad ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated.

The volume of truck movements has also grown as a result of the increased emphasis in American industry on the use of sophisticated logistics to move resources and products so that they are the right place at the right time.¹³

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[] Workforce Expansion. Another factor that has driven up the usage of energy in transportation is certainly the growth of the workforce. The so-called baby boom generation began to reach driving age in the 1960s and began entering the workforce around 1965. The number of licensed drivers doubled between 1960 and 1980; and between 1965 and 1985 the labor force grew at a rate of 2.1% per year, nearly twice the rate of growth from 1950 to 1965.¹⁴

Equally striking was the increase in two-income families. In early 1999, 46.4% of the working population was female, and the ratio has been increasing steadily.¹⁵ With two people in the household traveling to employment, a homesite located near one particular jobsite becomes less important than a location conveniently situated for access to the overall highway network.

And the automobile makes it possible to combine trips for work and shopping or pleasure in ways that are difficult on public transportation; this efficiency is particularly valuable to the time-sensitive, two-income family. Among two-parent families with children, the amount of time spent on paid work increased by 18% between 1969 and 1996.¹⁶

[] Privacy and Security. Traditionally, Americans have sought a higher degree of personal space and privacy than people in other cultures, and the private automobile satisfies this desire.¹⁷ Psychologists have observed, for example, that a group of Americans who converse with each other will stand farther apart than similar groups from most other cultures. This demand for more private space is rewarded on American roadways where the vast majority of cars carry a single occupant.¹⁸

[] The Climate-Controlled Lifestyle. The pervasiveness of air conditioning in homes and businesses has also increased the demand for the kind of air-conditioned door-to-door travel that the automobile can provide. The Energy Information Administration's 1997 Residential Energy Consumption Survey showed that 72% of American households have air conditioning.¹⁹ The downtown business districts of cities with climates as varied as Minneapolis and Houston have invested significant sums in the creation of enclosed walkways among office buildings that preserve the climate-controlled environment, and the indoor regional shopping mall has become a fixture throughout the country.

These trends are responding to the fact that white collar workers, who make up a growing segment of the population, seek to avoid exposure to weather-related inconveniences. The executive who commutes from the climate-controlled garage attached to her single-family house to the climate-controlled garage attached to her office building may be able to dress with complete disregard for outside weather conditions.

[] Cellular Telephones. The development of extensive networks of towers that facilitate the use of cellular telephones in most of the populated areas of the United States has meant that automobile drivers can conduct business or otherwise engage in "multi-tasking" while driving their vehicle. This makes the traffic jam less of a threat to productivity than it was a decade earlier. Although the safety implications of this practice are somewhat alarming, it continues to be popular.

[] Perception of Safety. Although nearly 50,000 people each year are killed in auto accidents in the United States, people tend to downplay the danger.²⁰ Despite the high risk of automobile accidents, many Americans say that they actually feel safer in their car than in public transportation. Accidents involving public transportation tend to receive more media coverage than the routine fatalities in auto accidents. And the fear of contact with criminal behavior on public transportation is one of those risks that ranks higher in public perception than statistics would support.

[] Job-Shifting. Increasing job mobility has accentuated the need for flexibility in housing location. The number of people who predict that they will remain at the same job for a long period of time has been declining steadily, and the 1990s' downsizing of large corporations and growth of entrepreneurial start-ups has continued to encourage the trend to seek flexibility over stability in home location.

[] Greater Affluence. Reliance on the private automobile is also simply a product of increased wealth. All industrialized countries have seen increases in automobile ownership, but the increase in the United States has been particularly notable. In 1950 there were just under 7 automobiles in the United States for every 10 licensed drivers; by 1980 the ratio had passed 1 to 1.²¹ By 1997, there were over 200 million registered vehicles and only about 183 million licensed drivers.²²

Although many of the newly affluent are more conscious of environmental issues than members of preceding generations, that has not necessarily lead to reduced energy consumption. Every improvement in gas mileage is counter-acted by more cars and more mileage driven per car. In the decade preceding 1997 annual motor vehicle travel increased nearly 30%.²³ Environmentalists may jog for their health but rarely walk to work, and a love for the outdoors often means wanting to live as far from the city as possible.

