Cycling and future suburbs: Human mobility at different levels of collapse

What is it about?

In the future, humans might have less energy for moving people and things. I mean this literally: there might not be enough fossil fuels, or food, to move people and stuff. This paper considers the feasibility of five modes of transportation under two energy-constrained scenarios. It analyzes the effects transportation mode choice is likely to have on the size of future human settlements, as well as the role speed and energy play in such considerations. I find that cars, including battery-electric cars, are not feasible under a highly energy-constrained scenario, that buses, metros, and walking are feasible but will limit human settlement size, and that cycling is likely the only mode of transportation that would make suburbs possible in an energy-constrained post-Anthropocene scenario.

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Photo by Dasha Urvachova on Unsplash

Photo by Dasha Urvachova on Unsplash