Europe is far less dependent on automobiles. Some of the facts in the following article may be dated, though I doubt that the overall relationship have changed much. As the article points out Europe has a "...prevalence of walkable neighborhoods, superior transit and rail systems, and a high degree of coordination between public transit and land use planning in Europe."
nrdc.org
I. DRAINING THE TANK: TRANSPORTATION AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN THE UNITED STATES
Recent decades have brought significant improvement in the fuel efficiency of individual cars and other vehicles, but this improvement has failed to stem overall growth in U.S. consumption of energy for transportation. Unfortunately, current trends indicate that transportation energy use will continue to grow faster than the population and that the position of the U.S. as the world's worst gas guzzler is likely to remain firm for the foreseeable future. This is due mostly to our growing reliance on driving alone -- and the lack of safe, convenient and reliable alternatives in most instances -- to conduct our daily business.
A. Oil and transportation
Transportation is by far the largest consumer of petroleum products in the United States, accounting for some two-thirds of overall oil consumption.[2] As of 1994, the U.S. used around eleven million barrels of oil each day to support our transportation habits.[3] Slightly more than half of U.S. transportation energy is consumed by light vehicles, including automobiles, pickup trucks, utility vehicles and vans, with freight trucks accounting for another 23 percent.[4] Transportation alone consumes more oil than the United States produces, and also more oil than we import, each year.[5]
B. A comparison with other countries
Our abundant appetite for oil to fuel transportation is uniquely American, at least as a matter of degree. Indeed, the average American citizen uses five times as much energy for transportation as the average Japanese and nearly three times as much as the average citizen of western Europe.[6] The United States consumes more than one third of the world's transportation energy, even though we account for only 4.7 percent of the world's population and less than one fourth of its combined gross product.[7]
Our appetite for oil is due substantially to our appetite for travel. The average American undertakes the highest level of personal travel (13,500 miles per person, including nondrivers, per year) and owns the most vehicles (0.6 per person and 1.07 per licensed driver), in the world. And, when we do travel, we overwhelmingly choose -- or are forced to choose -- to drive. Our typical new suburban household owns 2.2 cars, generates 12 auto trips per day, and drives 31,300 miles per year.[8] Americans take some 86 percent of our trips by car, as compared to eight percent by walking, three percent by bicycle and about three percent by public transit.[9]
Europeans, by contrast, travel only about half as much (in miles per capita per year) as Americans and, when they do, are far more likely to choose alternative modes.[10] This is due to a number of factors, among them the prevalence of walkable neighborhoods, superior transit and rail systems, and a high degree of coordination between public transit and land use planning in Europe. In European communities, auto use generally accounts for between 10 percent and 48 percent of all trips; transit accounts for between 11 percent and 26 percent; and walking and bicycling constitute from 33 percent to 50 percent of the total.[11] Even in Canada, where travel characteristics might be expected to mirror those of the U.S., citizens are five times more likely than their American counterparts to choose public transit over driving.[12]
C. A worsening situation
Under all foreseeable scenarios, U.S. energy consumption for transportation will increase in future years. One of the most conservative forecasts is that of the Department of Energy's Information Administration, which projects that transportation energy consumption will grow some 30 percent by 2015. This includes a 0.6 percent average annual growth in gasoline consumption and a 1.6 percent average annual growth in consumption of diesel and other distillate fuels.[13]
An increase of 30 percent over the next 20 years, especially when coupled with growth in energy use in other countries and other sectors of the economy, would contribute seriously to global economic and political insecurity and climate change. These consequences are discussed below in this paper. The reality may be much worse, unfortunately, because DOE's projections represent a rather rosy interpretation of current trends. In fact, transportation energy use has been growing at a much faster rate than that projected and, if unchecked with policy intervention, is likely to continue to do so over the forecast horizon. Actual transportation fuel consumption in the 1980s, for example, grew at an annual rate of about 2.6 percent per year, a rate over twice that projected by DOE.[14] If continued, this would represent a growth of 67 percent over the next two decades.
There are two major reasons why transportation energy use may continue to grow faster than DOE asserts. First, the DOE projections were based on overly optimistic assumptions regarding improvements in vehicle technology. In particular, the projections assume that overall vehicle fuel efficiency will improve at a rate of around one percent per year throughout the forecast period.[15] This is unlikely, given that the fuel economy boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s is over; average new car fuel economy actually has fallen since 1987, in part due to growing sales of larger, more powerful vehicles including light trucks and sport utility vehicles.[16] DOE also assumed that California's pioneering program for the introduction of electric vehicles into the consumer market for automobiles would be implemented as scheduled beginning in 1998.[17] The state has already announced its intention to delay the program.[18]
Second, and most important, the DOE projections were based on the assumption that vehicle use, measured in vehicle miles traveled, will grow at an average rate of only 1.4 percent annually for cars and light trucks and 1.6 percent annually for truck freight.[19] Actual miles of vehicle travel have been growing at much higher rates. In fact, from 1950-90, passenger vehicle miles traveled increased at a rate of 4.2 percent per year; from 1980-90, passenger vehicle miles traveled grew 4.7 percent per year, and total miles traveled by light duty vehicles grew at a staggering rate of 5.5 percent per year, nearly four times the rate of growth assumed by DOE.[20] Overall, DOT's Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey reported that vehicle miles traveled grew by 40 percent in only seven years, between 1983 and 1990.[21]
There are a number of troubling factors associated with this growth in vehicle use, all pointing to increased inefficiency in travel patterns. These include growth in the number of vehicle trips taken, a decline in all modes of travel other than single-occupancy driving, a decline in average vehicle occupancy, and growth in average vehicle trip length.[22] The decrease in average vehicle occupancy alone, according to research from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, wiped out over half of the potential energy savings from improved vehicle fuel economy from 1972 to 1992.[23] In the 1980s, vehicle miles traveled grew over four times faster than the driving-age population and many times faster than the population at large.[24]
Because of expected changes in demographic and economic factors, most forecasters expect the growth in vehicle travel to slow somewhat, but not nearly as much as assumed by DOE. Research at DOT's Volpe Center projects that miles traveled will grow at a 2.7-3.0 percent annual rate throughout the 1990s and at an average annual rate of 2.2-2.7 percent between 1990 and 2030, depending on potential changes in population growth and vehicle fuel economy.[25] As the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment put it, "without substantial policy intervention, future rates of travel are quite likely to be higher and efficiency lower than [DOE] projects, with a resulting greater increase in transportation energy use than the projected levels."[26]
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