[] Information Technology. The rapid growth of advanced information technology in the 1990s also has contributed to new transportation and development patterns. The need for [30 ELR 10832] centralized locations for "office work" has begun to diminish, and increasing numbers of people work at home for part of the week.²⁴ Some analysts believe that advances in information technology are already contributing to energy efficiency on the macroeconomic level, although the data are subject to varying interpretations.²⁵

As this trend continues it will reduce the importance of home-to-work transportation in the selection of a residence, which may benefitboth rural and urban locations at the expense of traditional suburbs. A growing number of individuals who work in e-commerce out of their homes have wide-ranging choices of where to live. Some western states that once relied on resource extraction as their economic base are coming to realize that it is "resource attraction" that is bringing in new entrepreneurs who can work from any place that a satellite can see.²⁶

[] Cheap Land. Much new development takes place at the edge of metropolitan areas in

a peripheral zone, perhaps as large as a county, that has emerged as a viable socioeconomic unit. Spread out along its highway growth corridors are shopping malls, industrial parks, campuslike office complexes, hospitals, schools and a full range of housing types. Its residents look to their immediate surroundings rather than to the city for their jobs and other needs; and its industries find not only the employees they need but also the specialized services.²⁷

The name "edge city" has become commonly used for these areas.²⁸

[] The Highway Lobby. Such a wide range of interest groups are so well organized in support of government money for road construction that it has long been difficult to obtain support for any other mode of transportation. Automobile manufacturers, oil companies, truckers, farmers, land developers; all are comfortable with a system that provides extensive financial support for the maintenance of the network on which the existing pattern of development is dependent.²⁹

All of these factors have stimulated increasing movement into formerly rural areas, thereby stretching out the time of travel if not its frequency. If we are going to reduce our consumption of energy for transportation, we must either begin to reverse these development patterns, or find new technological ways of traveling within the current pattern without using so much energy, or both.

Americans' preferences for sprawling growth, automotive movement, and individualistic heating and housing impose conditions on their future energy choices. As the United States prepares to enter a new century, the federal government and the major automobile manufacturers are investing billions of dollars in electric cars, hybrid cars, solar cars, and smart cars that will drive themselves. Such planning makes sense so long as consumers choose to remain spread out.³⁰

But are current trends inevitable? Dissatisfaction with existing modes of transportation and development patterns is increasing for a variety of reasons.

Factors Creating Pressure for Changes in Transportation

Despite the reasons for continuing support of a pattern of development of spread-out living with ever-increasing reliance on automobiles and trucks to connect everything together, a backlash has been gradually developing. Growing public dissatisfaction stems from a number of causes.

[] Air Pollution. Motor vehicles are recognized as a serious source of air pollution. Motor vehicle exhaust includes carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter (PM). NO_x and VOCs are the major contributors to smog, which can be hazardous to people with many common breathing disorders, as can PM. In the concentrations found in some traffic "hot spots," CO can slow peoples' reflexes and contributes to safety problems.

[] Climate Change. Recently attention has been focused on the extent to which transportation is responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases that may be contributing to climate change. If future trends continue, transportation within the United States will be contributing one-third of the nation's emissions of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases.³¹

[] Concern About Oil Imports. Americans have been nervous about the extent to which the national economy, and particularly the transportation system, has become increasingly dependent on imported oil. The overall transportation system is the largest user of oil in the U.S. economy and is almost completely dependent (97%) on oil. About two-thirds of the oil we use goes directly into transportation. And the percentage of our oil that comes from overseas is projected to rise each year. Our reliance on imported oil has led us to become involved diplomatically and at times militarily in the affairs of those parts of the world from which we get our oil. This has not only contributed to high defense budgets but has frequently embroiled us in hostile relations with countries that have turned potential trading partners into enemies.

