Comment 41488

By zippo (registered) | Posted June 02, 2010 at 16:40:33

In spite of the fact that Toronto has a "real" public transit system by current standards, unlike the cruel joke that is the HSR, it's still pretty minimal.

According to data from the last census (sorry, can't find a link) 78% of workers in the GTA still use automobiles to get to work.

Official projections (IEA) are that current world oil supplies will be depleted in 40 years at current rates of consumption. Given that there is uncertainty about the shape of the depletion curve I would guesstimate this to mean that we are in the last 20 years or so of petroleum powered personal transportation for most people.

The exburban sprawl of Southern Ontario, built over the last 60 years on the assumption of unlimited supplies of almost free gasoline and diesel fuel, is not viable in a post peak oil world.

The onset of relentless declines in net available energy also means means relentless decline in the economy and the collapse of the global debt based fiat currency system, both of which currently have the built in assumption that future consumption levels will be exponentially bigger than those in the present.

Seems to me it is these factors that will dominate the future of this region in the next few decades, and that however it works out the change will be massive, given that the current pattern of Toronto has been almost totally shaped by abundant, almost free energy, and that is going away.

I thought Ryan was "peak oil aware" yet as I read this piece he sounds like business as usual will more or less continue...

Comment edited by zippo on 2010-06-02 15:49:07

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