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One good thing about this shitty timeline. Renewables and biking might get a big push from this. When oil becomes scarce then using it to create long term value instead of burning it for a single use becomes much more attractive.
not in the US. the govt seems disconnected with reality
Even there actually. Lots of states and companoes are suing the trump admin, because they had big plans for solar and windfarms that are now being stopped or delayed because of trump. Capitalists actually love renewables because they are super profitable. Its only the old oil money inheritors that dont.
I thought that renewable energy had at least two problems for capitalists:
Most renewables in the US are still company owned afaik. Solar farms have absurdly small operating cost, so you just invest once and then endlessly milk it for 15-25 years. All you gotta do is mow the grass or let some sheep graze it and do some checks from time to time. Wind is a lot more complicated to maintain, because its mechanical, but the land use is much much lower so you can just pay a farmer to get him to let you use a few small plots of his land to put some turbines up. Its a win win for you and the farmer.
It lowers global prices for solar panles, wind turbines, heat pumps, electric vehicles and so forth in the mid to long term. That is going to impact the US as well.
Cycling is a local matter anyway.
“seems”
You're a lost cause anyways. We're talking about saner countries.
The Americans are fscked. They only have their cars.
Gas in US is still EXTREMLY cheap. like not even half op the price in europe.
Setting aside mass transit use, the relative impact of higher oil prices in the US will, I'd imagine, probably be higher than in somewhere like Europe, because Europe already has relatively high prices because it has hefty fuel taxation in the places that I've looked at, whereas the US has relatively low fuel taxation. That'll make the relative price change of the cost of the crude oil changing be larger in the US.
https://moneyweek.com/economy/uk-economy/budget/604621/what-makes-up-the-price-of-a-litre-of-petrol
This has fuel duty in the UK (a consumption tax) being 39% of the price of fuel. Then VAT is 17%. So right there, that's over half the price at the pump, 56%.
The cost of the gasoline itself
and the crude required is only one input of that
is only 29% of the price at the pump.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=10&t=10
For mid-2024, this has federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline, and average state taxes
sales and consumption tax in the US varies by state and municipality
of 32.61 cents per gallon of gasoline.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000074714
Average fuel price in February 2026 is $3.065/gallon.
So taxation makes up about 17% of the price of fuel in the US.
EDIT: That being said, the US is also, these days, a net oil exporter. So there will be winners in the US, like oil extraction companies
but it won't be vehicle operators.
EDIT2: Actually, it's probably slightly lower than 17% in the US, because it's convention in the US to exclude sales tax in listing prices, so the $3.065 won't actually be the post-tax pump price. It will include state consumption tax, though, so I don't have a way to directly compute it from just those figures.
Bikes are already at the limit. We need transport options for longer distances that are not a lot worse than a car.
Maybe something on rails to cover large distances between cities and towns, or like a really big car that can fit 50-100 people. If only such things existed....
Not between cities - within a city. If I can't get around without a car once I'm there I'm going to drive my own car. Besides most trips are within a metro, if people only drove between metro areas that would be a big difference.
Both is good. With the exception of NYC, most light rail and bus networks are focused on commuter traffic in the US and trying to go anywhere other than downtown and back home is a struggle. Crosstown routes are rare or require several changes and 2-3 hrs vs 15-30 minutes by car or bicycle.
I'm not against it. However if you need a car when you get there you may as well drive. By contrast if you can not drive near home sometimes you won't (like if your car breaks), and the better the local system is the more likely you are to use it
though the bad options most of us have is one reason not to use it.
Driving a car sucks more the longer the distance, as 130km/h is considered fast for a car, but pretty slow for a train. Trains doing less than 200km/h aren't considered high speed. The longer the journey, the bigger the time advantage of a train should be, plus you don't have to pay attention on pain of death the whole journey.
Sure, but in return you have your car when you get there. If the destination is a car centric place this saves a pile of money. you also can go where you want, see what you want...
note that I live in the us we get one train per day at 100km/h - the car is faster and cheaper. Is still use the train but it isn't anything what you are thinking of. At least we can sleep on the train.
Most US local governments are borderline dysfunctional and can't build anything. I would love this but I personally see more promise with e-bikes any anything else.
I think the best solution is to allow neighbors to get together and build their own cheap bike infrastructure but that's still considered a fringe idea right now.
Our governments would rather block solutions than implement them.