[] Safety. Highway safety became a growing concern of the federal government under pressure from Ralph Nader whose book, Unsafe at Any Speed,³² attained wide popularity. [30 ELR 10833] Congress created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and authorized it to set safety standards and order recalls. The automobile manufacturers were required to install airbags and undergo safety testing of vehicle models. In 1974, Congress adopted national speed limits designed to increase safety and reduce energy consumption in response to the first oil shock, but these were relaxed after gasoline prices came down.

[] Noise. People who live near transportation facilities have become increasingly vocal objectors as transportation volumes have increased. Most large-scale forms of transportation create noise that can be unpleasant at close range. Residents of areas near airports have often persuaded authorities to impose curfews and specific takeoff and landing patterns designed to reduce noise. Highway departments are increasingly installing sound barriers alongside freeways to reduce the noise level in residential neighborhoods.

[] Traffic Congestion. The users of the highways also are expressing frustration with steadily growing traffic congestion and increased home-to-work travel time. Recent studies show that there continues to be an increase in (1) the number of licensed drivers, (2) the number of trips per driver, and (3) the length of the average trip.³³ As economist Paul Krugman puts it, "when few people have cars, the one-car family is king, but when everyone has two, a lot of time is spent in traffic jams."³⁴

[] Alienation. Concern about loss of a sense of community is also part of the growing dissatisfaction with current land use patterns. It is commonly believed that people are spending less time in social or civic pursuits and more time alone. A "tendency for social life to become 'privatized,' and to a reduced feeling of concern and responsibility among families for their neighbors . . ." has been noted by many observers.³⁵

[] Lack of Open Areas. In many parts of the country, voters are beginning to protest the lack of open space and natural habitat in metropolitan areas. Throughout the West, for example, people speak of their fear of their community becoming "Los Angelized." In the late 1990s, voters began to show solid support for bond issues to protect open space through land acquisition.

[] Sprawl. The word "sprawl" has become a common opprobrium for the pattern of land development that relies on the private automobile for transportation. Voters have been expressing a growing dissatisfaction with the phenomenon of widely dispersed low-density land development. The average person has begun to realize that sprawl is:

self-perpetuating: the dominance of the automobile among our transportation choices makes low-density development possible; low-density development, in turn, makes us more dependent on automobiles for access to increasingly dispersed locations for employment, services, and recreation. This is bad news for all, but especially for those who are unable to use cars as a primary mode of transportation, including the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and children.³⁶

Although the interrelationship of highway projects and sprawling development is widely assumed,³⁷ few governmental units in the United States have successfully managed systems for identifying and regulating the growth-inducing impacts of transportation projects.³⁸ New growth management initiatives continue to seek to integrate transportation and land development.

[] Tax Resistance. Perhaps the most important cause of dissatisfaction with the existing patterns of transportation and land development has simply been the voters' resistance to spending money on the public works projects that would be needed to reduce congestion and improve efficiency. During the first two oil shocks between 1979 and 1981, the high rates of inflation doubled the cost of highway construction and maintenance, causing great political reluctance to raise the taxes needed to keep highway construction going.³⁹ This aversion to expenditures affected public works projects of all sorts.⁴⁰ During the Reagan Administration, a policy decision was made to use virtually all federal highway funds for repairs rather than new roads, with the result that between 1981 and 1989 total highway mileage increased only 0.6% while total vehicle miles driven went up over 33%.⁴¹ Most capital spending today is on renovation, rehabilitation, and widening of existing highways rather than on new route construction.⁴² Whether the increased public spending projected in the 1998 federal highway legislation will begin to reverse this trend remains to be seen.

Are There Win-Win Fixes?

These conflicting attitudes make it difficult to assume that there will be easy political solutions to the American public's desire to have the advantages of decentralized living without also having its disadvantages. In consequence, many people look toward technology in hopes that a win-win fix may be found.

Developments in Engine Technology

The automobile industry has been gradually improving the efficiency of auto and truck technology. They have improved [30 ELR 10834] the rolling resistance of tires and added lockup torque conversion to transmissions to eliminate slippage at highway speeds. Engines have been improved by switching from carburetors to fuel injection, improving combustion control, and adding valves to improve engine breathing. These efficiency gains have been offset, however, by consumer switches to larger vehicles.⁴³

Continuing concern over air pollution from gasoline-burning internal combustion engines, aggravated by the awareness that over one-quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector's consumption of petroleum, has led to extensive research and development efforts to find clean, efficient substitutes for the traditional automobile and truck engines. These efforts have included attempts to produce electric cars and cleaner burning diesel engines. At the present time, the two most promising technologies appear to be hybrid vehicles, which combine an electric motor and an internal combustion engine, and fuel cell vehicles.

