[izzydata]

It seems highly unlikely that the US will magically have trains and more walk-able living because gas is unaffordable. Especially if it was a drastic and sudden shock of supply. Myself as much as anyone is not in favor of the reliance the US has on cars and non-renewable energy, but causing chaos is not the way to do it.

[alexgieg]

This is an interesting point. Supposing this sudden shock happens, wouldn't American towns, counties, and the like, run to buy buses and start providing emergency bus services all around to all those suburban areas where people couldn't afford gas anymore? Or at least, this is how I imagine a sane response would be.

There'd be a shortage of buses at first, but I also suppose it'd relatively easy to adapt current North American car manufacturing plants to start manufacturing buses.

But that's just an uninformed guess. Am I too much off base in this?

[Zigurd]

You were right in broad strokes, but buses are too much like collective action for the taste of Americans. The most optimistic outcome I can think of is that people start buying large quantities of E bikes and pressure their towns to use all that space in their stroads to accommodate bike lanes.

[DavidPeiffer]

I went to school for industrial engineering and have worked in manufacturing the last decade or so.

Bus production would be an entire refactoring of an auto factory. Tons of equipment would need to move around, electrical conduit would need to be re-run to different places, much of the existing equipment would be too small. The equipment would need to be ordered from suppliers who already have the next couple months to years of business booked, new suppliers sourced and contracts signed, etc. On an American timeline, I can't imagine it being done in under a year if you threw money at every problem aggressively.

We did change some auto plants to manufacturing airplanes and airplane components for WWII, but there was a lot more human labor involved, manufacturing tolerances were more loose, and we had widespread support of the American public to do what we needed to make things happen. It'd be incredible to see the War Powers Act implemented to publicly fund bus transportation, but I cannot fathom that occurring with this administration.

[alexgieg]

Thanks, that was quite informative!

[Zigurd]

The people in the US chose chaos. Maybe we need a harsh lesson not to do that. If we are permitted to vote this November, we'll get an indication whether or not we've learned anything.

[pasquinelli]

i think they're saying the situation then would be such that americans won't be able to eat so much. that might shock your sensibilities, but remember that thousands of iranian civilians have been indiscriminately murdered these last couple weeks, by america.