A Picture is Worth...

Wow, thats a crazy reality. Especially when we use our car to go 2 minutes.

I SEE YOU- ALL LIKE SITTING OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET IN LINES.

This is eye-opening. ...But then you remember that generally everybody is coming from and/or going to different places, which is why we can't all take the bus, and that it's impossible to load three kids and the groceries onto a bicycle. What's sick is not the "car fetish" but the fact that our cities are set up in such a way that we have to drive so far to get where we need to go. Developing smaller, closer-knit, better planned communities within cities is a better answer than forcing everyone to wait for the bus or ride a bike several miles in the rain (I live in Oregon).

I try to convince my father after abandoning my car (even if it's a Smart car), but he won't listen. The trains and buses in Geneva (Switzerland) are so well timed and organized that it's a crime to not use them, especially when the train goes right next door to his office... at least now he uses my car instead of the huge Volvo.

recycle 80% of all personal cars

it saw it first on criticalmass.hu. that's a very great picture, do you know where was it taken?

Life is about balance. Finding the right balance is what it is all about. This is a classic case....If both extremes are either non-feasible or non-benificial, then one needs to strike a balance. PUBLIC TRANSPORT.

absurd and sobering. a similar picto-demonstration regarding pollution from each transportation option would also be interesting.

And those are european sized cars and NOT american sized cars! :O

big smelly busses use 10x + the ammount of fuel a car uses just taking the 1st 10 people to their destinations. Starting then stopping is extremely un-economical fuel consumption. If all those people just got in their cars and drove to where they need to be it would use less fuel, be faster and more convienient(the point of transportation anysways), and you don't have to be crowded into a huge deathtrap with a bunch of stinky euro-trash.

A bus quickly uses the same ammount of fuel a small euro-car can hold entirely, I meant

A few great photos. Many cars go stop and go in LA traffic....which is also un-economical in fuel consumption..... If only the public transportation was better.....

I agree that cars take up a ton of room, thus creating horrible traffic, but notice that the car picture here is cropped closer to make it seem like the street is filled past the ends. Here's a series where the pics are cropped more equally (and where the cars still take up too much room!)

While it is true and sobering image, nobody rides in such a tight pack. Someone would crash and they'd all go down like dominoes and then ambulances would create horrible gridlock.

Indeed. The cars actually take up much more space than that and the drivers actually are further apart.

I have heard, from the mayor of a medium size town, that busses are an expensive needed alternative to everyone driving a car. Just think if all the people who ride public transportation drove. You would need to build a lot more parking ramps, and the streets would be a lot more crowded leading to more pollution, gridlock, accidents. Then they would feel a need for larger road projects like maintenance and freeways. I think the answer is in more public transportation, more local shops especially groceries that purchase from area farms, and pedestrian and bicycling friendly towns.

Stutz, Issam El Jundi, & Cduber made some good points about Buses using a great deal of fuel & are inconvenient and possibly unreliable [late] (my experience in the US of A) At least in the US of A the transportation / infrastructure is built around the car (ie sprawl etcetera) In the US of A a poison air machine (aka the car / automobile) is required (for the most part) in order to obtain a job. [do you have reliable transportation {a car that's trouble free)] The whole transportation idea(s) & ideal(s) should be reexamined. Roads alone may play a large part of the climate change due to the fact that roads absorbed heat during the day and act like a trome wall absorbing heat during the day and slowly releasing it during the night thereby slighly increasing the starting temperature on the next day . Roads also do not absorb water and the run off increases the chances of local flooding. The solution(s) can not be found or installed easily or in a short period of time BUT if we do not start looking and working for real alternatives to the car there may be hell to pay and it won't be a pretty picture if we wait too long to try and change things. Priorities have to be set with the understanding that there will be some suffering during the transition. In the US of A it is more likely we will pay off the national debt than reduce our dependence on the automobile.{it isn't going to happen}

Get blog. Glad I found it. Very relevant. As a cyclist I enjoyed the picture. Keep it up and I'll be passing the site on to my friends!

Living here in the north of Scotland, a car is essential. The busses are few and far between, and cycling would be suicide on the A9. Walking is also out of the question, as everywhere is so far away! But that's the beauty of the wilds of the Highlands!!

We should stop subsidizing the car by requiring landlords, merchants, and employers that give free parking give an equivalent benefit for transit users. Also, there is no reason for parking meters to be free on the first day of the week (sundays)

There's a higher quality version of that image here - http://incredimazing.com/static/media/2007/11/13/ac99be0f2b001d3/espaciocoches.jpg

We need to get out of the 'passover syndrome' before it destroys us. No one will fix our problems but us. Starting from within and outwardly into society. I suppose we live in a better world today compared to 10, 20, 100 years ago...but, how much more can we live a better life? Not much more as we are learning day by day. The good news is that there will eventually come a time a shock may awaken us or simply force us to change.

Norway runs buses on biogased sewage! Sweden bio-gases everything that will bio-gas, and then sells the gas to consumers for cooking, heating, and automotive purposes! The "American Sream" of the mad-cap advertising propaganda machine in the U.S. has finally gone too far, and we all must see the B.S. for what it is, and return to a more realistic lifestyle, with sustainable goals, and learn to put education, especially in engineering, technologies, science and physics first before sports, and "extrecurriculat sexual activities" The huge pool China draws on for its intellectual power will undoubtly overwhelm western knowledge, and replace it with a new afge for mankind! We can hardly afford to be petty in light of the forces upon us, ans will have to yield our comfort zone for a more practical stance fro basic survival, or go with the flow, and learn Mandarin! India also stands tall in upcoming intellectual power, and may even sweep China away with new discoveries and nes science, are we ready to take the back seat yet? Do we have a choice? Can we afford our current extrevagances? I doubt it!

Norway runs buses on biogased sewage! Sweden bio-gases everything that will bio-gas, and then sells the gas to consumers for cooking, heating, and automotive purposes! The "American Sream" of the mad-cap advertising propaganda machine in the U.S. has finally gone too far, and we all must see the B.S. for what it is, and return to a more realistic lifestyle, with sustainable goals, and learn to put education, especially in engineering, technologies, science and physics first before sports, and "extrecurriculat sexual activities" The huge pool China draws on for its intellectual power will undoubtly overwhelm western knowledge, and replace it with a new afge for mankind! We can hardly afford to be petty in light of the forces upon us, ans will have to yield our comfort zone for a more practical stance fro basic survival, or go with the flow, and learn Mandarin! India also stands tall in upcoming intellectual power, and may even sweep China away with new discoveries and nes science, are we ready to take the back seat yet? Do we have a choice? Can we afford our current extrevagances? I doubt it!

The Muenster poster shows the space occupied by parked bicycles and vehicles, not for ones in motion. Please see

http://john-s-allen.com/blog/?p=7