[] Hybrid Vehicles. Toyota has introduced a 2000 hybrid model, the Prius, in the United States, after initial sales success in Japan. The Toyota Prius combines a 1.5 liter gasoline engine with an electric motor and a battery pack. When accelerating, the car uses the battery-powered motor. At higher speeds, the gasoline engine takes over and uses excess power to recharge the batteries. In Japanese tests, the Prius got 67 miles per gallon in mixed city-county driving. It emitted about 90% less NO_x and CO than comparable cars, and it reduced CO₂ emission by 50%.

Honda also has introduced a hybrid vehicle in the United States. The two-seat Honda Insight also combines a gasoline engine and an electric motor. Tests by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified that the Insight got 61 miles per gallon in city driving and 70 miles per gallon on the highway. Most other auto manufacturers also are working on hybrid vehicles and are expected to introduce models soon. By comparison, many of the larger sport utility vehicles, which have been increasingly popular in the 1990s, get about 12 miles per gallon in city driving and 16 miles per gallon on the highway.

A joint venture of the automobile companies and several federal research laboratories has been working on the design of an energy-efficient vehicle since 1993 with the hope of introducing a prototype in 2004. The venture has focused on the design of a hybrid vehicle using diesel fuel. But the increasingly tight emission requirements being proposed by EPA may make it difficult to expand the use of diesel engines.

[] Fuel Cell Cars. Although fuel cells have been in widespread use for specialized applications, attempts to design automobile engines based on fuel cell technology were widely assumed to be far from any current relevance. In 1999, these assumptions began to change.

In March 1999, Daimler-Chrysler demonstrated a model of a hydrogen-fueled car that was much farther along than others in the industry had expected. The reaction in the industry was immediate: the Wall Street Journal said "not long ago, the fuel cell was dismissed as an environmentalist's pipe dream [but now] it is the subject of a heavily-financed research-and-development race among some of the world's biggest auto makers."⁴⁴

Georgetown University has built and operated a fuel cell bus pursuant to a Federal Transit Administration demonstration grant. The bus uses a 100 kilowatt fuel cell manufactured by a Connecticut company, International Fuel Cells. The fuel cell is supplemented by a battery, which provides additional power for acceleration. The Chicago Transit Authority operates three buses powered by hydrogen-powered fuel cell engines. The buses store compressed hydrogen in tanks mounted on the roof. The buses are refueled at a central station from tanks of liquid hydrogen.

[] The Fuels of the Future. The demonstration of the prototype fuel cell car by Daimler-Chrysler led the refiners' trade journal Octane Week to editorialize that:

[this] amazingly compact, fuel-efficient, prototype 2004 model year hydrogen fuel cell car signals a potentially devastating future for oil refiners. Unless they can come up with a fuel cell friendly fuel, such as zero-sulfur, zero-aromatics naphtha or a similar "gasoline," refiners may be unwise to assume the gasoline/diesel infrastructure guarantees their products have a place in the fuel cell fleet of the future.⁴⁵

On the other hand, the Oil Daily quoted the chairman of Chevron: "People have been predicting the death of the internal combustion engine for a very long time, and it hasn't happened . . . . But as I've said for years, if automobiles are going to run on milk, then we'll be in the milk business."⁴⁶

Milk is not currently in the cards, but extensive research is underway on virtually every other possible fuel alternative. It is too early to predict the eventual outcome, but many expert observers believe that there could be a substantial change in the mix of fuels by 2020.⁴⁷

Among the alternatives is the continued use of gasoline, although it may need to be a cleaner gasoline, perhaps refined through the use of a gas-to-liquids conversion methodology. Research is underway to try to develop a fuel cell that will generate electricity from gasoline. The German auto manufacturer BMW is working on a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell that will evaporate the gasoline, obtaining hydrogen through a splitting process in a reformer, which then reacts with oxygen in the air fed in during the process, generating electricity and, as a waste product, water.⁴⁸

Methanol is another alternative being given consideration. Currently, methanol is being refined for use as a gasoline additive known as methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) that is required in areas with high ozone pollution. MTBE is likely to be phased out because of concern about its potential for causing water pollution, which will force methanol production [30 ELR 10835] facilities to close unless new uses are found. This has stimulated research into the use of methanol as an on-board fuel for fuel cell cars. In California, a joint venture of auto and oil companies, in cooperation with the state government, has been formed to test fuel cell vehicles and determine how to make fuel available. ARCO, Texaco, and Shell joined with Ford and Daimler-Chrysler to address the fuel and infrastructure needs to support some 50 fuel cell vehicles planned for delivery between 2000 and 2003. Some of the demonstration vehicles will run on methanol, and the use of cleaner blends of gasoline will also be explored.⁴⁹

The use of liquid or compressed hydrogen is also being given consideration. This is assumed to be the most efficient power source for fuel cell operation, but it would require major changes in refining and distribution systems. In addition, major advances in technology are still needed in order to make the large-scale production of hydrogen economically efficient. Nevertheless, research in hydrogen technology is given high priority because the potential of this fuel would be so advantageous from an environmental perspective. One of the country's leading energy experts, Dr. Henry Linden of the Illinois Institute of Technology, now feels confident that hydrogen is the "key to a sustainable energy future," and that "most vehicles will eventually be powered with hydrogen stored on board and converted to electricity with air in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, used in tandem with advanced batteries for startup, peak power, and the capture of braking energy."⁵⁰

Other fuels for transportation that could possibly be the beneficiaries of scientific breakthroughs include liquefied or compressed natural gas, ethanol, propane, and new varieties of diesel fuel.⁵¹

Future Trends

Throughout the United States a great deal of creative effort is being devoted to devising technological ways of producing a more energy-efficient, pollution-resistant pattern of transportation and land development. Each of the following approaches has some promise, but none of them seem likely to have an imminent impact during the early years of this century.

[] Infill. Energy efficiency is one of the objectives of government programs for the promotion of "infill" development, i.e., the encouragement of new development on vacant or underused land within existing cities. When "brownfields" sites, which have been abandoned by earlier industries, are redeveloped they can take advantage of existing transportation networks and proximity to existing housing.⁵² If the indirect costs of fringe area development were taken into account, redevelopment of inner city sites may be the more economically efficient alternative.⁵³

[] More Mass Transit. Funding for mass transit has been a significant goal for those who seek to improve energy efficiency. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) provides a very substantial increase in funding for mass transit. Whether state and local governments will use it to develop new facilities or to maintain aging systems remains to be seen.

[] Increased Urban Densities. Land developers have expressed a growing interest in promoting more dense urban development.⁵⁴ Some architects and planners advocate a "new urbanism" in development design. The concept of new urbanism, sometimes referred to as "neotraditional" development, is based on a desire to reduce the need for automobile travel and to create communities with more social interaction. Neighborhoods are dotted with businesses accessible by foot; networks of bike paths encourage people to leave their cars at home.⁵⁵

To date, relatively few communities designed according to these principles have been completed, and it is too early to evaluate their success. The Disney Company's town in Florida called Celebration has attracted the most attention. But unless these design principles become the new norm among developers, a few demonstration communities are unlikely to have any real influence on patterns of sprawl.⁵⁶

[] Increase Rail Shipments. Increased use of rail for shipments rather than trucks has been one of the goals of environmental groups.⁵⁷ The railroads succeeded in 1992 in persuading Congress to impose a moratorium on increases in the permitted size and weight limits for trucks, but there are some indications that political infighting between the railroad and trucking industry is increasing, and this may trigger further losses of freight volume by the railroads.⁵⁸ And the Transportation Research Board has concluded that diversion of truck traffic to rail is unlikely to have a significant effect on fuel use and pollution emissions.⁵⁹

[] Peak-Hour Pricing. Economists have long advocated the establishment of higher prices for traveling at peak times as a way of reducing traffic congestion and improving the overall efficiency of the transportation system.⁶⁰ A few communities have undertaken limited experiments with such programs.⁶¹ Some transit systems do provide discounts for off-peak travel, as do some toll roads and bridges, but the technical problems of implementing such a system on a large scale for automobile travel are daunting.⁶²

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[] Intelligent Vehicles. The U.S. Department of Transportation continues to fund research on intelligent vehicle highway systems. Such systems would combine electronic sensors in highways and vehicles with centralized management of traffic flows.⁶³ EPA is also funding experimental use of global positioning systems on automobiles that can provide insurance companies with information on the amount and time of day the car was driven, thereby allowing the companies to set insurance rates that vary with driving patterns.⁶⁴

Conclusion

Is our present system of virtually complete reliance on the automobile a policy that can be sustained indefinitely? In his recent history of American energy consumption, David Nye summarizes:

The energy choices of the past have brought the United States prosperity, but no more than was achieved by some other countries that use far less. The choices made at the end of the twentieth century will determine whether the [United States] continues to consume more power per capita than any other country. Americans must choose whether to tax gasoline in order to stimulate conversion to alternative energies. They must choose whether deregulation will be used simply to save money in the short term or whether it can be part of a larger strategy of becoming more efficient. They must choose whether to make environmental economics that basis of policy. Individually, they must choose whether they want to drive or to take mass transit, whether they will buy ever-larger houses, how well they will insulate their homes, whether they will invest in low energy light bulbs and appliances, and whether they will adopt solar water heating, heat pumps, and other energy-saving technologies. In designing their cities, Americans can decided whether to encourage cycling, pedestrian traffic, and local shopping. In the workplace, they must decide to what extent computers will be used to reduce commuting. At the polls, they must decide whether to endorse recycling, research onalternative energies, and more fuel-efficient vehicles. In short, they must decide whether they think energy choices matter now, or whether they expect ingenious technologies so solve emerging problems later. They can even choose to believe in technological determinism, which will apparently absolve them from any responsibility to make choices. Whatever Americans decide, in the twenty-first century their economic well-being, the quality of their environment, how to travel, where and how they work, and how they live together will be powerfully shaped by their consuming power.⁶⁵

James Dunn, on the other hand, argues that the "automobile system has been nothing if not sustainable for about a century now," having survived depressions, wars, and energy and pollution crises. Throughout the world, automobiles are "the most popular form of transportation, with people scrambling to own a car in spite of high taxes and bad roads." The "intense popularity and durability" of the automobile means that "calling an as yet nonexistent future system with fewer automobiles more sustainable than the present one would be laughable."⁶⁶

It remains to be seen whether technology can really give us the ability to enjoy our decentralized lifestyle without suffering from the economic and environmental side effects of our inefficient pattern of energy consumption. What does seem likely, however, is that if technology can't solve the problem, it is not likely to get solved.

1. William H. Whyte Jr., Urban Sprawl, in THE EXPLODING METROPOLIS (William H. Whyte ed., Doubleday 1958).

2. TAD SZULC, THE ENERGY CRISIS (Watts 1974).

3. REAL ESTATE RESEARCH CORP., THE COSTS OF SPRAWL: ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC COSTS OF ALTERNATIVE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS AT THE URBAN FRINGE (GPO 1974).

4. ROBERT T. DUNPHY, MOVING BEYOND GRIDLOCK: TRAFFIC AND DEVELOPMENT 1-2 (Urban Land Institute 1997).

5. BUREAU OF TRANS. STATISTICS, U.S. DEP'T OF TRANS., ANNUAL REPORT 104-06 (1999).

6. See Judy S. Davis & Samuel Seskin, Impact of Urban Form on Travel Behavior, 29 URB. LAW. 215 (1997).

7. TOM LEWIS, DIVIDED HIGHWAYS 52 (Viking Penguin 1997).

8. KENNETH T. JACKSON, CRABGRASS FRONTIER: THE SUBURBANIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES 257-61 (Oxford Univ. Press 1985).

9. Christine A. Klein, A Requiem for the Rollover Rule: Capital Gains, Farmland Loss, and the Law of Unintended Consequences, 55 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 403 (1998).

10. See generally JOEL SCHWARTZ, NEW YORK APPROACH; ROBERT MOSES, URBAN LIBERALS, AND REDEVELOPMENT OF THE INNER CITY (Ohio State Univ. Press 1993).

11. DUNPHY, supra note 4, at 33-35.

12. DAVID NYE, CONSUMING POWER 255-56 (MITPress 1998) (David Nye is Professor of American Studies at Odense University, Denmark).

13. See W. Bruce Allen, The Logistics Revolution and Transportation, 553 ANNALS AM. ACAD. POL. & SOC. SCL 106 (1998).

14. NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD, TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE 44-45 (National Academy Press 1997) [hereinafter SUSTAINABLE FUTURE].

15. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, U.S. DEP'T OF LABOR, EMPLOYMENT AND EARNINGS (Feb. 1999).

16. COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS, FAMILIES AND THE LABOR MARKET, 1969-1999: ANALYZING THE "TIME CRUNCH" (1999).

17. CHARLES L. WRIGHT, FAST WHEELS, SLOW TRAFFIC 115-18 (1992).

18. "At first, electricity and the automobile enlivened the city, reinforcing its density and bringing mobility and kinetic excitement to its daily round. Eventually, however, they were used to undermine the central city as Americans moved to suburbs and embraced a more private form of popular culture." NYE, supra note 12, at 158.

19. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMIN., U.S. DEP'T OF ENERGY, RESIDENTIAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION SURVEY (1997) (available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs).

20. HOWARD MARGOLIS, DEALING WITH RISK 38 (University of Chicago Press 1996).

21. SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, supra note 14, at 41.

22. BUREAU OF TRANS. STATISTICS, NATIONAL TRANS. STATISTICS (1999) (available at http://www.bts.gov/ntda/nts/NTS99/data/profiles/AUTO99.html).

23. SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, supra note 14, at 41.

24. DUNPHY, supra note 4, at 36-37.

25. Statement of Joseph Romm, Executive Director of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, Before the Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs, of the Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Feb. 2, 2000.

26. See THOMAS MICHAEL POWER, LOST LANDSCAPES AND FAILED ECONOMIES 41-43 (Island Press 1996).

27. ROBERT FISHMAN, BOURGEOIS UTOPIAS: THE RISE AND FALL OF SUBURBIA 184 (Basic Books 1987).

28. See JOEL GARREAU, EDGE CITY: LIFE ON THE URBAN FRONTIER (Doubleday 1991).

29. See JAMES A. DUNN JR., DRIVING FORCES: THE AUTOMOBILE, ITS ENEMIES, AND THE POLITICS OF MOBILITY 23-30 (Brookings Inst. 1998).

30. NYE, supra note 12, at 257-58.

31. James J. MacKenzie, Driving the Road to Sustainable Ground Transportation, in FRONTIERS OF SURVIVAL 121, 126-27 (World Resources Inst. 1997); JAMES J. MacKENZIE, CLIMATE PROTECTION AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST: THE LINKS AMONG CLIMATE CHANGE, AIR POLLUTION, AND ENERGY SECURITY (World Resources Inst. 1997).

32. RALPH NADER, UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED (Grossman 1965).

33. MacKenzie, supra note 31, at 151-52.

34. Paul Krugman, Money Can't Buy Happiness. Er. Can It?, N.Y. TIMES, June 1, 1999, at A23.

35. JACKSON, supra note 8, at 272.

36. F. Kaid Benfield, Running on Empty: The Case for a Sustainable National Transportation System, 25 ENVTL. L. 651, 657 (1995).

37. Not everyone shares the conviction that the automobile is primarily to blame for decentralization, which in fact began a century ago. See DUNN, supra note 29, at 146-47.

38. Marie L. York, Dealing With Secondary Environmental Impacts of Transportation, 51 LAND USE L. & ZONING DIG. 3 (1999).

39. MARK H. ROSE, INTERSTATE: EXPRESS HIGHWAY POLITICS, 1939-1989 113 (University of Tennessee Press, rev. ed., 1990).

40. As Lester Thurow points out:

Public infrastructure investment has been cut in half over the past twenty-five years and has fallen to the point where the stock of public capital is now declining relative to the GDP—falling from 55 to 40 percent of GDP in the last decade. Less is being invested in public infrastructure in the United States than in any of the [developed] countries—one third as much as Japan.

LESTER THUROW, THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM 291 (1996).

41. ANTHONY DOWNS, STUCK IN TRAFFIC: COPING WITH PEAK-HOUR TRAFFIC CONGESTION 11 (Brookings Inst. 1992).

42. SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, supra note 14, at 51.

43. BUREAU OF TRANS. STATISTICS, supra note 5, at 105.

44. WALL ST.J., Mar. 15, 1999, at 1. The development of vehicles powered by fuel cells is only one element, though a very important element, of a long-standing campaign of environmentalist Amory Lovins to transform the automobile industry. See Amory B. Lovins et al., A Road Map for Natural Capitalism, 76 HARV. BUS. REV. 145 (1999).

45. Jack Peckham, Fuels Industry May Be Turned Upside-Down by Fuel Cell Revolution, OCTANE WK., Mar. 22, 1999.

46. David Pike, Analysts Have Trouble Predicting Future Route for Fuel Cell Vehicles, OIL DAILY, Mar. 30, 1999.

47. See, e.g., Louella E. Bensabat, U.S. Fuels Mix to Change in the Next Two Decades, OIL & GAS J., July 12, 1999, at 46.

48. See Carol Cole, BMW Joins Race to Develop Gasoline Fuel Cell Vehicles, OCTANE WK., May 3, 1999.

49. See the California Fuel Cell Partnership's website at http://www.drivingthefuture.org for the most current developments.

50. Henry R. Linden, Alternative Pathways to a Carbon-Emission-Free Energy System, 29 BRIDGE 3 (Rice Univ. Press, Fall 1999).

51. See Bensabat, supra note 47.

52. ROBERT A. SIMONS, TURNING BROWNFIELDS INTO GREENBACKS (Urban Land Inst. 1998).

53. Joel B. Eisen, Brownfields of Dreams: Challenges and Limits of Voluntary Cleanup Programs and Incentives, 1996 U. ILL. L. REV. 883, 1025-26.

54. DOWNS, supra note 41, at 79-97.

55. See generally PETER KATZ, THE NEW URBANISM: TOWARD AN ARCHTTECTURE OF COMMUNITY (1994).

56. DUNN, supra note 29, at 152-55. For information promoting the use of community designs that minimize automotive travel, see http://www.carfree.com.

57. See Benfield, supra note 36, at 673.

58. See Frank N. Wilner, Truck-Rail War Looms, TRAFFIC WORLD, Feb. 22, 1999, at 12.

59. SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, supra note 14, at 122-23.

60. For an analysis of a wide array of approaches to value pricing, see ROGER P. ROESS ET AL., TRAFFIC ENGINEERING 18-27 (2d ed. 1998).

61. Felicia B. Young & John T. Berg, Value Pricing Helps Reduce Congestion, 62 PUB. ROADS 47 (1999).

62. Tirza S. Wahrman, Breaking the Logjam: The Peak Pricing of Congested Urban Roadways Under the Clean Air Act to Improve Air Quality and Reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled, 8 DUKE ENVTL. L. & POL'Y F. 181 (1998).

63. DOWNS, supra note 41, at 73-74; LEWIS T. BRANSCOMB & JAMES H. KELLER, CONVERGING INFRASTRUCTURES: INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION AND THE NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (MIT Press 1996).

64. U.S. EPA, Regulatory Reinvention (XL) Pilot Projects; Project XL Proposed Project Final Agreement: Progressive Insurance Project Pay-as-You-Drive Auto Insurance, 65 Fed. Reg. 39614 (June 27, 2000).

65. NYE, supra note 12, at 273-74.

66. DUNN, supra note 29, at 173-74.